I have a 1000% guarantee in my business...
And I think you should, too...
It goes like this...
"I am better than anyone who's cheaper. And I'm cheaper than anyone who's better."
Read it again.
Is this true for YOUR business as well?
If it is - please feel free to "borrow" my guarantee and use it as your own.
Enjoy!
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing for coaches, thought leadership marketing, trusted advisor marketing, marketing consultant, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants
Cajole convince persuade chase sell beat up interrupt intrude close close again stalk give up
No wonder you're exhausted...
Solve answer enlighten equip fix listen nurture connect engage attract entice invite buy
So much better...
Here are two visual reminders for you.
Please share them, post them, pin them - and most of all, remember to USE them as daily reminders for how YOU engage your own prospects, customers and clients.
Tags: Marketing for speakers, marketing for authors, marketing coach, Marketing 1.0, Marketing 2.0
Thoughts? Ideas? Recommendations? Please use the COMMENTS area below and let's hear from YOU...
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, marketing strategy, marketing success, marketing for coaches, thought leadership marketing, marketing professional services, professional services marketing, trusted advisor marketing, marketing expert, professional speaker marketing, marketing ideas, marketing strategist, motivational speaker marketing, speaker marketing, marketing consultant, small business marketing, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, marketing tip
Forget about your cheap company pens...
Trash your company logo coffee mugs...
Your personalized gift strategy is about to get a MAJOR upgrade so that YOU get 100 times more bang for the buck than you're getting now...
And it's all about ONE simple shift...
Watch the video to see how it works - PLUS you'll get three smart examples YOU can model from starting right now...
Tags: Marketing speaker, marketing coach, marketing tips, personalized gifts
What do you think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share the most meaningful business gifts you've received - or sent!
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing for coaches, thought leadership marketing, word of mouth marketing, small business advertising, marketing professional services, professional services marketing, trusted advisor marketing, marketing professional services firms, small business marketing expert, professional speaker marketing, marketing ideas, motivational speaker marketing, small business marketing, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, doit marketing, do it marketing
Here's another in my series of marketing and business book reviews - but not just any old business books.
Fire starters...
Game changers...
Show stoppers...
Books that will transform the way you think about your work, about your business, and - yes - about your life.
Ready? Take a look...
What do you think? Please leave a COMMENT below to share your experiences with this book, with this author, or with other game changing books that YOU recommend...
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, marketing success, thought leadership marketing, professional services marketing, trusted advisor marketing, branding, big business, professional speaker marketing, marketing coach, marketing strategist, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, doit marketing, do it marketing, business book review, brand strategy, business, best business books
Guest post by David Pierce
One of the keys to any productivity system is to actually put things into the system. Who knew?
Obvious though it may seem, many of us have trouble taking the time to enter our thoughts into our task-manager, to-do list, or organizational system.
This can happen for any number of reasons – no paper nearby, no easy way to record your ideas – but our productivity can be hurt by not inputting everything into our system so we can deal with it properly.
What should live on paper lives in our brain, and then proceeds to be forgotten and left alone. That’s a surefire road to getting yourself in trouble- or at least forgetting leaky faucets.
There’s a simple, quick solution to this problem, though – it’s called a mind dump.
A mind dump is simply a way for you to get everything out of your head and onto paper. Our brains aren’t made to remember things forever, but paper is; with an empty brain, we’re able to either focus on new things or deal with the task at hand, instead of constantly dwelling on past things taking up valuable bandwidth.
Executing a mind dump is simple: take out a pen and a paper, or fire up a new document on your computer. Then, write down everything that comes to your mind. There is no step three.
Anything and everything is fair game: what you have to do, what you’re thinking about, hopes, dreams, goals, and whatever else comes into your mind. Set a time limit – say, 20 minutes – and everything that enters your brain immediately must exit your brain and go onto your paper.
Once you’re done, you can begin to take action on the items you’ve written. On what do you need to take action? What do you need to deal with, follow up about, or file somewhere?
Things that don’t need to be further dealt with? Just get rid of them. Make sure you don’t need to think about them ever again, and be done with them.
There’s no set way for doing the best mind dump possible. The point is to reset your brain, update your productivity system, and put onto paper all the things that have been taking up the valuable (and limited) space in your brain.
Many people use “triggers” to make their mind dumps easier – a set of key words or phrases that set your mind on a particular aspect of your life, in order to let you focus on items related to it. 43 Folders has a long list of these triggers, everything from “Phone calls,” to “Furniture”, to “Weddings.”
Some people, GTD followers in particular, do a mind dump before their Weekly Review, as part of figuring out what the week ahead has in store. Others, like myself, do it once a week or so – whenever I have 20 minutes to spare. I recommend doing it at least once a week – it has a tendency to get long and unweildly otherwise.
A mind dump can also be done anywhere – another great thing about it. Open up a note on a cell phone, or write on the back of a newspaper; wherever you are, if you’ve got a free moment, clear your head.
You’ll be amazed how many things come out of your brain and into your organizational system, when you devote time and space to emptying it.
Tags: Marketing coach, marketing speaker, mind dump, productivity tips, success tips. Originally published on Lifehack.org
Please use the COMMENTS area below to share how and when YOU get things out of your head and into your system...
Tags: marketing speaker, consultant marketing, thought leadership marketing, marketing expert, productivity tips, marketing coach, success tips, marketing consultant, doit marketing, do it marketing, doitmarketing, mind dump
If you're interested in marketing success, business success, and life success - well, there are a lot of so-called experts out there.
Many are called. Few are chosen.
I've made the choosing easy for you...
p.s. The best thing about them - none of them would CALL themselves a "guru" - they simply consider themselves lucky to be sharing their insights with others who can benefit.
Here they are in no particular order (although each of them is truly #1)
And here are eight more for good luck... (Yep, you get more than 29. See? Underpromise and overdeliver!)
Bookmark this blog post - stay connected with these people - implement their big ideas - and you WILL profit, prosper, and succeed.
What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on the people who have made the biggest impact on YOUR professional success...
Grab your FREE copy of the Ultimate Resource List!
And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.
Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, marketing strategy, marketing success, thought leadership marketing, professional services marketing, trusted advisor marketing, marketing expert, entrepreneurship, professional speaker marketing, marketing ideas, marketing coach, marketing strategist, motivational speaker marketing, success tips, speaker marketing, marketing consultant, marketing mix, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, doit marketing, do it marketing, doitmarketing, sales and marketing, marketing tips, success
As a marketing coach who works with thought-leading executives and entrepreneurs, I conduct between 4-7 sales conversations every single week with new prospects.
Some of these folks know me from having heard one of my marketing keynotes, seminars, or teleseminars.
Others are total strangers.
You are probably in the same boat if you're an independent professional, consultant or high-fee trusted advisor...
As a point of reference, my prospects are looking for coaching or consulting around a variety of issues like:
In all of these cases, I field questions very similar to the questions YOU must get from your prospects:
Here's the Killer Sales Question that will take your prospecting to a whole new level by getting to the REAL root cause of these types of questions...
Are you ready?
Jot this one down, 'cuz it's a keeper...
YOU: "I understand your question and you'll get my answer in a minute. But first, let me ask YOU a tough question... It sounds like you're not sure if this program will work for you. So are you having doubts about ME -- or are you having doubts about YOU?"
More often than not, this one question will turn the entire selling conversation into a much deeper, more meaningful dialogue around expectations, client responsibilities to implement, previous disappointing experiences they've had with other trusted advisors, and so on.
The moment someone mentions a negative previous experience with a trusted advisor of any kind, I stop the conversation dead in its tracks and ask this:
"When you say you were disappointed in your previous marketing coach, how much of that was on YOUR side of the equation, and how much of that was on THEIR side?"
NOW the real truth comes out - they'll admit that they THEMSELVES were partially (or mostly) responsible for the disappointing results.
Either they didn't implement, or they had crazy expectations, or they weren't fully committed to the relationship, or they kept some key information secret from their trusted advisor which hamstrung the work, etc., etc.
You would be amazed to discover how often bad client behavior is attributed NOT to the client, but to the trusted advisor brought in to fix the situation. It's a classic case of "shoot the messenger" mentality.
My answer? I shoot the prospect. I say, "Well, it sounds like you've been pretty badly burned in the past. We're probably not a fit since you have such a bad taste in your mouth from working with other people like me. If I had your horrible experience, I wouldn't hire me either! I don't want to waste any more of your time. Thank you for this conversation and I'm sorry that we won't be working together."
If they push back on this and they want to re-enter the sales conversation, great...
And if they don't, great! Let them go. They are not a good client for you.
That's just the plain, hard truth.
What do YOU think? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on this topic...
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing concept, thought leadership marketing, professional services marketing, trusted advisor marketing, sales prospecting, marketing coaching, professional speaker marketing, marketing coach, marketing consultant, marketing for consultants, doit marketing, do it marketing, sales and marketing, small business marketing coach
You'll remember from the introduction to this Business Blogging 101 series, I mentioned the three BIG problems keeping you from doing a better job of leveraging blogging into business:
1. You are unable to write QUICKLY.
2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY.
3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.
Good news for you - #3 is the final topic we'll tackle today and you'll become an idea capture ninja before you're done reading this post...
1. Set up a blog idea file in your email account. I filter everything through Yahoo! Mail and here's a shot of my "Blog - Best of the Web (BOW)" folder that sees a lot of action every single day. Drag, drop, captured!!
2. Use the Notes feature on your smartphone. I'm an iPhone guy myself but here's the idea that will work on any smartphone or tablet device...
3. Use a task manager on your computer, phone or tablet - handy for portability across all devices you use - and make a TO DO entry called "Blog fodder." Here is what mine looks like on the terrific to-do/task manager called Wunderlist:
4. Carry a notebook and pen. Everywhere. All the time. Yep, seriously. Pictured below is one of my favorites - the Dot Grid Journal from The Creatives Outfitter.
5. Keep a trusty pad by your bed. In the nightstand, on the nightstand, under your pillow, doesn't matter - but late at night, early in the morning and sometimes at 3am is when you WILL get your best ideas. And if you don't write them down, they are gone, baby, gone... I like these "NOTE TO SELF" pads from http://www.knockknockstuff.com:
6. Carry a pocket video camera. Sure, you have your phone. But if you want HD video, external mic capability, and some special features, why not keep one of these in your briefcase like I do? See a celebrity at a conference? Three-minute video interview - BOOM! See something amazing on the street or while traveling that's worthy of a video blog? Two-minute video blog - BAM! Lots and lots of ways you'll be able capture ideas with this little guy. I own this Kodak Playtouch which runs less than $90 and shoots in 1080HD. Awesome...
7. Use micro-notes. In addition to my main notebook you see pictured above, I also keep an "Action Cahier" which is a much smaller notebook. You can throw one of these in your car, one in your bag, and keep one around the office for jotting quick blog ideas, questions, brain blurbs, blog titles, subject lines, all sorts of random and useful idea-starters. If one of these is always nearby, your next brilliant idea doesn't stand a chance of escape!
Tags: business blogging, blogging 101, marketing speaker, marketing coach
Grab your FREE copy of the Social Media Traffic Boost Cheat Sheet!
And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.
Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, thought leadership marketing, professional services marketing, blog, trusted advisor marketing, blogging for business, marketing expert, marketing coach, marketing strategist, speaker marketing, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, blogging 101
Guest post by Janet Aronica
Creating consistent and helpful blog content is a great way to build community and trust around your brand for your prospects.
It's how you draw the right potential customers to your website.
But cranking out daily content is challenging.
How can you keep the blog post ideas flowing? How can you keep the content fresh and prevent yourself from re-hashing the same old thing?
Here’s a brainstorm of some ideas to get you started, or just keep you going...
1. Do a screencast with Screenr of your product and share it on your blog.
2. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video, or show the steps in a series of photos.
3. Create a music video for your company and post it on the blog.
4. Share a cartoon or create an original one.
5. Write a how-to article. Give instructions with screenshots or photos on the steps someone needs to take to do something.
6. Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid them.
7. Offer a list of benefits for doing something.
8. Share a list of some things to avoid.
9. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “Five _____ Lessons from Lady Gaga” or “What the Election Teaches Us About ____”
10. Take the contrarian position – Find someone else’s article that you agree or disagree with. Introduce your blog post with what you specifically agree or disagree with it, and support your argument with a few concise points.
11. Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community.
12. Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those articles as the sources.
13. Share an excerpt from an ebook or white paper with a call to action to download it for the rest of the information.
14. Share an excerpt from an upcoming webinar with a call to action to get the rest of the content in the webinar.
15. Share your slides from a recent presentation.
16. Share conference takeaways.
17. Do a round-up of last year’s/last month’s/last week’s most popular posts.
18. Re-interpret existing content: Collect the top motivational YouTube videos for your audience, top ebooks, top webinars or infographics.
19. Create a Slideshare presentation of new statistics related to your space and share that in a blog post. Tag the Slideshare presentation with relevant keywords for your company to leverage SEO benefits of the platform.
20. Ask a question on Twitter and share the results with a Storify embed.
21. Collect Tweets from a webinar or conference hashtag, show them off with Paper.li (as recommended by FitSmallBusiness.com) and offer your own takeaways in the blog post.
22. Respond to industry research with your own perspective. Offer a fresh angle to spark conversation.
23. Do a survey with Survey Monkey among your community members and create an infographic based on the results.
24. Do a poll of your Twitter community with a Twtpoll or your Facebook community with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.
25. Do an in-depth case study about one company, or offer a few examples of how other companies do something successfully.
26. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog.
27. Get experts to offer a tip and do a round-up of their recommendations.
28. Feature guest posts from industry experts.
29. Publish responses to frequently asked questions about your industry.
30. Create a list of trends to watch.
31. Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies, different people, different places, etc.
32. Do a review of other non-competitive products or services that your community cares about.
33. Be a journalist: Be the first in your space to offer industry takeaways about breaking news.
34. Explain what a current event or topic in the news means for your industry or community. Example: “What ____ Means for ____.” “Why _____ Matters for _____.”
35. De-bunk common myths.
36. Interview your favorite customer.
36. Post a Flickr slideshow of pictures from a recent event.
37. Run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.
38. Ask for guest posts from community members.
39. If you have company news to share, talk about it in a way that makes it about the reader. Example: If someone gets promoted, talk about how why were successful. Inspire your audience.
40. Publish a post relevant to the current season or holiday.
41. Outline the top practical use cases for your product, service etc.
Originally posted by our partners at Hubspot on the HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog.
What do you think? How do YOU generate ideas for your blog? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, questions or opinions...
Tags: marketing for speakers, marketing speaker, thought leadership marketing, web marketing, marketing professional services, blog, trusted advisor marketing, blogging for business, marketing expert, writing, professional speaker marketing, marketing coach, marketing for authors, marketing for consultants, blogging 101, social media marketing, business blogging, marketing tips, public speaker marketing
You'll remember from yesterday's introduction to this Business Blogging 101 series, I mentioned the three BIG problems keeping you from doing a better job of leveraging blogging into business:
1. You are unable to write QUICKLY.
2. You are unwilling to write BRIEFLY.
3. You are inefficient at IDEA CAPTURE.
Good news for you - #1 and #2 are related and we'll solve them both for you before you're done reading this post...
Grab your FREE copy of the Social Media Traffic Boost Cheat Sheet!
And then leave a comment below with your questions, thoughts, and advice on the ideas above.
Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!
Tags: marketing speaker, marketing success, thought leadership marketing, web marketing, blog, trusted advisor marketing, blogging for business, marketing expert, marketing professional services firms, writing, marketing ideas, marketing coach, marketing consultant, marketing for authors, blogging 101, doit marketing, do it marketing, doitmarketing, business blogging, marketing tips
