You're Fired! Though it may be a painful decision, firing your client may sometimes be necessary for growth.
What in the Beck Rant is going on in the U.S. today? Beck took the stage Sunday night at the Grammy’s winning the AOTY (Album of the Year) award over protest by Kayne West and others inciting a Beck rant in response. Beck is talented, more talented than Beyoncé? Don’t know and really don’t care. What we do know is Beck won, so let’s understand how this relates to business. Sorry Kanye, this Beck rant is not about you.
Beck won the award, Beyoncé won the business. Ask yourself a powerful question; Are you in business to win awards or to win more clients? Awards don’t pay your employees, though they can validate your efforts, they don’t fill the breadbox. Beck created a product and yes, won an award, but Beyoncé won more customers, more money, and in the eyes of this company, more success.
Beck Rant: Breaking Down Success
Product
Beyoncé crushed the numbers game and became successful by leveraging her resources, creating a superior product, and creating a scaleable business. Competition is for consumers, domination is for business. Stop trying to compete and start hustling to dominate your market. Beyoncé dominated the market last year. No business wants competition yet we see companies allow it to happen over and over again. Beyoncé’s success is credited to a scaleable product and business model that allowed for massive penetration into the market quickly and efficiently.
Do her customers ask for customized songs or a better price? No. And if they do does Beyoncé give them what they ask for? No. Here’s my product, here’s the price and here’s why you want it, period. If someone wants to complain, or argue or want something different, they don’t get to have it. Next. She sticks by her product and her business, and she sells to the customers that want the experience she provides. She stands by the value of the time and costs put into creating a superior product and does not compromise. Exactly what we need to do in business. Make a product that meets a need and does it better than most and don't get hung up on compromising for the few outspoken consumers.
Numbers
Beck’s album was 60th on Billboard’s top album list for 2014, while Beyoncé was 2nd. What’s the difference in sales you ask? (if you didn’t ask you should have).
- Beck’s Morning Phase sold 301,000 copies last year.
- Morning Phase was released on February 21, 2014
- Beyoncé’s self titled album sold over 5 million copies.
- Beyoncé was released December 13, 2013
- If you take an average album price of $15, that translates:
- Beyoncé’s album made more than $75 Million.
- Beck’s album made more than $4.5 Million.
Who wins….you choose.
Process
Did the Beck rant even need to happen? No. Once the framework was in place and the product created, Beyoncé hustled to engage fans and customers. She and her team demanded success. Did she rest when she sold over 800,000 albums in just three days? Nope. Did she stop when she sold 2 Million copies? Nope. Does she stop hustling because she’s number 1 on the Billboard charts? Nope. When a customer requests a song be changed specifically for them, does she stop and change the offering? Nope. Beyoncé sticks to processes that get her product and brand into the market as far and deep as possible. She released her new album on iTunes to the surprise of many and smashed records selling 823,773 albums in just three days! That's a successful process.
Hustle
“Hustle until people know you for your work ethic” - Grant Cardone
Casualness and entitlement are reaching epic levels while customer service and hustle are trending in ultimate lows. Why? Why are business leaders continually accepting of employees that lack care and a sense of servitude to the company and it’s customers? Business leaders need to be demanding better of their workforce and their partners because that’s what creates success. It’s all in the hustle. If you aren’t hustling, your competition is and you’ve lost. Kayne West caused a stir with his rant on Beck winning, but he should have seen the bigger picture, Beyoncé really won.
Too often we numb our senses to the world around us when we should be fully alert. I’m specifically talking about our senses for success. Our caveman ancestors had to be alert or they’d get eaten by the next predator! That’s exactly how successful people get to the top, they are thinking about what’s next all the time and not letting themselves get into a position of being killed by a lion or tiger or bear, oh my. Take that and put it in a Beck rant!
Success finds those that hustle, not just once, but over and over again. If the caveman took time to rest he’d be snuffed out quickly. Always on guard, always on alert, always thinking and moving to be better and better.
Build A Better Mousetrap?
The old adage from the business world, was the idea that if you built a better business, a better product, or provided a better service customers would beat a path to your door. Work hard to create something then sit back and watch the money roll in right? Wrong, very wrong. It’s not enough, nor has it ever been so. It’s been said over and over and yet this practice remains very much alive, popular, and thriving today. Unbelievable right? Complacency is running rogue in the business world and that’s why companies like Kpahi are able to spring alive. Companies like ours drooling over all the opportunity available that others don’t want or are willing to work for. We’ll take it! Beck Rant!
Conclusion
For Beck to rant about Kanye and his comments regarding Beyoncé, it doesn't matter. What builds success for your company may seem complicated but the point of this article is to help simplify the objective. Focus on the customer, focus on out-hustling the competition, and focus on building a product or service that can scale are the winning ingredients. There are lots of articles and books and videos and stories and people that will tell you how to gain success for your business. We’re not saying to ignore these things, but we are saying to stop be lazy, stop being okay with mediocrity. Once you identify this and take action, everything else will start to fall into place.
And the winner is…..you choose.
With Roughly 8,563 Tweets Per Second, How Relevant is Your Twitter Marketing?
Radio Shack could have saved a lot of money (and jobs) by focusing on inbound marketing
Content Marketing For Businesses Is All About Great Storytelling.
Your Marketing Effort Begins With Infrastructure
The First 7 Steps to Your Marketing Effort Have Little to do with Marketing
Step 1: Building Your Website
Currently, websites across the board are falling behind in both mobile responsiveness and fluidity. There are some keys to creating or redesigning websites to catch up to today's mobile surfing expectation, along with ensuring they are able to achieve their desired result in short fashion. Complex websites are turning consumers away, potentially costing the businesses market capture and sales. Items that are important and appealing to the mobile consumer include, but aren't limited to:
- 3 click workflow- Consumers are looking to receive their information within 3 clicks of getting to their desired site. Information needs to be laid out in a manner of which the average consumer can get where they want to be in short fashion and gain the information (along with pricing) for the product or service. Websites that mask their pricing models will surely fail to gain ideal capture due to our "right now" buying and research patterns. We, as a society, want our information right now and want to be able to make a purchase just as easily.
- Mobile Responsiveness- RSS is great, but becoming a thing of the past. Mobile consumers want to view a site that translates to their mobile device seamlessly, without fail.
- Parallax Scrolling- Consumers are always going to go after what is the cool, new fashion. Parallax scrolling and full width views are in demand by the consumer of today, and your website should provide a sexy and smooth feel for your potential client.
Step 2: Make Your Website Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
Your marketing effort will fizzle and fade quickly if your website isn't search engine optimized. Here are some key items that are missed regularly in website design and SEO
- Make sure your site only has one (1) H1 tag, and your H2 tags are in place.
- Ensure you have your favicon in place for every platform, as websites vs iOS vs Android all operate on separate screen sizes and dimensions.
- Your site will need to have a title, meta description, and keywords. Companies that tell you otherwise are "ABSOLUTELY" wrong. Ensure all of these areas meet Google requirements and are not too short or long. Ensure your keywords are used in the content of your site.
Step 3: Social Media Sharing
Ensure your site has links to the following social media sites. Other sites can be used, however these are imperative:
- Google+
Step 4: Blogging
Blogging is a key to building content for your site and is one of the most failed areas for most companies. New sites require informative blogging to become a source of information to build traffic rank. Blogging should be non-predatory, and should be something relevant to your particular market verticals. Blogging should be done as often as possible, and an argument could be made for daily blogging to build web presence.
Step 5: Build your Website on a relevant platform
Let's be realistic. You need to have a website on a relevant platform to ensure you have the ability to change with the times regarding Google Algorithms, design changes, personnel changes, etc. I came across a website the other day that was built using Dreamweaver software. Dreamweaver hasn't been relevant in over a decade, and I am quite sure the company is fighting modern technology to stay competitive daily. Most likely, the company would spend less to completely redesign their website, than they are spending on payroll to compete with antiquated software technologies.
Step 6: Website Analytic Tools that are Important to Your Marketing Effort
The following Google Chrome Extensions are great tools for analyzing your website and those of your competition:
- Check My Links- Checks any page for bad links
- META SEO Inspector- Checks any page for important SEO requirements
- Alexa- Measures any site for traffic rank score
- MozBar- Gives analytics for all related Moz areas of focus
- Open SEO Stats- Gives analytics on multiple areas as a double check for other extensions
- Wappalyzer- Allows you to inspect design and marketing tools for websites
Step 7: Additional Resources that are very relevant
- Alexa subscription- This will help you achieve your traffic rank goals. Alexa's website
- Moz subscription- This will analyze your website and your competitions website to gain competitive edge. Moz's website
Conclusion
You should have a good jump on the competition for your marketing effort if you follow the seven steps listed above. If you would like more information or have questions regarding the information above, please feel free to reach out, and we will be happy to walk you through the creation steps and get you moving forward.
Related article:
Listed with explanations are the top 6 SEO areas to pay attention to for site ranking on Google
While the links below are from 2013 and 2014, the algorithms remain very similar, and should be taken into account when working on your SEO for your website. These 6 areas produce the highest return on investment.
Do I have your attention?...Good!