Or at the very least “Why I love Infusionsoft”

Infusionsoft is simply the most powerful CRM/Marketing Automation tool for small business. There’s nothing better.

It’s like Salesforce.com + ExactTarget + 1ShoppingCart all-in-one.

And for two seats at $299/month, plus $59/month per additional seat, the price cannot be beat.  

You will not find a better all-in-one CRM/Marketing Automation System.  It includes:  (1) CRM (2) Autoresponders (3) Web forms (4) Order forms (5) Sales force automation (6) Shopping cart (7) Affiliate marketing management, and (8) lots, lots more, and what’s best, you can get it all without spending tens of thousands of dollars, or cobbling together other systems that do parts of what Infusionsoft can do (like Salesforce.com + ExactTarget + 1ShoppingCart, which you’d probably spend 5 figures putting it all together anyway).

If you’re looking for a CRM or Marketing Automation System for your Small Business, but haven’t been able to decide which one is best for you, here are 5 good reasons to get off the fence:

5 Reasons to get off the fence

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You know the definition of insanity, right? “Doing the same old thing and expecting different results.”

So why do so many companies keep doing the same old thing, and expect anything different? It’s insanity.

If you’d like to break out of the same old routine, and produce some real results you need to try something new.

Here are 12 great marketing ideas you can try in the coming months to achieve better results.

12 Cost-effective Marketing Ideas you can implement to Achieve Better Results

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Everyone says they want better results.

So why aren’t companies more adventurous when it comes to trying new things?

It’s the “I hate brocolli” syndrome of marketing and business.

If you ask the average CEO, “What’s the rationale for the way you’re currently marketing your services?”  Many say: “It’s what we’ve always done.”

The sad truth is that many companies are engaging in the same old tried marketing tactics rooted in strategies that were developed eons ago (a.k.a. 2007).  They’re wasting money on tactics that are not rooted in any real, current strategy – or based on the realities of today’s marketplace.

How to get higher response rates and higher conversions

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Blogging and Social Media Sitting in a Tree: K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

What is the purpose behind Blogging? It’s not to show how smart or cute you are. If it’s going to be a part of an effective business strategy, you need to provide value, to show people the way, and establish yourself as a thought leader.

What is the purpose behind Social Media? It’s to connect with People: Friends, Associates, Affiliates, Prospects, Customers, and let them know what you’re up to. If you are using social media, you get to build your own channel, and you are literally the Editorial Board, Editor in Chief, Writer/Anchor, and Ombudsman all in one person.

What’s the purpose behind integrating your Blogging and your Social Media? Quite simply, it’s a radical new opportunity to put yourself “out there” in front of your clients and prospects, to help them solve problems,and position yourself as a potential solution provider, so that when they have an itch they’ll remember that you provide the scratch.

How to Integrate Blogging and Social Media: In 8 Simple Steps

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Why is everyone talking about “Inbound Marketing?” Who cares about the “Real-time Web?”

Several years ago when Google modified its Pagerank Algorithm, and started factoring in how other influential websites link to yours,  few people really could imagine the explosion of social media engines like Linked-in, Facebook, and Twitter. Your search engine visibility is determined not only by the quality of the content on your website, but by who is linking to you.

Just recently, Google has launched the real-time web. Now more than ever there is an extraordinary opportunity for small businesses to carve out a niche in their social media marketplaces — effectively creating their own channel to communicate with their customers and prospects.

In an article in Huffpost by Manish Mehta, the Vice President, Social Media and Community at Dell Inc. (who can attribute $7 million in sales to Twitter for doing nothing at all!),  Mehta affirms “Social media isn’t a means to further a corporation’s strategy, it’s a means to help determine it.”

Sometimes pictures (or mindmaps) are better than words, so I’ve created a Mindmap that illustrates a general Inbound Marketing/Social Media Strategy.

Inbound Marketing / Social Media Strategy Cashmap for Small Businesses

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I love Wordpress, and others small business owners and marketers should too.

Over the past two years, it has become my web design platform of choice.

“Why?” You might ask….

Simply because a Wordpress website can do everything an old-fashioned website can do, and about 100 times more.

10 Reasons Small Business Owners Love Wordpress

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When Warren Buffet speaks, people listen.

Recently I happened to catch Warren Buffet on TV talking about how leaders should set business priorities.

Buffet was saying that you should run your business like it’s a family business–one that you are going to hold onto for 100 years, and the #1 thing you should think about is how to build a sustainable competitive advantage, like building “like a moat around your castle.”

If you look back to medieval times, moats were excavated around castles as part of the defensive system–an obstacle immediately outside the walls–and usually they were filled with water.

A good moat made it difficult for your enemy to access your walls with siege weapons, such as towers and battering rams, which needed to be brought up against a wall to work effectively. A water-filled moat made it impossible for your enemy to dig tunnels under your fortifications in order to effect a collapse of the defenses. A good moat protected your castle and everything in it.

The wider your moat, the longer you can protect your profits. The deeper your moat, the more profitable you are.

“Understanding your customers” is key to building a good moat

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The biggest mistake people make when it comes to Google Adwords is to create one ad, send it to the home page of your website, and choose all the keywords that Google Adwords suggests.

That’s a great way to go through your entire budget fast with zero results.

The trick to getting higher higher response on pay-per-click ads is to create a separate landing page for each of your top keywords in three easy (but time-consuming) steps.

3 Easy Steps to Better Pay-Per-Click Results

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One of the most challenging and most commonly misunderstood components of successful business-to-business marketing is lead generation and nurturing (or ‘demand generation and management’).

Starting with how you generate inquiries through the challenging hand-off and follow-up by your sales force, and most importantly how you measure the results, this ”discipline” sees more wasted money, more missed opportunities, and more downright mistakes than any other area in business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales.

Now that some of the more traditional direct mail disciplines (multivariate testing, A/B splits) are being used on the Internet (web design, email marketing, search engine marketing, pay-per-click advertising, landing page optimization, social media, web 2.0), it has made the the demand generation and management process more complex and more difficult than ever. 

Why Lead Generation is so important

But this really presents businesses the greatest opportunity for three reasons:

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Once you’ve established a unique identity, you need to create a web presence that works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with an offer that engages your prospects and prompts them to contact you.

How do you get your prospects to engage with you? Top search engine rankings are nice, but it really doesn’t matter if you’re not converting traffic into inquiries, and inquries into sales.

Here’s the secret: “It’s not about you.”

Most websites are guilty of the biggest strategic copywriting blunder

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