Scott Smeester

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Homepage: http://www.Smeester.com


Posts by Scott Smeester

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Why Would You Write the Proposal?

Requests for Proposals (RFP’s) Are Really Appeals for Free Shot In The Dark Planning

Proposal Writing Frustration

“They want free consulting.”

“Oh boy… a RFP!  I get to do a lot of research and consulting for free, with very little chance of winning the deal!!”  Is this not the thought that really comes to your mind when an RFP comes to you?  After reading the RFP you come away with tons of questions because the whole project seems very vague.  It is because the prospect, 9 times out of 10, doesn’t know what they really need (wants are not the same as needs).

The prospect will pick the proposal that most closely matches the prospect’s “needs”, correct? Well then, why would they want a proposed solution that isn’t in complete alignment with their company’s goals and objectives? With an RFP, that is what they are going to get.

When I have a prospect that asks for proposals, the most helpful thing I can do is to help them understand that they most likely have not done enough planning because if the plan was solid enough, the only thing left to do is to find the people to implement.  And of course, implementation is really the easy part and the costs go way down when you are very specific in the work that needs to be done.

So to get out of doing proposals (that I won’t win), and to position myself as a trusted advisor in the eyes of the prospect, I attempt to get the prospect to back off of the RFP and consider hiring somebody (me) to do a strategic planning process with them (yes, a proposal – but one that is in complete alignment with their overall goals and objectives).  However, it’s something that you get paid to do, allows you to get in the door with a small project, and is a way for you to truly bond with the client and get to know them and their business extremely well.

Unless you have a small team of elves that come out at night and write proposals for you, don’t do them.

A Couple Rules of Thumb

Continually Develop Valuable ’Internet Real Estate’

‘Internet real estate’, as an asset, is the combined volume and value of your stuff out there in the vast reaches of the Internet.  It attracts eyeballs that have interests. Create value to your market, and sustainable volume.  Value builds trust and referrals.  Volume will help with search engines and inbound links.

Create Some Type of Plan

There are so many methodologies, and some forethought is valuable.  Stephen Covey says “Begin with the end in mind”.  Let’s take everything into consideration and really define success.  Sound fair?

Test, Track, Measure and Refine

Your message should continually tell your audience that they don’t, and shouldn’t, have to put up with their pain. The message will need to continually be refined to determine what really strikes a chord with your audience.

Continually Develop Brand Equity

Brand equity, as a business asset, is very important because advertising is not decreasing in cost.  And the noise makes it harder to be heard, right?  Solid brand equity provides a lot business opportunities.

Get the Right People to See You

Creating awareness is done many ways, and often depends on whether your market has pain that keeps them up at night or not.  If they continually think about their problem, they are most likely searching for solutions. In this case it is easy to get traffic.  If not, then you have to get more creative to get eyeballs to your site.

Stay In Touch with Important People

Making a sale for the first time is great. Making a sale over and over is the key.  Design and implement your technology around staying in touch with your customers with a personal touch (contests, specials, humor, etc.)

What works well, for me…

  • Symbiotic relationships
  • Leveraging my engineering thought process for business development
  • Creating consistent and reliable revenue streams
  • Working with startups and small and emerging growth companies
  • Business relationships where risk is shared… as well as profits
  • Defining the problem truthfully
  • Creativity for solving problems and completing my work
  • Explosive growth environments
  • Visionaries
  • Knowing other elephant hunters (metaphorically speaking)

Why Your Website May Not Be Viewable In China

Our website is a brochure website that is meant to be viewable in China. This vid-log is what I learned and how I overcame the challenges I had of deploying and viewing a site meant to be seen in China. Hope it helps somebody :-)

Increase Trust on Website to Increase Sales

Today commences a project to overhaul long time client Planet Urine’s website with updated look and feel and new technology. The website is about 8 years old and built with old Cold Fusion (moving to ASP.net). It’s complicated because with such a long history, hundreds of pages have been indexed with search engines and/or have been bookmarked and we do not want to lose that “internet real estate” so I will have to methodically inventory all pages and properly redirect. Initial tests on new look and feel of recent landing pages we’ve been testing (http://www.planeturine.com/2010/Ask-a-Pet-Behaviorist.aspx) has shown increase of conversion rates of 400% or more.

Preview Default Page for Hire-Sales-Stars.com

Case Study: Combining a Landing Page and Lead Capture Form

How much can the conversion rate and word of mouth marketing be increased with a more streamlined road to value?

Preview Default Page for Hire-Sales-Stars.com

The previous landing page didn't do much to tell the visitor what they could get.

I did not like the previous lead capture process for my website for Hire Sales Stars, and I didn’t think they were very effective either, mainly because it didn’t have much of a purpose, nor did it provide a way for visitors to reach something of value.  It did a fine job of telling the visitor what the site was about, and even gave some great benefits of why this site/company is great, but not much else.  I did these pages to get something up in the way of a conversion form, so I did not expect much.

The landing page had a short video of me encouraging the visitor to click the “Get Started for Free” button to move to the next page – the lead capture page. The whole video bothered me; I suspected it turned people off because I’m somewhat higher than the camera and I’ve been told my body language is too bold – an overall intimidating stance.

Hire-Sales-Stars.com Previous Lead Capture Page

The previous landing page funneled to a lead capture page

The lead capture page had a nice quote on it, as well as a form that asks only for your first name and email, but that’s it. Nowhere in the process did it say what somebody would get – i.e. why they would want to fill it out, what value they would get, etc.

Granted, the site does not get a whole lot of traffic right now (10 to 15 clicks per day), which is why I also wanted to improve the funnel – to provide much more value - so that perhaps it could get more viral traffic (word of mouth).  So I decided to make a free tutorial video available that really would help the a visitor who has problems that this site could help.

New Lead Capture Page for Hire-Sales-Stars.com

Revised lead capture/landing page.

Now, the new landing page and lead capture page has been combined into one page and is now the current home page.

No video and only one simple step. Will it work?  I have no idea! What do you think? Do you think that the revised page makes more sense?  Do you see what you get?