How to Safely Upgrade to WordPress 5.0

How to Safely Upgrade to WordPress 5.0

by | Jan 7, 2019 | Internet Business, Marketing in London, Ontario

WordPress 5.0 is here, code named “Bebo” after Cuban Jazz master Bebo Valdés. WP 5.0 is a major update, with an all new editor named “Gutenberg”, which is a massive revamp of the default editing experience. 5.0 also saw the release of a brand new default theme called Twenty Nineteen which is fully Gutenberg compliant, and has plenty of room for customization.

As a major upgrade, it could be a little bit scary to do the updates, but it’s very important that you keep your WordPress website up to date with the latest versions. We’ve put together a small guide for how to update to WordPress 5.0 safely, and we’ve added some specific instructions for our customers who also use a custom Divi Child Theme from us. (more…)

Manage Comics Featured in London Inc

Manage Comics Featured in London Inc

by | Dec 13, 2018 | Announcements, Marketing in London, Ontario

We were recently interviewed by Sean Meyer for an article in the December / January London Inc. Magazine.  In the article we talked about how our online comics subscription management tool for comic stores, Manage Comics helps stores improve their customer service and their profitability.

Our goal for Manage Comics has always been to help modernize comic shops, and give them a leg up on the other forms of entertainment out there. By making it easier to subscribe to comics, and even removing some of the barriers around the actual purchase of comics, we have proven that Manage Comics can make stores more money.

Removing the barriers of people having to come into your store to experience it, you’re expanding your business – Brian Garside

In the article we also talked about some of the stores of Manage Comics, which currently are all across the United States, Canada, and even in the UK and Australia.

As stores have closed over the last few years, people are travelling further to get their weekly comics fix. By making it easier to subscribe to their comics, be alerted when new things are ready for them, and even be able to pay for their orders online, Manage Comics helps keep stores in business.

To read the entire article, visit “Managing the Books” on the London Inc website.

To learn more about Manage Comics, visit the Manage Comics website.

How losing a promotion was the best thing that happened to me

How losing a promotion was the best thing that happened to me

by | Oct 5, 2018 | Marketing, Marketing in London, Ontario

I’m going to give you the secret sauce on how to make a marketing automation system for free. It has all the bells, though none of the whistles of the ridiculously expensive services where you can pay $2500 a month just for the software to run this plan. Most small businesses won’t need the whistles anyhow.

First, let me tell you a quick story.

3 years ago I had the unfortunate experience of getting passed over for a promotion to a marketing director role at the company I worked for. A role that at the time I really believed was what I wanted. It was not a great experience, and was the second time this had happened at this company. Obviously, that particular goal wasn’t ever going to happen.

It was a wake up call.

I didn’t respond how most people do in this circumstance. I did something unusual which looking back on it three years later was a bounce pad for where NorthIQ is at now – a successful and growing business.

I took an entire week off and spent it working with a former colleague (my now-NorthIQ partner Brian Garside) to begin building what is now NorthIQ.

Only we didn’t know it at the time.

That week was exciting because we launched an ebook and sold several copies within the 5 day window we gave ourselves. We hit our goal of building a database of 50, and we also landed a customer who ended up being a significant partner in our growth as an organization.

It was crazy. We barely slept. It was interesting and engaging and unlike anything I did in my 9-5.

If you’re sitting there right now unsure about how a very small change in your life can lead to huge things I will tell you right now it can be astronomical. Life changing. It can be the difference between you hitting your goals and just continuing along where you’re at now.

At the time I’d have loved to be where I am now. It was such an elephant to eat I didn’t really see how it was possible. 

Intermission:

If you just want the How to Create a Free Marketing Automation System go ahead and grab it, but we’d love if you would continue on the story (don’t worry, we’ll remind you about the download below as well).

Back to the story.

We decided let’s just do one small thing at a time. Set the bar so damn low we’d have things to accomplish, over and over.

Brian had already done the brave thing and taken the plunge – he quit his day job to start NorthIQ. He had provided what would be the foundation for what we’d build. I always joke “What took you so long to quit.” but that’s a very brave move to take. We didn’t have the dollars or customers to pay for both our salaries so I went back to work and patiently supported NorthIQ as an evening job.

Another big game changer for us occurred that week, and thinking back on it it’s a funny story.

During day 1 Brian had mentioned to me that he had a prospect who was wanting a new website but also more – a lot of marketing work. At the time it wasn’t his area of expertise but I talked him into providing a proposal. We barely knew how to make proposals of this kind. We weren’t sure how we’d get the work done, since I had a full time job and he was still learning the marketing side.

They accepted. To this day they are a top customer. The impact this company has had on NorthIQ, and the relationships we built from this is vast.

Two seemingly minor things in the space of 2 days that changed our lives.

The simple fact is that just getting out there, doing, executing  is so valuable. You can accomplish anything if you just get in and try.

A lot has happened between now and then. We moved into an office. We have awesome staff. Great customers. During the ride we’ve accomplished so many things that seemed outside my safety zone. I dare say it…we’ve even become (uggghhh) sales people.

No road is too steep for somebody who is determined and patient.

Let’s get back to marketing automation…

I learned marketing automation on Marketo, then Pardot, then Hubspot, then I built my own free version and NorthIQ used that for awhile. Finally, last month we  partnered with Sharpspring and I implemented a full system for us. I have thousands of hours of experience in all the platforms combined.

Automating your marketing is incredibly powerful. Even a simple automated email nurture when somebody fills out your form can prove extremely useful. Add in lead capture forms, lead magnet, lead scoring, lead routing, CRM, sales pipelines, reporting and you get a tool that most companies should really invest in at some point.

When I see the reasons for saying no to using this type of service I am frustrated.

Don’t I need to be a marketer?

The honest truth is that any small or medium business owner needs to wear…not just a lot of hats but every hat. All of the hats need to be worn. Chair falls apart? Fix-it hat. Somebody didn’t get paid? Finance hat. Need more friends (customers)… yeah… marketing hat.

You don’t need to BE a marketer, you just need to act like one long enough.

My company is too small.

Too small to engage and delight future customers so they love you before they even spent a cent?

Isn’t it expensive?

You can build a solid system for free. NorthIQ used it for a couple of years. There are even paid options that fit inside the budgets of small companies. It’s no longer just for big companies. That has ended. The industry has changed and nobody has told the small businesses.

Don’t let the big boys snap up every prospect while you rail against the unfairness of it! You can compete! If anything automation just evens the playing field. It’s enabling David’s everywhere.

We’re already doing good business.

Yeah, that’s awesome. What if you could be doing even better? When you are doing well you likely have more money to invest in ways to make your sales more predictable and take less effort.

It’s complicated! We’ll never be able to take advantage of all the features.

Implement a piece at a time and before you know your system will be humming along.

I don’t have the time.

Of all of the excuses, this one I understand the most. Time is the one resource that none of us seem to have enough of. The thing is, you can start today with a little bit of time, and build it small, piece by piece. Each piece will add incremental improvements, which multiply exponentially. It is amazing how a series of small changes can have major impacts.

The NorthIQ Free Marketing Automation System

I initially figured this out because NorthIQ needed a budget solution for our own business. Then we ran across other companies who also needed a budget system. They were all at a point in growing their business where it would help them grow but the dollars and internal knowledge were not there. They could not afford to pay NorthIQ to implement for them, but we’re really passionate about seeing other companies succeed. That’s why I built this as a free download.

DOWNLOAD THE NORTHIQ FREE MARKETING AUTOMATION SYSTEM

The “How to Build a Free Marketing Automation System” does not give you all the advanced features that a fully paid program gives you but it does give you the most basic ones that a small or medium business will need.

The more important features for a small business:

  • Collect prospect data via forms
  • Automate nurturing emails to those prospects
  • Store prospects in a CRM for optimizing sales funnels

So from very small organizations (I’ve implemented this easily with 1-2 person companies) to medium organizations with limited budget and limited experience this is actually a really good solution. It gives you the basics of a marketing automation platform and is easy to learn.

You’ll get:

  • A free CRM that is actually really good for both sales and marketing
  • An email tool that is as good as the pro tools
  • Automation that is just limited enough to make it easy
  • Forms to collect your leads
  • Simple behavioural based triggers
  • Flexibility in terms of customized properties and values that your
    internal team might require
  • Real time web tracking
  • Reporting for you to understand what’s going on
  • And it’s all free, if you’re smart and careful about the whole thing.

You won’t get:

  • Extremely detailed workflow capabilities
  • Advanced behavioural based triggers
  • A content strategy
  • A large database (if you’re working with more than 2500 leads, this becomes cumbersome)
  • An all-in-one tool
  • Support

Last Paragraph: Let me Put on my Sales Hat

NorthIQ has implemented professional Marketing Automation solutions across many organizations, and works with most of them monthly to generate leads and boost revenue. We’re proud of the work we do and the companies we get to do it with. The companies that we work with have doubled, triple, and even quadruple their revenue in one year of working with us.

If you want to explore having NorthIQ implement this free version for you or a service with more functionality (we offer this at surprisingly reasonable rates) you can book a time to talk to us here. No pressure, no pushy sales promotions, just a chat where we’ll find out a bunch of things about you and tell you if we can help you out.

The NorthIQ Free Marketing Automation System

Get the System
Meet the All New NorthIQ Team

Meet the All New NorthIQ Team

by | Sep 27, 2018 | Announcements, Marketing in London, Ontario

When NorthIQ started in August 2015, it was just one man with a mission, to make the web a better place. I started out with one client, All New Comics, and a plan to build out Manage Comics. Very quickly I found that people wanted to talk about bigger projects, and in a few short months it was too much for one person. In May 2017 Craig came on board, and this summer we brought on two new awesome ladies to become a fantastic foursome.

We thought it would be a good idea to introduce the entire NorthIQ team. When I started NorthIQ, my goal was to work with awesome people, and do amazing things. I think when you see the team, you’ll understand that vision is coming true. (more…)

The Importance of Tea and Cookies

The Importance of Tea and Cookies

by | Sep 20, 2018 | Building a Business, Marketing in London, Ontario

Ryan McFadden of Revival Renovations told me about the “Tea and Cookies Meeting” a while ago. Most business these days can be done by email and phone. In the renovation business you need to see the space, get measurements and make some choices. Then nothing happens for 4-8 weeks as things are built, cut, and prepared.

During this quiet time, he makes a point of having a brief face-to-face meeting with the client where he updates them on the status of the project, and there’s usually tea and cookies. (more…)

NorthIQ Values – Revised

NorthIQ Values – Revised

by | Jul 18, 2018 | Building a Business, General, Marketing in London, Ontario

Back in April as we started thinking about what we wanted our company to become, we set out to create values. We asked the question “What do you Value?“. We knew that these were going to be aspirational, and that we’d revise them over the next little while as we put them into place. What became immediately obvious to us though was that there were too many, that they weren’t specific enough, and that the only two we could remember were “Provide Ludicrous Value” and “Have Fun”.

We knew we had some work to do.

Then an interesting thing happened. We ended up working with a few companies that didn’t align with what we wanted to do. Those projects didn’t fit our vision of what we wanted to become, and many of them were “one and done” type jobs where we did something, but didn’t have a long term vision on how to work with the client. (more…)