Disney and the Ultimate Fighting Championship are not as big a mismatch as you might think. In fact, the two organizations share five compelling strategies that connect them by more than a business deal. But when Disney’s 80% ownership of ESPN led to a groundbreaking deal for the broadcasting rights of UFC last May, it was a milestone for UFC. Just how UFC became a viable media property for Disney holds lessons for any company seeking legitimacy and business success in today’s market.
When UFC arrived on the scene back in 1993, it was an upstart — a gritty disruptor in the world of sports. Its fights, while intriguing, were more side-show than serious competition. Seen only on pay-per-view and videocassette, UFC struggled in its early days to find venues willing to put on their show. But in one of the most transformative business acts in business history, owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and CEO Dana White formulated an approach to gain legitimacy in the greater sports world. Their strategy shares five key similarities with Disney:
1. Know what your assets are.
Both Disney and the UFC know what their most valuable assets are, and they make a great effort to protect them. For Disney, those assets are great stories and characters. The Walt Disney Company has a treasure trove of intellectual property that it protects and promotes with exacting attention. For the UFC, it’s all about putting the best athletes in the world into interesting and exciting matches that create anticipation months before a fight. In a sense, the UFC is also in the story and character business, but marketed to a different demographic than Disney.
2. Work to gain legitimacy.
Disney and UFC understand the chief concerns of their primary stakeholders, and work to manage the key drivers of legitimacy in their industry. Disney must consider social trends, industry standards, fan expectations, and government relations. The UFC is no different: It gained social legitimacy by shifting from an “anything goes” format to instituting a standard set of rules, oversight by state sports commissions, and protocols for fighters’ health and protection. Many observers now consider the UFC to be one of the best-managed and regulated leagues in sports.
3. Offer quality entertainment.
Disney and the UFC are both in the entertainment business, and committed to providing quality shows. Disney is famous for its attention to detail in all of its products. For the UFC, quality is measured in the capabilities of their athletes and the excitement of their fights. Just as Disney has a range of movies in the drama, comic book, and animation genres, the UFC has a whole range of weight classes that are deep with potential championship contenders. As a result, the UFC builds a lot of drama into their fight productions, including stories leading up to the events and tension-building campaigns. UFC fans await upcoming matches fought by their favorites with tremendous anticipation. The organization also has a constellation of its own stars, such as Gregor Gillespie, a scrappy grappler currently ranked tenth in the lightweight division.
4. Master market symmetry.
UFC’s and Disney’s products are quite different, but they take a similar approach to selling. Both are experts at market synergy and cross-promote to their markets better than just about anyone. Disney and UFC fans watch the shows, read the fan magazines, and buy related merchandise because of their attachment to the stories that each company promotes. Both companies are cash machines with multiple revenue streams coming from their core customers.
5. Protect the brand.
Both companies protect their brands at all cost. Disney is very careful about who represents the company. Any celebrities in their productions are expected to be in line with the company’s values. The UFC has the same expectation of its athletes, albeit with different codes of conduct. One excellent example of this was when the UFC suspended light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Jones was arguably the greatest fighter in UFC history and a top draw for pay-per-view. But he failed a drug test, costing him as well as the UFC millions of dollars during a 15-month suspension. Jones is back and a top draw again, but he paid a big price by not adhering to the UFC’s drug policy.
Disney clearly believes the UFC is far more than an upstart now, and it’s betting big that UFC will be a highly lucrative addition to the Disney entertainment umbrella. Credit is due to Disney for seeing the value in the UFC, and due to the leadership of the UFC — who took all the right steps in successfully maneuvering and conquering regulatory and societal challenges. These two success stories hold invaluable lessons for other disruptors facing their own challenges for legitimacy in today’s complex society.
About the Author
Michael G. Goldsby is the Chief Entrepreneurship Officer and Stoops Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Ball State University, USA. His new book, with Rob Mathews, is Entrepreneurship the Disney Way. Learn more at www.ELProfile.com.
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The short and most Zen answer is that I did not learn how to be a better entrepreneur by living in a Zen Buddhist monastery. Being an entrepreneur is what taught me to become a better entrepreneur. Being a Zen Buddhist monastery taught me how to be in a zen Buddhist monastery.
The long and more interesting answer, is that my nearly 6 months at the zen Buddhist monastery planted powerful seeds in my mind that have allowed me to evolve more fluidly in my day to day trials and errors as an entrepreneur.
It’s easy to come across as zen in a zen Buddhist monastery. It’s quiet, peaceful and others around you look “zen”, so it’s only natural to gravitate towards what looks zen: detached from expectations, quiet, embracing the fleeting nature of life, and being in the moment, yada yada yada.
After 6 months living a monastic life at a zen Buddhist monastery, I thought that I had incorporated Zen in me. I was wrong. Within a few weeks back in the corporate world, I was back to stressing about goals, expectations and achievements. I was feeling frustrated again.
You see, being “zen” in the corporate world is a whole other ball game. The corporate framework is based on goals, expectations, plans, and results. Not caring about expectations does not really fit into this framework. If you don’t deliver, you are out and there is no being zen about it.
So back to square one. I learned that I had learned nothing. Surprisingly, that took me a step closer to zen.
I realized that I had embraced a romanticized version of Zen based on how I ideated Zen in my mind but I had in fact not understood anything about zen because zen is about not ideating things in the first place. I sought out Zen because I wanted to overcome the pain in life, become enlightened and transcend the ebbs and flows of life. Now I see that I sought it out for all the wrong reasons. Zen is not about transcending by rejecting the ups and downs of life, it is about unconditionally embracing them.
Zen has a paradoxical nature. It is. And it is not. It does. And it does not. I learned over the years that being zen is not about crossing my legs and looking like a deep and pondered soul. I learned that being zen for me is about embracing the fundamental contradictions that lay the groundwork for our existence.
As I learn to lean into these contradictions, I open the path for more mental freedom and flexibility. I learn that even though my natural framework tends to polarize things, often there is good in the bad, just as there is bad in the good. I learn how to expand my peripheral vision and look at things through different angles at the same time.
So let’s unpack that. My natural tendency is to feel good if I make more money and shitty if I make less money. With a zen bug inhabiting my neural synapses, chances are that I am not going to get all that excited about making money or suffer all that much about making less money. Zen introduces a degree of relativism that allows me to create and interpret my own reactions to external events. The Zen framework allows me to insert an extra fraction of a second throughout many moments in my day in which I get the chance to introduce or at least steer the narrative of events in my direction.
Excessive relativism is tricky though and the zen framework can easily be used in ways that prevent our growth. In a world where there is no good or bad, success or failure, it is convenient to be able to say, “It does not matter.” For many years I used the Zen framework towards this end. I would shield myself from my own fear of failure by relativizing my goals and purpose. Looking back, I don’t think that Zen is intended that way.
I think that Zen is about bathing, soaking, rejoicing in the painful experience of living. Rather than fighting it, Zen is about embracing our shortcomings and ultimate mortality. But this nihilistic direction is not an end, but a path to re-emerge transformed through this experience as a being who is less stuck in labels and social constructs and more keyed into their own feelings and consciousness.
All of this Zen framework does not make me come across as Zen at all. In fact, I reject the idea of being zen. I don’t see how anyone who really buys into zen can accept or live with the label of being zen, or any label at all. I am an agitated soul. I am anxious, I get frustrated and want to get things done. But there is Zen in me. Every time I breathe and just accept that I am what I am. Then I am free.
About the Author
Gabriel Fairman, Founder and CEO of BureauWorks, has been working on transforming localization business processes into technology over the past 15 years. Over the past 5 years he has focused on developing algorithms that make sense of bigger data patterns in order to predict translator performance based on data obtained through peer reviews. The challenge on building AI towards that end is that translations can be great and still be significantly changed by reviewers. As changes are for the most pasty subjective, there is no direct correlation that can be established to easily determine the quality of translations based on simple data sets. The challenge requires digging deeper into more complex correlations that allow translation quality to be managed through algorithms that can reliably pair the right linguists to any given document. Gabriel’s focus is to think systemically as opposed to through a causality framework in order to solve these harder problems through AI.
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Client meetings are a vital part of the business process and if you don’t know how to conduct them properly, you’re going to struggle to close deals and bring in revenue. But holding the perfect client meeting is a difficult thing to do and a lot of business leaders get it wrong. If you’re not closing deals, you’re wasting your time and not seeing any return on that investment. When that starts happening a lot, your business is going to end up in a lot of trouble. To stop that from happening, you just need to follow this recipe for the perfect client meeting.
Research
First off, you need to conduct good research into the client before you meet them. They’re coming to meet with you to determine whether your business can meet their needs and it’s important that you can demonstrate that to them effectively if you’re going to close the sale. You’re never going to be able to do that if you don’t understand those needs in the first place. That’s why you need to research the company and get to know their specific needs inside out. That way, you can tailor a pitch to the client and they’ll be more likely to do business with you. It’s also a good idea to do a bit of research into the particular people that you’re meeting with so you can get a sense of how they like to do business. This will help you to direct the other aspects of the meeting like location and business etiquette.
Location
The next step is the location and this often depends on the client. Some clients like to see exactly what you’ve got to offer, which is why you should meet with them in your office. However, a lot of business leaders shoot themselves in the foot because their office sends the wrong message and puts clients off because it’s outdated and not well maintained. If you find that clients have a negative reaction to the office, it’s worth paying for renovation services to give it a bit of a facelift. They’re making a judgment about your business as soon as they set foot in the door so you need to make sure you give a good first impression.
Listen To Clients
This is a meeting, not a presentation, but a lot of people forget that. If you go in, do your pitch, and then expect them to make a deal without really listening to the client properly, you’re not going to get very far. Make sure that you’re listening to their wants and needs and you take them on board when offering them a deal, otherwise, they won’t go for it.
Next Steps
This is by far the most important thing to remember because if you don’t end the meeting by outlining next steps, you’re never going to close a deal. Before you leave, decide how you’re going to move forward whether that’s by sending them a quote, setting up a further meeting or closing the deal.
If you follow this secret recipe, your client meetings will go smoothly every time and you’ll close a lot more deals.
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Digital marketing can be a difficult beast to master. Not only do you have changes made to the technology, trends have never come and gone so fast. More has changed in the last 2 years of marketing than the previous 50, and it’s all thanks to technology, technology integration, and globalization. You have the opportunity to build a true global community for your brand, but only if you work out a solid digital marketing strategy.
The key to a successful digital marketing strategy is to use multiple avenues. The digital world is incredibly connected, and so too should the channels you use and your strategies. Your home page needs to be optimized to make best use of your PPC marketing campaign. Your influencer marketing must coincide with your social media marketing and sales, and so on.
Improving your digital marketing strategy can only be done if you focus on all these key areas:
Optimize Your Website
The first step to improving your entire digital marketing strategy is to improve your website as a whole. This means revamping it so that it is a breeze to use, is beautiful, secure, and the home page is compelling. You want people to go through your website and to either hire your services or buy your products as a result.
To optimize your site you will first want to audit it. Go through and make sure that all the content is up to date, fresh, optimized for search engines, is fun, and reflects your brand. You will also want to check links to make sure they all work and that no page is “lost” – or, in other words, cannot be accessed to via a page link.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO applies to all aspects of your digital marketing strategy. You will want to optimize your on-site content for search engines, you will want to improve your back link profile, and so on. SEO can be a mystery to many business owners, which is why it is best to hire a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO from the start.
Pay Per Click Marketing
SEO can help you raise the ranks within Google. PPC marketing can put you right at the top. That being said you want to be very careful when it comes to which keywords you use and invest in. The more specific the keyword, the better, but you don’t want to overdo it. You want to instead conduct keyword research so that you make the most out of your budget.
When creating a PPC strategy it is important to remember your home page. Create a call to action that reflects the keyword or keywords you have chosen for your PPC campaign. If you are paying to be at the top of results for “gardening supplies” and you are an outdoor landscaping company, you will want to put gardening supplies offers right at the top of your site. Otherwise users will click away.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is powerful for building up a community. Any company type can benefit from this, even manufacturing businesses. On social media you want to:
Post high quality photos
Be genuine
Be informative
Be engaging
This means not only do you need to worry about your own content, you need to respond to messages, reply, and interact with the community you are building as a whole.
PR Marketing
Public Relations marketing refers to contacting media and influencers with the hope that they will give you free publicity as part of their story. PR marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand. To be successful in this you will want to only contact relevant parties. If you are a gardening business, contact gardening magazines. If you are a local boutique or café, contact local travel magazines or local newspapers.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has greatly changed in recent years. Instagram models with hundreds if not millions of followers have failed companies, and for one simple reason: they are unauthentic. Most of them have fake followers, and even if they are genuine followers, chances are they will never be able to be as engaged as a micro influencer.
Micro influencers often have 10,000 or less followers. They are notable because they are active in their community. They build up real relationships and engage in authentic and genuine ways. This engagement builds trust between them and their followers, so when they use and review your product, you can bet that their followers will trust their word and even consider buying your product for themselves.
Collaborative Marketing
Collaborative marketing is similar to influencer marketing. Smaller brands that really work in building an engaged community are the perfect partners. The difference is that you both work together to offer a combined service or a special product line to your followers.
What to Remember
The key to any successful strategy is to keep updating it. Try new things, see what works, and remember that past success does not guarantee future success. Trends, values, and news will all change over time, and your digital marketing strategy must reflect this.
Take single use plastic as an example. Just a few years ago no one was talking about it. Today, it has become such a contentious issue with citizens and consumers around the world that government after government are banning it.
You need to stay up to date with what the public wants from their companies, and change accordingly. Take fast food chains, for example. Previously it would have been unheard of for them to serve vegan options, and yet, the number of vegans is only growing in popularity. Today even brands like Burger King offer a vegan burger. Due to the spices and unique taste, they are a huge hit with vegans and non-vegans alike.
Keeping your ear to the ground in this way can help you get on top of trends and be a real leader in your industry. Combine this forward-thinking with a solid marketing strategy, and you will have crafted a recipe for success.
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All powerful SEO strategies involve in-depth analysis, bespoke planning, and thorough implementation.
Although this may sound simplistic, there are two main categories to every search engine optimization strategy: off-page and on-page SEO.
Staying true to its name, on-page strategies involve specific elements that occur on your actual website. While it can be time-consuming to optimize these factors, website owners have full control over their implementation.
In contrast to on-page strategies, off-page SEO isn’t quite as simplistic.
In this article, we’ll discuss what these strategies involve, why it’s important to your website, and how you can optimize off-page elements in order to increase traffic flow and grow a larger audience.
What does off-page SEO refer to?
Off-page SEO involves the different elements that impact a site’s visibility on search engine results. Instead of existing within your site, these strategies take place other places online.
Many people consider this to be the hardest category of SEO because these factors are outside of a website owner’s direct control. It is very difficult to influence the posts that other bloggers write and the links that they use.
Search engines develop their algorithms to take many different factors into account. These algorithms take information from other sites to help analyze your website’s authenticity and credibility.
This is a clever method of ranking content that relies on the perspectives of many different websites to rank others within a search engine. It makes sense that websites with many external links would be seen as credible. No reputable or authoritative site would be willing to link to a page that isn’t offering quality value.
Google, along with all other search engines, must rely on these links to determine the credibility of a site. It is irresponsible and nearly impossible to judge the quality of a site only from its internal contents.
Although earning these external links is a greater challenge than tweaking factors on your site, it’s a critical component of off-page SEO.
Link Building
Because of Google’s reliance on external links to judge a page’s quality and authority, websites that achieve many of these links have a proclivity to rank higher in the search results.
For website builders, this should highlight the importance of earning external links as part of any SEO strategy.
Before jumping into this strategy headfirst, there are some important nuances to understand.
Many website owners place too much of their focus on the quantity of links instead of their quality. While an impressive number of external links can look good to the Google algorithm, these numbers are meaningless if all of the linking sites are of poor quality.
Google prefers to see links from websites that have already established a reputation for being credible, authentic, and authoritative. Receiving links from these sites will have a greater impact on the ranking of your site.
Domain Authority
Domain authority is measured on a ranking from 1 to 100. This scale rates the credibility of your site based on the quality of its backlinks.
Your site will rank higher on the scale in direct proportion to the number of quality links that it earns.
Website Authority Checker offers free evaluations of a website’s domain authority ranking.
Sites with higher numbers will have an easier time ranking in the search results.
It is much less clear how links from social media platforms influence a website’s ranking on Google and other search engines.
Matt Cutts, an employee for Google, revealed in 2010 that the iconic search engine was using links from several different social sites to determine a website’s ranking.
This claim was contradicted in 2016 when Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes said that social links weren’t taken into account when ranking for SEO.
While it’s not definitive that social links have a direct result on a site’s SEO rankings, there is a proven relationship between rankings and social signals.
Even if there is no direct impact from social shares, a strong presence on these platforms is still indicative of a healthy ranking in search engine results.
How do off-page and on-page SEO factors work together?
There is no reason to choose between off-page or on-page SEO strategies. Both of these factors are most effective when used in tandem.
On-page strategies help determine which queries and keywords for which your pages will rank. On the other hand, off-page strategies help determine where your site will rank.
In order to achieve the best SEO results, you should use a balanced combination of on-page and off-page factors.
What are some useful tools for improving a site’s off-page SEO?
Off-page factors that influence your site’s ranking can be difficult to control. Fortunately, there are some great tools that can aid in the process. The following tools will help you improve your off-page SEO factors:
Ahrefs – is one of the most useful tools for identifying link opportunities. After entering a domain, you’ll be provided with a detailed report that highlights all of the external websites that link back to that domain. This report will also show individual pages to which the domain links. This is an excellent tool for evaluating the sources from which your site’s links are coming.
SEMrush – is a popular tool amongst the SEO community. While SEMrush is a powerful tool for researching keywords, this site can also be used for finding opportunities to build more links. Both of these tools will also allow you to see where your competitors are getting links so that you can reach out to those sites as well. Additionally, understanding the keyword research tool can help increase your site authority. Indeed, learning how to conduct effective keyword research to drive online leads creates valuable traffic, which increases your business reputation and authority. Therefore, applying SEMrush keyword results to content generation can also assist linking strategies for off-page SEO.
Start Off-Page SEO Strategies Today
There are many elements that make off-page SEO significantly more challenging than on-page strategies.
However, these off-page factors are necessary for people who want to improve their SEO ranking.
These off-page indicators help search engines determine a page’s reputability and credibility. When a page has more backlinks, Google feels more comfortable recommending it to users.
Katrina Fernandez is a hardworking individual who always gives her best. As a degree holder, she aspires to establish within the media industry. Expert in building online partnership, she’s been working in digital marketing services, Local SEO Search Inc. for several years.
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How to Go From Disruptor to Industry Leader: 5 Ways Disney and the UFC Think Alike
/in Entrepreneurship/by Michael G. GoldsbyWhen UFC arrived on the scene back in 1993, it was an upstart — a gritty disruptor in the world of sports. Its fights, while intriguing, were more side-show than serious competition. Seen only on pay-per-view and videocassette, UFC struggled in its early days to find venues willing to put on their show. But in one of the most transformative business acts in business history, owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta and CEO Dana White formulated an approach to gain legitimacy in the greater sports world. Their strategy shares five key similarities with Disney:
1. Know what your assets are.
Both Disney and the UFC know what their most valuable assets are, and they make a great effort to protect them. For Disney, those assets are great stories and characters. The Walt Disney Company has a treasure trove of intellectual property that it protects and promotes with exacting attention. For the UFC, it’s all about putting the best athletes in the world into interesting and exciting matches that create anticipation months before a fight. In a sense, the UFC is also in the story and character business, but marketed to a different demographic than Disney.
2. Work to gain legitimacy.
Disney and UFC understand the chief concerns of their primary stakeholders, and work to manage the key drivers of legitimacy in their industry. Disney must consider social trends, industry standards, fan expectations, and government relations. The UFC is no different: It gained social legitimacy by shifting from an “anything goes” format to instituting a standard set of rules, oversight by state sports commissions, and protocols for fighters’ health and protection. Many observers now consider the UFC to be one of the best-managed and regulated leagues in sports.
3. Offer quality entertainment.
Disney and the UFC are both in the entertainment business, and committed to providing quality shows. Disney is famous for its attention to detail in all of its products. For the UFC, quality is measured in the capabilities of their athletes and the excitement of their fights. Just as Disney has a range of movies in the drama, comic book, and animation genres, the UFC has a whole range of weight classes that are deep with potential championship contenders. As a result, the UFC builds a lot of drama into their fight productions, including stories leading up to the events and tension-building campaigns. UFC fans await upcoming matches fought by their favorites with tremendous anticipation. The organization also has a constellation of its own stars, such as Gregor Gillespie, a scrappy grappler currently ranked tenth in the lightweight division.
4. Master market symmetry.
UFC’s and Disney’s products are quite different, but they take a similar approach to selling. Both are experts at market synergy and cross-promote to their markets better than just about anyone. Disney and UFC fans watch the shows, read the fan magazines, and buy related merchandise because of their attachment to the stories that each company promotes. Both companies are cash machines with multiple revenue streams coming from their core customers.
5. Protect the brand.
Both companies protect their brands at all cost. Disney is very careful about who represents the company. Any celebrities in their productions are expected to be in line with the company’s values. The UFC has the same expectation of its athletes, albeit with different codes of conduct. One excellent example of this was when the UFC suspended light heavyweight champion Jon Jones. Jones was arguably the greatest fighter in UFC history and a top draw for pay-per-view. But he failed a drug test, costing him as well as the UFC millions of dollars during a 15-month suspension. Jones is back and a top draw again, but he paid a big price by not adhering to the UFC’s drug policy.
Disney clearly believes the UFC is far more than an upstart now, and it’s betting big that UFC will be a highly lucrative addition to the Disney entertainment umbrella. Credit is due to Disney for seeing the value in the UFC, and due to the leadership of the UFC — who took all the right steps in successfully maneuvering and conquering regulatory and societal challenges. These two success stories hold invaluable lessons for other disruptors facing their own challenges for legitimacy in today’s complex society.
About the Author
How living at a Zen Buddhist monastery taught you how to be a better entrepreneur
/in Entrepreneurship/by Gabriel FairmanThe long and more interesting answer, is that my nearly 6 months at the zen Buddhist monastery planted powerful seeds in my mind that have allowed me to evolve more fluidly in my day to day trials and errors as an entrepreneur.
It’s easy to come across as zen in a zen Buddhist monastery. It’s quiet, peaceful and others around you look “zen”, so it’s only natural to gravitate towards what looks zen: detached from expectations, quiet, embracing the fleeting nature of life, and being in the moment, yada yada yada.
After 6 months living a monastic life at a zen Buddhist monastery, I thought that I had incorporated Zen in me. I was wrong. Within a few weeks back in the corporate world, I was back to stressing about goals, expectations and achievements. I was feeling frustrated again.
You see, being “zen” in the corporate world is a whole other ball game. The corporate framework is based on goals, expectations, plans, and results. Not caring about expectations does not really fit into this framework. If you don’t deliver, you are out and there is no being zen about it.
So back to square one. I learned that I had learned nothing. Surprisingly, that took me a step closer to zen.
I realized that I had embraced a romanticized version of Zen based on how I ideated Zen in my mind but I had in fact not understood anything about zen because zen is about not ideating things in the first place. I sought out Zen because I wanted to overcome the pain in life, become enlightened and transcend the ebbs and flows of life. Now I see that I sought it out for all the wrong reasons. Zen is not about transcending by rejecting the ups and downs of life, it is about unconditionally embracing them.
Zen has a paradoxical nature. It is. And it is not. It does. And it does not. I learned over the years that being zen is not about crossing my legs and looking like a deep and pondered soul. I learned that being zen for me is about embracing the fundamental contradictions that lay the groundwork for our existence.
As I learn to lean into these contradictions, I open the path for more mental freedom and flexibility. I learn that even though my natural framework tends to polarize things, often there is good in the bad, just as there is bad in the good. I learn how to expand my peripheral vision and look at things through different angles at the same time.
So let’s unpack that. My natural tendency is to feel good if I make more money and shitty if I make less money. With a zen bug inhabiting my neural synapses, chances are that I am not going to get all that excited about making money or suffer all that much about making less money. Zen introduces a degree of relativism that allows me to create and interpret my own reactions to external events. The Zen framework allows me to insert an extra fraction of a second throughout many moments in my day in which I get the chance to introduce or at least steer the narrative of events in my direction.
Excessive relativism is tricky though and the zen framework can easily be used in ways that prevent our growth. In a world where there is no good or bad, success or failure, it is convenient to be able to say, “It does not matter.” For many years I used the Zen framework towards this end. I would shield myself from my own fear of failure by relativizing my goals and purpose. Looking back, I don’t think that Zen is intended that way.
I think that Zen is about bathing, soaking, rejoicing in the painful experience of living. Rather than fighting it, Zen is about embracing our shortcomings and ultimate mortality. But this nihilistic direction is not an end, but a path to re-emerge transformed through this experience as a being who is less stuck in labels and social constructs and more keyed into their own feelings and consciousness.
All of this Zen framework does not make me come across as Zen at all. In fact, I reject the idea of being zen. I don’t see how anyone who really buys into zen can accept or live with the label of being zen, or any label at all. I am an agitated soul. I am anxious, I get frustrated and want to get things done. But there is Zen in me. Every time I breathe and just accept that I am what I am. Then I am free.
About the Author
The Secret Recipe For Successful Client Meetings
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenResearch
First off, you need to conduct good research into the client before you meet them. They’re coming to meet with you to determine whether your business can meet their needs and it’s important that you can demonstrate that to them effectively if you’re going to close the sale. You’re never going to be able to do that if you don’t understand those needs in the first place. That’s why you need to research the company and get to know their specific needs inside out. That way, you can tailor a pitch to the client and they’ll be more likely to do business with you. It’s also a good idea to do a bit of research into the particular people that you’re meeting with so you can get a sense of how they like to do business. This will help you to direct the other aspects of the meeting like location and business etiquette.
Location
The next step is the location and this often depends on the client. Some clients like to see exactly what you’ve got to offer, which is why you should meet with them in your office. However, a lot of business leaders shoot themselves in the foot because their office sends the wrong message and puts clients off because it’s outdated and not well maintained. If you find that clients have a negative reaction to the office, it’s worth paying for renovation services to give it a bit of a facelift. They’re making a judgment about your business as soon as they set foot in the door so you need to make sure you give a good first impression.
Listen To Clients
This is a meeting, not a presentation, but a lot of people forget that. If you go in, do your pitch, and then expect them to make a deal without really listening to the client properly, you’re not going to get very far. Make sure that you’re listening to their wants and needs and you take them on board when offering them a deal, otherwise, they won’t go for it.
Next Steps
This is by far the most important thing to remember because if you don’t end the meeting by outlining next steps, you’re never going to close a deal. Before you leave, decide how you’re going to move forward whether that’s by sending them a quote, setting up a further meeting or closing the deal.
If you follow this secret recipe, your client meetings will go smoothly every time and you’ll close a lot more deals.
The Strategy Driven Guide to Improving Your Digital Marketing
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenThe key to a successful digital marketing strategy is to use multiple avenues. The digital world is incredibly connected, and so too should the channels you use and your strategies. Your home page needs to be optimized to make best use of your PPC marketing campaign. Your influencer marketing must coincide with your social media marketing and sales, and so on.
Improving your digital marketing strategy can only be done if you focus on all these key areas:
Optimize Your Website
The first step to improving your entire digital marketing strategy is to improve your website as a whole. This means revamping it so that it is a breeze to use, is beautiful, secure, and the home page is compelling. You want people to go through your website and to either hire your services or buy your products as a result.
To optimize your site you will first want to audit it. Go through and make sure that all the content is up to date, fresh, optimized for search engines, is fun, and reflects your brand. You will also want to check links to make sure they all work and that no page is “lost” – or, in other words, cannot be accessed to via a page link.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO applies to all aspects of your digital marketing strategy. You will want to optimize your on-site content for search engines, you will want to improve your back link profile, and so on. SEO can be a mystery to many business owners, which is why it is best to hire a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO from the start.
Pay Per Click Marketing
SEO can help you raise the ranks within Google. PPC marketing can put you right at the top. That being said you want to be very careful when it comes to which keywords you use and invest in. The more specific the keyword, the better, but you don’t want to overdo it. You want to instead conduct keyword research so that you make the most out of your budget.
When creating a PPC strategy it is important to remember your home page. Create a call to action that reflects the keyword or keywords you have chosen for your PPC campaign. If you are paying to be at the top of results for “gardening supplies” and you are an outdoor landscaping company, you will want to put gardening supplies offers right at the top of your site. Otherwise users will click away.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is powerful for building up a community. Any company type can benefit from this, even manufacturing businesses. On social media you want to:
This means not only do you need to worry about your own content, you need to respond to messages, reply, and interact with the community you are building as a whole.
PR Marketing
Public Relations marketing refers to contacting media and influencers with the hope that they will give you free publicity as part of their story. PR marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand. To be successful in this you will want to only contact relevant parties. If you are a gardening business, contact gardening magazines. If you are a local boutique or café, contact local travel magazines or local newspapers.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has greatly changed in recent years. Instagram models with hundreds if not millions of followers have failed companies, and for one simple reason: they are unauthentic. Most of them have fake followers, and even if they are genuine followers, chances are they will never be able to be as engaged as a micro influencer.
Micro influencers often have 10,000 or less followers. They are notable because they are active in their community. They build up real relationships and engage in authentic and genuine ways. This engagement builds trust between them and their followers, so when they use and review your product, you can bet that their followers will trust their word and even consider buying your product for themselves.
Collaborative Marketing
Collaborative marketing is similar to influencer marketing. Smaller brands that really work in building an engaged community are the perfect partners. The difference is that you both work together to offer a combined service or a special product line to your followers.
What to Remember
The key to any successful strategy is to keep updating it. Try new things, see what works, and remember that past success does not guarantee future success. Trends, values, and news will all change over time, and your digital marketing strategy must reflect this.
Take single use plastic as an example. Just a few years ago no one was talking about it. Today, it has become such a contentious issue with citizens and consumers around the world that government after government are banning it.
You need to stay up to date with what the public wants from their companies, and change accordingly. Take fast food chains, for example. Previously it would have been unheard of for them to serve vegan options, and yet, the number of vegans is only growing in popularity. Today even brands like Burger King offer a vegan burger. Due to the spices and unique taste, they are a huge hit with vegans and non-vegans alike.
Keeping your ear to the ground in this way can help you get on top of trends and be a real leader in your industry. Combine this forward-thinking with a solid marketing strategy, and you will have crafted a recipe for success.
This Is The Reason Why Your Off-Page SEO Strategy is Not Working.
/in Online Marketing and Website Development/by Katrina FernandezAlthough this may sound simplistic, there are two main categories to every search engine optimization strategy: off-page and on-page SEO.
Staying true to its name, on-page strategies involve specific elements that occur on your actual website. While it can be time-consuming to optimize these factors, website owners have full control over their implementation.
In contrast to on-page strategies, off-page SEO isn’t quite as simplistic.
In this article, we’ll discuss what these strategies involve, why it’s important to your website, and how you can optimize off-page elements in order to increase traffic flow and grow a larger audience.
What does off-page SEO refer to?
Off-page SEO involves the different elements that impact a site’s visibility on search engine results. Instead of existing within your site, these strategies take place other places online.
Many people consider this to be the hardest category of SEO because these factors are outside of a website owner’s direct control. It is very difficult to influence the posts that other bloggers write and the links that they use.
Search engines develop their algorithms to take many different factors into account. These algorithms take information from other sites to help analyze your website’s authenticity and credibility.
This is a clever method of ranking content that relies on the perspectives of many different websites to rank others within a search engine. It makes sense that websites with many external links would be seen as credible. No reputable or authoritative site would be willing to link to a page that isn’t offering quality value.
Google, along with all other search engines, must rely on these links to determine the credibility of a site. It is irresponsible and nearly impossible to judge the quality of a site only from its internal contents.
Although earning these external links is a greater challenge than tweaking factors on your site, it’s a critical component of off-page SEO.
Link Building
For website builders, this should highlight the importance of earning external links as part of any SEO strategy.
Before jumping into this strategy headfirst, there are some important nuances to understand.
Many website owners place too much of their focus on the quantity of links instead of their quality. While an impressive number of external links can look good to the Google algorithm, these numbers are meaningless if all of the linking sites are of poor quality.
Google prefers to see links from websites that have already established a reputation for being credible, authentic, and authoritative. Receiving links from these sites will have a greater impact on the ranking of your site.
Domain Authority
Domain authority is measured on a ranking from 1 to 100. This scale rates the credibility of your site based on the quality of its backlinks.
Your site will rank higher on the scale in direct proportion to the number of quality links that it earns.
Website Authority Checker offers free evaluations of a website’s domain authority ranking.
Sites with higher numbers will have an easier time ranking in the search results.
The best way to improve your site’s domain authority is by receiving more quality links from credible and reputable websites.
Social Promotion
Matt Cutts, an employee for Google, revealed in 2010 that the iconic search engine was using links from several different social sites to determine a website’s ranking.
This claim was contradicted in 2016 when Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst Gary Illyes said that social links weren’t taken into account when ranking for SEO.
While it’s not definitive that social links have a direct result on a site’s SEO rankings, there is a proven relationship between rankings and social signals.
Even if there is no direct impact from social shares, a strong presence on these platforms is still indicative of a healthy ranking in search engine results.
How do off-page and on-page SEO factors work together?
There is no reason to choose between off-page or on-page SEO strategies. Both of these factors are most effective when used in tandem.
On-page strategies help determine which queries and keywords for which your pages will rank. On the other hand, off-page strategies help determine where your site will rank.
In order to achieve the best SEO results, you should use a balanced combination of on-page and off-page factors.
What are some useful tools for improving a site’s off-page SEO?
Off-page factors that influence your site’s ranking can be difficult to control. Fortunately, there are some great tools that can aid in the process. The following tools will help you improve your off-page SEO factors:
Start Off-Page SEO Strategies Today
There are many elements that make off-page SEO significantly more challenging than on-page strategies.
However, these off-page factors are necessary for people who want to improve their SEO ranking.
These off-page indicators help search engines determine a page’s reputability and credibility. When a page has more backlinks, Google feels more comfortable recommending it to users.
If you need help improving your site’s ranking, consider using Local SEO Search, a digital marketing agency
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