HOW TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES WITH BRIAN GREENBURG
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Tips to improve online sales by Brian Greenburg
- To improve online sales keep your sales process short.
- Learn to separate yourself from the competition. Reviews and testimonials help!
- To improve your conversion rate link to your Yelp profile, your Google Business profile, your Better Business Bureau profile, and to your reviews or testimonial page on your website.
- The biggest ranking factor in Brian’s opinion are real links to your website.
- What to do if you receive a negative review…
- Build links using PR
- How to use Google Survey’s to improve traffic to your website
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
To improve online sales keep your sales process short, use reviews wisely
and do all you can to get real links to your website.
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Doug: Well welcome back listeners to another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Now today I’ve got joining me in the studio Brian Greenberg. He is the author of The Salesman Who Doesn’t Sell: A Marketing Guide To Selling While You Sleep. Now, who doesn’t want to wake up in the morning with more money in the bank? Brian Greenberg has founded a business in e-commerce, marketing, and financial services. He has generated over $50 million in revenue from his businesses and collected over 10,000 reviews and testimonials from customers, being named one of the most creative people in financial services and has been called the salesman who doesn’t sell.
With so much success, Brian has decided to each others writing the Salesman Who Doesn’t Sell: A Marketing Guide to Selling While You Sleep. Brian now teaches others through his book, his content and his website and today he’ll be teaching you through this podcast. As a multi-faceted entrepreneur, Brian believes in building integrity into everything that he does, operating a business for the long term with a strong reputation and commitment to exceptional customer service, so welcome to the Real Marketing podcast.
Brian G: Doug, thanks for having me.
Doug: Well I mean there’s so many provocative terms on what you do and let’s just start off right at the beginning and say my rule of thumb for engaging somebody or hiring somebody is, don’t hire anyone who hasn’t done what you want to do or isn’t willing to pay the price you’re willing to pay, so for those of you listening, if you’re interested in generating $50 million in revenue, or even 40 or maybe even 10, I think Brian’s got lots to share with us.
Brian G: I’m looking forward to sharing Doug.
Doug: So let’s talk about your two superpowers, we talked a little bit about them and you said one was organic SEO, and the second one was five-star reviews for your companies, so where do you want to start?
Brian G: Exactly, look, over the years, I’ve been bringing people to my websites, that’s the first thing to do. After you get them to your website, you need to convert them, so it’s very important to build trust and for that. I like to build reviews, build a nice website, the whole thing. And yeah, what I want to teach people how to do is to get people to the website and sell them with as short a sales process as is possible, and it’s definitely possible to do.
Doug: Well I think it’s interesting because I have friends and family, I know people that are in the insurance business and their argument in terms of marketing as well, there’s really nothing unique and so they’ve got all these reasons of why they can’t build something and become a marketing machine and you’ve obviously disproven all those purely by example of what you’ve accomplished.
Brian G: It’s about separating yourselves from your competitors, so if people are going online, look, they’re ready to buy, it’s a great time to drive people to your website or your sales funnel. Now they’re going to buy from somebody, alright, so you just need to separate yourself from the competition. What we’ve found is look, in the insurance business, they’ll go to our website and they might go to our competitor’s website too. The last thing that they do is they go online and they search for the name of my company, True Blue Life Insurance, followed by reviews, or complaints, and they do that for every company. Now, if I have the best reviews and I’ve proven that I’ve been doing this a while, people say great things about me, that’s the tipping point. Then they come back, now at that point, they’re ready to buy and I don’t have to sell anymore, so that’s a great thing to separate from the competitors.
Doug: Yeah, and I’ve heard that said that when somebody else is talking about you and your company, to shut up, let them talk because obviously they have more credibility than you talking about your own company, and I guess that’s obviously the case when looking at your long list of five star reviews, so people who are super happy with your service.
Brian G: Exactly. It’s a great time to be online and selling because of social media, I mean you can just ask Amazon, right? They have one of the highest conversion rates in the e-commerce business, I think it’s around 17% now, but it’s the reviews, people go there to view the reviews. TripAdvisor, people love reviews, and oddly enough, they actually believe reviews more than their friends, right? So as an example, let’s say a friend of yours says, “Hey, this Asian restaurant is incredible, right, it’s my favorite place.” But then you go online and you look at it on Yelp and you got 15 people gave it one-star reviews, saying how terrible it is, that they got sick from going there. Now, you’re going to listen to the people on the Yelp, overwhelmingly, that’s what the statistics say. I said 10, but let’s say there are just three reviews, it’s going to put hesitation, usually the online reviews are incredibly persuasive.
Doug: I totally agree, I mean I feel like I’m the older guy in the demographics because I’m a big user of Yelp, and so whenever I travel, wherever I go, that’s the first thing that I’ll pull out, and then often I’ll start there, then go to the concierge and say, “This is looking a really good place, can you get me there”, and the guy’s going, “You know what, it’s really tough to get in”, “That’s why I’m coming to you, I found it, you get me in.”
Brian G: Exactly, you know, one thing about reviews, I don’t think people know the value of it. I guess the restaurants on Yelp that are really killing it, they know, right? So one five star review can actually affect their business, it could raise their business by a couple of percents. So I like to put a value on reviews, just so people can grasp it, right? So if I get a review on a site like Yelp, or Google business pages, or the Better Business Bureau, a site that I don’t control, right, they post it, I can’t take it down, I value each one of those reviews at $250. Now the nice thing about it is they stay up there, right, so the next year I value those same reviews at about $50.
Now I find that if I value those reviews at a certain dollar amount, I’m more apt to go after them, and I’m able to actually bonus my employees for getting them as well. I think it has to be a company-wide thing, so I like putting a dollar amount on things, just to give a value.
Doug: Well that’s a great idea because if you can assign a value, even if it’s arbitrary, then you know what you can spend in terms of time and resources to go out and get that review.
Brian G: Exactly and like you said, you’re using Yelp to find out where you go, overwhelmingly, this is what’s happening now and the thing is, if they’re going to your website, you want to make it as easy as possible for people to find the reviews. A lot of people think reviews are a type of bragging, right, if you put it front and center on your website. I disagree, I don’t think it’s bragging, I think it’s helping the customer, I think it’s almost your responsibility if you’re doing such a great job, to let the customer know, right? We want people to do business with those that do business ethically and transparently and focus on customer satisfaction. So because we now know the value of reviews, now also the increasing conversion rates, put them smack dab right in the middle of your website, or on every page of the website, it could be in the footer, or it could be somewhere else, but a link to your Yelp profile, right? Link to your Google Business profile, link to your Better Business Bureau profile, and link to your reviews or testimonial page on your website. These are things that actually have a big impact on your conversion rate.
Doug: Yeah, that makes sense, and I know I’ve failed that, I was reading up on you before we got on our interview this week and so I thought, “Oh man, I haven’t done any of that for my own business at all.” So it’s definitely something to look at. So how did you get started in this, I mean you’re in a more traditional financial business and you started going after or specifically targeting reviews, what made that shift?
Brian G: I’d been doing online marketing since 2003, I started with some e-commerce websites, I’ve always done well, I’ve always been able to rank in the first positions. I started with my father’s website, a janitorial supply website, Wholesale Janitorial Supply, like a touch-free plumbing website. I got really good at it and I took a job with Submit a Website, which was one of the top internet marketing firms here in Arizona and back then, Arizona was kind of like a mecca, it still is for internet marketing. So I got very good at it, I expanded into a lot of different websites, I was bringing in all my income organically on search engines, I even started an internet marketing company, right, specializing in organic SEO, so I’ve done this for many clients over the years.
Now, I eventually sold that business, I actually kind of like doing the SEO and stuff, I like focusing on my site and if you do too many things, I find out that you can’t focus. I landed on life insurance just because of the amount of profits available in it actually. The life insurance niche online is one of the most competitive niches, especially for pay-per-click, so the pay-per-click on life insurance keywords can go from $30 up to $80 a click, alright? That’s because it’s profitable. So by ranking on the first page for those keywords, it’s the most profitable niche I could find, right and when I was young I actually worked for an insurance company as one of my first jobs, that’s who I targeted. I also like it, but it’s a profitable business for me.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
To improve online sales keep your sales process short, use reviews wisely
and do all you can to get real links to your website.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: Well that’s an interesting approach and I sometimes use a similar approach in terms of looking for a starving audience and then going and finding the solution opposed to starting a business. So that’s what it sounds like you’ve done, you took your skills and said, “Okay, I’ve got these skills where I can generate traffic and sales online, I’ve got a proven history, now I just need to find something that will pay me extremely well and over and over to do that.”
Brian G: Exactly, I think a lot of people come up with great ideas, it has to be a scalable and profitable business in order to pursue it.
Doug: So talk a little bit more about the organic SEO, so people SEO, and I get all sorts of feedback in my business and some people say yeah, it works and then other people say it doesn’t work, and there are others, you know, some of the big names out there that say, “We don’t spend any time, we just buy all our traffic.”
Brian G: It’s a waiting game, right, so it’s an investment. Now one of the biggest things in organic SEO is still getting links, it has been for a long time, some people say, “Oh, it’s more content”, but the biggest ranking factor, in my opinion, are links. So every link I get I consider an asset, so go after the real links, right? Back in the day, people were buying a lot of links, right? It was a whole business, you’d be buying links based on page rank, and it was great, I did it back in the day, I was very good at it, but then Google Penguin came along, this was back in 2012, and wiped everybody who did any SEO out.
Doug: Yeah, I remember that yeah.
Brian G: And it was Wil Reynolds, he’s the CEO of Seer Interactive, he did a speech at one of these conferences and he says, “Look, the time for doing these crazy SEO tactics are over, now you have to do real company stuff”, he called it RCS. He used the profanity at the end, real company and stuff.
Doug: Yeah, okay.
Brian G: The point is, if it doesn’t make sense, don’t do it, right, so don’t join a blog carnival, don’t hire someone overseas to do blog commenting for you, don’t just pay random people to buy links or to spin articles. Do things that real companies do, and if you focus on that, you don’t need that many links these days because they’re harder to get, but you need fewer of them to win, so if you do-
Doug: And like you said, it’s good quality too, I mean, for example, we’re going to finish up this interview, I’m going to transcribe this, we’re going to end up with four or five thousand organic words, because it hasn’t been crafted, we’ve had a natural, flowing conversation with the appropriate keywords, and then I’m going to link back to your site. So there’s good organic, your name, your business, and then a link back to your site.
Brian G: You’re exactly right Doug, and I’m going to link to your website and all your websites because I know the value of it. Now, I wrote a book Doug, and I’m going and doing a tour and I’m on your podcast. Now, this is marketing, right, so if I go on your podcast and you give me a link back, that’s a great link. This is one of the main reasons why I wrote the book, so I can promote all my businesses, it’s real company stuff.
Doug: I love that, I made a note of that real company stuff because it’s interesting. The lengths that people will go to try to find a shortcut and the amount of money that they will spend to try to do things cheaply, so I do a lot of work in the email space, and I help people grow their own organic list, and I rent data, so permission-based data. So you’re in the financial space, so you might know somebody like Schaefers Financial or Zacks Financial, I would rent their data to send out a financial offer to their list, or they send it out actually, and that works really well, but then I have other clients that want to buy data, I’m going, “That’s a bad idea, it’ll get you blacklisted, it’ll wreck your domain, you’ll get kicked off your email service provider”, and they’re going, “Yeah, but I want to save money, this is only X number of dollars”, and so it comes back to, I like your comment, the real company stuff.
Brian G: I love the idea that you’re renting a list. Are they sending it through their own servers Doug?
Doug: They are, yeah, absolutely, so-
Brian G: Brilliant.
Doug: … they send it through their server, so for example, with the Zacks Financial dot com website, I’ve used their data for about 10 years or more. They have two different lists, they have a paid subscription list and they have a free subscription list and I rent both files and I rent the direct mail file, and it’s permission-based because you’ve gone in, you’ve signed up, you’ve given permission, they own the reputation, I am borrowing their credibility, sending out your offer or my offer to their subscribers who I can trust them and we get a win. But that’s real company stuff because it’s coming from a real company, it’s not coming from an offshore server with some fake address from some Gmail account.
Brian G: It’s brilliant, look I’ve bought the list and I’ve had problems with the servers and the email marketing software, the deliverability, people getting upset, I love the idea of renting the list Doug, brilliant.
Doug: So tell us about your book, I mean who doesn’t want to have a system in place that’s selling while you’re sleeping?
Brian G: Yes, thank you Doug. I actually wrote the book because I want to promote people to do business the right way, I love doing business ethically and transparently and with customer satisfaction, and actually show people how to leverage that, and leverage it so you could actually increase your business, be more profitable than taking the shortcuts, right? Tony Hsieh wrote the book Delivering Happiness, where he builds up the customer relationship and let’s say even Amazon as an example, they rank number one in customer service for like the last 10 years. What they’ve found is that the people who have the highest customer satisfaction have the fastest rate of revenue growth for their businesses. It’s an odd thing, but for long-term, it’s so important. So I want to teach people how to leverage that, right? You can leverage it by using reviews and case studies and portfolio and using this, building the social proof, so people come to you, and when they do come to you, they don’t leave, they know that you’re the person to do business with.
Doug: So do you have a specific strategy, like a tactic for getting reviews and like a list of sites, you say these are the top five sites you need to have reviews on and this is how you should go about that, is that the sort of information that’s going to be included in your current book?
Brian G: Absolutely, so I definitely have a process for, first of all, look, you have to ask for the review, alright? My team asks for it, the question is when do you ask for it because people are really nervous about it, right? When you’re done, right, when you delivered and I like to ask the client, “Are you happy? Are you satisfied?” And it’s a great question to ask a customer no matter what. If they say, “Yes”, that’s the time to ask for a review and you don’t have to do it on the spot, use email, I like to use email software, I use ActiveCampaign.
Doug: Right.
Brian G: So if they’re satisfied, say, “Look, that’s great, I’m going to send you an email with a link on where to provide the feedback, we really appreciate it, it helps our business”, and that’s it, then you’re done, right? Let the email do it for you. Now, one of the things that I do and I think it’s so important, is that when you send them the first email request, have it be your internal system, okay, have it be something you control. So when I send them the first email, I use ActiveCampaign, I have five big stars in the email, they click a star, they go to my website, it pre-fills it out, I get a comment from them. Now, I control it, right, so it’s not going to Better Business Bureau or Yelp or Google. Say they have a complaint, right? I have the option to fix it, I have the option not to display that review, okay? So only when I get a five-star review on my own system, I send them another email and in the other email I said, “Hey, thanks so much for the review, here’s the comment you left, can you post it?” And I give them a link to the Better Business Bureau and Google Business pages, those are the ones that we focus on in our business.
Doug: That’s a really smart idea to do a little bit of pre-qualification because like you said, you want to make sure they’re satisfied and so if they’re not satisfied, not only do you have a chance to get a review, but more importantly, you have a chance to make it right with the customer, whatever their issue may be.
Brian G: Absolutely, and again, look, you can’t please everybody and I understand that too, if they’re not happy, don’t ask them for a review, or don’t even plant the seed in their head, right, go after the happy customers and that’s an important thing.
Doug: Well I did some consulting work for a retail chain that had a dozen stores, and one store was failing miserably, so they hired me to come in and turn it around, and one of the things we did was build up the reviews. And the head office actually accused us of stuffing the reviews, I said, “Well what do you mean?” They said, “You’re getting more favorable reviews in your store than all the other 11 stores combined, how are you doing that?” I said, “Well we’re asking, every time the salesperson completes a sale and the customer says, “Thank you”, we ask, “Would you mind filling out a review?” And I don’t think, even when we finished our contract with them, even though the store had turned around, I don’t think they believed that, that it was just about asking, it wasn’t a difficult question, “Would you mind filling out a review, it’d be helpful.”
Brian G: I agree, look, especially if they ask you, “Are you happy, are you satisfied?” If you are, people like to reward the businesses that do a great job, and especially if they’re going online and using reviews, it’s the more people use them, the more they participate. So yeah, definitely ask.
Doug: So let’s go to the dark side for a minute, negative reviews. So I’ve worked with people that have got negative reviews that have come from customers, they claim they’re customers and when we’ve looked into the review, we’ve realized that those people don’t exist in the system, so it’s not a customer. What do you have, any feedback or experience in that space where it may be a competitor or just somebody who doesn’t like you who’s throwing rocks at you?
Brian G: I’ve seen other people have that. My theory on it is that you upset somebody, right? Somebody left you a negative review and they’re so upset that they’re going to leave a review under their name and they’re going to create a couple of other Gmail addresses and they’re going to leave even more. Now the secret is look, don’t upset anybody, right? So if you have an upset customer, don’t retaliate. I’ve seen so many companies have to close their business, have to rename their business, do a whole other website because of negative reviews. Yeah, if you get a bad review on Google or Yelp, you can’t take it down, unless the customer takes it down. People think, “Oh yeah, I’ll just take them to court.” You can’t take them to court, it’s not an option, right? So there’s even a website called the Rip Off Report, that if you put a bad review on there, if someone’s really upset, even the customer can’t take it down, it’s there forever and it ranks in the search engine.
So one thing I want to say Doug is if you get a negative review, it’s so important to follow some rules. Number one, don’t retaliate, alright, that’s the last thing you want to do. A negative review can cost you $10,000 easy, right, so don’t retaliate. Sympathize, fix the problem, give them a refund, be willing to take a loss. I’m willing to take up to a $500 loss, just so somebody would take down a review, and it’s as simple as asking, “What would make you happy?” Again, the way to win when someone gives you a negative review is to play the victim, right, maybe guilt them, give them a refund, say, “Please, this is hurting my business, my family”, get them to take that review down by all means necessary. Not all means, but all nice means.
Doug: No, I assume that’s what you were referring to. Again, you’ve put a dollar value to that and so you hear people say, “Well, you know, that’s not fair.” Right, it’s not fair, but your point’s valid, it may not be fair, it may not be true, but it’s your reality and it’s going to be your reality online for life, so you can deal with it or you can go round saying it’s not fair and let it hurt your business.
Brian G: Right, it hurts me when people say, “Oh, nobody reads, nobody’s going to look at Yelp, nobody’s going to look at Google”, and it happens to a lot of business owners because they’re not used to what’s been going on in the past couple of years, how much of an effect that has. But it does, I don’t know what to tell you, it does have thousands of dollars of negative effect, there’s been studies on it. Having a bad review out there is like having a roach in the middle of your restaurant, don’t want it.
Doug: Well and if you’ve done and operated your business like you said you’re operating your business, you’ve got lots of reviews, you’re asking people if they’re satisfied and you’re operating with transparency and integrity, I’ve also seen situations where somebody’s posted a negative review and the other people who support the business have basically pounced on that person for doing that. So in some cases the owner has intervened and other times they haven’t, but if you’ve built a raving fan or an evangelist for your brand, more often than not, they will come to your defense.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
To improve online sales keep your sales process short, use reviews wisely
and do all you can to get real links to your website.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Brian G: I completely agree, as long as you don’t retaliate, people know that we’re human, right? So if you do make a mistake and someone leaves a bad review and you can’t get them to take it down, the best thing to do is respond, let them know what you did, let them know that you refunded them, that you tried everything to satisfy the customer and be very nice and upfront, nothing negative.
Doug: Well I think-
Brian G: That’s what people want, that’s why sometimes people read the one-star reviews, they’ll read those first, right?
Doug: Yep.
Brian G: They’ll see how the company responded to it. Sometimes if the company responded well, that’ll tip you over the point as well.
Doug: Yeah, I think so, I’ve seen companies that don’t respond to reviews, it’s people I know, I’m saying, “Hey dude, have you checked your rating, somebody’s left you a negative review”, and I never looked before, but it’s been there for two years, and there’s no response.
Brian G: Yeah, people want to know that you care about the reviews, it shows that you’re accountable, right? So if something does go wrong, they know that they have some recourse, they know if they leave a negative review, it’s going to affect you. And that’s what they want if something goes wrong, you tell them to hey, go blow, that’s not good for them. It’s important to know that they’re accountable if I can’t show-
Doug: Well I think-
Brian G: ... that people are accountable, I won’t do business with them.
Doug: Yeah, and big picture, I mean we’ve all stood in a line someplace and we’ve heard somebody in front of us totally ripping on a service person or a waiter or a clerk, so I think that it would be foolish to think that we’re not aware there are people that will complain in every circumstance regardless of how good it is. So if you get a negative review like you said, and people won’t take it down, I think that people are smart enough to know there’s always people out there that you can never, ever, ever satisfy.
Brian G: Yes, but you know, you’re exactly right, but as a business, don’t retaliate, don’t fight, be above it, go high if you are right, not low. Then other people will rally behind you, they’ll back you up.
Doug: Yeah.
Brian G: And that’s how I’ve done it in my business and it’s worked so far and I think it’s worked with your example as well.
Doug: So in terms of what’s coming in the marketplace, I’ve got a couple more questions for you, so what do you think the biggest myth is around people focusing on reviews?
Brian G: Well I think that a lot of people think that they need to buy reviews, right? Can’t really buy reviews anymore, it’s a terrible business and people crack down on it. The other myth is that they’re too hard to get. It’s not true, it’s pretty easy, you set up a system, like an active campaign system or even e-commerce systems have it built in now, all you have to do is ask. And displaying reviews is not a form of bragging, it’s showing your professionalism. It’s just like going to an interview with a nice suit, you want to put your best foot forward.
Doug: Yep, well I think on the other side of not showing reviews, my approach to people who don’t like to sell their services, as I said, by not selling, you’re asking for the sale, or in this case, by not showing your reviews, because they’re truthful and helping a customer make the right decision in hiring you because they’re going to get good service, you’re being selfish. So you’re not serving them, you’re serving you, you don’t want to put the reviews up, oh, I’m too humble, I’m too this, but you’re doing a disservice to the person that you can help, because we got into business to help people and if they’re not hiring you, then you’re not helping them.
Brian G: I agree, look, I love doing businesses with people that do honest and ethnically and they have principles. When I get good service, I leave a great review, those are the people that should stick around, those are the people who should succeed long term. And if you operate your business like that, you’re doing a disservice by not doing it, you’re letting the other guys come in and they’re going to take advantage of those customers-
Doug: Yeah.
Brian G: ... just like you said Doug.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
To improve online sales keep your sales process short, use reviews wisely
and do all you can to get real links to your website.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: Exactly. So moving forward, what are you most excited about, or what do you see coming in the next say six or 12 months?
Brian G: I’ve been really excited about building links using PR, alright? I think a lot of people think that PR is, look, if you do go to an agency, you’re going to pay a lot of money, right? $10,000 a month, $5,000 a month, I want people to know that it’s in grasp for just about every business now. If you write a nice article and there’s a couple of secrets to writing a great article that you could then hire a PR specialist to distribute and I’d like to go over those a little bit. Number one is lists, publications love lists and when I say publications, look, we want to get these things published on authority blogs, eventually we want to get them published on Forbes and Entrepreneur and Huffington Post, these are the golden links, these are worth five, 10,000, and they’ll really bump you up in organic rankings. So lists, top five this, top 10 that, they love it, it’s like catnip, right?
Doug: Yeah.
Brian G: The second is a great headline, a great title for your article. I use a service, it’s called headlines.sharethrough.com. Now you just type in a headline and it grades it, it gives you a numerical score out of 100, it is incredible, it’s also free. I have no idea why it’s still free, but it is. While it’s free, take advantage of it. Get a great headline, it’ll score it, it’s great. Then I like to go to Upwork. Upwork is a freelancer website. You can post a project, I don’t know, for $250 to $500 to $1,000, these are about what I think the price range you should do. You’ll get freelancers bidding on using their contacts to spread out your article and get you links. Now what I’ve been able to do, if I pay $1,000, I can get a freelancer, a PR specialist to guarantee me that they’re going to give me 10 links, alright? 10 valid links that they’re going to get me, that puts the link at about $100 a link which is, my goodness, it’s, for these links, it’s fantastic. It’s been working great for me. And Doug, there’s one more thing that I’m really excited about and that’s Google Surveys. In the past, large companies would run surveys, right-
Doug: Yeah.
Brian G: … our annual survey this, right? You could run a survey, Google Surveys, $1 a survey Doug, you could ask 10 questions, ask 10 multiple choice questions, send it out to 100 people, 250 people, dollar a piece, okay? And then you include that in the article. You have bullet points for the most interesting facts, again, editors, contributors, they absolutely love it, it’s such a good strategy to build those links that get you to the top of the search engines.
Doug: So I’m not familiar with Google Surveys, so what is it?
Brian G: They send a survey out to, you can put a location, US people, you could even do it by age or by state. Now I think when somebody takes that survey, they split the revenue, so if I’m paying a dollar, someone takes that 10 question survey, they get 50 cents. It’s a service that Google came out with, oh I don’t know, maybe about eight months ago and it’s kind of been under the radar. Although I’ve tried it, it’s worked incredibly, they give you these beautiful graphs and if you do it right, if you ask a multiple choice question, and it’s interesting and it’s relevant and it could even be tied into something that’s been going on in the news, these are great ways to get links. It’s the best survey software I’ve found and I’ve looked a lot of places.
Doug: Yeah, I’ve tried a lot of stuff, I tell people that I’ve have probably tried more things that don’t work than they do, because I’m actively, my credit card’s out on my desk every day and I’m buying and trying to see what’s working, what’s not, you know, what goes on the discard pile and what goes in the keep pile.
Brian G: Yeah, I looked at, that’s from experience, I love when people try something, right? If you try Google Surveys, you send it to 100 people, it’s $100. It hurts me, it pains me when people don’t move forward on it. I love to try things, Doug, it sounds like you do too, but if it fails, you learn from it, so everything you do is pushing you a step forward. For people to succeed and be an entrepreneur, it’s about taking action.
Doug: Yep, absolutely. So I’d like to wrap up Brian with a couple of parting questions and one would be who’s a guest that you think I absolutely should have on my podcast?
Brian G: Oh boy, I have a mentor that has taught me a lot of these PR strategies, his name Adrian, I think his last name is [Salmanak 00:29:51], even he can’t really pronounce his name. He’s the owner of CanvasPop, and I actually found him on Clarity FM. Clarity FM is this incredible resource that was started by Dan Martell, where you could actually pay per minute to speak with experts in just about every industry and you pay by the minute. Man, if you’d just try it, you’d be blown away and again, it so great because you review them after the call. So all these guys are doing their best to over deliver, so-
Doug: That’s really cool.
Brian G: … yeah.
Doug: Now the most important question is tell us where we can find you and make sure you give us the link for your book.
Brian G: Of course, my main business is True Blue Life Insurance, my personal website is brianjgreenberg.com and Doug, I set it up for your listeners where they can get the free audiobook, you can just go to brianjgreenberg.com/rmrf, it’s just for your podcast listeners, I hope it helps them.
Doug: That’s excellent, so I will make sure that we have all that in the show notes Brian, I also included your LinkedIn and your social media connections as well. So there you go listeners, there was another episode and I think there was just a ton of value. I am fortunate in my business that I get to spend all day looking at marketing stuff and it’s always exciting when I can pick up two or three new tips, I’m happy to get one a day, so to get three in on podcast was spectacular, so thanks Brian for dropping so much value with our listeners today.
Brian G: Thanks for having me Doug.
Doug: So check back, we’ll have all the show notes transcribed, we’ll make sure that all the contact information there for Brian and I would strongly recommend you go download his audiobook, I’ve found audio for me has worked really well as I’m traveling, in transit, on a plane, wherever I am. Between that and listening to podcasts and a little bit of music, it helps to keep me moving forward and stay on top of things, so thanks listeners for tuning in. Don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
To improve online sales keep your sales process short, use reviews wisely
and do all you can to get real links to your website.
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Get in touch with Brian
Brian on LinkedIn
Free Resource for Real Marketing Real Fast Listeners from Brian: brianjgreenberg.com/rmrf
Brian’s Book on Amazon: Salesman Who Doesn’t Sell: A Marketing Guide to Selling While You Sleep
Find out more about Brian:
- Brian on Facebook
- Brian on Twitter
- Web – Brian Greensburg
- Web – True Blue Life Insurance
Links to other related podcasts and or blog posts:
HOW ANYONE CAN ALMOST GET ANYTHING TO THE TOP OF GOOGLE
TIPS TO IMPROVE ONLINE SALES
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