More Noise About Saskatchewan

The cover story of the Globe and Mail's Report on Business this weekend was The New 'It' Province. Referring to Saskatchewan, the article goes on to talk about how Saskatchewan is about a lot more than wheat these days. The focus on the article was primarily on potash, oil and gas, and the rising population. You can read the whole article here.

At first blush, you might be tempted to think that the boom is only affecting natural resource based industries. After all, the money seems to be flowing in from oil and gas exploration and expansion in areas such as potash. But don't kid yourself into thinking that the only people that stand to benefit are the natural resource companies and the labourers that pull the stuff out of the ground.

Remember, those companies will also need accountants, sales reps, marketing managers, and HR personnel. And since those companies are set to do so well financially, they might just be able to pay quality dollars to attract quality people. But the impact won't stop there.

As more jobs are created, it is natural for more inmigration to occur. That means more construction and more growth. Home owners in Saskatchewan are already starting to realize the equity in their homes since the economy has started to soar. And when more money and growth starts to infuse the Saskatchewan market, that means people will have cash to spend on other things - perhaps they'll even buy something that you sell!

Last year we already started to recruit people from outside the province to come join us in the good times Saskatchewan is experiencing through Think Regina in Calgary. Next week Think Regina heads to Edmonton to continue the campaign.

As the article states, Saskatchewan's time is now. You're either in or you're in the way.

I also liked what NewsTalk 980's Dave Arnold had to say this morning (rough paraphase) - if people keep hearing these good things about Saskatchewan, they might not be able to ignore us any longer.

Happy boom time Saskatchewan!

Ode to Gary Vay-ner-chuk

So I'm swamped. Haven't posted to the blog for a while. I've got a backlog (if that's a word) of videos that need to be posted and we're trying to get about 5 or 6 different projects going right now. To top it all off, my wife Katlyn and I are off to Mexico on Saturday for just over a week to take in a friend's wedding and to take in some sun (I know, boo hoo, you're swamped and you're taking a vacation).

But all of that aside, I wanted to dedicate a post to a guy that everyone who reads this should make part of their day. Even if you don't care about wine, business, or the tech world, you need Gary Vaynerchuk in your life. If I'm feeling sluggish I just push the play button on one of his videos and his energy just picks me right up.

Red Bull's got nothing on Gary Vee.

I occasionally watch the Thunder Show, but was more interested in the whole idea of Gary through Rich Schefren. I was fasicnated with the idea that anyone with enough passion and smarts can use all the free tools available to broadcast that passion to millions of people and make a difference. That's why I was pumped to stumble upon http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/ (Mott, link it up) where Gary has created a video blog to talk about business, and how technology can have a huge impact on it.

The best part about all the tools out there, whether it be a blog, YouTube, Facebook, or whatever is that they can be used in absolutely any industry, not just web based stuff. Heck, it's even better if it's not a web based business. There's less of a chance that there's an established competitor.

So bottom line - get to know Gary Vaynerchuk. He might be the catalyst to your pending success.

Here's a video below to get you started. It really resonated with me because I find myself doing a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated stuff (we have a marketing consulting company that runs a wedding website, helps small businesses with internet marketing, has an arm dedicated to restaurant marketing and we're starting a sprinkler business), but it's all stuff that I'm passionate about. I'm tired of people telling me I can only be known for one thing. I'm an entrepreneur, I'll get involved with as many different things as I want. I'll let you decide what you want to know me as.

Many people think of Gary as a wine guy. I prefer to think of him as an entrepreneur that's got a ton of passion and good ideas. Thanks to Gary for kickstarting my day. Enjoy.

Bacon Salt - The Product Is The Marketing

My favourite business author and blogger Seth Godin is always talking about the relationship between products and marketing. His stance is that the product should be the marketing. It's something that's built in.

So my ears couldn't help but perk up when listening to NewsTalk 980's John Gormley Live this morning. His guest was Dave (or was it Justin?) - the co-creator of Bacon Salt.

Yes. Bacon Salt.

The tag line you ask? Everything should taste like bacon. The header of their blog includes the title "The never ending quest to make everything taste like bacon."

This is the perfect example of a purple cow, and to go along with it they have a story worth telling (straight out of All Marketers Are Liars).

The two Bacon Salt founders were sitting around one night and someone said "Everything should taste like bacon". The next day when they sobered up they still figured it was a great idea so they started registering domain names and going through the paper work involved in starting a business and creating a product.

When it got to the point when they needed to pay for production, they needed to come up with $5000 and weren't sure how they were going to come up with the money. Well, fate was on their side because the next day they received a call from America's Funniest Home Videos saying that the video they entered had just won them $5000 and the cheque was in the mail. (The video is below).

Bacon Salt seems to be getting a ton of media exposure, and so they should. They've created something worth talking about. If you have the right story, a market will create itself because people will tell their friends.

If only we could all take a page out of Dave and Justin's book.

Building a Permission Asset

If you’re any good, your business probably has a lot of fans. These are the people that buy from you all the time and tell their friends how good you are. These are the people that you need to get permission to communicate with directly. And if you provide them with enough value, they’ll gladly give you their contact information. That’s permission based marketing.

There are a number of different ways to get permission from your best customers online. If you have a blog, let your readers subscribe to it via email or RSS feed. That way they know when you’ve made a new post. Start a preferred customer club to send your best customers special offers and discounts via email or direct mail. Build a subscriber base on YouTube. Start a Facebook group. Any permission asset you can build will help you effectively communicate with the people that buy what you sell.

That’s a huge deal.

Secrets to Building Your Customer List and Email Marketing

You can’t just slap a sign up form onto your website and expect great results.

People are getting bombarded with so many emails from their friends, family, and co-workers that they simply don’t want to see newsletters or marketing propaganda popping up in their inbox. Most people seem to be scared to give out their contact information for fear that they will never be able to escape the endless flood of email you might send them.

The thing is that most email marketing is all about you, the business. You want your customers email address so you can sell them more stuff. This just doesn’t fly with most people anymore. Sure you’ll have loyal fans that will want to receive everything you ever produce because they’re scared they might miss something, but that won’t be the norm.

To quote sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer, “People don’t want to be sold, but they love to buy”.

Use this to your advantage when you approach building your customer list and email marketing. The problem isn’t that people don’t want to buy what you sell, it’s that they don’t want to be sold what you sell.

The trick is all in the offer. Don’t make your email marketing and list building campaigns about you, make it about your customer.

So instead of getting people to sign up to receive your free email newsletter that will be filled with information about how they can buy what you sell, make them a better offer.

Make the offer about them.

When a customer buys something from you, tell them they’ve been chosen to receive $20 off their next purchase. Then provide them with a business card that includes the instructions they need to follow to receive their $20 gift by email. By signing up, make them aware that they’ll also receive more special offers by email up to six times per year.

That might get someone excited enough to fork over their contact information. It also shows that you are willing to treat your customers well in order to earn their business.

You are no longer a spammer. You’re the enabler that allows people to get a special deal on their favourite things.

Canadian Tour Coming To Saskatchewan

It's about time!

The Canadian Tour announced yesterday that they will be returning to Saskatchewan for the first time since 1984 with the playing of the Saskatchewan Open June 30 to July 6. Up for grabs is a $150,000 purse.

Thank you goes out to Darcy Bear of the Whitecap First Nation and everyone else involved in bringing the Canadian Tour to Dakota Dunes. It will be great for the local economy and will be a great event to attend.

Bear even mentions bigger things for Dakota Dunes, tossing around the PGA and LPGA as possibilities in the future. Let's take things one step at a time, but it never hurts to dream big.

This is a great thing for the province of Saskatchewan, and I hope the event is supported as well as every other event this province hosts.

For more information on Dakota Dunes, vist http://www.dakotadunes.ca/

To read the press release from the Canadian Tour, click here.

Marketing Tips - Be Real For Your Customers

By creating videos, posting to your blog, and responding to comments from your customers you become real to your customers. People are no longer buying from a company, they are buying from a familiar face.

Adam Hicks Wins Saskatchewan Student Entrepreneur Competition

Congratulations goes out to a friend of mine, Adam Hicks, who recently was crowned the Saskatchewan Student Entrepreneur Competition Champion for 2008. Adam started his company, Adam Hicks Painting Enterprises, in 2007. The company provides residential painting services under the College Pro Painters brand and he has also branched out to buying and flipping houses in the Regina market as well.

I've known Adam since high school and also took business classes with him at the U of R. He's probably one of the most intelligent people I know and always seems to have a new idea or project to work on. In addition to his business ventures, he's also working to put together Dancing With Regina's Stars April 26, 2008 at the Conexus Arts Centre. You can visit www.dancinregina.com for more information on that event.

To view the full press release put out by ACE Canada, click here.

There was also an article written by Braden Husdal of the Regina Leader-Post in today's paper. You can view it online here.

Congratulations Adam and good luck in Calgary at the regional competition on February 29th!

Marketing Tips - Talk With The People Who Are Listening

Advertising has become such a big part of our day to day lives. We are inundated with it, which is why we have all got so good at ignoring it. The other reason we've got so good at ignoring advertising is because we have become on-demand people. Internet marketing guru Rich Schefren calls this the Attention Age. Basically, people don't have time to do just in case learning because by the time they get around to applying what they've learned, they'll probably have to go back and re-learn it. That's a big time waste. With the Internet, people know that they don't have to pay attention to any mass media advertising because when they actually need information it will be available to them online and on demand.

Don't Want To Build Your Own Website? We'll Do It!

So just as we announce that we're starting a blog to help people build their own websites using the online web builder at OnlineWeb4u.com, we would also like let everyone know about our web design services at LRS Consulting.

If you want a website done quickly, professionally, and for a relatively low price, our web design services are for you. Watch the video embeded below to get a better sense of what our web design services entail (if you watch the video you'll realize that we put the emphasis on getting your website listed in the search engines to get you results rather than primarily on the design aspect).

Your Website Tips Blog Launched

We've had a web builder for a while now at http://www.onlineweb4u.com/ but haven't really done anything to market it so far. Right now we only use it to build and maintain websites for our small business clients. Hopefully that is all about to change.

We just started the Your Website Tips Blog at http://www.yourwebsitetips.blogspot.com/. The goal is to provide a bunch of tips that will help people build their own websites with our online website builder at http://www.onlineweb4u.com/. The web builder is extremely easy to use, but with a few helpful tips you can get a whole lot more out of your website. Hopefully people will find the tips helpful.

Again, head over to http://yourwebsitetips.blogspot.com/ to check out the blog in its infant stages.

An intro video for onlineweb4u.com is embeded below.

New Design for LRS Consulting Website

Hey all, just wanted to drop a note to say we just finished a redesign of the LRS Consulting website. We really tried to overdo it with video because really, who likes reading a bunch of text anymore? Anyway, the intro video for the site is embeded below. Head over to http://www.lrsconsulting.ca/ to check out the rest.

Barack Obama - The Web User's Next President

Need proof that the Internet is an effective marketing tool worth pursuing? Look no futher than Barack Obama's quest to become the next President of the United States.

A quick visit to his website demonstrates how well he has leveraged the Internet to promote his ideas during this campaign. He's a partial list of Internet tools he's using during his campaign:

• his own website


• Email newsletter


• YouTube Channel


• Facebook profile


• MySpace Page


• Flickr photos


• Mobile updates


• Twitter


• Digg


• LinkedIn


• A whole bunch more

He has leveraged the tools that people already used to get his message out in an impactful way. In the process he makes people talk about him. His web savvy audience has also just created a site called YouBama that allows users to upload their support videos to a site. The videos are then voted up and down alla digg style.

If you can use the Internet to market a product as important as a presidential candidtate, certainly you could find a way to use it to promote your business.

iStorez - The End of Retail Email Newsletters?

Erick Schonfeld has a post on TechCrunch about Internet startup iStorez. From what I can tell, the website takes all the html email newsletters that retailers send out to their subscriber base and puts them all in one place for people to browse online. The thought is to eliminate the massive amounts of email some people get in their inbox by aggregating the information in one web portal.

You can search for products by tag or by brand.

My question is how they are going to gather this information and legally republish it? (Kind of like how I stole the iStorez logo to use in this post). I mean retailers should be happy that someone has decided to give more circulation to their offers, but I don't think everyone will see it that way. Will the site just subscribe to every retail email newsletter known to man and have someone on their team dedicated to reposting them to the website?

Obviously iStorez won't stop retailers from using email newsletters, a marketing strategy that has proven effective, because the site wouldn't exist if their wasn't any email newsletters available to poach. It will be interesting to see if this concept catches on and what affect it will have on retail email marketing.

Another Note on Spam

If you send out mass emails to a list, you need permission. Most people are pretty good at asking people before they send out information. But there’s another big part to permission, and that’s the ability to opt-out.

People sign up to receive emails because they are looking for information at a certain point in time. Sometimes there comes a point when they no longer want that information anymore. If the people receiving your messages can’t opt out of your communication when that point comes, you risk angering that list.

The source of this little rant comes from the University of Regina. I signed up to be put on an email list to receive an email a few times a week when new job opportunities came through the employment office at the University. Well, that was a few years ago now and I have a job so I don’t really need those emails anymore. Frankly, they’re a little annoying. I emailed the address that sends these updates a few times to ask to be removed from the list but I still keep getting emails from them.

It doesn’t pay to have people on your list that don’t want your information. Instead of creating fans, you end up creating enemies without intending to. If you use email to communicate with your customers, it’s crucial to have an opt-out link at the bottom of all your correspondence. If people feel locked in, you’ll never get them to sign up for something again and they probably won’t buy anything from you in the near future.