In this episode of Ben’s Business Podcast I shared the importance of collecting and telling stories of transformation to display on your website / marketing.

These videos will be proof of real people talking about your product or service to give prospects the confidence that you have the authority and ability to help them.

Social proof such as video testimonials is also a great way to promote your business without bragging so much that you step into the role of the hero rather than the guide.

Also covered in this video:

1) The Challenge Of Getting Good Testimonials:
– Why text testimonials can’t ever build the same amount of trust that video testimonials can.
– Unless guided, our customers don’t know what to talk about and end up not telling a story of transformation and about the specific results.
– Not all your customers can articulate or communicate like a world class marketer or salesman to help sell your products.
– The last challenge is that most of our customers are too busy to take time out and give us a testimonial.

2) Asking The Right Questions:
– I share some of the key questions we should be asking to get the best response for a testimonial video.
– Do a Q and A interview with happy customers using this list of thought out questions.

3) Using these stories of Transformation To Sell For You:
– Adding video link in a sales email with quotations.
– Embed at least 3 of these video testimonials on your website.
– Include these video testimonials on your sales presentations.

In Ben’s Business Podcast episode #36 I do a mini book review and share one of my key takeaways from the New York Times Best Selling business book “Building a Story Brand” by Donald Miller.

The key takeaway was focusing on the importance of having an obvious Call To Action (CTA) on your website.

Covering:
1) What is a call to action?
– Asking someone to take an action.
– Direct Vs Transitional calls to action.

2) Stop Hiding your Buy Now Button
– Noise on your site kills sales.
– Call to action buttons need to stand out.
– “People don’t read websites, they scan them”

3) Repetition of your Call To Actions 7x
– A person has read or hear something several times before they process information.

Learn how to grow the volume and quality of you network with interview based podcasts and Facebook Live interviews.

In this episode we cover:

– The benefits of starting your own podcast.

– Building deeper meaningful relationships online with interview based podcasts and Facebook Live.

– Why having a community of like-minded people is needed as an entrepreneur.

– How to surround yourself with people who pull you up.

In this one I, Ben Laing, was actually being interviewed by Patrick Long a videographer and entrepreneur on his live interview show “MR FATZ TV”.

In this episode of Ben’s Business Podcast I interviewed Dillon Mysliwiec on the topic of re-wiring your mind for success.

Topics covered:

– The lessons in this turn-around story of Dillon’s
– Breaking down the mindset and psychology behind losing so much weight(45lbs), getting out of $54,000 debt and progressing his lift in such a big way.
– The Ego and it’s uses
– Sub-conscious
– Auto-suggestion (from Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill).
– Habits
– Books, books, book
– and much more

I knew Dillon from being on a very similar personal development journey via books. We both stuck up the books we were reading on Instagram each week probably found each other through a #businessbook hashtag.

I found Dillon’s story so fascinating because it really sounds a lot like my own. Dillon hated having a boss and actually decided to do something about it. He started restructuring his life by studying, reading, taking courses and he eventually got paid-off at his job just at the time he was ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship and his first venture which is an digital marketing service.

Mr Motivation (Carl Konadu) was a great Facebook Live guest on Ben’s Business Podcast for episode #33.

This interview covered topics on mindset, the entrepreneurial journey, how to beat procrastination, personal development books, motivation, and going after what you really want in life.

1) Talk about your product/service in terms of who you’re talking to and WHAT THEY WANT (not what your selling)

Here’s an example of a sign I seen for a car garage: “AB Auto Repairs & Sales” I would suggest rather than using the word “sales” I would suggest the words “service” or “MOT” which are actually beneficial to the prospects who might be reading the sign.

2) 90% of the prospects decisions to buy is based on just 10% of features and benefits.
– Your job is to find out what one feature and benefit they are interested in.
– Once you have the answer and you know what the leading benefit is that the prospect seek. This is what Brian Tracy calls the “Hot Button” and you want to focus on the hot button throughout the rest of your sales presentation.
– The best way to find the Hot Button is to ask lots of questions upfront.

3) Market Research Exercise
– Call 10 customers right now and ask them:
– Question #1 “How is the service and can I help you with anything?”
– Question #2 “You could have bough this product/service from somewhere else. Tell me exactly why you decided to buy from us?”

These 2 questions are great customer service calls but usually result in making more sales because it puts you at the front of mind of the client when they need your product or services (sometimes they need what you have that moment you’re calling).
– Here’s some examples of feedback I got by asking my own customers these questions:

“I liked your cool confident approach. I could tell you knew what you were talking about. You were friendly, easy to talk to, we talked a lot (at least 3 meetings) and took a soft approach to the sale as you did not push the sale.”

First Point of Contact (first impressions) – BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST #31

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

1) Smart Consumer

“If you have to be a consumer, be a smart one.”

– Use local landline phone (01620…) number over mobile numbers. When I see a mobile number(077 42…) on a tradesperson’s van, it looks like a small, unprofessional, one-man band.

– Consumers who are paying for a service they can DIY, are always willing to pay more to professional looking companies that they trust in their ability to will get the job done efficiently.

2) Take Pride In Your Appearance

– Sales expert, Brian Tracy suggests we get a haircut to increase sales.

– Whether they should or shouldn’t, people in business make their initial judgement and later, buying decisions based on your appearance.

“Be the expert that looks like the expert.”

– A survey of 2,000 consumers on how the appearance of a tradesperson’s van can make a big impact on their purchase decisions.

– Make sure the vehicle you step out of in front of your prospect customers looks professional, clean and tidy.

– Don’t use emails such as jimthejoiner22@gmail.com or @hotmail.com, @talktalk.net etc.

3) Use phone call answering service.

– A case study of how we turned-around our client’s first point of contact from an unprofessional broken-up “HELLO” in a noisy van with a poor mobile signal, to a professionally answered 24/7 call centre receptionist.

– Our lead generation and marketing services.

You have control of the first impression, make it the right one.

Focus on the bigger picture(goals).

In this episode of Bens Business Podcast we cover:

1) The Definition of a Goal:
– “Focus on what excites you”.
– Definite Major Purposes
(Decide, go BIG and follow your inner-child dreams).

2) Clarity On Your Goals:
– Review goals 4x every day(keep them in your sub-conscience).
– Write your goals down day and night.
– “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” – Jim Rohn
– How to stay positive in a negative situation.

3) Call To Action:
– If you take anything away from this video I would like to make sure you start thinking of goals in terms of focusing on Definite Major Purpose (what excites you)

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

The Importance of Landing Pages – BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST #29

In this episode we covered:

– What is the meaning of a “Landing Page”?

– Sending all of your traffic to your website’s home page is a big mistake because it give the users too many options.

– A landing page has one clear focus / purpose.

– MWR (Most Wanted Responses)

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

In this episode I covered my thoughts on businesses that use social media for the sake of social media.

– How getting “LIKES” on Facebook has very little value.
– The primary aim of any internet marketing and business activity (especially for start-ups) should be about making sales.

– Wetherspoon ditching social media

– Aim for the smaller deeper group rather than the wider shorter group.

– Why building a Facebook group and community is so important.

– Human to human (H2H) relationships over business to business (B2B).

– Uploading customers and prospects email addresses to your targeting on Facebook Advertising. Which will make your ad appear directly on their Facebook news feed.

“If I took over marketing & sales I would produce 50 sec to 4 min videos for Facebook with the intent for sales and brand” – Gary Vaynerchuck

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

In this episode of Ben’s Business Podcast, Ben Laing interviews Kavit Haria Author of “Don’t Sleep On It” business book and Founder of ABS(Automated Business Systems).

BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST #27

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

In this episode of Ben’s Business Podcast, Ben Laing shares how to “write” your own book without writing and then how sell a book with a book funnels just like the most successful marketers of our time including: Grant Cardone(Millionaire booklet), Russell Brunson(Dot Com Secrets) and Lewis Howes(Millionaire Morning.

BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST #26

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

For Ben’s Business Podcast episode #25 we had special guest; George Swift on the show.

George and I met at Expert Empires, business conference in London a couple of weeks ago and with so many questions for him after his talk it just made sense to do an interview for the podcast.

Learn:
– How to add £100k to your business with masterminds and group coaching.
– How to build confidence
– How to be more courageous
– Where to start with group coaching
and much, much more…

For more information about George and his coaching visit:
biggerbrighterbolder.co.uk

Ben’s Business Book Club special offer to get George’s latest goal setting course at:
biggerbrighterbolder.co.uk/kickarsegoalsetting

Watch to the end to get Kick Arse Goal Setting for just £1.

Use Promo code: BENBUDDY

To learn more about Ben Laing and how to grow your business with SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) digital marketing visit: onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

In Ben’s Business Podcast episode 24 I shared some of my key takeaways from Grant Cardone’s talk who speaking at Expert Empires conference in London.

– People buy from you the way you spend.

– The flow and abundance of money.

– Set 10X Targets, Add more products or increase the prices and recycle the money back into this process by investing in yourself or your business.

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

The money is not in the website or the email list, the money is in the buyers list.

That list of customers who have already bought from you, your partner or even your supplier is 10X more valuable than your followers on social media.

Why advertise to people who never spend their money with you when you can advertise to paying clients who appreciate the value you bring to the marketplace.

Internet millionaires do not make their money directly from their website, they make their money from compiling an email list and turning that list of people into raving “paying” fans via email marketing.

The aim of this episode of Ben’s Business Podcast is to show you how to make real money from the internet with an email list.

To learn more on how to grow your business and get more sales online visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

Avoid ME Marketing, start using the word “you”, talk about what the customer wants and use the most basic laws of marketing called AIDA to first grab their attention, turn that attention into interest, create a desire and inspire them to take action to buy what it is you’re selling.

A = Attention
I = Interest
D = Desire
A = Action

In this podcast I explain how SEO (search engine optimisation) is not dead but how Google AdWords PPC advertising can help your organic search rankings to drive more traffic and sales to your website.

In this episode of BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST I share my belief and some facts on why online video is becoming more and more important for your online marketing and website.

You must have online video on your website in 2018 and beyond. If not it’s almost like having a living room without a TV, it’s boring and people will leave(click the BACK button).

People love online video just like the TV and if you don’t have video on your website your missing out.

According to an article from 2015 by The Guardian “One in three Britons view at least one online video a week – that’s a weekly audience of more than 20 million people in the UK alone.”
Source: www.theguardian.com/small-bus…

Now in 2018 WordStream are saying “More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.”
Source: www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/20…

Your website should be set up like a multimedia hub. A place for people to come and consume your content with a choice of how they want to consume it. For example:
– Video MP4 (Facebook, Instagram and YouTube Live)
– Audio MP3 (Podcasts)
– Written Text (Blog post articles)

If you’re convinced that video is important for your online marketing and website then how do we start creating videos for our business?

1) Write down up to 50 video and blog topics/ideas.

2) Have someone interview you, asking all your FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) in your business.

3) Film it professionally and cut each question and answer into multiple mini videos for your business and website.

In the episode from BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST I answer Kristine’s question: “When you’re managing different businesses, would you rather make different websites or just make it all in one website? For example: Furniture, Home decors and landscaping.”

My Answer:

It depends on a number of factors such as how much authority your domain and website has.

Here are 3 options you have when building a website for a company that serves in more than one industry:

1) HUB (Brand’s main website)
– List of products and services.
– About, History of the company, your team.
– Credibility (testimonials, case studies and list of clients)
– Send prospects here to lean more.

2) Niche Specific Websites
– Keyword Focused (high search volume)
– Industry Focused
– E.g webdesign.com Vs benlaing.com

3) Area Pages and Location Websites
– Location focused keywords (high population towns and cities)
– e.g websitedesignfife.co.uk

I recommend at the beginning of building a brand you do both a hub website and niche

In BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST episode #18 I interviewed Chris Marr of The Content Marketing Academy(CMA).

Chris and I discussed Simon Sinek’s concept of Starting With Why, Creating your own “quotes” and the main challenges business owners are having when it comes to making sales from their content marketing efforts

We need to change our whole mindset around websites. We need to change the objective of a website.

A fancy new website does not generate sales on its own. Even if we are optimising the website with keywords, while we build it, we still need to boost it with paid traffic while we wait for its organic rankings to rise to Google’s first page.

Build a website and sometimes they don’t come. “Build and they will come” is a myth when it comes to internet marketing for B2B businesses.

Once we have traffic this is where the biggest misconception happens. We introduce and talk about our business then begin to SELL, SELL, SELL.

What we need to do it build relationships, slowly and steadily to build trust and permission to market and sell to prospects.

This is known as Permission Marketing.

Just like no one gets married after the first date, the same happens on the internet when a stranger visits your website for the first time. The will take their time to learn more before they are ready to move to the next stage.

We need to offer something valuable upfront such as a FREE video or Ebook PDF in exchange for the user’s email address with the permission to add them to our newsletter to begin building the relationship together.

For more business and digital marketing tips and resources visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

In this episode of BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST I give you 5 practical tips to improve your website loading speed

Tools mentioned in this video:

en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/e…

reduceimages.com

en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/w…

testmysite.withgoogle.com/int…

developers.google.com/speed/p…

fiverr.com

upwork.com

For more business and digital marketing tips and resources visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

Enhance your shop’s SEO and local Google Business listing with a Street View Virtual Tour.

In episode #15 of BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST I interview Drew Cunningham(Mr Droogle) and Mike Child who are Google Street View Trusted photographers from Dundee.

If you’re a business owner and have any type of physical shop, store or premises where you serve your clients at, check out BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST Episode #15.

Learn how to build trust with Google business virtual tours that lets customers experience your location (from the comfort of their own home) before they arrive.

This is a brilliant marketing tool for restaurants, cafes, hotels, practices, studios, salons, garages, conference centers, office space, and much more…

For more business and digital marketing tips and resources visit:
www.onlinemarketingconsultant.co.uk

BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST Episode #14 Ben Laing interviews Welsh property developer and investor Matt Soltys.

Talking about how Matt started in property and how to structure property deals how to get funding and use other people’s money (OPM).

Here are some comments from Matt and what he thought about the interview:

“Brilliant to join top entrepreneur and friend Ben Laing on his Business Podcast for this week – He certainly grilled me with some great questions that caught me thinking on my feet!

Hopefully some inspiration to share with others including the driving force behind Thrive Assets and my passion to upgrade lifestyles as things progress in Cardiff.

Highlights include:

– The passion that truly lights me up
– My childhood obsession growing up
– Moving towards our ideal life
– How I choose to stack a deal
– My take on the word “HUSTLE”!

A pleasure to join Ben whose questions also helped me to learn a lot more about myself in the process!

Hope others enjoy. Matt”

Learn how to grab new website users attention within the first 7 seconds of them landing on your website or you could likely be losing 50% of your website traffic.

Our attention span is worse than… oh look a bird.

Human’s attention span is worse than that of a goldfish and isn’t getting any better with our addiction to smartphones.

In this video the aim is to make this point clear that because our attention span is so low, we need to grab ATTENTION of the new visitors asap or they’ll click back and visit competitor’s website.

When someone searches for your website then clicks the the big bad [BACK] BUTTON this damages your SEO(ranking on Google) and loses you, potential new customers.

Learn how to fix this problem with:
– A compelling headline.
– Good positioning of your text, images and videos.
– Bold text.
– White space.
– Vital information Above the fold.
– A call to action.
– Google mobile site speed test testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com
– Image optimization (to speed up your website) wordpress.org/plugins/ewww-image-optimizer/

If you enjoyed episode #13 of BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST please like, comment and re-post.

In this podcast I answer the question from Derrick Wilson, a member of Ben’s Business Book Club “How do you go by finding the right mentor?”

I hope to give you my best answer here in episode #12 of BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST

In this episode of Ben’s Business Podcast I share my not so pretty story about how I started my successful web design business from day one and how you can do the same (without a business plan).

Focus on what excites you rather than calling them “goals”

In episode number 10 of Ben’s Business Podcast I was answering a question from a member of Ben’s Business Book Club where he asked:
“How to turn my idea into a product or service?”

I did focus more on how to turn an idea into a PRODUCT but gave a very brief answer on how to turn your business idea into a service.

1) Create a list of your hobbies and passions.
2) NICHE (Find a demand and research competition).
3) MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Research competition in this market you decide you want to sell in.

Tools mentioned:
– AmazonGoldrush.com
– Udemy.com
– www.lynda.com
– alibaba.com
– junglescout.com
– amazon.co.uk/Best-Sellers-Welco…zgbs/ref=zg_bs_tab
– en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

I had the pleasure to interview Richard Moore for Ben’s Business Podcast Episode #9 – a London based sales and business coach.

Favourite Quote:
“I decided to stop working in a 9 to 5 job because I was becoming very successful but it was at the expense of my soul, and sleep and health.”.

After climbing to the top at his corporate sales job in London, Richard realised that their was more to life than earning a good income by working 80 hour weeks, making the CEO rich and leaving no life for himself.

At this breaking point, he made the jump from the rat race to entrepreneurship without hesitation.

I interviewed Devon Scott Tech Agency founder, Rhythmic Poet, Philosopher and TEDx Speaker.

In BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST Episode #8, we talk about AI, how to learn faster, automation for small businesses on a budget and Devon even gives us a free-style rhythmic poem, plus much more.

Favourite quote:
“The more you can automate communication the more you can stay in conversation.”

In episode #7 of Ben’s Business Podcast, I interviewed Craig Alexander Herd from Habit Hackers, who I call an expert salesman.

He started selling from the age of just 8 years old and continued this path in sales with Orbitsound where he manages a sales team of 30 to 40 people, he’s also a fellow Podcaster which he hosts a weekly show called Rebel Radio and is the CEO of Habit Hackers Daily Planners.

In this episode we cover:
– Craig’s first sale at the age of 8.
– Philosophy
– Habit Hacker Planner
– Sales tips
– The law of averages
– Preapproach

In this video of BEN’s BUSINESS Q&A PODCAST Episode #6 Ben Laing talks about how to turn your website traffic into sales aka conversion.

In episode #5 of BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST, I had the pleasure of bringing Maxwell Muir in as our first guest to interview on the show.

We had a great chat and spoke about Maxwell’s journaling habits, regrets, books, books, books, Bruce Lee and many great public speaking and communication tips.

Deciding whether you have a traffic problem or a conversion problem, How to get paid traffic and free traffic – Ben’s Business Podcast Episode 4

In this Facebook Live replay video, Ben Laing continue’s with Episode #2 of his weekly BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST Q&A where he answers questions including:
– Social Signals
– Local Search SEO
– Citations
– The importance of Domain names for SEO

In this Facebook Live replay video, Ben Laing continue’s with Episode #2 of his weekly BEN’S BUSINESS PODCAST Q&A where he answers questions including:
– Social Signals
– Local Search SEO
– Citations
– The importance of Domain names for SEO

In this Facebook Live replay video, Ben Laing starts off the 1st weekly episode of Ben’s Business Q&A where he answers questions including:

– How to get your first 5 clients?
– Should you specialise in one niche or offer multiple services?
– How to feel more confident with the content you’re producing?

In this Facebook Live replay video, Ben Laing shares his Business Empires Conference Takeaways, sharing digital marketing strategies on how to rank your website on the firs page of Google with SEO(Search Engine Optimisation), how to make money online with Amazon FBA and creating and selling Ebooks. Also how to grow your business with Facebook and how to monetize (make money) from your Facebook groups.

Some of these lessons were discovered at Nick James conference “Expert Empires” held by Seriously Fun Business in London.