Come on. Admit it. It feels really good to hear or read that customers or clients LOVE your business. They love the products. They love the services. They simply can’t get enough of your brand. They are your online ambassadors, telling others about your awesome company.

It feels really good. Right?

What if you could encourage more of your customers or clients to become raving fans of your business?

Think of the myriad ways having more brand ambassadors could impact your company:

BOOSTS COMPANY SPIRIT

(and if it’s already good, then it will help maintain it)

SPREADS THE WORD ORGANICALLY

on social media about your business to those who have never heard or interacted with your brand

OFFERS A POSITIVE PERSPECTIVE

when someone on social media posts a negative

or uninformed view of your company, products

or services

CREATES SOCIAL PROOF

for those who want to try your products or services but haven’t fully decided

FOSTERS A SENSE OF LOYALTY TO YOUR BRAND

which...

What do you think when you read or hear the word “free”? To me, it means that I don’t have to pay or give anything for whatever is being offered. I can just take or consume whatever it is on offer for “free”. Most of us have this concept pretty clear in our minds.

Yet, for those who do online marketing for their businesses, we offer “free” stuff all the time. But do we really? Are those “free downloads”, “free webinars”, “free mini-courses”, “free trials” really free?

Way back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and part of the 1990s, people would listen to the radio to hear the latest hits. It was pretty much the only way to listen to what were brand new hits. If a song really got ya groovin’, then you went out and bought the album, tape or CD. People were happy to pay the money to listen to that song whenever they wanted.

They had a choice -- they listened to the songs for free on the radio...

Now that’s a bold question.

Let me tell you a story of why I ask it, and how critical this question can be for the success of your business.

I had been in an evergreen launch sequence from a very big name in the digital marketing space. I received emails over a 10-day period which took me further and further into the sales process. Just a few days before the cart closed for this course, I started to see bonuses appear. There was ‘this’ bonus and ‘that’ bonus.

And then, one bonus caught my eye – if I bought the course before the cart closed, I would be able to attend live, weekly calls with this guru where he would answer questions from those attendees. Wow! Still being relatively young in my digital marketing journey, this was like meeting a famous movie star. I couldn’t believe the level of access I would have.

I jumped up and ran to get my credit card. I typed those numbers in so quickly as I didn’t want to wait any longer to buy...

The first time I ever attended a webinar, I was amazed. I had never witnessed such excitement at the end of a presentation before. Coming from academia, our lectures or presentations always ended with little fanfare. This online webinar blew my mind.

There was ‘this’ bonus and ‘that’ bonus. But you had to act quickly because these bonuses were going to disappear 15 minutes after the webinar ended. I felt like I was watching a live version of late-night TV infomercials – BUT WAIT! If you act now, you can also have THIS bonus! Whew! It made my head spin.

I can’t remember if I purchased from that first webinar or not. But I was fascinated by the spectacle of the push for sales at the end. It was around 6 months into my digital marketing journey when I came across the BEST webinar I had attended to date.

It was being promoted by a well-known black hat SEO guru. (Yes, I even ended up in that world for a, thankfully, very brief stint.) The presenter...

I would hope that most of you would immediately answer “yes”. But did you know there are so many small things we do in our businesses that create mistrust and may, cumulatively, end up eroding whatever trust our clients or customers have in our business?

Trust is fundamental to human relationships. Trust in one another has allowed all societies to function. We all know this. We trust that when a business says they’ll be open from 8 – 4, that they will actually be open for business during those hours. If you purchase something from an online store, you trust that what you bought will be delivered to you. It’s pretty simple.

Yet, there are so many small ways that businesses lose the trust of their customers or clients. Some of them are egregious and some are in small ways. The point is, as business owners, we need to be aware of how we break the trust our customers or clients have in us.

Let me tell you about this experience I had. 

This experience...