Liz Walker Articles

Why Small Businesses Won’t Double Their Revenue This Year - Click To Read Article
Here is what we have learned are the biggest reasons why small businesses will not double their business this year (yes, this year—even in the current economic climate):

Where do you live on the net? The importance of a good address. - Click To Read Article
So many times, we see a small business with an email address that leads to hotmail and the like, or the free ones that come with your Internet connection provider so the hosts name is involved e.g. "yourname@hostname.com." This makes you look like an amateur or a business that's not serious.

There are millions and millions of web sites. How is anybody ever going to find yours? - Click To Read Article
When the internet was new, finding a web site was largely a hit or miss proposition. Although there were relatively fewer sites, the sophisticated search tools, like Google, Yahoo, MSN and others were not around. People tended to “surf” going from one site to another via links on those sites.

Three Business-Building Ideas To "Steal" - Click To Read Article
One of the great joys of our work is meeting a wide range of successful local business owners. Each has a wonderful story to tell about how they created and developed their firm, and each has special challenges. Each owner has a set of talents that make his or her business unique, and some valuable lessons for all of us on what has worked for them. On the principal that it’s easier to follow someone else’s best practices than spend time and effort making up our own, here are some lessons we can all apply from business people right in our own neighbourhood.

How to Thrive in Times Like These - Click To Read Article
The “R” word is coming up a lot, of course. How bad will it be? What should we do? How worried are you? Maybe surprisingly, in those coffee shop gabfests, we’ve heard some fabulous ideas and success stories along with the questions and worried looks. So this article is about how we can all cope, maybe even prosper, in Times Like These.

How to grow your Ideal Clients by 25% with zero cost of sales - Click To Read Article
We are big fans of “growing loyalty” among Ideal Clients over pretty much any other business building tactic—it’s the lowest cost sales activity you will ever engage in, since you are already doing business with them, you already know what they want and need, and you can easily find out if they are being wooed by someone else. How easy is that?

7 Ideas Owners Must Consider When Succession Planning - Click To Read Article
Recently we’ve been reading reports and statistics on succession planning. Did you know that according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses more than 40% of business owners plan to leave their businesses in the next 5 years. Are you one of them? Then read this article and start ensuring your success.

A Marketing Tool that Works Day and Night — 24/7 - Click To Read Article
You expect a business to have a telephone. Well, these days, a business is expected to have a web site as well—it’s a credibility issue. And although it’s a complicated subject, once launched, what could be easier than using the internet to spread your marketing message, educate your prospects, and convert prospects to clients?

The Never-Fail Recipe for Ads That Work Like Crazy - Click To Read Article
It’s always surprising to us to see so much advertising, especially in print, which does not work. It simply doesn’t contain the ingredients needed to successfully communicate with customers. If you make a cake, you don’t leave out any ingredients — right? Then why leave out an important part of your advertising message?

Connect the dots. Use Your Web Site to Make Your Ads Work Harder. - Click To Read Article
Right now in Canada, almost 85% of the population uses the Internet and it’s safe to say this number will continue to expand. So why wouldn’t you use your web site to support the advertising you do in all other media? You do have a web site, right?

17 Ideas You Can Steal to Grow Your Business Without Spending Money. - Click To Read Article
In this article we're sharing what we call “ideas to steal”. They are all real-life ideas from successful businesses — action steps you can pick up and run with right away, without having to research, test or otherwise delay implementing. And, you don't need to spend money to do them.

How to Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever - Click To Read Article
A new year, a fresh start. For some businesses they will make the leap into a new year with planning and insight. For others the new year brings stress and the unknown. How do you make the New Year a fresh start for your business. Find out in this article.

How to Create Magnificent Marketing Materials - Click To Read Article
Stand out. Get noticed. Be remembered. How do you do this? By creating marketing materials that really engage with your target audience and show them how you are different.

How White Papers Free Reports can Turbocharge your Marketing Efforts - Click To Read Article
If you are like most business owners, you are often afraid of giving away too much information. But in fact, you needn’t be afraid. The more valuable the information you give away, the more your prospects and customers will see you as an expert and trusted advisor.

Use Two-Step Direct Response Advertising and Stop Wasting Your Ad Money - Click To Read Article
Have you wondered why some companies continually advertise? It's because they know how to develop direct response advertising. This article will show you how to do it.

Writing a Successful Sales Letter - Click To Read Article
The number one objective for a sales letter is – get the letter read. And the second is to persuade the reader to take an action and start a business relationship. How do you do this? Read more to find out how.

How changing an email subject line added 56% in sales. - Click To Read Article
We subscribe to a results company for its marketing research results. We get to see data we can trust on issues of real importance to our clients—like this investigation into how to make the subject line of an email work best. It’s common sense to say that emails reaching out to clients and prospects won’t work if they don’t get opened, but this experiment demonstrates that there are other things you can and should be measuring if you don’t want to leave money on the table.

7 Ideas Owners Must Consider About Succession Planning - Click To Read Article
Statistics show that 70% of entrepreneur-owned businesses do not survive the founder. Did you work this hard, for this long, to see your life’s work implode?

Don’t just sit around on the Internet, put your web site to work. - Click To Read Article
So your business has a web site. Great! As we’ve said before, “It’s a credibility issue—these days a business is expected to have a web site.” But wait a minute, what’s the site doing for you? Sure, your web site is helping your customers get to know, like and trust you by building awareness, providing information and shortening the selling cycle, but could it be doing more? YES!

How Copying Canadian Tire Can Help Grow Your Small Business Big Time - Click To Read Article
Canadian Tire CEO Stephen Wetmore is growing his “smart stores” Some store sales have grown between six and eight per cent, and some departments have more than doubled. You can grow your retail business by copying some of his proven ideas. Here’s how:

What to do with a "cold" lead - Click To Read Article
We have a client who has so many requests for quotes on his desk he is way behind on filling them. At first this seems like a problem we would all like to have. So many leads we can’t get to all of them! But there is a down side to this story. Our client has no way of sorting the leads into those that are “hot� and need immediate attention; and those that are “cold�. Maybe these cold leads are from qualified people, but who knows when they are going to close.

10 Steps To Unleash Your Lead PR Machine - Click To Read Article
PR (public/media relations) is a powerful small business-marketing tool. By PR, we mean getting positive press mentions about your firm in local, trade and national publications. These mentions are so powerful because they are seen to come from unbiased third parties, so they are more believable. People may think ad messages are just sales hype, but when they read about how great you are in the local business journal…well, it must be true!

10 Ways to Market When cash Is Tight - Click To Read Article
About a month ago, Staples and Angus Reid released their latest “STAPLES Canada Small Business National Quarterly Index.” It looks like we believe we are over the hump. 70 per cent of business owners expect at least some improvement to their business over the next six months (compared to 58 per cent in March 2009). Now that you’re feeling better, get out there and make sure that your customers will come to you rather than your competition when they are ready to buy. Chances are you are a little tight for cash, so here are ten low-cost ways to market better that we’ve worked out with help from Joanna L. Krotz, co-author of the “Microsoft Small Business Kit”.

Questions That Sell - Click To Read Article
We are working on a new campaign for a client and spent a few hours today looking at competitive web sites, ads and brochures. After about three hours we looked at each other and said, “Can you remember anything any of these companies said that stands out?” Ken said, “I bet if I took all these brochures, and removed the company name and logo, even our client couldn’t tell them apart!” Every single firm started their pitch with a description of their products and services, and lots of detail on how great they are. Then they added thrilling descriptions of their plants (usually with a picture of the parking lot) and a price list.


Like this article? Share it with your friends

---

	No article feedback found.
	Leave Your Feedback

---

To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us.