Recent Posts
Dane Shakespear - People Don't Want to Buy Your Product
People Don’t Want to Buy Your Product or Service They Want to Buy a Better Version of Themselves
7 years ago

One of the most difficult things for business owners to get a handle on is the true perspective of the needs and desires of their clients or customers.  Because we spend so much time working on, perfecting and promoting our products or services – over time we get caught up in how awesome our product […]

lead generation
More Isn’t Better, Better is Better
7 years ago

I find it interesting as I begin evaluating prospective clients how infatuated they are with a single metric in their lead generation – volume. Search volume, click volume, impressions, number of calls – whatever it is they watch it like a hawk and sadly make a lot of decisions based on it alone. I think […]

GuruBlog

  • About
  • Admissions Marketing
  • Contact Me
  • Free Tools
  • Essential Books
  • 12+ Years
    • 12+ Years in Behavioral Health.

      Over 12 years consulting for Residential Treatment Centers, Boarding Schools, and Troubled Teen Programs - I've been to the top of the mountain before, and I can get you there too.

      Learn More
  • Over $195m Admissions
    • Over $195 Million in Admissions.

      For 12 years I've helped Residential Treatment Centers, Boarding Schools, and Troubled Teen Programs attract more qualified leads, convert them into paying clients and deliver a better product by doing more of what works and less of chasing shiny objects.

      Learn More
      — or —
      pick my brain
  • Proven System
    • Proven System.

      I use technology and psychology to market Residential Treatment Centers by telling a better story online and in person. By streamlining and reducing, getting more admissions by doing what matters consistently – not chasing every new shiny object. My process will take you from where you are to where you want to be - step by step.

      Learn More
      — or —
      pick my brain
  • Free Tools
    • Free Tools.

      I have Free downloadable tools exclusively for Residential Treatment Centers and Programs. Valuable resources that will help you pinpoint areas in your program that may be driving away admissions every month.

      Learn More
      — or —
      pick my brain
9 years ago ReputationDane Shakespear

Reputation Marketing

Reputation Marketing

The days of looking up a business address or telephone number in phone books are over.  A testament to that fact is the number of phone books left in piles on doorsteps, racks in the free publication section of convenience stores, and the fact that you yourself probably haven’t opened one in ages – unless its to check the advertisement for your own business.

The availability of up to date information online has been a valuable resource for consumers, but for many businesses, it can be a killer.  Why? because along with the business listing, name, address, telephone number comes a new friend or foe – reviews.

Reviews are extremely important to business owners because they communicate to the prospective customer how well he does in the consumer’s eyes compared to his competitors. If your reviews are positive, then great! You’ll want more of them than your competitors.  But, if you have poor reviews or even harsh negative reviews it becomes even more important that your satisfied customers or clients review their experiences online.

Unfortunately, it is human nature to take action only when we’re dissatisfied rather than when we’re pleased, thus the bulk of reviews for any given business tend to be of the negative kind – not to mention negative reviews fabricated by your competitors, activists, or disgruntled employees.

bad-reviews

This is where reputation marketing comes in.

Reputation marketing is simply a defined plan and system to market your true reputation online.

The key distinction between reputation marketing and reputation management is that reputation marketing is primarily a plan and system to promote the positive views and reviews of your satisfied customers or clients, whereas reputation management is historically aimed at flooding the internet with your marketing messages and assets to combat the negative results that appear in the search engine results for your name, your company name, or brand.

See the difference?  One is promoting your customer’s views and reviews, while the other is promoting your own marketing messages.

72% of buyers trust reviews as much as personal recommendations

trust-reviews

Since most people who leave reviews will always be the unhappy kind, it’s extremely important to have a system in place to ethically encourage and assist happy customers and clients to share their positive experiences with prospective customers on the internet.

Left to chance, you’ll see a negative to positive ratio of reviews for your company at about 9 to 1 – and that’s just based on those from real customers, not competitors, disgruntled employees or activists who wish to harm your business and reputation.

9 years ago Essential BooksDane Shakespear

80/20 Sales and Marketing

80/20 Sales and Marketing
Perry Marshall

Perry Marshall

I’ve worked with Perry Marshall for a number of years.  We meet together several times a year – I use him as a sounding board for my biggest ideas and toughest problems. I’ve watched the 80/20 principles he covers in his book percolate in his mind and discussions over the years as he was pulling it all together.  He describes how it all came together, some of the surprises and epiphanies he had as he tested and retested the principles of 80/20.  There have been a number of books about 80/20 – the most notable being Richard Koch who wrote the forward to Perry’s book.

One of the most interesting and valuable additions to the 80/20 theory Perry provides is the “skew curve” calculator that lets you analyze visually the relationship between values (costs, customers.. anything) according to the 80/20 distribution.

Several months before the book was completed, Perry and I spent an hour running numbers through the calculator to predict the outcome and effect changing the pricing structure for a client who sells a $60,000 product.  The beauty of 80/20 is that you can actually predict distributions.

Using the calculator we discovered that if I changed the pricing structure from a single level to a three tier level I could almost immediately double the clients income while keeping the same number of customers – and with only a small amount of work to make it happen.

That’s the kind of leverage 80/20 provides.  Perry’s book isn’t the dry, jargon filled text  you might expect from a book dealing in mathematics and probability.  Perry’s writing style is easy to read and understand. His ideas are easy to implement.  This is one of those books I’ve recommended to all of my clients and their staff.

9 years ago Marketing, ReputationDane Shakespear

Reputation Management

Reputation Management

Everyone’s heard of reputation management.  The anonymous nature of the internet has been a blessing for those who want to express their opinions without fear of retribution, and a curse for individuals and business owners who do wrong in the sight of their customers or clients.

Anyone can post reviews, comments, and even create entire websites to try and manipulate the online reputation of a business or individual.  Some for good (meaning a positive effect to the reputation) and some for bad (a negative affect to the reputation.)

So how does anyone know the truth?  The answer is – you can’t.

When businesses or individuals are hit with negative reviews or negative search results for their names or brands they often turn to reputation management companies for help.  The idea is to have the company create tons of mini-sites, social media assets, blog posts, etc. throughout the internet and link them in a way that will cause them or other “good” pages to rank for the search term or name thereby “pushing down” the negative or harmful content in the search results where it is less likely to be seen.

Does it work? Yes, but isn’t just a bunch of keyword optimized, meaningless mini-sites and fake pages just adding to the “junk” that shows up in the search results?  It isn’t generally good content either – only content favorable to the subject.

It’s just noise, not information.  Trying to do it this way is like trying to yell louder than the opposition – yelling anything, just louder.

There is a better way to do reputation management.

One that not only helps the problem it doesn’t call your credibility into question.

First, if you’ve done something wrong own up to it.  Fix it.  Fix the people, the process, the situation that caused it in the first place.  Hiding behind the noise doesn’t make the problem go away, it only hides it.  If you don’t do this you can count on a never ending cycle of noise generation.

Second, if you want your search results to be positive you are better off showing the world the real version of what’s going on in your business, not a bunch of meaningless pages of noise.   Real photos, real reviews, real interviews, real people – real.

Everyone wants a shortcut so they throw easy junk out there.

Unless you have nothing of merit to show or tell about, it’s much easier to show off the truth about your business than it is to make it up.  Not only that, it’s maintainable.  Do it the other way and you’ll soon run out of combinations of things to post and promote.

If you truly care about your reputation or how you’re percieved online, it’s critical to do it right, do it well, do it consistently, and do it truthfully.  There are no shortcuts that have long term value.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

9 years ago QuotesDane Shakespear

Success Is a Lousy Teacher

Success is a lousy teacher.  It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.  – Bill Gates

9 years ago Marketing, SalesDane Shakespear

Power Disqualifiers in Sales and Marketing

Power Disqualifiers in Sales and Marketing

I worked with John Paul Mendocha on refining sales processes for a company several years ago.  John is one of those guys who is a total no-fear salesman.  John is extremely persuasive and an expert in sales processes, sales funnels, and writing persuasive copy – especially for high-ticket products and services.

One thing he always talks about that I still use and refer to often is his Power Disqualifiers.

The idea is that in any sales situation the very best and most important thing to do is quickly disqualify prospects as quickly as possible so you don’t spend your valuable time working with people who have don’t have a snowball’s chance of actually buying your product or service.

Here they are – in order…

  1. Have the money to pay for your services
  2. Have a “bleeding neck”
  3. Have the ability to say “yes”
  4. Buy in to  your USP
  5. Your service must fit into their overall plans

If any prospect doesn’t immediately pass each of these questions (how you find out is another story) they are disqualified and you simply move on.

Some people say it’s harsh, but really – are you doing anyone any good if you can’t help them?  Of course, if you find out they are disqualified and you can’t help them, you can easily refer them to someone who can.  Everyone wins.

9 years ago QuotesDane Shakespear

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

– Napoleon Bonaparte

9 years ago QuotesDane Shakespear

As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring.

As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring. – Seth Godin

9 years ago QuotesDane Shakespear

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.  – Napoleon Bonaparte

9 years ago Essential BooksDane Shakespear

Trust Me I’m Lying – Confessions of a Media Manipulator

Trust Me I’m Lying – Confessions of a Media Manipulator

I heard about Ryan Holiday years ago as a marketer for American Apparel and as they guy who pulled off some pretty incredible publicity promotions through subtly controlling and feeding the news machine ever hungry for stories and ever willing to be “duped” for the sake of a clicks and page views.

You’ve seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political sideshow derails the national news cycle and destroys a candidate. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. What you don’t know is that someone is responsible for all this. A media manipulator.

ryan-holiday-trust-me-im-lyingToday’s news is no longer filtered, edited, vetted, and approved by editorial staff, gatekeepers, etc.  Today its all online.  Blogs now compete for clicks, page views, and attentions.  Deadlines and compensation structures now push writers to look for “news” that gets attention – the sensational kind… and get it out quickly before everyone else gets it to and it dies and becomes worthless.  News stories that used to require credible sources (even if kept anonymous) now bypass any and all editorial scrutiny even in the big media outlets because now they can repeat even the most outlandish claims and stories simply because someone else (usually a small, unknown blogger) said it first.   Now rumor and gossip become “news” and though by definition are unverified, writers are free to promote their stories as “fact” simply because they can cite someone else as the original source.

The author shows how media manipulators plant stories in the smaller blogs, then “trade it up the chain” by then notifying more prominent blogs about the story who jump on the story, then on and on up the chain of more and more credible blogs and news websites until the story becomes a national sensation – regardless of its factualness or authenticity.

In a world where blogs control and distort the news, media manipulators control blogs—as much as any one person can.

IN TODAY’S CULTURE…

  • Blogs like Gawker, BuzzFeed, and The Huffington Post drive the media agenda.
  • Bloggers are slaves to money, technology, and deadlines.
  • Manipulators wield these levers to shape everything you read, see, and hear— online and off.

Ryan Holiday explains how this all works, why it works and what the ramifications are for the people and companies targeted by manipulation as well as the effect it has on society.

I love this book.  It pulls the curtains back and shows how the system works.  Unfortunately, if you’re already skeptical of most of what you read on the internet – now you’ll be skeptical of all the rest.

10 years ago Essential BooksDane Shakespear

Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy

Going head-to-head against the competition has long been the default way of doing business for companies hoping for sustained, profitable growth.

Unfortunately, in today’s overcrowded industries and marketplaces competing head-on results in noting but a bloody “red ocean” of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool which leads ultimately  to imitation of competition, competing on price alone, and ultimately finding the survivors of the bloody battles with little or no profit to remain in business.

Blue Ocean Strategy challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic success.  It shows you how to get out of the bloody competition infested waters of the “red ocean” and into untapped, uncharted, unclaimed waters of the “blue ocean.”

The authors show you how to avoid getting sucked into mimicking rivals by using strategy canvases instead of the tired and misused benchmarking tools.

This is a book that I refer to often when working with clients who need to differentiate themselves and create a new category  for themselves and move in to the uncontested waters of the blue ocean.

Blue Ocean Strategy challenges everything you thought you knew about strategy. – Business Trategy Review, UK 

Page 2 of 3«123»
Dane Shakespear
Trending
Dane Shakespear - People Don't Want to Buy Your Product
People Don’t Want to Buy Your Product or Service They Want to Buy a Better Version of Themselves
205 views
lead generation
More Isn’t Better, Better is Better
124 views
Find me on Facebook

Get New Tools and Resources

My tools. Your inbox. Beautiful.

Dane Shakespear, Digital Marketing, SEO, Reputation Management

I'm Dane.

I help Residential Treatment Centers get more admissions. Over 12 years in Behavioral Health. Ive been to the top of the mountain before, and I can get you there too...

Learn More
— or —
pick my brain
Navigation
  • Marketing
  • Reputation
  • Sales
  • Pay-per-click
  • Advertising
  • Creativity & Design
  • Essential Books
  • Featured
  • Quotes
Tags
QuotesR&Dmarketinginnovation
Most Popular
Dane Shakespear - People Don't Want to Buy Your Product
People Don’t Want to Buy Your Product or Service They Want to Buy a Better Version of Themselves
lead generation
More Isn’t Better, Better is Better
Google is Not Your Friend
Google’s Stupidity Tax
2020 © MoreAdmissions.com - Dane Shakespear & Assoc. - All Rights Reserved