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.

What would you pay for a list like that?

You can get one for FREE. How?

I’ll give you 3 words: AWeber, Facebook, Twitter

More at my workshop on Wed, Feb 17th 5:30-7:30pm in Honolulu, HI.
Get info and register online here.

Social Media can be a powerful tool in your marketing bag of tricks, and it’s FREE! What is social media?  Think of yourself sitting at a little table in a café sipping a hot chocolate with . . . hundreds of millions of people! What would you say? How would you say it? How would you get people to listen to you?

In this workshop you will learn the basics of how to use Facebook and Twitter and how to use them to promote your business. This is not an advanced social media workshop.

In this workshop I will start at ground zero with the basics of using Facebook and Twitter, and then demonstrate how to use it to grow your business. You will learn the essential fundamentals of social media for your business.

Here are some of the questions you will get answered:

What is social media, Twitter, and Facebook? *How much time does it take to use social media?

Can I automate my social media marketing? *What privacy issues are there with social networking?

How can I brand my Twitter background for my business? *Can I advertise on Facebook and Twitter?

How can I find customers using Twitter and Facebook? *How do you share photos on Twitter? What are the demographics of most social media users? What’s the difference between a Facebook Group and Fan Page? How do I create a Facebook page for my business?

I am going to pack in as much as possible in two hours! Come learn the lingo and the how-to of promoting your business through social media.

This workshop has been on our most wanted list for months, so please register early.  If there are specific questions you want to make sure get answered at the workshop,  go to www.nateburgoyne.com/hwbcmedia and let me know.

I invite you to come early to network with other business owners and entrepreneurs, and to get your website and online marketing questions answered. Check in begins at 5:00 PM and the workshop begins at 5:30 PM.

Register today online at  hwbc.org.

If online registration is still open, there are still seats available. Get yours quick. We anticipate this workshop to sell out early.

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.

Most entrepreneurs and small business owners quickly come to the realization that they need to a website. Here’s how the process goes. And, hey, I’ve been through this cycle myself so if this describes you, I’ve been there myself.

I love stories! Let’s take an entrepreneur named Jane, and follow her through her search for an aggressive online presence. Jane is an accountant with her own small business and has decided she needs a website.

First, Jane goes to all the do-it-yourself website creation companies out there where you pay anywhere from $10-$60 per month to create a website for your company with pre-built templates. She signs up for an account and starts shuffling through the templates, and picks out nice one with a blue background and a picture of an office building at the top of the page. It doesn’t really represent her business and she can’t put her logo on the page but she feels it’s good enough.

Jane spends all of her spare time for the next week and a half trying to learn how the template builder works and trying to get her website to look just how she wants it. On day 10, she’s run out of patience and decides to leave it how it is and hope for the best. She’s a little hesitant to send prospects to the site because it’s kind of home-made looking and doesn’t really represent her business but she does it anyway.

After a couple weeks, Jane’s business has been stagnant, and she’s thinking it’s because she’s sending her prospects to a cookie cutter website that looks like everyone else’s home-made cookie cutter website. So, she starts to look at other do-it-yourself website creation companies to see if there are better templates out there. . . maybe the $19/month company has better templates than the $10/month company. So, she makes the switch. . . and goes through the same cycle of choosing, learning how it works, and trying to customize it with no results.

It’s at this point that Jane starts thinking that maybe she should look into getting a custom site done. So she talks to some web designers and asks the question, “What web design software do you use?”. Well, from her previous two experiences with building websites, Jane thinks that professional web design software will build her a professional website.

So, Jane buys the same web design software that the pros use. It’s kind of expensive but she figures it’ll be worth it. Well, after downloading the software for 4 hours, she installs in on her computer. Then, after opening up the software, her face goes white as she quickly realizes that the software is not going to build the site for her. In fact, it occurs to her that asking a web designer what software he or she uses is like asking a car mechanic what tools he uses, buying them, and hoping the tools will fix the car for her.

Now, she has decision to make. Does she spend the next couple months learning how to use the software and basically learn to be a web designer while her accounting business suffers? Or, does she hire someone to just build a professional site for her?

Jane goes on Craigslist, asks friends, and family members, and starts looking for the cheapest web designer she can find. After all, she just spent all her money trying the home-made site services, and buying the expensive web design software, plus her business has been suffering from the time she’s been taking to sort out the website. So she finds the discount web guy who says he’ll do her site for $199 and make it perfect. Well, unknown to Jane, the $199 web guy is a college student that build his brother-in-law a website for his tree cutting service once and that’s about it. So the cheap web guy builds Jane a site that looks almost as good as the do-it-yourself website she had build herself months ago. She bites the bullet and pays the guy.

Well, now she’s back where she started. She now has a homemade looking website, expensive software she’ll never use, a dragging business that she hasn’t been giving proper attention to, and a big fat headache. Now, Jane has a decision to make. Should she hire a trusted professional to build her site exactly how she envisions it or keep her “new” website that looks like it was built in 1992?

As humorous as it may seem, believe it or not, this is a very real and very common scenario my friends.

Had Jane, simply hired the right person to build her site from the beginning, she probably would have had her site live online in about a week with no problems. She would have saved about $1700 on website creation software, do-it-yourself trials, and bottles of ibuprofen. And who know how much money she lost by minding her website instead of her business. Had she hired the right person, her site would have been clean and professional right from the start and she would have been able to confidently send her prospective clients to her website for information.

Wow! What an adventure!

So the moral of the story is. . . before you launch a new website or get an old one upgraded, talk it over with a professional web designer that you can trust. A good web designer will be able to take care of your needs a let you know know what your best options are within your budget regardless of whether or not he or she gets your business.

I know, I know. . . you still want to know what web design software I use don’t you?

Well here it is:

And, of course, there’s no way I could end this post without a plug for my web design and SEO company: Integrity Online Marketing – a Honolulu web design company

Peace.

However, I think we all may be forgetting that face-to-face networking is still an important part of lead generating. This morning I was invited to attend a business networking group here locally and I’m excited to be part of it. I met some great like-minded business owners and entrepreneurs that are willing to work together to grow each other’s businesses.

There something special about meeting people in person, especially when you see the same people at different venues and different networking events. You remember their smiles and personalities.

One of the greatest things about being small business owners and entrepreneurs is that, in most cases, we are able to choose who we do business with. In fact, for me, when I meet a new potential business contact and start get to know him or her, I’m really trying to make the decision of whether this person and I will be able to connect and work effectively together toward a common goal.

While, all of this trust can certainly be developed online over several weeks of Facebook updates, the same connection can take place in about 30 seconds or less in a face-to-face meeting.

Happy networking both online and off!

We’re finalizing the date for next month’s workshop on a topic which I’m really excited about because I know it’ll make difference in your business. Check back soon for date and topic announcement.

Keep in touch everyone. If you haven’t already joined my newsletter be sure to do so, also you’re all invited to connect to me through LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Have a great day everyone! Keep in touch. Aloha.

I had a feeling I could do better than a mere 25% off!

So, I decided to check out what kind of discount my Vistaprint affiliate banner would get me on my order. I clicked the banner on my blog homepage here at www.nateburgoyne.com and here’s what happened to my order: My order that was supposed to total $175.45 was cut to just $68.44 including FREE Shipping!

Unreal! Anyway, if you’re looking to order business cards, magnetic signs, or other promotional items for your business, and want to get them cheap, be sure to use the Vistaprint affiliate banner on my homepage or at the end of this blog post.

You won’t get these steep discounts by going straight to the site. To get them, you have to click on the banner on my homepage or at the end of this blog post. On a side note, these offers are continually changing so if you’ll be due for new cards in the future, now is a great time to stock up. I am.

On November 12 th from 5:30-7:30pm I’ll be teaching for 2 hours a workshop entitled, “Underground Strategies That Will Instantly Monetize Any Blog or Website”.

Registration is open to everyone!

If you have been to any of my  previous workshops, this is where the rubber meets the road! I’ll be showing how you can seamlessly monetize any blog, website, Facebook, or Twitter account. I’ll show you how you can get Fortune 500 companies like Oakley, Priceline, and Amazon to sponsor your blog or website and direct deposit money in your bank account.

BONUS: I have also promised to show you how you can get internet marketers around the world to market your product or service for you!

If you have any pre-workshop questions, feel free to shoot an email at info@nateburgoyne.com.

For additional information, visit my speaking schedule page or visit www.hwbc.org.

Click here to register online or call (808) 526-1001

I bought a package of leak-proof sippy-cups for my toddler the other day. You know, those cups for kids with the tops on them so that if they get knocked over or get dropped in the car, nothing leaks out. Yep, those are the ones. In the package there was this little fold out paper with instructions/disclaimer that this has me laughing. Here it is, “Cups should be kept upright to ensure 100% spill-proof performance.” Ha!