Hi All!
It’s been a while since I wrote…lots of changes in my life in 2006. I got married, bought a house, and trained very intensively in the realm of content publishing. I published a new book: Overcome Rejection, The SMART Way (more details coming soon!), was interviewed on NBC’s Today Show, and also listed in The 2007 edition of "Who’s Who in America". I also accepted a position as Director of Training & Development at ContentDesk.com.
So you could say that 2006 was a very eventful year. 🙂
Anyway, now that we’re into 2007, I wanted to get back to writing regularly and sharing with you some ideas I’ve learned over the past few months. All of these will be valuable for you and your business.
No matter what your expertise, your main business is really marketing and sales. Here are my top ten tips for 2007:
1) You really do need to have permission to contact people. Practice attraction marketing, where you offer good information, tips, or advice, and get potential customers to come to you. This is the easiest and less stressful way to build a business.
2) Your customers are very focused on their needs and their goals. You only have a small window of opportunity to capture their attention and get them to focus on what you’re offering. It takes a certain kind of message to move people to act.
3) Most people will not see the value of your product or service in the first mention. You have to follow up multiple times, in different ways, to convince them to take action.
4) To be able to accomplish #3, you must have resiliency. Resiliency means that you keep showing up, working your plan, even when it seems like nobody is listening. They are. It just takes a while for YOU to know that.
Remember that saying about attracting customers to your business: In the first year, they sleep. In the second year, they creep. In the third year, they leap!
5) You must be willing to go where the market leads. Meaning that if your potential customers respond best to one kind of message, you keep giving them more messages like that. For example, I’ve been experimenting with video on one of my sites. I offered a video message in my blog one day, and then an audio one the next. Both demonstrated about equal readership and interest compared to regular written posts. So I am collecting data which says, for that particular market, all kinds of blog posts (audio, video, or written) seem to be equally effective.
6) Have some fun with it. Play with your marketing messages, marketing channels, and marketing avenues. Boldly go where no one has gone before. (Keeping it professional and on target, of course!)
7) Add more of YOU into your business. I used to think that people wanted me to be an aggregator of information (to borrow from Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail- which is excellent and a must read, I think.) Anyway, in this book, Chris makes a distinction between being an aggregator of information (i.e. a repository, collector) to being a filter (using the material to determine what works.)
I am making the shift from aggregator of resources to filter/user of resources. I would recommend the same for you. Clients come to you because you offer them a helpful/more direct/simpler way to reach their goals. Don’t give them ALL the information that exists. Give them just the best parts that will work best for them.
8) Following on number 7, don’t be afraid to recommend products or services which will help your potential customers, even if they are not all your own. It is usually very helpful to position yourself as someone who has your customer’s best interests in mind, at all times. Focus on being such a resource to your clients.
9) Focus on building relationships, one person at a time. I give my best shot at personally answering all email that comes into my inbox directly addressed to me. You never know how a small kindness can benefit you. Of course, I don’t (and you shouldn’t) give away all your best information for free. But you probably know so much about your field that you could offer a few tips to help, without giving away your whole knowledgebase.
10) Don’t take it personally. For each new promotional campaign, plan to give it at least 3-6 months to gain momentum. In this time, focus on a balance between learning and doing. Assume that your product or service will help many people, if you can let them know about it.
Don’t make your promotion about you and your feelings (tough, I know!) but, instead, make it about getting your product or service into as many minds and hearts as possible. There is value in people knowing about you, even if they don’t buy. Everyone is connected to other people, and cultivating high awareness in one person can lead to a purchase from another.
There are more tips I’d like to share with you over the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned!
Again, it’s wonderful to be back with you, thanks for hanging in there with me. 🙂 Welcome to all our new subscribers, and let’s work together to make 2007 an amazing year for your business, your life, and you!
