Joe Polish & Lisa Wagner’s Rich Cleaner Blog ::

Today’s post is a friendly heads-up for Piranha Members and other Cleaners and Restorers using Social Media to grow their Cleaning and Restoration business.

Most Piranha Members are ethically and effectively monetizing their internet presence by dominating local search engine results pages (for free) as well as monetizing social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). In fact, Piranha Coaching Members have had advanced, but easy “how to” step-by-step coaching on this stuff.

Today however we wanted to share this some insights with every RichCleanerBlog Reader, Cleaner and Restorer.

Recently a software program launched charging from $23 per month up to $100 per month that is said to automatically find and connect potential Cleaning Clients on Twitter and then automatically solicit your Cleaning services to those prospects. However, automated software like this could actually get your Twitter account terminated… BUT, there are ways to generate and convert leads from Twitter that are FREE and won’t get your account terminated. That’s what this post is all about.

The following comes from one of Piranha’s “Expert Coaches” – Dan Hollings, Internet Strategies for “The Secret” hit movie and Twitter (www.TwitterTwenius.com). For several years, Dan has taught Piranha Members how to dominate local search engine results pages and monetize social media at our live events, in several of our Coaching Membership Calls and even on this blog…

Here’s the insider’s scoop from Dan Holling’s on How To Create a FREE Twitter Machine to Find and Connect With Potential Carpet Cleaning & Restoration Clients:

It’s easy to be lured into automated systems that promise to do all the work while you sit back and just cash big checks. Lately, there have been a string of robotic systems related to Social Media and Twitter, some of which claim to not only find and close customers for you… but from their sales page, you’d think they’d actually do the job and make coffee too.

BEWARE!

Read the Official Twitter RULES first:
www.budurl.com/therules

Note a few Twitter rules such as:

- If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link
- If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies
- If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account

If you violate even ONE of these rules, even ONE time. You might as well call it quits for Twitter, because your account may be terminated or delisted from search. Worse yet, you’ll get no customers and you’ll lose money.

Remember these 2 core LAWS of Social Media:
Success = Human Interaction
Failure = Robotic Nonsense

So, with that out of the way, let’s look at ONE way to potentially find prospects and customers on Twitter based on keyword searches. This strategy accomplishes what other systems charge hundreds of dollars for, without risking your account and for little, if any money.

STEP ONE

• Go to TweetBeep
  http://tweetbeep.com
• Open a free account.
• Read the HELP area
  http://tweetbeep.com/support.html

STEP TWO

• Set-up KEYWORD ALERTS
• Target these to your local region (if appropriate)
• AND… to keywords that might lead you to customers talking about the services you provide.
• NOTE: You can add up to 10 keywords for free (that should be plenty)

STEP THREE

• These ALERTS will be emailed to you (as tweets are found)
• OR… you may view the results (as found) within the TweetBeep admin
• Read the Tweets the system finds.

STEP FOUR

• If a tweet is found by TweetBeep and seems potentially related to your services, you can tweet them a short PERSONAL (not automated) message. Do not use the same reply message for every response.
• You should also FOLLOW this person on Twitter.
• The more HUMAN your message reads, the better. Don’t pitch, hype or try to sell directly… instead be friendly, personal and helpful. If you like, add your Free Recorded Message, but only if it seems appropriate.

THAT’S IT

You have created a Twitter Machine (ie: strategy) that automates the “locating” of potential customers, yet does not insult these potential customers with an obvious automated message. Plus, you are not violating any of Twitters rules… and DRUM ROLL PLEASE…

It’s F R E E !!

BONUS TIP: Offering a free Consumer Awareness Guide might be a good idea. But only if a customer and interaction seem appropriate. However, do NOT offer it to every Twitter user you interact with.

You can follow Dan on Twitter at: Twitter.com/DHollings
You can follow Joe on Twitter at: Twitter.com/JPolish
You can follow Lisa on Twitter at: Twitter.com/LisaTheRugChick
Connect with Piranha Marketing on Facebook at: Piranha Marketing on Facebook

Hi All, it’s been an amazing week.  The Piranha Team and I spent 3 days in some killer discussions with our top 100 group, Platinum Plus.

We covered the latest internet strategies and the greatest insights on building success in this (or any) economy.  Some of the topics we went very deep with were How To Get Results with Twitter and other Social Networking Capabilities, The Crucial Key Points in Advertising, Copywriting, Real Value Creation and Problem Solving for Clients, Powerful Presentation Skills, and so much more.

We also shared one of the greatest tools for entrepreneurs in existence for helping determine “What’s Important.”  (More about that in a future post – stay plugged in to what we’re sharing here because this is an exercise that will help you determine what it is that’s really important to your prospects and Clients and help you explain to them how it is that what you do actually provides that benefit or solves that particular problem that’s important to them.)

Here are a few of Piranha’s top 100 companies working through this exercise:

Here are just a few of the elegant ideas that came out of the discussions in our meetings:

“Advertise a guarantee not just because it’s effective. Do it because it’s the RIGHT THING to do.”

“Your best unpaid sales force is your existing clients.  Your best sales copy won’t be written by you. It’ll be written by your customers in the form of testimonials.”

“If you ever want to find out what matters to people (or their pain points), you simply have to ask them.”

“What happens with a lot of marketing is that it’s like food that’s left in the fridge that gets hidden behind the milk. Forgotten and rotten.”

“If you don’t take time for the set-up, you’ll never have the conditions for the result.”

“If you’re equipped to be a Capability Gatherer, you can always be at the top of your game.”

And, something my good friend Kathy Kolbe once said to me: “The time to quit working is when working is no longer working.”

We wrote that insight and a couple of my favorite Dan Sullivan quotes on the flip chart:

“Getting results doesn’t take much time at all.  It’s not getting results that takes up all the time.”

The Definition of Selling:
“Get people intellectually engaged in a future result that is good for them.  Get them to emotionally engage and commit to take action to achieve that result.”

“The skills that got you out of Egypt aren’t the same skills that will get you to the promised land” was another excellent Dan Sullivan quote that was discussed in the meeting.

This is me, and two of my good friends who stopped by to share and participate, Dan Hollings (100% responsible for the internet marketing success behind the DVD the Secret who’ll be presenting EASY, free and cutting-edge online marketing how to at my 2009 Rich Cleaner Conference) and Craig Forte (one of the nation’s prominent marketing and business-building experts to the real estate industry and expert in relationship marketing vs. transactional marketing).

Craig shared his definition of marketing with us:

“Marketing is elements of salesmanship and persuasion multiplied on a larger scale.”

In the meeting, when our discussions focused on copywriting one of our Members remembered this video I did with Paris Lampropoulos where we shared some really valuable copywriting information…

I figured I’d re-post this so it didn’t get “left in the fridge behind the milk.”

Thanks to my team, our incredible speakers… Ken Glickman, Patti Mara, Dan Hollings, Craig Forte… and to all our awesome Members for making this Platinum Plus meeting so valuable.

I’ll leave you with one of the simplest take-aways:

“What people really want is more WOOHOO! and less AARRGGH!”

Best,
JOE

FOLLOW JOE

FOLLOW LISA

Hello everyone,

I’m back in the USA after spending almost the entire month of March in Vietnam and Galapagos Islands.  It was wild and I’ve got a ton of pictures, videos and valuable stories that I want to share with everyone.

What I really want to share with you today though are some online marketing tips that came out on yesterday’s amazing Piranha Marketing Coaching Club Call.  I had Twitter Genius Dan Hollings as my guest and we covered how Cleaning & Restoration Professionals can use Twitter (and Social Networking like FaceBook and LinkedIn) to build their businesses.

First just a couple of pics…

Here I am in Vietnam with Tim Ferriss, Garrett B. Gunderson, John & Missy Butcher, Matt Mullenweg, Brad Fallon and several other really cool people.

This is me on the Galapagos with my good friends Tellman Knudsen, Babs Smith, Dan Sullivan, Richard Rossi, and Eben Pagen

Here I am on Galapagos "twittering" with my new friends the seals and the blue foot-ed boobie birds... (I'm the one in the middle picture).

Now, if you don’t know what Twitter even is, don’t worry, I’ll give you a link to an article at the very bottom that will get you up to speed.

You’ll want to check out Dan’s www.TwittinSecrets.com for the top 100 Twitter tips. And to have all these tips PLUS over 100 Twitter tools within one-click, you can add the MyTwitter Toolbar to your IE or Firefox browser. Get that toolbar here: http://mytwittertoolbar.com (Mac or PC).  If you’re not using Twitter, you’re missing out on building relationships with your target market.

Dan shared that 41.7% of the 5 million people using Twitter are between the ages of 35 and 49, a very large group in the prime age range for many businesses, who knew?  I would’ve never guessed this.  I would’ve thought the age range would’ve been much closer to 18-25 year olds.  The Nielsen Twitter report is here: http://budurl.com/twitterstatistics.

Dan also likens Twitter to television instead of a the common thought of “blog post” suggesting that it’s important that as you tweet, you also re-tweet every 2-3 weeks because it’s very likely that someone may have missed your “show” and is waiting for the re-run.  He talked about a very cool tool called TweetLater which allows you to pre load tips to be posted in advance and re-tweet them later.  The link for a free trail is here: http://budurl.com/TLPfreetrial.

To help you organize the Tweets from those you’re following, search Tweet messages for Keywords or even keep up on your competition, you can use a tool called www.peoplebrowsr.com (no I didn’t misspell it, there’s no “e” in browser).  This browser based application allows you to organize posts or information by column so you can quickly view it based upon what’s important to you and your business.

The coolest tip Dan talked about was how to “Tweet” once and having it pushed to your FaceBook, LinkedIn and other Social Media accounts using www.Ping.fm.  This allows you to write only one post and have it populate to all your other social media accounts.  It can’t get much easier than that!  And if you’re real savvy, you can tie TweetLater.com to Ping.fm and set up posts to all your accounts way in advance.

Many people (including me until recently) don’t know “Jack” about Twitter but after this call, our Coaching Club Members and I know a heck of a lot more about being a Social Media Rockstar!!   If you’re a newbie and want to learn more about what the Twitter Mania is all about, check out Dan Hollings’ article, “Twitter be Nimble, Twitter be Quick, if you don’t know Jack, try these Twitter Tricks” at www.budurl.com/twitips.

Also follow me, Dan and Lisa on Twitter at  www.twitter.com/jpolish, www.twitter.com/dhollings and www.twitter.com/lisapiranha.