Tag: interview

DollarDays’ Frank Albanese on Why He Loves His Customers

Leave a comment
Frank Albanese

After four years and 7,333 nonprofit partners served, Frank Albanese may have every right to feel that way. As DollarDays’ longest-tenured National Account Manager, Frank is passionate about his clients. Every day, he comes in, sits at his desk, puts on his headset and begins helping his customers across the United States. Throughout the day, calls flood in from chapters of the Salvation Army, CityGate Network (formerly the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions), Kiwanis Clubs and more. These localized groups are seeking Frank’s expert advice on how to maximize their limited budgets by purchasing goods in bulk. It’s the cornerstone of the work Frank loves.

I love helping my customers because I know they’re helping others.

Frank Albanese, National Account Manager, DollarDays

“Some might think that talking about packets of socks, cases of pencils or pallets of blankets might not be interesting,” Frank explains. “When you realize it’s going to clothe a homeless person, help a child learn or bring relief to a family whose home was just devastated by a hurricane, though, it becomes a whole new feeling.”

Loyal customer Lisa Clark of the Assistance League couldn’t agree more. “I have had such a great experience working with Frank Albanese. He always gets us what we need at a cost that fits into our budget without putting a strain on it. Frank is genuine, kind, caring, thoughtful and very knowledgeable. You know when working with Frank that he truly has your best interest at heart.”

While Frank finds his work deeply fulfilling, he also draws great inspiration from his customers. He says that it takes a special type of person to go into charitable work and it’s those types of people he loves helping.

“A lot of my customers call because they’re working with tight budgets based solely on donation dollars. What’s unique about DollarDays is we have the in-depth knowledge of how our customers purchase, what their needs are, and how we can get them the best-quality products at a cost that works for them so they can serve their communities.”

Frank is known for going above and beyond for his clients, often negotiating prices directly with the company’s vendors and working hand in hand with the DollarDays logistics team to ensure on-time deliveries. It’s no wonder Frank thrives in an industry so reliant on kindness.

27 Ideas to Break Your Creative Slump

Leave a comment

“When are you going to start?” Blink.

“Are your fingers frozen?” Blink. Blink.

“Why aren’t you typing?” Blink. Blink. Blink.

“Don’t you know what to create?” Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

The cursor is a silent but pesky critic. Do you ever want to curse the cursor when you’re in a slump?

You can’t write that lead. You can’t come up with the visuals to illustrate the story. You feel like you’re crafting the same content you did yesterday. Wait, or was that last week? You can’t imagine how to find another way to talk about your core topic.

Well, instead of watching a mocking cursor, take a tip (or 27) from your fellow marketers on how they get out of a creative content marketing slump.

Grab some toys

LEGO blocks are great. The same blocks used to build a house can be used to make a Death Star. Get a bucket of blocks (use DUPLO if you want bigger ones). On each block, write one word or phrase that relates to your products and services: attributes, content themes, personas, customer challenges, stage in the buyer journey—anything that relates to your marketing. Color code them if you wish and start playing.

Bring together random blocks, then look at the connections. Write them down. See if they can be brought together to create new content angles or ideas. Pull apart those blocks and start again. You can apply some rules, too; [f]or example, put together one persona-related block, one block about the customer journey stage, two challenge blocks, and one product block.

The idea is to get away from the linear thinking and play around with different ideas and connections that you might not have ever thought of. All the combinations—and resulting ideas—can be examined and expanded to see if they can be viable.

—André Rampat, Director & Cofounder, CorporateLeaders Communications

Dig in the content archives

Search through your blog or other content archives for posts or topics that can be expanded, updated or adapted. Expand an old blog post based on industry-wide changes. Update best practices content for a new year or season. Adapt a popular text-based post into an infographic, video or tool. Revisiting old content refocuses the mind on an easily accomplished creative task, which then sparks new ideas to lift you out of that slump.

—Stuart Ridge, CMO, VitaMedica

Grab a pen

Physically writing may be a little “old school,” but there is something empowering and motivating about it. Simply put pen to paper and let the ideas flow.

—Katie Derrick, Content Marketer, Anglo Liners

Get out

When you’re consistently trying to use your creative brain power, it’s easy to hit a snag and become exhausted. Suddenly you can’t get yourself to produce any one complete thought because you are pushing your brain too hard. When this happens, take a “mind break” and experience a different type of creative environment. Visit a museum or a new coffee shop. Sometimes experiencing new scenery can bring about fresh perspectives and stimulate the brain.

—Amber Masciorini, Team Lead, Digital PR & Social Media, RelationEdge Digital Agency

Look at someone else

Bring in fresh eyes. This could be fellow marketers, friends, college students—anyone who’s creative, passionate and willing to give you an hour of their day. Give a short overview of your company, what you’re focusing on and anything else helpful, [t]hen let them go. Don’t shut them down or tell them why an idea wouldn’t work—[w]rite everything down, explore ideas that resonate with you, and let their enthusiasm re-energize you. Keep that list and reference it whenever you get in a slump, [t]hen bring them in again.

—Chelsea Cole, Digital Marketing Trainer, ChelseaCole.co

Find the one thing

When I feel unmotivated about a project or task, I try to find one element of it that is unique and interesting. This can be tough, but typically one piece relates to my life or catches my attention. Once I’ve found that element, I research the heck out of it and focus on that concept. Even if this concept is only loosely related, it will generally pull my brain out of a rut.

—Tyler Tassinari, Digital Marketing Strategist, Three29 Web Design & Digital Marketing

Stay in the lines (or not)

Coloring is probably one of my favorite ways to combat a work slump. Not only does it reduce anxiety, relieve stress and increase my focus, it’s also fun and fosters a creative mindset. I have a few adult coloring books and a good set of colored pencils. Coloring brings you back to childhood, and we all know how imaginative and creative children are. Picking colors that bring the pages to vibrant life is therapeutic. After coloring for just 15 to 20 minutes, I feel re-energized, and I’m ready to start working again.

—Angela Reina, Digital Marketer, Bloggers Buzz

Become a thief

Stealing ideas from wildly different industries or mediums has always been my favorite way to get out of any creative slump. I once based a plumber’s web design on a cool-looking bag of beef jerky.

—Jeff Goldstein, SEO Director/Operations Manager, Contractor Calls

Loosen up

If you feel like you’ve exhausted topics, engage with your audience by creating lighter content. If you’re appealing to your customers’ emotions, they’re more likely to trust your brand.

—Britt Armour, Digital Marketing Manager, Kibii

Walk out

Get out of your everyday environment. Take yourself and a colleague (or your team) offsite for a brainstorming session. Make sure there’s no access to work emails or any of the other distractions that tend to dominate proceedings in the office. Even taking just an hour out of your day can fuel the fire and ignite ideas.

—Jason Scott, Digital Marketing Freelancer & Blogger

Engage in the community (and bring an ax)

I sell cars. There’s only so much traditional marketing my audience can hear before tuning out. I partnered with a local magazine and attend all its community events. We held one at a newer restaurant with a live DJ and set up an ax-throwing court set. Everyone had a blast. I did a Facebook Live video with the owner during the event on the magazine’s Facebook page and had a small audience. By the end of the night, I had over 160 views and that doubled by the morning. We promoted the magazine and restaurant and all their followers with several shares.

—William J. McCormick, Bert Wolfe Toyota

Be on alert

I set up Google alerts around the topics I am actively writing about. Every morning, I read through the articles to find relevant news pieces to associate with the content I am writing. I find pieces that inspire a competing opinion or provide insight into mundane topics.

—Brittany J. Maroney, Marketing & Communications, DollarDays

Write (yes, write)

It sounds stupid, but I’ll force myself to write whatever comes into my head—even if that means that I’m writing about not knowing what to write about. Most of what I write is pure stream-of-consciousness nonsense, but more complex and concentrated thoughts start to appear that can be developed further. After a while, without even realizing it, the writing mojo is back.

—Jordan Harling, Lead Copywriter, Wooden Blinds Direct

Say “om”

One thing I do to help keep my mind from reaching a creativity block is daily meditation. I use various apps, such as Headspace. They make meditation simple and effectively help me clear my mind from unnecessary noise, reduce stress levels, stay focused and boost my creative thinking.

—Matt Edstrom, Head of Marketing, BioClarity

Be human

We encourage our team to experience art, exhibits, events, store openings, concerts, etc. Good creative content is built out of the collective human experience and translating that via content that resonates with your audience.

—Daniel K. Lobring, Vice President, Marketing Communications, rEvolution

Mix it up

I like to switch up the format of my content. If I’ve been doing a lot of storytelling content, I’ll try an informative article instead. Even moving mediums can help inspire new ideas—try working on a video instead of a blog post. It could open up a whole slew of ideas.

—Jessica Califano, Head of Marketing & Communications, Temboo

Set up folders

What works for me is to have work-in-progress (WIP) files on my desktop. There are folders that have pages with only single sentences or a few paragraphs. I have screenshots of things that have worked for other people. There are unpublished articles and cut-and-paste text from engaging emails and Skype conversations. In these WIP folders, I have hundreds of ideas, all in different stages of development. If I ever get stuck, I start to dig through them and find idea gems that would normally be long forgotten.

—Jason Lavis, Managing Director, Out of the Box Innovations Ltd.

Make a pre-emptive strike

Do your legwork upfront and you can make tweaks as you go. A researched editorial calendar built six to 12 months in advance will serve as a foundation for the long term, particularly when you’re extremely busy and have less time to think. I go as far as to incorporate target keywords and long-tail phrases into a column on my calendar so that some of the framework for a blog is built for use later.

—Ellen Hoffman, Director of Marketing, JDC Healthcare Management LLC

Create a list of something else

Make a list of something that isn’t to do with what you’re working on. Making a list is a great way to keep your brain engaged while taking time away from the task at hand. The list can be anything—from your 20 favorite music albums to the worst films of all time to a list of things you need to pick up on the way home. Creating the list actively stimulates your brain.

—James Nuttall, Content & Outreach Specialist, It Works Media

Take a side job

Find a side project at work. Someone always needs help for a project that’s been put on the back burner or an impending issue. Tackling a different problem than your typical work projects was just the ticket. As a favor, I took on data-visualization projects for a separate team, and it transformed how I looked at my core projects. It gave me a new point of view, which spurred the creativity I needed.

—Ashley Plack, Founder, Strategist Marketing

Do less

Scale back the operation and put more of an emphasis on quality over quantity. We usually publish three data-driven studies a week, but we sometimes scale back to one a week when things are slow. This allows us to really nail that one piece, because we focus all our energy on the visuals, the writing, the outreach, etc.

—Michael Brown, Research Analyst, LendEDU

Have a gab fest

Whether you interview clients, vendors, or staff members, real conversations are an easy way to energize a lackluster campaign. Interviews often reveal new topic ideas, a different point of view and, if you keep the interview format, even a new voice.

—Lisa Hirst Carnes, Cofounder & Marketing Director, ArcStone

Think externally

Too many content marketers prefer to go it alone. When they run into a creative roadblock, they struggle to get around it because they aren’t willing to look beyond themselves. I find that looking at what other successful content marketing professionals are doing can really re-energize me and kick my creativity back into high gear.

—Anthony Gaenzle, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, SE Healthcare

Leave marketing

If you are struggling to find the right content ideas, ask for help from all areas of your business– customer service, HR, development, administration, etc. All these departments are just as involved in your business as you are and they might be able to provide the spark you’re looking for.

—Arron Richmond, Digital Marketing Executive, High Speed Training

Separate your mind

I find that much of writer’s block or creator’s block can be avoided by scheduling time to ideate. I like to create one to two months of ideas at a time. It might be 50 ideas cut to 25, but the process is finished and the ideas are put on a calendar so when it’s time to create, I’m off and running.

—Dayne Shuda, Founder, Ghost Blog Writers

Celebrate

See what holidays are coming up. If one relates to your business, consider creating a piece of content about it. For example, a solar installation company I work with celebrated National Sunglasses Day. It posted a picture of a dog wearing sunglasses to their social media to let their followers know about the national day. With all the funky holidays, there’s bound to be something to help get your wheels turning and get out of your slump.

—Andrew Schutt, CEO & Founder, Elevated Web Marketing

Buy dish soap

When I feel like I don’t have a creative bone in my body and I need an idea for content or a new product, I do the one thing that has helped almost every time. I hand-wash my dishes. I purposely do not own a dishwasher because I’m a creative publicity expert, internet marketer, digital product creator and writer who always needs new ideas for products, articles, promotions, etc.

—Joan Stewart, Publicity Expert, The Publicity Hound

Go forth

Even if getting rid of your dishwasher is too big a commitment for you, at least one of these tips will help you break out of your creative rut. And, more likely, you’ll want to mix and match to find the best idea to fix each particular slump you encounter.

And, above all, you’ll have a great comeback the next time that cursor mocks you.

Original article here: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2018/04/27-ideas-break-creative-slump

Interview: Marc Joseph, Founder of DollarDays

Leave a comment

Marc Joseph is the founder of DollarDays, the […] online wholesaler that helps small businesses compete against larger enterprises and [helps] nonprofit organizations find the products they need to support their causes. DollarDays offers more than 225,000 high-quality products at wholesale and closeout prices. Mr. Joseph has helped build some of America’s most known retail stores, including Federated Department Stores, Bill’s Variety Stores, Everything’s a Dollar Stores and Crown Book Stores. Most recently, he started a chain of hair salons in Arizona and built it up to 11 stores before selling them to devote [his] full time to DollarDays. He is the author of the book “The Secrets of Retailing…or How to Beat Walmart,” which provides expert advice to independent businesses of all sizes on everything from the psychology of buying and the hiring of great employees to working successfully with vendors and promoters, as well as how to expand your business on the Internet. Mr. Joseph is also a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post and the Alibaba Global Biz Circle news websites.

IdeaMensch (IM): Where did the idea for DollarDays come from?

Marc Joseph (MJ):When we started back in 2001, small businesses were getting crushed by chains moving into their towns, so we wanted to help these small businesses survive and thrive against these big-box competitors. At the same time, the Internet was emerging as the new way to quickly communicate, so I saw the Internet as the next channel of distribution of wholesale and closeout products by the case so the small guys could compete on a level playing field with the big guys.

IM: What does your typical day look like, and how do you make it productive?

MJ: The Internet is really the last true vehicle to still be able to use guerrilla marketing to promote your business, so we start every day asking the question, “How can we find new customers and begin to brand ourselves?” in this sea of millions of websites currently trying to attract the eyeballs on the World Wide Web. We make this a productive exercise by reviewing sales from the last day, week and month and analyzing the customers, both new and existing, [who] created these sales. Our short-term goal is to market out to lookalike customers who don’t know about us today. Because of this, we get our report card each day. This month, we get a “B+” because we are averaging 1,500 new customers now joining us each day. Our long-term goal is to convert these new customers into repeat, loyal customers.

IM: How do you bring ideas to life?

MJ: Unlike traditional businesses that need a three-month timeframe from idea to implementation, being a company focused on the Internet, we can come up with an idea in the morning and have it live on the site that afternoon. This gives us the opportunity to test even the craziest ideas, because if the idea does not work, we can immediately take it off the site with a click of a button. So just about every day our site looks a little different, and the winning ideas become part of our culture, while those that do not click with our customers go away quickly.

IM: What is one trend that really excites you?

MJ: Adult coloring books are exciting. Why adult coloring books? I just use this as an example of how ideas become trends that become sales. About a year ago, one of our better small-business customers told us that in his small town, he was seeing 20- and 30-year-olds put down their cellphones and pick up a sketchpad or coloring book and begin to doodle. He assumed it was for stress relief from the constant pressure our modern society puts on itself in this electronic-driven age. With that early knowledge, we went out and sourced all kinds of adult-type coloring books from geometrics to nature to animals. Just this year, we have gone through hundreds of thousands of adult coloring books—[and all] because one of our salespeople developed a strong bond with one of our customers who trusted us to help them build their business. Adult coloring books are to this generation like pet rocks were to an earlier generation.

IM: What is one habit that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

MJ: I keep a pad and pen on my nightstand. For some reason, some of my better ideas pop up in the middle of the night, and if I don’t write them down when they wake me up, I just can’t remember them the next morning. Taking this a step further, whenever I am away from my desk to exercise, have dinner, etc., I now always have a pen and paper in my pocket just in case that million-dollar idea jumps in front of me.

IM: What was the worst job you ever had, and what did you learn from it?

MJ: To help put myself through college, I became the housekeeper and the weekend cook at my fraternity. Who knew that college guys could be such slobs? No matter how often you tried to train your brothers to pick up after themselves, if their mother could not teach them, I certainly could not, either. This was the beginning of my learning about the art of communication, and for negotiations to be successful, you could not use the tact of telling people what to do—you need to get them to buy into your dream or, in the case of the fraternity, working together for a cleaner, more appealing environment.

IM: If you were to start over again, what would you do differently?

MJ: Cash is king when starting a business. Opening your own business may be a dream coming true, but paying for this dream is an entirely different story. The vision of digging through your couch to find all the lost change to make your business work is a myth. Raising money is the toughest challenge you will ever face. You cannot put every penny you have into your business, because you will need dollars to cover your living expenses for the first six months, and if you do not have enough cash flow in your business, you will be scrambling for years. So my advice is to make an extremely strong effort to raise as much cash as possible before going into business.

IM: As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over?

MJ: Pick up the phone and always be reaching out. Don’t wait for people to reach out to you. Whether you like it or not, entrepreneurs are always selling. They are selling their idea to raise funds to start the business. They are selling their idea to potential employees to get them to join their dream team. They are selling their idea to customers and suppliers to trust them to help improve their businesses. So entrepreneurs cannot get complacent. Every day, you must relive those days and months in the beginning when you were the only one picking up the phone. Pick up the phone today and find new customers.

IM: What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

MJ: Hire good people. I try to hire people who are smarter than I am in areas that I am not the expert. This way, you can build a team with divergent expertise, yet when adding up the sum of the teams’ knowledge, it is first class.

IM: What is a failure you had, and how did you overcome it?

MJ: For years, our site, which is homegrown, did not give the perception that we were a top-notch company. It was slow and cumbersome to use, and, because of this, our sales were stagnate. We finally bit the bullet and put all of our financial resources and human resources into taking our site into the 21st century. It has paid off, because this year, we were one of the three finalists for the Internet Retailer B2B E-Commerce Marketer of the Year [award].

IM: What is one business idea for those reading this article?

MJ: The relationship we as businesses and entrepreneurs have with our customers is changing. It is a trend that has always been part of the millennial generation, but is now also part of all generations, and that is [that] customers want to do business with companies that care about giving back to their community. We do it with three different programs—$5,000 a month through our Facebook giveaways to nonprofits, creating free wishlist sites for nonprofits, and letting all of our customers donate 5% of their purchases to nonprofits. I am sure there are plenty of other ways businesses can give back to their communities.

IM: What is the best $100 you recently spent and why?

MJ: We donated a case of baby blankets to our local Kiwanis Club K-Kids group at our Boys & Girls Club. This is an organization that helps young kids learn the value of service and helping others. This young club was helping the homeless families in our area. You should have seen the look on these kids’ faces as they were unpacking the carton of baby blankets. The joy they had in helping brought many of the adults in the room to tears. This is emotion that cannot be bought.

IM: What software do you use?

MJ: Because we have an inside sales team that works closely with our existing and new customers, we have just initiated Salesforce to help keep us organized and alert us quickly for followup with our customers. Making us more efficient in the long run will make us more money.

IM: What one book do you recommend?

MJ: If you are only going to read one book this year and you are an entrepreneur or small-business owner, you must read “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight, the create of Nike. I could not put it down. The ups and down of starting a business are on full display in this compelling story. I must mention two other books also that gave me real perspective on growing a business. The first is “Alibaba,” which is the most accurate telling of the story of the largest e-commerce company in the world, and the second is “Elon Musk,” which tells the true story of this billionaire and gives you some insight into what our future may look like.

IM: Who has influenced your thinking?

MJ: We can learn so much by studying history. I can’t get enough of George Washington, whether it is his biography or the current TV show, “Turn: Washington’s Spies.” But the real influencers of my life were the entrepreneurs of my father’s generation, brave men who I watched in action just about every day. Most of these guys fought in World War II and then came home to build their dreams for their families. None of them had anything handed to them, and they built their businesses by hard work, dedication to their dream, and the understanding of what it takes to build and service a loyal customer base.

Original article here: https://ideamensch.com/marc-joseph/

DollarDays & the Walmart Supply Chain

Leave a comment

Marc Joseph is the founder of DollarDays, the premier online wholesaler that helps small businesses compete against larger enterprises and [assists] nonprofit organizations [in finding] the products they need to support their causes. DollarDays offers more than 225,000 high-[value] products at wholesale and closeout prices.

Mr. Joseph has helped build some of America’s most known retail stores, including Federated Department Stores, Bill’s Variety Stores, Everything’s A Dollar Stores and Crown Book Stores. Most recently he started a chain of hair salons in Arizona and built it up to 11 stores before selling them to devote full-time to DollarDays. He is the author of the book, “The Secrets of Retailing…or How to Beat Walmart.”

In this interview, Marc Joseph breaks down his powerful company, DollarDays, and the Walmart supply chain.

Original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF2lpzYAOts&amp=&feature=youtu.be

How to Publish a Book

Leave a comment

Who hasn’t dreamed of seeing their name on a book jacket at the local Barnes & Noble? Signing cover pages for lines of adoring fans? Watching your very own title climb the New York Times best-seller list?

As any recent author will tell you, the arduous process of writing a book hardly resembles this glamorous picture. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write a book. Experts say penning a published work is a great way to build your personal brand, engage potential customers and boost sales.

“If your business can benefit from your reputation as an expert, a book is an amazing way to demonstrate that in a way speaking or article writing cannot,” says Rohit Bhargava, author of Likeonomics: The Unexpected Truth Behind Earning Trust, Influencing Behavior, and Inspiring Action and the founder of Influential Marketing Group. Even as more and more people are writing because of the rise of self-publishing and e-books, showing potential customers a published work lends a measure of gravitas, says D’vorah Lansky, author of Book Marketing Made Easy: Simple Strategies for Selling Your Nonfiction Book Online and a book marketing coach for entrepreneurs.

“Technology makes it so much easier to publish a book—today it can take weeks instead of years to get your ideas out there,” Lansky says. “Every business owner should write one.”

To make the most of your time and wrist cramps, consider first whether self-published or traditionally published is the route for you.

In traditional publishing, you will write a proposal—typically a 30-page document outlining the project with a table of contents and sample chapters. This is then shopped around to agents. Should an agent accept, you will likely be asked to revise the proposal, which will then be pitched to publishers. If it sells to a publisher, the entire process could take several years or more. The publisher absorbs the cost of editing and production, though authors are usually responsible for most if not all of the marketing. Lansky says that on average a traditionally published book nets the author $1 per copy once the advance is earned. It’s worth mentioning that advances have been notably low in recent years.

The other option is to self-publish. A number of digital options are available, including Lulu and Amazon’s CreateSpace, both of which offer easy-to-use, affordable software with options for e-books and print-on-demand. Writers like this option because it can be very fast; gives the writer control over the creative processes, prices and marketing; and generates a much higher margin on sales.

Even though there is now a low barrier to authorship, it’s worth investing time and money to create a polished, professional look, Lansky says. It pays to hire a professional book editor and designer. “An editor is absolutely essential,” she says. “Once a reader finds three typos, they think you’re lazy or unintelligent. A good book should go through five to seven rounds of editing—it’s like polishing silver.” Other professionals who might help include an indexer, illustrator and photo editor.

A few more keys to successful book publishing:

  • Pick the right topic. Ask yourself what is the one thing you do better than anyone else in your field? What is the No. 1 question customers ask you? What has no one else written a book about?
  • Consider a ghostwriter. “Not everyone is a natural writer,” Bhargava says. “If you can’t imagine sitting in a chair writing for eight hours per day for several months, then you know you should hire a ghostwriter.”
  • Don’t expect the book to make you money directly. “Don’t write a book to get rich,” Lansky says. “Those cases are very, very rare, even when the author hits the New York Times best-seller list. Instead, look at a book as a big business card.”
  • Be creative in ways to profit from the book. In addition to using the title to attract and close deals, consider it a networking tool. Bhargava suggests interviewing leaders in your industry for the book’s content as a way to open doors.

Dianna Booher

  • Business: Booher Consultants, a business communications firm
  • Strategy: Write the book first, then get consulting jobs
  • Results: Multimillion-dollar business has been driven primarily by book notoriety

“It was the early 1980s, and I had just earned my master’s degree in literature and needed a way to support my young family. But I hated sales and did not want to cold-call.

“About the same time, I had lunch with a friend who was a vice president of engineering at Shell Oil. He mentioned his department has flown in a consultant from Atlanta to teach the engineers business writing. I realized I could do that. So I penned a book on business writing, original titled, Would You Put That in Writing? But I needed money, so I went to an executive at Exxon and told her my book was coming out in nine months as a way to promote myself. She hired me, and the engineers said it was the best course they’d had in 30 years.

“When the book eventually did come out, the Houston Chronicle wrote a huge story about it, and my phone rang off the hook with 32 inquiries from companies wanting to hire me to do business communication training. Sales immediately jumped into the multimillion-dollar range. I haven’t done any sales calls since—I just market the book and call people back.

“From that book, I branched out into presentation skills, customer service communication and more. My philosophy is that you have to know enough to write a book before you can even think about being a consultant. To decide what my next area of expertise will be, I research by talking to clients about their problems, look for emerging trends, and go out to lunch with friends to listen to them. I find a solution to the problems I hear about.

“All 46 of my books were published with major houses, including Simon & Schuster, Random House and McGraw-Hill. My advice is to go with a major publisher for your first book. That makes you stand out among all the clutter and helps build credibility easier. Today, 78% of my client inquiries can be traced to the books.”

Eric Erickson

  • Business: Desert Green Pest Management
  • Strategy: Self-publish a how-to book promoting the business’s expertise
  • Results: Sales came from new global markets, increasing a total of 20%

“Seven years ago, I started a natural pest control business, and we needed to stand out as the experts. We started by creating educational videos on YouTube, teaching people chemical-free ways of keeping insects out of their homes. Some became really popular, which gave us a lot of credibility and drove a lot of business.

“I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life and have been involved in a number of publishing projects. I understand how much credibility a book can give a business. So I spent many, many hours researching and writing a book on natural and organic pest control. I had some friends with English degrees make sure it read at an eighth-grade level. I also hired a cover designer through the site Fivrr, which brokers affordable tech and design services.

“The book launched in February 2012 on Amazon—most of the 100 or so sales have been print-on-demand books for $12.48, though a few Kindle versions were also sold at $2.99. We promoted via Facebook, Twitter and on our company website. Since then, The Do-It-Yourself Guide: Keep the Pests Out has netted us new customers for our green products around the world. I attribute a sales jump of $100,000—or 20%—from the $100 investment I made to create the book.

“Now that I see how much success a book can drive, I’m writing a title for my business consulting firm: How to Start a Business from Scratch Backwards and Start Making Money in 30 Days or Less. The goal with this book is to attract high-profile media attention.”

Marc Joseph

  • Business: DollarDays, wholesaler of consumer products for independent retailers
  • Strategy: Teach customers how to be more successful through a book
  • Results: From the major publicity generated, company was positioned as industry expert

“I launched this business in 2001. From the start, I would get a dozen calls each day from our customers asking questions about running their businesses—everything from pricing to advertising and merchandising. I was happy to do that. It felt good to give advice.

“But pretty soon, 12 calls turned into 20. It was clear the smartest thing to do was to write a book to give these entrepreneurs a game plan for running their businesses. We knew that if we got them hooked into how we do business, it would help them be successful, which is obviously a win for us, too.

“Writing the book was a lot of work. Don’t kid yourself. I spent every weekend for nine months in my office writing it. You need a lot of personal and professional support to write a book.

“In 2005, The Secrets of Retailing…or How to Beat Walmart came out on Silverback Books. It immediately generated lots of publicity and positioned us as experts. I went on a tour visiting mostly independent bookstores, because the book’s message is how to survive and thrive against mega-chain competition.

“The book has made us go-to experts for retail sales, since, as wholesalers, we see trends emerging a full 30 days before retailers do. For example, the business media calls about holiday shopping trends in November, because we are the ones stocking the retailers. Those media relationships come from the book.

“As a result of all that publicity, we landed on the Inc. 500 ‘fastest-growing companies’ list in 2013. That is important from a PR standpoint since we are also a ‘little guy’ successfully competing against the big guys (Amazon and Walmart), just like our customers.”

Original article here: 
https://dm61q01mhxuli.cloudfront.net/media/magazine_v2.pdf

Interview: Marc Joseph of DollarDays

Leave a comment

This week, it’s my great pleasure to post an interview we ran with Marc Joseph, founder and President of DollarDays, and Kevin Ryan, [DollarDays] Vice President and General Merchandise Manager.

It would be great if you could share some details about your company’s history, goals and values.

DollarDays is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It was started back in 2001, because we felt the Internet leveled the playing field and was going to be the next channel of distribution for wholesale and closeout products to small and medium-sized businesses who had survived and were beginning to thrive against the chains in their areas. DollarDays became a public company in 2008 as America’s Suppliers, Inc. We now have over two million registered businesses and average over 1,000 new businesses joining us each day, attracted by our over 140,000 general-merchandise products, which are categories of items you would find in a Macy’s, Target or Walmart. Customers find us because of price, assortment, […] convenience and […] customer service provided by our 20 inside sales people.

We strive to be the premier online supplier for the small guys to compete against the big guys. Our second-largest customer base [is] nonprofit organizations like churches and schools who buy products from us to support their causes. We just went through hats, gloves, underwear, toothpaste, blankets, etc., and now are supplying them with backpacks, school supplies, kids’ clothing, health and beauty supplies, etc. We reach out to nonprofit organizations, because, with our buying power, it allows them to stretch their dollars and get more bang for their buck.

What initially kindled your the interest in e-commerce video? Where you actively seeking out an e-commerce video solution, per se, or was this simply part of the ongoing quest to improve the site and bring up conversions?

A little of both. We had been experimenting with video over the past year knowing that it was going to be an important part of SEO plans and goals. We partnered with a video company to produce several funny videos hoping they would “go viral,” but as we quickly learned, this is a one-in-a-million chance to happen, [s]o we decided to pull back until we found the right method and process for producing videos. When we found Treepodia, we knew we had found a value proposition that would give us more bang for our buck by producing thousands of product videos that would rank in product searches, rather than hoping for the one big viral video to come along.

How did you first hear about Treepodia? What were the factors that led to the decision to choose our solution for your implementation?

Our Vice President of Merchandising, Kevin Ryan, found Treepodia’s ad in a web design trade magazine and brought it to the management team’s attention. We discussed it as a team and decided it was worth pursuing. Again, we saw Treepodia as a value proposition to get us started down the road to video production and success.

What’s the impact e-commerce video has had on your operation so far?

We are still early in the game with Treepodia, but, so far, we have been impressed with the results we have seen. We are extremely pleased with our video viewing rate, conversion rate and product placement in Google search engines. Early on, we immediately started to see our product videos appearing on the first pages of Google searches. This just further helps us create the reinforcement in our product listings.

What have your e-commerce video experiences taught you? What would you recommend to smaller/less experienced vendors, in this respect?

We have learned over the past year that video is an important part of our current and future merchandising and SEO strategy, and that once we found the right partner, it was obvious that […] the results are promising and successful. The key part is finding a way to create videos in [an] automated manner that requires little setup on behalf of the retailer. We all have many other projects and goals to accomplish, and having a partner to do this on our behalf allows us to concentrate on the merchandising, selling and customer service part of our business. The small cost of a service like Treepodia has proven to be a successful partnership.

Original article here: http://blog.treepodia.com/2011/07/interview-marc-joseph-and-kevin-ryan-of-dollardays-com/

Marc Joseph, Author Interview

Leave a comment

What is your most recent book? Tell us a bit about it.

My book is The Secrets of Retailing…or How to Beat Walmart. My company is the largest B2B site on the Internet, where we sell over 75,000 general-merchandise products by the case at wholesale and closeout prices to small and medium-sized companies surviving and thriving against the chains in their areas. I was getting several phone calls a week from entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to go into business, so the book came about as a one-stop resource on starting and running a business in today’s highly competitive environment.

Tell us something about yourself.

I grew up in a small town in Ohio, and my parents and grandparents were all entrepreneurs striving to make a living. After graduating from Miami of Ohio with a major in marketing and a minor in financing, I had the opportunity to get out of the cold and work in retailing for Burdines, the Florida division of Federated Department Stores (now known as Macy’s). [I s]pent 13 years with Burdines and then went into small-town discounting with Bill’s, a chain of 551 stores in the south that was the little Walmart for smaller towns, [t]hen [I] went on to the new concept of dollar stores with Everything’s A Dollar, where we had 420 stores. [I t]hen went into the book business as the Senior Vice President of Marketing & Merchandising for Crown Books, the third-largest chain at the time behind Barnes & Noble and Borders. Always having the itch to be an entrepreneur like everyone else in my family, I started two businesses: a chain of hair salons that grew to 11 stores and DollarDays, which took advantage of the efficiencies of the Internet to level the playing field between the little guys and the big guys in finding merchandise to sell in their towns. As DollarDays began to grow, I sold the chain of hair salons.

What inspired you to write this book?

Our customers inspired me to write this book. Entrepreneurs are an exciting part of our society. They work hard, are smart and take the chances that help this country to continue to grow. With the right information, entrepreneurs can lead us out of this recession, and my mission is to make our customers better than their competition, so writing this step-by-step guide on how to open and run a business was a natural extension of what I believe.

How did you publish this book? Why did you decide on that publisher?

The book was published by Silverback Books, and they found me. Their editors were top-notch, and it was a real pleasure working with them.

How did you know you wanted to be a writer? How did you get started?

I did not know I wanted to be a writer, [b]ut once I started that first chapter, the other 14 just seemed to flow. When you are writing about something you love, it does not seem to be work.

What do you believe is the hardest part of writing?

What took me the longest was choosing the different subjects and, thus, the chapters that entrepreneurs needed to be successful from soup to nuts. I did not want it to be too cumbersome and [lose] the audience in too many details, yet it had to be complete enough to become the one-stop shop to open your business.

How do you do research for your books?

Having been in retailing for most of my life and having worked at department stores, discount stores and specialty stores, most of my research was hands-on experience learning from my own mistakes.

Did you learn anything from writing this book? What?

What I learned from writing this book is how impressive the American spirit is in our drive to be successful and change peoples’ lives for the better. As I was interviewing different experts in different fields, the one common denominator was their desire to mentor the next generation to make sure they did not make the same mistakes, and they wanted to help move the American dream forward.

What are you reading now?

I am reading two books right now: Return of the Gold—The Journey of Jerry Colangelo and the Redeem Team, which is about the Summer Olympics and the USA Basketball Team, and […] America’s Prophet—Moses and the American Story, which is about Moses’ influence in the growth of America.

What types of books do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors? Why?

History and books connected to the Internet movement are my favorite reads. I thought 1776 by David McCullough was spectacular and Inside Larry & Sergey’s Brain (Google’s founders) by Richard Brandt was a page-turner.

Are you working on your next book? What can you tell us about it?

My next book follows a similar theme. Whereas The Secrets of Retailing…or How to Beat Walmart is the entrepreneur’s guide to traditional business, my next book is about the entrepreneur’s guide to online Internet consumer business.

What is the best advice you could give other writers about writing or publishing?

Write about what is your passion.

Original article here: https://www.sellingbooks.com/marc-joseph-author-interview/