In the last post I told you how to find your Most Important Number.
Basically, this is the number of sales per month you need to generate with your “bread and butter” product to get you where you want to be financially.
Example: Windows is your main product. You’re selling eight window projects per month. So your Most Important Number might be 25 jobs per month.
Today, we’ll determine how to get the money to create the marketing budget to get to your Most Important Number and where to spend the money.
Because, let’s face it: It’s easy to say that if you were doing 25 window projects per month for $8,000 per job (and $4,000 gross profit), that you’d allot 15% of sales ($1,200 per sale) to marketing.
But when you realize that would require a monthly marketing budget of $30,000—over $20,000 more than what you’re currently spending—you automatically think, “How the heck do I get there?!”
Short answer: Patience.
Here’s what you do…
- Determine how much you’re ALREADY spending on marketing to get those eight sales.
- If eight sales mean $64,000 in revenue, then let’s say you’re already spending 15% of that, or $9,600. (Note: If you think 15% is too high, fine. Use your own numbers.)
- That means you need to generate an extra $20,400 in your marketing budget.
- Next, figure out how much extra money you can afford to spend RIGHT NOW on a monthly basis—taking cash flow into consideration—even if the extra money doesn’t produce an instant ROI. Some faith will be required here.
- This is where you need to be patient: I’m asking you to spend money right now you might otherwise put elsewhere—like your pockets.
- Invest that amount in aggressive marketing tactics likely to yield the most immediate returns: canvassing, PPC, guerilla marketing, past customer marketing, home shows, and direct response advertising.
- The goal here is not necessarily to make your IDEAL return-on-investment (15% marketing-to-sales in the example), though it’d be nice. The idea is to make back enough cash to pay for the advertising, THEN invest the lion’s share of the incremental revenue on your marketing budget. For example:
- You determine you can afford to spend an EXTRA $5,000 a month on advertising on highly aggressive tactics, per above.
- The first month you get two extra sales for a total of $16,000 ($8,000 of gross profit)
- This means you made BACK your $5,000, PLUS an extra $3,000
- Your accountant will tell you that’s terrible and to stop it. But don’t. Instead, double down.
- Allocate 75% of the extra money to marketing, and 25% to overhead.
- This gives you an EXTRA $2,250 in marketing budget ON TOP of the $5,000 you already committed to. The total extra marketing budget is now $7,250 for month 2.
- Note: If the extra money you spent does NOT bring in enough extra sales to cover its cost, continue to invest that minimum amount each month until you find something that DOES work. Remember, this is an amount you said you could weather.
- Repeat this cycle, BUT spend 50% to 80% of every incremental marketing dollar on LONG-TERM ADVERTISING, not the ultra-aggressive stuff. I’m talking about methods like TV, radio, and direct mail campaigns designed to nurture prospects over a period of time. Essentially, you’re nurturing your 2015, 2016 and 2017 customers RIGHT NOW.
- This is how the big get big—they INVEST in advertising (Amazon, for example)… and how the small stay small—they DON’T.
- Keep doing this until you get to the $20,400 in extra budget you decided you would need to hit your goal of 25 sales. (Adjust for your own numbers.)
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IMPORTANT: Continue to spend the extra $20,400 a month in marketing, EVEN if you are only breaking even on it.
The long-term nurturing advertising, by definition, is going to take a while to really start working. People need to see and hear your ads over an extended period of time so they come to know who you are, what you stand for, and have confidence you can perform.Over time, you will see your monthly sales climb, while your advertising budget stays static. Eventually—12 to 36 months, you will hit your Most Important Number. And you’ll hit it with a marketing budget that’s acceptable—15% or less.
The key is to be willing to invest in the future of your business right now in a smart, responsible way. It takes a little faith and patience. But tough it out, and you’ll soon find yourself exactly where you want to be financially.
Trust me!
The quick answer: Yes. You should consider upgrading your website to have an SSL certificate.
The not-so-quick-but-very-detailed-answer:
The Digital Services Team is always looking for opportunities to improve our offering to clients. For Search Engine Optimization (SEO), this includes staying on top of Google’s latest ranking factors and determining the best way of implementing those strategies into our clients’ SEO campaigns.
A few months ago, you might remember that one of our clients was suspiciously contacted by a potential phishing scam masked as a legitimate company. This made our already sensitive spidey-senses tingle and we knew we had to take the next step in protecting our clients (you!) as well as your potential customers.
That said, MYM will be upgrading all of our client’s sites that we host to include an SSL Certificate.
Why we’ve decided to do this:
- We highly value the security of our clients
- This is a move that can help your SEO Rankings
Wondering what the heck SSL is? You’re not alone. We’ve done our best to answer the questions that you might have below.
What is SSL?
An SSL (short for Secure Sockets Layer), is the most globally used form of internet security. It takes care of securing and encrypting personal information that is sent on a website, keeping consumers safe when doing business or submitting their personal information on a website.
Why do I need my site to be SSL?
The majority of our remodeling and contractor clients don’t do much in the realm of e-commerce or collecting credit card information directly from their website. However, 99.9999% of our clients do collect personal information on their lead forms. (Name, Address, Telephone Numbers…etc.) This is all personal and confidential information that put in the wrong hands (Phishers!) can cause a lot of damage.
Google knows what the Phishers are doing. They hate it.
SSL gives your website an extra level of consumer protection and shows your potential customers that you care about their security.
What does this mean for me?
If MYM hosts your website, then this means that we are offering you the option to upgrade your site’s security to SSL at a reduced cost.
If MYM does NOT host your website, we suggest you check with your website host to see what your options are for upgrading your website to an SSL. You can feel free to give me a call, and I can help you get in touch with the right people at your hosting company.
Why didn’t you make this change sooner?
Although, it has come up in many of our meetings and is almost always on our Quarterly SEO Review agenda, we honestly didn’t see the need to make this upgrade up until now.
One of the things that goes along with the SEO world is filtering out the noise. In a world where everyone is a “guru” “expert” or “enthusiast” about SEO, it’s hard to know who to trust and what to believe.
We do our best to mute the noise and only bring you things that will help you grow.
It’s our job to figure out what strategies are best, test them out, and then pass the ones that are valuable onto our clients. We put the others on the back burner until it makes the most sense to implement them.
SSL is being brought up from the back burner. It’s time.
Is this upgrade optional?
As of right now, upgrading your website to an SSL is optional. However, it’s only a matter of time before it’s required and Google starts penalizing sites for not having an SSL certificate. We highly recommend that you make the transition to an SSL website as soon as possible.
What happens if I decide not to upgrade my website to an SSL? // Will not upgrading negatively affect my SEO?
Not getting an SSL Certificate will not negatively impact your SEO – that is, you won’t be at risk for a manual penalty. Yet.
However, it also won’t help your SEO. Google has been saying for quite some time that they use SSL as a ranking factor for Search Engine Optimization.
Here’s what Google had to say back in 2014 about SSL as a ranking factor:
For now [SSL is] only a very lightweight signal — affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high quality content— while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.
“Lightweight Signal” back in 2014… and it’s only gotten stronger over the past 2 years where online commerce has become so commonplace.
How will this affect my ranking / how quickly will I see results?
Google openly admits that they rank sites higher who have an SSL Certificate.
As far as how quickly you’ll see results – within a few days.
The immediate results you’ll see are:
– a change to the beginning of your web address. It will go from ‘http’ to ‘https’. The ‘s’ is for ‘secure’
– a lock icon will show up next to your web address in the search bar
The results you’ll see over time are:
– an increase of your SEO Ranking
– an increase of your click through rate (CTR). When searchers see that your website is secure, they’re more likely to click on your website over an unsecured one.
Will I experience any website downtime?
Nope! We’ve already tested this on our own website and we experienced zero downtime.
How much will this upgrade cost?
If you are on a premium SEO plan with Monopolize Your Marketplace, we will be absorbing the cost of this for you by exchanging 1-2 pieces of content in your monthly SEO Package.
If you are getting the basic level of SEO that is included with your bundle package with MYM, we will still offer you the discounted price, but we will not be able to substitute content to cover the fee.
Why? In order to cover the fee for obtaining the SSL Certificate, we’d have to eliminate 100% of your content for 3 months. This would be detrimental to your SEO, and you will see negative ranking results from this.
We only do SEO that works. This strategy would not work.
If you are one of our bundle SEO clients and want to upgrade, give us a call. We’ll get you taken care of.
Why do I have to pay for this upgrade? Shouldn’t MYM cover this fee?
We wish upgrading was free.
Every single hosting site charges for an SSL upgrade. We did negotiate a lower price for our clients and we’re happy to be able to pass that savings down to you.
In a day in age where internet security is on the top of consumers’ priority lists when browsing the web, Google has made it all but required that you have an SSL Certificate on your site. As of right now, this is optional. However, it’s only a matter of time before it’s required.
If you have any other questions about upgrading your website to an SSL, or any aspect of SEO, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re always here.
We are thrilled to be able to continue to help you grow your business.
Lighten Up And Have Some Fun In Your Business.
It Might Just Make You A Fortune.
By Rich Harshaw
“What’s in the box?”
That’s what the machine-gun toting border patrol agent demanded to know as he inspected the contents of my friend David’s trunk. He had accidentally left the case of fancy cigarette lighters in there; he had been giving them away as gifts to customers, and simply forgot to take them out before driving into Reynosa, Mexico to visit his manufacturing facility.
“Cigarette lighters,” David responded as casually as possible.
He had crossed this border hundreds of times, and knew a non-subtle bribe request was forthcoming. Instead of waiting, he suggested a demonstration:
“These are special lighters,” David offered, as he plucked a box from the case and handed it to the agent. “The flame on them is huge—like ten or twelve inches high. Go ahead, try it.”
The border patrol agent let his weapon rest on the shoulder strap as he grabbed the box from David, opened it and poured out the silver lighter into his right hand, eyed it momentarily, then flicked it with thumb.
Suddenly, without warning, the border patrol agent screamed out in pain, slammed the lighter on the ground, and looked bug-eyed at David, wondering what had just happened.
The gringo, it turns out, had just punked him.
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Learn About Tom Peters, The Man Who Rants, Raves, And Screams
About Treating Customers & Employees Right. I Mean RIGHT!
Written by Rich Harshaw.
The first time I ever saw or heard of Tom Peters, it was a mind-blowing experience.
I was a senior at BYU’s Marriott School of Management in 1993, and life was hectic.Then move on to bigger, more important things as you become a practiced “change artist.” My wife was six months pregnant, I was trying to start my company exporting motor oil and food products to Taiwan (long story), and I was taking some random and unmemorable class that was necessary to finish my degree. I regularly fell asleep in class because it was either boring or I had been up at the crack of dawn sending or receiving faxes all over the world.
The teacher announced we’d be watching a video and dimmed the lights. Perfect. I’d be able to sleep without anyone noticing and without missing anything important.
Then some guy came on the screen and started ranting and screaming. He got so worked up in the first ten seconds I thought he was going to have a heart attack and die right there on screen. Take a look:
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