Have you  ever found yourself in this situation?

You are driving the car, your kids are being loud, or you’re in a noisy environment and your phone rings with an strange phone number. . . and you instantly freeze staring at your phone debating whether you should answer it and run the risk of a potential client or customer being turned off by the noise in the background, or let it go your your personal unprofessional voicemail and risk losing the sale. You don’t know.

If you have a virtual phone number, either a toll free number or a local number, that forwards to your cell phone or home phone, with caller ID you’ll know that it’s a business call coming through so you can get to a quiet place and take the call. Or, you can let the caller go to a professional voicemail recording for your business.

How helpful is a virtual phone number?

I have like 5 of them. That said, eVoice is now giving away 6 month free trials. I have honestly never seen an opportunity like this. I’ve seen free 14 day trials, and free 30 day trials, but free 6 month trials? Never.

If you think this might be a good tool for your business click the banner below to get the offer.

When it comes to marketing online, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, AOL, and others don’t care where you business is, how many employees you have, what your tax return was last year, or what you wear to “the office”, which for many businesses is little more than a leisurely stroll past the refrigerator for a cold drink then on to a laptop at the kitchen table. The job of the search engines is to deliver relevant information to those searching for it.

The real online marketing magic happens when you learn how to make your business the source of information that people are searching for.

Let’s go through a real life example. Suppose you have a small boutique in Hawaii on the North Shore of the island of Oahu that sells a variety of products. Where would you start marketing online? Well, first of all, with some research you learn that every month there are about 1,000 people around the world searching online for the exact phrase “gifts of Hawaii”. Next, you make some changes to your website so that it comes up at the top of Google when people search for “gifts of Hawaii”. Then, if your website is built to sell, you’ve tapped into a steady stream of customers.

This is a perfect example because the average business owner would not think that “gifts of Hawaii” is what people are actually searching for. Well, they are. And when that little Hawaiian boutique owner’s business starts showing up on the Google search engine when people search for “gifts of Hawaii”, the sales are poised to go up.

And for all those Hawaiian boutique owners that read my blog, “You’re welcome”. Happy marketing!

Here’s what Linda emailed me today, “Hi Nate: Thanks so much for the referral to Vistaprint. We just received our first order and they’re exactly the same as we’ve been ordering from our prior supplier – but at almost 25% of the price. Wow, that’s 75% off!!! We do a full bleed, glossy business card and are so sold on Vista Print that we’re now excited about having them print other marketing materials. – Linda”

We’ll here’s the unreal deal like I said, a FREE one!

Why would Vistaprint give away free customized business cards? It must be a trick right?

Nope. There’s no trick. You don’t have to order anything else. Just get your free cards. Vistaprint knows their cards are so good that, when the give away a free stack of them to business owners like Linda at Aloha Kine, they are confident that the business owner is going to be a new client for life. Was it worth giving away a free stack of cards? Absolutely.

I found the banner below and put it in this blog post so you can get your free cards.

Give ‘em a shot, it’s free.
On a side note, I honestly don’t know how long this offer is going to last but if the banner is still down there, click it and jump on the offer before Vistaprint takes it down. . . here it is ↓↓↓↓

So, the thought quickly permeates the entrepreneur and small business world that websites cost SO much money. Well, if your website isn’t making you sales, it could actually be costing you much more than you even paid to get it built in the first place. The real question is, “How much money is your website costing you?”

Let’s look at  a fictitious scenario that may be all too real for some of you. You may never look at your own website the same way again. Read at your own risk.

Kip the Carpet Cleaner – Kip owns a new small carpet cleaning business. In fact, he bought the best carpet cleaning equipment there was to offer. At first he operated off of word of mouth referrals and did a darn good job. However, after he had cleaned all of his friends and family’s carpets, his well of business leads was almost dried up. So, he decided to look into getting website. His brother-in-law once built a little website for his son’s karate team, and said he’d do it for him cheap. Cheap is what Kip wanted. After all a good businessman gets things cheap right? So, he pays his brother-in-law a couple hundred bucks, and gets his website . . . 4 months later. While he was waiting for his site, Kip had to get a part-time job at the grocery store to make ends meet. Hey, that’s okay, we have to do what we can while we’re building our businesses, right? When he finally got the site, it was nothing special, and looked like those free ones you get with some hosting plans. In fact, it might have been just that, but Kip couldn’t tell, but he paid for it. Well, when Kip got his website, nothing changed. The site was boring, it wasn’t search engine optimized so nobody ever found his business online, and those who he gave his business card to, with his web address on it, went to his website and quickly left, not impressed by his online business-front. Kip kept working at the grocery store and still has some nice carpet cleaning machines out in his shed.

Randy the Rug Magician – Randy also started a carpet cleaning business. Although his equipment wasn’t best money could buy, it was good enough for the average carpet, and he would respectfully decline jobs that he knew he couldn’t handle. Randy had decided to invest his money into a marketing plan that included a professional website that cost him 4x what Kip paid for his. Randy’s plan was to focus on marketing so that he could get a steady stream of customers that would help him pay for the top of the line equipment he desired. So, while Kip was waiting on his brother-in-law to do his website for 4 months, Randy got his professional website in 2 weeks, and started marketing it online immediately. His website was professional, search engine optimized, and built to convert visitors into customers. In fact, when you went online to Google.com and searched for “AnyTownUsa carpet cleaning”, his website came up on the first page of the results. When potential customers went browsing for the right company, Randy’s professional website told his clients that he really knew his stuff and would do a great job. The result, Randy had steady flow of business from his investment in a quality website that was search engine optimized and built to convert visitors into buyers. He quickly was able to upgrade his carpet cleaning machines, and then franchised his operation to neighboring towns.

What does, Kip’s website cost him? Well, it cost him his business.
What does Randy’s website cost him? Absolutely nothing. It’s a money-making lead-generating asset.

What is your website costing you?

Ready to make a change? I can help. Visit my company website here.

You wouldn’t believe how many turn-key websites are lying around just waiting to be marketed online. Why don’t I market them myself? I simply don’t have the time. My attention right now is on my private marketing  and web design clients, and I don’t have time to market other websites. So, rather than letting them collect dust, if you want them, they’re yours. And I’m selling them off cheap!

How can learn what they are and get one?

You have to be on my Entrepreneur Hot List!

Last year, I launched the Entrepreneur Hot List and registration was open for only about a week before I closed it. It’s an exclusive list and has been closed ever since, until today!

Today I am opening up registration for the Entrepreneur Hot List, and for a limited time membership is FREE for my blog readers and those subscribed to my newsletter.

How can you join?

Go to www.entrepreneurhotlist.com.

If registration is still open and FREE, you’ll be able to sign up right there and get on the list.

Now, I have to get back to packing up these businesses for you!

Peace. . . I’m back to work.

We’ve been growing an email list for about a week now and the results have been fantastic. We’re now moving into the next stage of the pre-launch and expect his list to continue to grow in the coming weeks. For those interested, here’s the squeeze page we built that is pulling about a 50% opt-in rate!

That’s right! Almost 50%…. a full 1/2 of all visitors are opting in to the page! How? And extremely targeted launch with a intricately crafted squeeze page.

We started the pre-launch about a week ago at midnight, and by 8:30 in the morning I got a call from Scott, in awe with the response we got in such a short period of time. He sent me an email that said, “Is this for real!?” I replied, “Yes, it’s for real. . . and we’re just getting started.”

Is a 50% opt-in rate possible? Yes! I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the campaign. And for those who want to see the squeeze page, go to www.racehawaiistandup.com/powerglider.

Here’s the proof. The /powerglider/ page is the squeeze page. The only way to get to the preview page is to enter your name and email address and opt-in. Notice 444 views of the squeeze page and 213 views of the preview page. Almost 50%. . . Sweet!!! And the numbers are excellent for the niche market we’re targeting after the first phase of online marketing. I just rolled out phase 2 today, and we have about 5 more pushes before the pre-launch is completely on autopilot.

Here’s a letter I recently received from Scott of Race Hawaii. . .

“If you have a product that needs to be introduced or brought to the market, and your website brought to the forefront of the search engines, I’d like to recommend Nate Burgoyne or Integrity Online Marketing.

I am aware a lot of people are good at web design and are capable in this generation of electronic expertise. Nate not only stands head and shoulders above computer literate web mastering and design competitors, but brings a special talent with the written word to describe and capture the essence of the product.

This has proven invaluable for me in making a new patent pending product known.

Nate and his business relationships fire on all cylinders because he is smart, he listens, and then he creates what is needed.”
Scott Bucknell
RACE HAWAII

In the past years, John’s pest control business leads were generated mostly through door knocking, yellow page ads, etc. . . Lead generation was extremely labor intensive and actually expensive. In fact, it was costing him about $100 per lead to knock doors.

Well, things have changed. No too long ago, John updated his website and got it search engine optimized. Now he’s on the front page of Google for search terms like “honolulu pest control” and “oahu pest control”.

Now, he gets leads automatically coming to his email box without knocking one single door and business has never been better.

He was telling me how businesses don’t see the picture of what a quality search engine optimized website can do for  a company. Now, I didn’t build his website, but I did look through the html code for it, and it looks like he’s doing things right.

And the great thing is, once the website is online, most internet marketing is free. No more yellow page ads, no more ads in the newspaper, no more flyers and door knocking, and no more cold calling. It’s an automatic lead generating machine that, if done right, can easily return your investment 10 fold.

I couldn’t let the blog post go without a plug and a nice link back to his website. Right now he’s #4 in Google for “Honolulu Pest Control” and I know he’s going for #1 so here’s a sweet link for you: Honolulu Pest Control.

If you are a business owner or entrepreneur and you’re ready to upgrade your website or take your business online let me know, and I’ll make sure you get a killer discount from my Honolulu web design company Integrity Online Marketing.

One of the points that we discussed in the workshop is how social media is a set of tools and not necessarily the silver bullet for success. The print media is now printing stories quite regularly about how businesses have been able to achieve great results with services like Twitter. Now, does that mean that as soon as you open up a Twitter profile for you or your business, you are going to experience immediate results? That depends on how you use this set of tools we call social media or social networking.

Online social networking is, in my opinion, like a drawer full of tools in your marketing toolbox. Is it the silver bullet for success online? No. However, it is definitely part of the black powder that fires the silver bullet of marketing. And, if you’re missing some of the black powder from your bullet, it’s not going to reach as far as you need it to.

For an aggressive online presence, social media is essential. It builds relationships and trust with an audience that has sought you out because of the information you are sharing. If you haven’t already done so, I strongly encourage everyone to take a closer look at how social media can boost your business.

For those who are interested in private consultation on about how social media could help your business or cause, shoot me an email at info@nateburgoyne.com or call me at (808) 753-3759 to set up a phone or in-person appointment. ~ Much Aloha.

I recently got my hands on The Secret Weapon and am going to tell you the secret in this video for free. If you want to make sure your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn updates, emails, and classified ads such as Craigslist stand out from the never-ending sea of tweets, updates, and emails that your clients are receiving on a daily basis, you need The Secret Weapon.

I have the rights to share the secret with you and it’s yours for the taking. I’m not sure how long the video will be up there but, as of today, it’s there for you. Enjoy the video and have fun with The Secret Weapon.

Here’s the link: http://www.nateburgoyne.com/secretweapon