http://www.petercarruthers.com en-us N/A editor@petesweekly.com Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:46:13 UTC 20 http://www.petercarruthers.com/blogs/5/Finding-Clients-in-the-UK.html Business Warriors - to their great distress. Most of the sites turned out to be a lot less than functional - at least from a marketing perspective.

These sites belonged to small business owners, most of whom were not technically minded. A few happily described themselves as Luddites!

Earlier this year I started some research to see whether the problems of these sites owned by small businesses were limited to smaller entrepreneurs, or whether this was more widespread.

Turns out that the figures for more than 300,000 websites in the UK and South Africa were a lot worse. Our survey shows that almost 4 out of every 5 websites is missing a few critical components that Google needs to be able send streams of visitors.

(If you want a copy of the full report you can get it by subscribing to the Finding Clients list at http://www.findingclients.co.uk Your email address will never be shared. And I won't bury you in commercial rubbish, just one original idea to help you find clients each week.)

If your site has not lived up to your original expectations, please download the report. (It's in English, words of one syllable.) You'll probably find out why the site is like 80% of the Internet - commercially invisible. And you'll find out what to do about it.


]]> no@spam.com (Peter Carruthers) Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.petercarruthers.com/blogs/5/Finding-Clients-in-the-UK.html http://www.petercarruthers.com/blogs/4/Two-years-in-the-UK.html
The short story involves waking up in Durban without Internet access one day. This is vexing for a person who has a pure Internet business. It is even more vexing for someone paying almost £1000 for six access methods (ADSL, ISDN, two 3G 'lines', wireless broadband, and dial up). As I went redder in the face my wife suggested it might be time to chase some good Internet access, and her suggestion was Ringwood.

Turns out it was a fine idea, with 8MB access costing about £30.

(I know I can get it cheaper, but the crowd I am with fit my needs and are very responsive when I have a query. No calls via Utter Pradesh! Yep, I know I spelled that wrong, but it seems more appropriate my way.)

After two years I finally feel that the work I have done for the past 16 years in the SA market has some relevance to UK small business owners. I must be the only idiot on earth to broadcast his last business failure (1992) with quite so much gusto.
]]> no@spam.com (Peter Carruthers) Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:00:00 UTC http://www.petercarruthers.com/blogs/4/Two-years-in-the-UK.html http://www.petercarruthers.com/blogs/3/Noise-and-Focus.html
It's not just the news industry. It's your PC as well. It bleeps or blips each time any email arrives. It won't pick the urgent emails out of the pile from your mates in Eastern Europe who have the solutions to your every physical need. You stop working to see what beeped. After an hour your inbox is empty, and its time for lunch!

There is a lot to be said for Timothy Ferris's simple approach: leave the inbox alone for a month and see what happens. (Usually very little. To paraphrase Kahlil Gibran: Let your emails free. If they come back they're worth reading. If they don't, they aren't.)

Of course, this weekly thought-let might be just as creaky. If it is, just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom and I will not invade your mental space again. It's the quickest way to get rid of me!

All of this noise leads to some simple questions. How do we stand out in the midst of so much clutter? How will prospects find out about what we do or sell? The answer is simple, but you need to do some work to shine brightly when your prospect needs what you sell (or do).

Marketing is a big word that has a simple meaning. Everything that you do that with the aim of getting a potential client to approach you is marketing.

In my humble opinion getting potential clients to approach you is much more important than anything else you do. Nobody cares if you make the best Ostrich Pie on earth if they never get your request to enjoy some. And if nobody knows about your pie you're wasting birds, pastry and electricity! Getting somebody to take that first bite has nothing to do with the quality of the pie at all. Getting enough people to take that first bite (and to ensure you have a business) is the result of your marketing, and little else.

The only time the calibre of your pie is important is when a piece of it is already inside my mouth! If it's good, then I will buy some. But, until that first bite, I truly have no idea whether your last job was flipping burgers at MacDonalds in Parys, South Africa, or creating prize winning pastries at a five star restaurant in Paris, France.

So, how do you break through all the noise that infests our lives to reach that select group of folk that might like Ostrich pie? That's what I will be focusing on this year. Along with how to guarantee that once you have found a Ostrich Pie gourmet, you never lose her. And how to do it inexpensively, effectively, and routinely.

Have an incredible 2008.

]]> no@spam.com (Peter Carruthers) Wed, 09 Jan 2008 00:00:00 UTC http://www.petercarruthers.com/blogs/3/Noise-and-Focus.html