In the Sacramento area, as we’ve all read, it’s a convergence of several key factors that has hammered away at the business economy and therefore the job market. So, what is the answer to finding a “job” when you desperately need one?

I believe the answer can be found simply in yourself. The reason I say “simply” is because each one of us has certain skills, talents, or God-given abilities. These things are self-evident to you when you look at yourself in the mirror. You say to yourself, “if I’m so great why don’t I have a job?” The reality is that YOU are that great and so is everyone else!

How then can a person move ahead? The first step is to step out of the comfort zone of looking for a job. Why do you need a job? A job, to most people, is an opportunity for you to trade your work hours and skills for money. You feel a comfortable sense of security that you will be paid on a defined time schedule. You’ve removed your worries of were the money comes from and placed that on the shoulders of your employer. You’re in a no-risk job opportunity…unless the company fails or fires you.

The second step is to believe in your own self. Would you hire yourself to do what you’re good at? (Hopefully you’ll say “yes” here.) If an employer would hire you for your skills, why wouldn’t you hire yourself? Oh I know…you want that “comfort zone” of the guaranteed paycheck. You just don’t want to gamble on yourself and the uncertainly of trading your work hours and skills for money when there is no guarantee. [REALITY CHECK] Every business owner or self-employed person has to deal with that uncertainty everyday too.

The third step is to BE REAL. Look around. If you’re finding the current job market hard to crack, you’re not alone. Realize too that you’re bills still have to be paid. You’re in the classic “between a rock and a hard place.” At some point, somethings got to give. You’re already “uncomfortable” so why do you look at alternative ways to trade your time and skills for money? I’ll tell you why. Two reasons. (1) Everything you look at under the “work at home” idea sounds like a crackpot idea or a scam – they probably are. There are shady people who promise the moon under a 100% commission program, but the problem is they have no product or a poor product, and ultimately these kind of businesses fall into a common mindset everyone shares…a waste of time and money. (2) Faith in yourself. Every business owner you trade money with took this step forward and had faith in themselves and in their ideas. You can too.

So, what’s the fourth step? It’s to TAKE ACTION. I’ve been a small business marketing consultant for the last 10 years (after a 15 year career in real “jobs”) and the one thing I tell everyone is, “Now is NOT the time to do nothing. Do something! With me, with someone else or do it yourself.” Taking action does not mean doing the same thing you’re doing now…looking for a “job.” Taking action means try a different direction. Put faith in yourself and give it your commitment. It you have a specific talents you can “sell” as an independent contractor, then PROMOTE yourself. If you have more general skills, you work hard, and you like people give a try a sales. There are some good companies with good products that are always looking for new independent representative.

What’s the worst thing about “working for yourself?” No Guaranteed Paycheck.

What’s the best thing about “working for yourself?” Good-to-Great Money; Freedom from “The Man”; You Can’t Fire Yourself (yes you can fail, learn from it, pick yourself up and be better, but you can’t fire yourself); and lastly and maybe truly the best thing – once you’ve been at it for a while your confidence, pride, and belief in yourself had created a stronger and happier person. I know. It did for me!

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Steve Leedom has been self-employed as an small business marketing consultant since 2001. His businesses, Section 1 Marketing and Digital Mind Media has helped over 200 businesses nationwide to date.

Section 1 Marketing is hiring! Recently we’ve rolled out a new program that has required the need for more sales people. It’s a KILLER program for local business owners…literally a NO-RISK proposition that will have us promoting their business for free! We have hourly and full commission positions  available. For more information, please visit www.section1marketing.com

You can use this motivator, the ability to save money, to grow your business. Here’s how:

#1 Coupons can be published on your website to drive traffic. You can publish coupons on your site for your own products or services or for other products or services. Promoting the coupons on your site is as simple as including it in your other marketing strategies. You can Tweet about the coupons, post a link on Facebook, advertise them in your newsletter or other relevant newsletters.

#2 You can host a contest to drive traffic to your website. Sweepstakes are a great way to drive traffic to your website. You can give away cash, products or services and they don’t have to be directly related to your website. For example, if you have a website devoted to healthy eating, you could give away a stand mixer, a juicer, a $1000 in groceries, or a membership to a grocery delivery service. The options for what you give away are limitless.

The key is to make sure what you give away is something your prospects and target audience will be attracted to. If, for example, you’re giving away a $500 bankcard, then you’re going to get tons of traffic to your website but much of that traffic isn’t going to be interested in your products or services. Additionally, you want to make sure you’re getting something in return, ideally an email address and permission to market to that person.

#3 One of the benefits of coupons and contests on your website is that they are both very easily tracked for success. You can track how many people enter your contest or sweepstakes and you can track how many people download your coupons and how many people actually use them.

Because coupons and contests are a great traffic generation tool, you won’t lose profits by offering discounts and by giving away products or services. The return on investment can be quite significant because your list will grow exponentially and you’ll be able to market to your growing list for years to come.

Remember that when you use coupons and contests to drive traffic to your website, you will also want to create a marketing strategy to draw attention to those coupons and contests. A press release, newsletter announcements, advertisements and the strategies we mentioned in #1 are all great ways to draw attention to your tactic. Before you create your next coupon or contest, make sure your budget can afford it. Crunch the numbers and then get started driving traffic to your site with these two remarkable tools.

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Our Special Offer:

No Cost Advertising? I will promote your business for FREE on Google&Facebook;! Usually it costs you money to advertise your coupon offers. Not any more! I’ll put your coupon in front of new customers who are searching right now for your product or service. It doesn’t cost you a dime to advertise…that’s my job. I only get paid if you get paid. It a Win-Win opportunity.

Call me today to find out more.

Steve Leedom
www.section1marketing.com
916.760.3949 office

1) AdWords becomes more important.

Google recently has moved the map over to the right column, where paid ads typically appear. Those are now pushed down the page by a couple hundred pixels. This means Google will compensate by showing more paid ads in the middle column above the local listings.

Do I need to mention that these ads will be made even more prominent due to their display location in Google Instant Search?

2) AdWords gets more competitive.

Local businesses, finding that paid ads are now the most visible piece of screen real estate on local search results, will/should respond by spending even more money to show up in the pastel-colored AdWords display that’s smack-dab in the center of the page. This is exactly where the old 7-pack of local “Places” listings used to appear. AdWords visibility is, to some degree, replacing local listing visibility. Small business owners will fight for those coveted spots. (And Google will make lots of money in the process.)

3) Reviews and citations become more important/visible.

Not only is Google now showing how many reviews it has in its system, but it’s also featuring a variety of third-party sites (like Yelp, Insider Pages, etc.) and calling out exactly how many reviews are on those sites.

So Note-to-Self, “Get customers to write online reviews for business.”

4) Building out your Google Place Page becomes more important.

While paid ads will replace the 7-pack for a number of local search queries (see #2 above), in cases where paid ads don’t appear or when the searcher scrolls down to see local listings … wow, the new display is like having a mini-version of your Place Page right there for the world to see. No extra click needed.

Look at all the information showing for this result from a search for “chicago museums.” You’ve got the regular title and snippet listing, then from the Place Page you get a photo, address and phone information, a review snippet, links to additional reviews on third-party sites, star ratings on the right, an overall review count, and a link to the Place Page. Moral of the story: build out those Place Pages, and fast.

5) Local Results in the search result page becomes critical for local businesses.

The best way to make this concrete is to show the “before” and “after” pages.

Immediately below are two screenshots for the results to the query “San Francisco Dentist.” The first page below is an “old” SERP (search engine results page) with my annotations. Below AdWords comes the “7 Pack,” which is followed by mostly local web results. This was the “old” arena for third party local SEO.

Here’s the new page for the same local dentist query:

Visually the page has changed quite a bit. The map has been moved to the right column and “floats” or scrolls down the page as users move down results. The 7-Pack is gone, as mentioned, and a richer presentation of local results with images fills the entire SERP.

Section 1 Marketing is a Google AdWords Certified Partner. As a Google Certified Partner our goal is to get your business to come up on the first page of a Google search when a person is searching for your type of business in your local city or service region. If 97% of people don’t go past the first page on a Google search, where does that leave your website when someone is searching for your type of business? See how we can increase your businesses presence on the web by contacting Steve Leedom at 916-760-3949.