The only reason for having a business website is to make your business money. That’s why I talk about making your website your #1 employee.

A traditional employee — a person — can be expected to generate value equal to three times their salary. For a marketing or sales employee, that ratio will be much higher. Your website should also be an investment that gives you a very good return.

When I talk about your website being your #1 employee, I’m talking about “someone” who is working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This amazing employee never takes a vacation, never calls in sick and always has your best interest at heart.

This #1 employee works hard for you, automatically bringing you new connections, new leads and new customers. This employee keeps generating money for your business. Picture what your life will be like with a well-designed website that is bringing in far more revenue than any human employee.

If your website isn’t working as your #1 employee right now, Cloud Mountain Marketing can help.

To your success!

You have a product or service that can make other people’s lives better. You’re passionate about it. And yet does it sometimes seem that you’re the best-kept secret in the country?

Dr. Jonas Salk wasn’t afraid to promote his cure for polio. Actually, his vaccine wasn’t necessarily the best solution. Dr. Albert Sabin was working on a live polio vaccine at the time, that was more effective than Salk’s. But because Dr. Salk promoted his cure, thousands of lives were saved.

Maybe you’re not in the business of curing polio, but don’t you make people’s lives better?

For example, I’m not “just” in the business of building websites. Ineffective marketing is listed as the #4 cause of business failure. By building websites that get found online, bring in new customers, and actually make money for the business, I am improving the quality of life for the entrepreneur, and his or her spouse, children, employees, customers, vendors, employees’ families, vendors’ employees, etc.

How about your business? How many lives do you impact? How can you improve your customers’ lives? What would your business success mean to your family? Your employees?

With that much on the line, don’t you owe it to them to have a website that is effective at growing your business?

To your success!

A couple of years ago, I wanted to produce a reality TV show called, “Business Makeover.” I would bring in a team of business advisors, and within a month we would completely turn around a struggling business, capturing it all on film. The business makeover concept is still a lot of fun, but I eventually decided not to get into the TV business.

Today I was looking at a coupon I got in the mail from a cosmetic dentist and thought of a working title for a new reality TV show, How Not to Market. It’s amazing how many marketing dollars are wasted in the U.S. If you’re spending money on marketing in a particular area and it’s not making you money, STOP!

It’s also not enough to track how many leads are generated. A software company I worked with was generating about 800 leads per year at trade shows, at an average cost of about $140 each (when you added up all the expenses). But most of these “leads” were just people wanting the door prize. They wouldn’t return calls and would generally waste the salespeople’s time, so that their real cost was much higher.

In contrast, the leads we generated through search engine optimization and several email campaigns was significantly lower (about $10 each), but the leads themselves were already highly pre-qualified. A large percentage of those resulted in a sale.

When I compared the cost of making a sale through trade show generated leads vs. SEO generated leads, it was about 100 to 1.

To your success!