Most businesses that have a mission statement probably spent a lot of time and thought (and money in some cases) carefully crafting it.  Over zealous and well meaning executives and consultants meticulously toiled (and probably feuded) over getting it ‘just right’ in hopes that it would both pull their team together, and at the same time impress prospects enough to want to do business with such a company. While no doubt there are many examples of truly great mission statements, for the most part I think they get trivialized or forgotten altogether by employees and largely ignored by their customers and prospects.  My hunch is this is due, in large part, to the fact that most mission statements are too long,  too cliche and too ‘formal’. What if your company was forced to declare a one word mission statement.  This word would have to be an action (verb).  Something that said “Billy, I want you to take this business, go out into the world and  ______.  Such a mission statement would certainly be easier to remember.  It could even be written (or symbolized) on every surface of your company to help remind people.  It could even make for a nice tattoo. With this blog post I am kicking off a collaborative project to research and publish the most powerful and effective one word mission statements.  I’d like to challenge well established, successful, and well known businesses to go through the effort of selecting their one word mission. So...

All we need is yet another acronym in our bowl of search engine marketing alphabet soup that already includes ROI, ROAS, CT, SEO. But there is one more worth mentioning, one you should be aware of and avoid at all costs: Ranking Obsession Syndrome, or ROS. You don’t have to search hard to find someone who’s obsessed with whether their company’s search engine rankings has moved from position #3, down to #10, and back up to #6. People with this obsession come from big and small companies alike. Even the wisest of business leaders can fall victim. Sadly, businesses people often worry about their natural search rankings when, the truth is, in most practical cases, they have little if any control over the day-to-day results. (Worrying or even concerning yourself about rankings would be like watching the stock market several times a day when you are a layman, long-term investor, trying to build overall financial health.) I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t get concerned (or even panic-stricken) if you were on the first page for some phrase and suddenly were nowhere to be found. I am saying you should focus your time and energy on things you have some control over, such as the conversion rate of your website and monetizing your search traffic as a whole, be it leads, subscriptions, or transactions. Breaking Free From Ranking Obsession Syndrome Here is a list of some items to put your efforts toward in place of obsessing over your search engine ranking: Make...

Let’s imagine you learned of a mechanic who could double your gas mileage. You could take your car in and, after paying for a few modifications (which are legal, moral, and ethical), your gas mileage would be forever doubled. You would get to enjoy the savings and efficiency for as long as you own your car. Would you do it? While I know of no such mileage-doubling opportunity, I am aware of a sales-doubling opportunity that many executives seem comfortable to ignore. If your website generates sales leads today, it’s entirely possible that, with a few modifications, you could enjoy a 2X (or even 5X) increase in leads. The common term for this is “Conversion Rate”. We know mileage rate means that for every gallon of gas we burn we can expect to travel a fixed number of miles. Conversion Rate means that for each thousand visitors that come to our website we can expect to generate a fixed number of sales leads. Attacking your conversion rate can have huge upside for you. In this case, huge might only be 1%, and there are few times in business where you can get truly excited about 1% of anything. Here’s where the excitement comes from… If your website generates 10 leads for every thousand visitors, you would have a 1% Conversion Rate. By moving from a 1% to a 2% Conversion Rate, you double your sales leads. The net change is only 1 percentage point, but doubling your sales leads is pretty exciting! Another nice thing about Conversion Rate is you...

I’m trying to help a friend decide on whether to use this picture for a pretty sizable campaign. Please look at the following picture and answer two questions in the comments below: Q. What is the relationship between these two people? Q. What’s this guy thinking right now? Your opinion is most appreciated! Please retweet this research question if you’d be so kind.

With thanksgiving just around the corner, I wanted to revisit just a few of the videos that have been sent my way that really make me stop and realize just how lucky I am. Got any ‘must adds’ to my collection? The Last Lecture Team Hoyt Jason McElwain