How to Choose the Best Vendor for Your Project

Over the past several months my company has been inundated with a higher than average amount of request for proposals.  While we’re used to being solicited for several proposals every day, the last few months we’ve witnessed more than triple!

Every week we take the time to determine which ones we will bid on by using our typical approach.  At the beginning of each day we sit down and prioritize, consider the types of projects along with the quality and detail within each.  Finally, we assess the feasibility of any budgets identified.

I’ve noticed a trend that is evidently growing.  A whole lot of request for proposals start out with wording that reveals an issue with the contract awarding processes of many companies.  While the wording slightly varies, it typically starts with “We previously hired a development team that could not deliver….”

Your website is search engine optimized but you’re still not near the top… why?

In the past several months, I’ve noticed a dramatic shift in the ranking of hundreds of companies on most search engines.  Unfortunately, consequentially, I’ve also suffered temporary hearing impairment as a result of business owners’ alarm bells going off at decibel levels not previously witnessed to date.  Why is that?

Quite simply, the Internet has become a critical medium for the generation of revenue for many companies.  Many of these companies rely heavily on the revenues generated from their organic traffic, or unpaid search results.  The result of losing even a few positions in rank, often times is the difference between a business that is thriving and a business that is bleeding.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to shift the tide, and the difference between a few placements could easily result in the loss of 70-90% of a companies’ targeted traffic.  Think about how you use a search engine.  Most individuals open the first 3-5 links that catch their eye and within a minute they’ve narrowed down their potential customer list to 2 or 3 options at most.  If your website is not one of the links that catches their eye, then you don’t even have a chance to make a sale…. zero percent!!! That’s horrible odds!

How Do You Welcome New Customers?

How do you welcome your new customers?  When they join your family do you simply sign a purchase agreement and fulfill your obligations or do you strive to create something more?

Do you aim to build long-term mutually beneficial relationships with all of your clients?  Of course you do!  How do you make that expectation clear and pave the path towards achieving this goal.

Social media superhero saves businesses with top-secret strategy

N-VisionIT Interactive SM2 social media superhero.

Ottawa, ON, Aug. 21, 2012 – Deep beneath the streets of Canada’s capital lives a superhero who catapults brands into the Internet and saves businesses from the perils of poor social media marketing.  His name is N-VisionIT Interactive CEO Brent Mondoux. His superpower? A top-secret strategy known to agents as SM2 – social media superhero methodology.

Mondoux invented the revolutionary SM2 so businesses could arm themselves with a new weapon in the fight to increase website traffic and sales. SM2  helps businesses build loyal, authentic communities using long-term, customized social media strategies.

“It’s not just how to use social media. It’s how to use it well, today and over time, as your business changes and as technology evolves,” said Mondoux, whose company has created websites, mobile applications and social media strategies for clients around the world, including government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

How can I make money with my website?

Having talked to thousands of entrepreneurs over the last decade and a half, I’m still surprised by the large amount of companies that are still starting businesses without viable revenue models.  In fact many entrepreneurs are starting companies without any revenue model plan whatsoever!

Granted, there are companies without revenue models that have sold for breathtaking bounties.  Just this recent quarter, Draw Something sold to Zynga for $300 million and Instagram sold to Facebook for a whopping $1 billion.

25 Easy Ways to Increase Profits on Your Ecommerce Site

Many of these businesses started out with brick and mortar locations and have since closed their physical presences as a result of higher revenues and profit margins from their online sales.  Unfortunately, many other businesses started to execute our mutually created game plan and then got busy and put it on the side burner.

What’s the result?  Their ability to grow their business, stay ahead of their competitors and truly reap the rewards of their competitive advantages has not yet been realized.  Ironically, many of these companies should be sitting in a far better situation today than they are, but, they continue to struggle because they’ve got caught up in the day-to-day operation of their business and put aside the most important activity that’s vital to any company’s long-term success – following a game plan.  We’ve all heard the old adage, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

A Dozen Tips About Using Twitter Effectively to Gain Customers and Increase Profits

This week I thought I’d put together a few tips for users who are trying to learn to effectively use Twitter in order to engage an audience and create new connections.

The most common reason that Twitter isn’t working for many companies is because they simply haven’t taken the time to learn how to use it effectively.

I’ve put together a brief list of the best tips that will help get you on your way to successfully leveraging the power of Twitter in your social media marketing efforts.  What’re you waiting for?  Let’s get started and start creating some real buzz around your brand!

Here are the tips:

Get Your Priorities Straight

All the time people ask me how I get so much done each and every day.  There are a lot of weapons in my arsenal that you’ll learn about if you follow my blog, this is most definitely one of them.  I call it my “super-secret, no bullsh*t priority management approach” but you can call it the “common-sense well thought out approach” if you wish… I just think my naming choice sounds cooler.

Every week or two I intend to reveal another one of my weapons used to battle the obstacle-laden horizon of productivity.  If you want to take your business to the next level, with no cost other than the time you take to learn from and implement the strategies that I’ve honed over the last decade and a half, you too will become a powerhouse to be reckoned with in your own respective industry.  After all, what do you have to lose?  More importantly, what do you have to gain?

What’s an Internet presence? If you said ‘website’ you’re so 2000!

I’ve been having a lot of discussions about what an Internet presence encompasses.  Only a few years ago this conversation would have been brief, discussing primarily website presence, but today an Internet presence has dramatically evolved into much more!  Today Internet presences aren’t centralized around just a website.  While a website is an absolutely essential aspect, other presences have also become vital in ensuring an edge amongst competitors.  Chances are if you’re not there, your competitors are and they’re gaining business from potential customers that don’t even know you exist.  This is almost like if you were a farmer trying to sell your fruit and vegetables on a side street when there’s a huge farmer’s market around the corner.  Quite simply… by not using common sense you are missing out and helping your competitors to get rich while you accept the status quo!