In these interviews, Yvette talks about her introduction to “The Renegade Network Marketer” eBook, by Ann Sieg, and Mike Klingler’s “Renegade University”, and how she incorporated the ideas from these great programs into Renegade Marketing Strategies. She also, talks about the process of filming a series of Promotional and Educational videos for the company.

Yvette has been a successful business owner for over a decade, and in these videos, she offers some great insights into what it takes to build a profitable and growing business. She also details some of the tools and technologies she is currently using to promote Renegade Marketing Strategies. This is a great introduction to the world of Attraction Marketing.

If you are currently using video to promote your business, or you are considering trying your hand at producing online video content, these videos are of “must see” importance. While Yvette has great marketing and business experience, she is a beginner in the world of online video, and she shares important insights, learned through this experience, that will make your video productions go much more smoothly.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Garritt’s Sure-Fire Blog Comments System

Step 1 – Pick a single topic for the day. Chose a topic that is relevant to your site. If you have just written a great post on “Social Marketing Using Facebook”, that is a great place to start.

Step 2 – Do a search for blogs on that topic. I will share my four favorite resources for finding blogs on every subject.

• Google – Not just great for finding blogs – great for finding EVERYTHING!
• www.Wordpress.com – Tons of blogs, on every topic, many with VERY high PageRank scores.
• www.Technorati.com – Just blogs, and the newest content. Technorati allows blog owners to “ping” them with new content, so the search results tend to be very recent posts.
• Google Blogsearch – The power of Google search, dedicated to blogs. Nothing more to say – simply the best!

Step 3 – Quickly screen the results, and open anything that looks like it might be a prospect, in a new tab. I commonly open at least ten tabs at a time. Note: This method is not feasible without a browser that supports tabbed browsing. I highly recommend using Firefox or Safari. Both browsers are available for Windows or Macs, and both support speedy tabbed browsing. To open each link in a new tab, Windows users, hold the Control (CTRL) key when you click each link. Mac users, hold the Command (CMD) key when you click each link. Note: on some Mac keyboards, the Command key has an Apple or Cloverleaf symbol on it.

Step 4 – Quickly skim each blog entry. If a blog entry doesn’t meet your requirements (see RULE #2), or isn’t relevant, close the tab and move on. Only leave a tab open if you intend to comment on that blog post.

Step 5 – Once you have screened each blog, start at the last tab, read that blog post and comment on it. As you finish your comments, close each tab and move to the next.

Remember to keep track of how many posts you have commented on. If you need to repeat these steps, then do so (Remember Rule #1).

One last note: Don’t be afraid to subscribe to sites. Chances are, if they have good content, you will be back. Just remember your login info, so you don’t have to create a new profile each time you want to comment on that site. I like to email myself all of my new account information. It is very easy to search your email for the name of the site, and recall your login information.

Maybe you have seen or heard of a little known ad campaign called “got milk?” which originated in 1993 by the California Milk Processor Board.  This group of milk processors agreed to allocate 3-cents of each gallon sold to fund efforts to promote the consumption of milk through marketing, advertising, promotion and public relations.1

Whoever came up with that catch phrase for the CMPB was clearly a marketing genius.  However, our country has gorged itself so much on the overuse of “got (fill in the blank)” that it has become a running joke in our household for the past several years.  I continue to be amazed at how many businesses use this marketing technique thinking themselves clever.  got bugs? got teeth? got carpet?  got windows? You get the point.  It has become nothing more than marketing noise in the ear of the customer.

Ann Sieg states it well in her book The Renegade Network Marketer, “Nothing Else In A Business Matters If Good Sales And Marketing Aren’t Being Used”.

The World Wide Web has become so central to today’s household that there are a huge variety of options you can use to effectively market your business.  Some are free, others cost a little, and of course, others cost a lot.  Where you fit in depends on your business, your marketing budget and your know-how (and if you don’t know how to do it, you can learn, or pay someone who does).

Stay tuned, because in the next few articles we will provide you with ways to effectively and creatively market your business.  In the mean time, may I suggest that you visit the Renegade University at www.renegadeuniversity.com.  Once there, type in your information to gain free access to the university and begin learning how to get your customers to come to you before having to plead for for their business.

Well, personally I don’t believe in karma, however, I do believe that most of the time in business, we will reap what we sow.  With all the competition for your business, most customers will come to you with a bit of skepticism and uncertainty until you prove to them that you really are worth their time, money, and energy.

Your customers will never trust you right off the bat.  You need to win their trust and you can do that in several different ways.  You can start by offering them something of value, for free.  For instance, you can offer them a free newsletter with good and helpful information on a topic that interests them.  You can offer them a free e-book written by you or someone else (with the author’s permission, of course) such as “The 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing” by Ann Sieg (yes, it really is free.  Just click on the link).  You can also offer video or audio tutorials to help walk them through a new or difficult process.  Use you imagination and think of ways you are drawn in to other businesses.  What do other successful businesses do in order to gain the trust, respect and loyalty of their customers?

Once you have figured out a valuable, free product to entice your customers with, continue to build your relationship with them.  The way you do this is by first getting their contact information, then sending the free, valuable product.   If you have succeeded in gaining their trust, or even just piqued their interest in your business, you can continue to build a relationship and sell them on your business or product.  It’s business karma at its best!

Out of high school, at the age of 17, I had no clear direction on where I wanted my life to go (who really does at that age, anyway?). After attending a few classes at the local community college I decided that the military sounded like a good idea, so I joined and served in the United States Air Force for four years where I was trained as an aircraft electrician.

During my time in the Air Force, I learned many things about business. The first was that ANYTHING is possible. We performed seemingly impossible tasks daily, and never said, “that’s not my job”, or “I don’t think I can do that”. If there was a job to be done, no matter how complicated or how short the timeline, we found a way to do it. I also learned that I didn’t want to work for anyone but myself. So, after my departure from the Air Force, I decided to merge my love of music, and my love of not working for idiots, and I built and operated a small recording studio in the Los Angeles area. Along with the recording studio, my business partner and I started an independent record label.

I quickly learned that succeeding in business was so much more than knowing how to record or engineer music. As I began to understand what it took to establish, build and succeed in business, I quickly became intrigued by the world of business. I had taken business courses in college, but actually building a successful business as an entrepreneur was quite different than what I learned in the textbooks. My desire for a successful career caused me to dive in to every learning opportunity I could find. I began to read every business and marketing book I could get my hands on, went to training seminars, surrounded myself with other successful, some VERY successful, business owners, and learned a lot simply through trial and error. As I learned more about business, it became my passion. I love good business and good marketing, and I love the process of building systems and implementing the incremental, evolutionary, and revolutionary improvements that make a business great.

After owning the studio for a little more than four years, I decided I needed to move in a different direction, so I sold the company and began to look at other business opportunities. In time, my wife and I purchased a high-end retail stationery store, Paper Mulberry, which had been around for about seven years. We moved the business to a new location, and began to build systems, and grow our customer base. Yvette and I found that it was important to have clearly identified, and differentiated roles, so Yvette dealt with the customer service side of the business, I handled the operations and marketing.

As we adapted to our roles, and grew as a team, we enjoyed great success in business. Paper Mulberry grew rapidly, and we added staff and expanded our product line. We also built a successful website and online store to enhance our brick-and-mortar business. It was during the first year of business, that I really fine tuned my marketing skills. I had read and learned many things about effective marketing, but I hadn’t had the money, or opportunity to really put those things into practice before. With our purchase of the business, I definitely had the opportunity, and the business was producing plenty of money to put in place a very effective marketing and advertising campaign. Through the use of coupons, and direct response, I was able to track the effectiveness of each new campaign, and constantly worked to improve the results. Over time, our advertising became like a“faucet” and when we wanted to turn up our business, we just turned up the “faucet”.

In 2005 Yvette and I were blessed with our first child. Because we both wanted Yvette to stay home as a full-time mom, and I really couldn’t see myself selling wedding invitations and birth announcements forever, we decided to sell the business. It was when we listed the business, that I truly realized the impact of our marketing and system building efforts. Like many business owners, we had concentrated on the day-to-day aspects of building the business, and had never really stepped outside of the business to truly evaluate the effects of our efforts. Our business broker was excited to inform us, that we had the highest earnings per square foot of any business he had ever worked with. Every square foot of our little retail store produced almost $13,000 per year, in sales. Also, he was relieved to find that all of the preparation that goes into listing a business for sale, was already done. We had an up-to-date business plan, an operations and management manual, comprehensive business systems, and complete (and honest) financial records. Most importantly, the business was profitable. It made his job much easier, and added value to the business.

With the sale of Paper Mulberry, I began my career as a business and marketing consultant, and almost immediately, fell into a long-term consulting position (and Marketing Director title) at a real estate company. During this period, I helped other businesses on a short term basis, but was mainly focused on growing that business. In addition to bringing about great changes in the business, this was a great period of growth for me. I was able to dive deeply into the specialized world of real estate marketing, and attend some excellent seminars and classes. I made it a point during this time to take advantage of every opportunity I could, and it paid off.

When I arrived at Realty Response, the business was in a period of gradual decline. Even though the real estate market was still booming (for a while), Realty Response was stagnating. No one was responsible for advertising, and there was no marketing plan. Worse, there was no real direction, or plan for improvement. Suffice to say, dramatic changes were needed, but luckily, management was willing to allow major changes, and big successes followed.

During the first few weeks that I was there, I focused on reorganizing staff, and developing a cohesive plan for improvement. I began to systematize the business and wrote several manuals including business operations manuals, training manuals, and developed client presentations. As the plan was being refined, we began to implement some basic changes, that led to big results. The first thing we did, was begin a well tracked, direct mail advertising campaign. This allowed us to test marketing messages and begin to develop target markets. We would, later, shift much of the advertising budget away from direct mail, but this was a very good venue to begin a tested advertising campaign, and get the company moving forward again.

Over the next 2 years, we were able to increased sales leads by more than 300% and bring the company to top 10% performance among 400+ local real estate companies. We maintained, month-to-month, lead growth of 16% by continuously monitoring and refining advertising campaigns to increase their effectiveness. We were able to increase per transaction commission rates by 40.8% by revising the company’s commission structure. We started a sister company to provide referrals to the parent company, which produced over $1.5 million in business in its first year, and we launched an award-winning website, and implemented the company’s first complete Internet marketing system consisting of over 20 unique branded and unbranded URLs. Eventually, we reduced total advertising expense 75% by shifting focus from direct mail advertising to direct response Internet classifieds, pay-per-click, and other print campaigns, while continuously increasing the effectiveness of the company’s advertising.

Unfortunately, and as a testament to the depth and extent of the real estate market downturn, all the improvements couldn’t save Realty Response. The company had to make major cutbacks and relocate in order to weather the storm, and that meant I had to move on. I quickly found myself in another long-term consulting position at a market leading motion control company, and have remained there until now. While I have continued to work short-term consulting jobs for other small businesses, I have been blessed to be able to have a few long-term clients, and have been able to focus on the success of those companies. I am enjoying my position with a this very successful company, and am relieved to be able to focus on business improvements, rather than having to bail water from a sinking ship.

It is a great blessing to be able to expand my consulting reach through Renegade Marketing Strategies, and help many more small businesses achieve success. It is my passion to see these businesses flourish, and I am always happy to help.

garritt@renegademarketingstrategies.com