When it comes to bringing in new clients, the biggest
mistake I see people make over and over again is that they
don’t target their marketing.  They tend to go after
EVERYBODY’S business instead of going after the business of
the people who might actually be prepared to purchase their
product or service.

The end result is that many of their marketing efforts are
diluted and many of their marketing dollars are wasted.  To
make sure that doesn’t happen to you, think Madison Avenue.

Do you think it’s just sheer luck that you don’t see a beer
commercial during Sesame Street or an ad for skin cream
during wrestling matches? Trust me, luck has nothing to do
with it.

Advertising agencies are charged with the responsibility of
spending their clients’ money for the print ads and TV and
radio spots that are going to bring them the biggest bang
for their buck.

They want to make sure people interested in what their
clients have to offer are qualified to buy and are going to
see their marketing messages.  That’s why the Madison
Avenue folks look at demographics.

The demographics tell the media buyer who is watching the
program or reading the print media where the ads will be
placed.  Women 18-49?  Men 18-34? Children?

Okay, so you may be small potatoes compared to the clients
of the big ad agencies, but doesn’t it make sense for you
to follow their lead and stop marketing to everybody and
start marketing to your ideal client?

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Do you have a tremendous fondness, desire, or enthusiasm
for what you do for a living? If so, congratulations!
You’re most likely pursuing your passions in life.

On the other hand, do you know what happens when you choose
a business direction that’s not aligned with your life
passions? You end up settling for an opportunistic approach
toward your livelihood instead of selecting an endeavor
that fuels you and helps you make a special contribution to
the world.

You may have found yourself hopping from idea to idea, from
career to career, or from business venture to business
venture, accomplishing less than you’re capable of
achieving. If this sounds familiar, you’re probably picking
things that are convenient, but that you’re not passionate
about doing.

Below are three reasons why using a strategic alignment
approach is crucial in helping us to develop and pursue
goals that are worthy of our time and energy.

Alignment Reason #1 – Marketing Message:

When we’re unaware of how our life passions align with our
business purpose, it’s difficult to develop branding and
marketing materials that communicate with laser-like
precision what we represent. And even if we are clear about
our passions but haven’t fully integrated them with other
predominant themes in our lives, we can still send
confusing messages to prospective customers, clients,
partners, and employees.

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If you can create value in your business where value didn’t
previously exist, you dramatically increase your
probabilities of making money. You simply do that through
modelling what’s out there, adding value and packaging it
up better! It’s not that hard to do, and as a result, it’ll
have a very positive ‘cash flow’ impact on your business
right away.

Note: If you can create value where value didn’t previously
exist you’re always going to make money. You do that
through modelling what’s out there, adding value and
packaging it up better.

So the question you need to ask yourself is, ‘How can you
provide a vehicle for other people to make money?’ And once
you develop this mindset you will look at products
differently, like how does somebody build a ceramics
business around a cup? A cup is not very exciting, but the
difference is how is it packaged. The Cornish Blue a
blue-striped cup yet it’s a worldwide legend, but it’s only
a cup.

Here is an example of how a colleague created an
opportunity from an existing book-product called ‘How To
Increase Your Business Within 30 Days’. He interviewed the
author, attached an audio tape (this was before CDs) to the
book and sold the package for at least twice as much as the
component parts.

Should he have wanted to take it one step further he could
have on-sold the rights for other people to distribute the
package via telemarketing and direct mail marketing, email
marketing, which if done well could become a sustainable
and very saleable business. Other things may stem off that
- for example, a royalty every week to create passive
income. Once you create an opportunity, I tell you – you
will never turn back.

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It must be one my personal business nightmares, if you can
imagine having just flown to New York to meet a new client
and the airline has lost all your clothes! So what can one
learn from such events about delivering great customer
service experiences?

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”

To give you the background, I’d just been to California and
had arranged to meet the COO of a potential great new
client in New York on my way back home to England. I’d
visited them a few weeks before and I’d felt as though I’d
wandered onto the set of ” The Devil Wears Prada” (or should
that be “Ugly Betty“?). So not wanting to be left too far
behind the “New York Chic look” of my hosts, I’d gone out
and purchased the very best of shirts & ties that London
has to offer (OK anyone from Milan is allowed a note of
scepticism at this point) combined with my new Italian suit
& cuff links, I knew I’d look the part

My plane was several hours late into New York due to
“unexpected delays” – I was little nervous as I’d arranged
to go out to dinner that evening. Still with my Platinum
Frequent Flyer card my suitcase had qualified for a special
“Priority Handling” label so I was looking forward to
getting my suitcase quickly and rushing off ahead of the
pack to the taxi rank. Sadly, after all of the luggage had
disappeared off the carousel there was no sign of my case,
so I made my way to the airline’s baggage handling office.
I was joined by another passenger who had experienced a
similar fate. The Airline staff assured me that my suitcase
had landed and recommended I went back to check the
carousel again. This experience was repeated another 3
times.

From my interactions with the airline staff, I managed to
get the impression that losing one’s baggage was not a
completely unusual experience. My heart sank as I looked at
the back wall of the hall which was filled floor to ceiling
with damaged suitcases in glass cases awaiting collection
from their owners.

After an hour and a half of going back & forth from the
luggage carousel to the airline desk, the airline staff
finally conceded that perhaps my bag was lost after all and
I was given a claim form to fill in. I was given an 0800
number to contact and a tracking reference number and that
was it. I had a sense of disappointment and unfinished
business but I had to move on and let other passengers
register their lost baggage too.

“There’s no such thing as a free breakfast”

(more…)

Jane’s and Bob’s department isn’t the sales department of
the company, but they frequently have to use sales skills.
To get their department producing efficiently and
effectively, they have to sell their ideas to create buy-in.

What’s important about buy-in?

Everyone knows that projects fail or succeed depending on
the buy-in from the other stakeholders in the department:
employees, team members, and management.  But buy-in isn’t
about getting everyone to say “Yes!” to your way or idea,
but getting everyone to say “Yes!” to an idea or way of
doing something.

Getting buy-in from the stakeholders on a project is
crucial for its success.  Let’s define what buy-in is
before we try to create it.

Buy-in is not your idea, your plan, or your way of doing
things.  It is not “I’m right!” and it’s not your job to
convince everyone else that you are, indeed, right.  Buy-in
is defined as a group of people who say yes to an idea, a
plan, a step, a project.  It’s the agreement of everyone on
one thing (or idea, plan, etc.), not just one person’s
particular thing, idea, plan, etc.

We know what buy-in is.  Now what?

(more…)

Would you like to experience the benefits of being a good
speaker? Speaking before groups offers a tremendous
opportunity for personal and professional development.
Never before have excellent communication skills been more
important than they are today.

This article contains fifteen elements for making a
successful presentation. Use these ideas, and you will
speak with greater self confidence and ease before a group
of any size.

1. BUILD RAPPORT AND TRUST.

Talk with-not at –your audience. Establish some common
ground. Communicate with sincerity and warmth, and make eye
contact.

In speaking to a large group of secretaries, I established
rapport quickly by telling them about my mother’s success
as a secretary and how much I admired her. I gave them
examples of why competent secretaries are the backbone of
my successful organization.

2. DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE OPENING.

Grab your audience’s attention from the start. Use a
dramatic or startling statement, a human interest or
personal story, a question, an anecdote or illustration, a
relevant quote-or a humorous opening, if appropriate. I
recently heard a speaker open with, “I wrote that great
introduction you just heard. It gives me something to shoot
for when I speak.”

3. DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE ENDING

Close with a bang. Use a relevant quote, a poem, or an
appeal for action. Give your audience a sincere compliment,
a powerful story, or a summary of your main points. Make
sure your closing—whatever it is—is relevant to your
topic. Also, your entire speech and the ending should be
tailored to your audience.

4. REDUCE NERVOUSNESS.

According to the book of lists, public speaking is the
number one fear, greater even than the fear of death.

Before presenting: Thoroughly prepare and rehearse before
your speaking engagement. When you are about to begin, take
several deep breaths. Visualize yourself giving a relaxed
presentation.

During the presentation: Focus on your message and your
audience, not on yourself. Give yourself opportunities for
physical movement. Don’t try to be perfect. Make
nervousness work for you. Channel your nervousness into
enthusiasm; let your adrenalin take over. Butterflies in
your stomach? Let them soar, taking you with them.

5. MAKE YOUR PRESENTATION COME ALIVE.

Talk to the audience in terms of their interests, problems,
and concerns. Communicate with vitality and conviction.
Talk to, and make eye contact with individual members of
the audience. Change the pace with vocal variety and humor,
using pauses to emphasize points. Use inspiring human
interest stories, making only a few points and supporting
them with examples, illustrations, anecdotes, and
analogies. Use natural gestures; physically move from time
to time instead of remaining behind a podium.

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With the recent media attention given to The Secret and the
law of attraction, what I have to share today may be old
news to many of you. I questioned whether or not to write
an article this week on the power of positive thinking -
surely everyone knows the benefits of this, right? I was
talking to my mom a few days ago and she had never heard of
The Secret (what rock does she live under?) but she knew
all about the law of attraction.

That’s old news she told me.

So, here I am. Talking with you about the power of positive
thinking. And while consciously we may all quickly agree
that it’s common sense to think positively rather than
negatively, to see the cup half full rather than half
empty…is that what we do?

We may talk to others positively and see ourselves as a cup
half full type of person. My question to you is what is
going on inside your head that no one sees? And, according
to the law of attraction, how are you feeeeeeling about a
topic or subject? Your thoughts lead to how you feel -
which is key to attracting what you desire.

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As a leader in your organization, have you ever had the
feeling that your concerns and priorities for the business
were not shared by the people who did the work? When change
needed to be made, did you wonder what methods would be
most effective in communicating and involving the people in
the need for and process of change? Have you been concerned
that the feedback in your organization is provided by a
small percentage of your workforce, and may not accurately
reflect what the majority of your people are thinking? If
you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you should
consider the use of Targeted Surveys.

By a Targeted Survey I mean a specific, focused series of
questions – in survey form - directed toward a specific
issue in your organization. Those questions are answered by
all the  people impacting the issue in the organization.
The answers to the questions provide feedback that is used
to identify actions that can be taken to improve the
organization while communicating the fact that an issue
exists.

One of the biggest challenges any organization faces is in
aligning the work effort and commitment of the people with
the core requirements of the business. To the extent that
alignment is strong, you will be successful in leveraging
the efforts of your people – to the extent alignment is not
strong, opportunities for leverage disappear. The Targeted
Survey approach can add leverage – resulting in competitive
advantage for your organization

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When computers or networks go down, a company is out of
business. This is a simple fact of life in the current
business environment.  For most small businesses, being out
of business for a day can work havoc on the bottom line.
Most small businesses operate on tight budgets and need
every sale.  Being out of business for several days can
mean the difference between business survival and complete
disaster.

Preventing down time is, therefore, a vital consideration
in daily operations.  There are, to be sure, causes of
computer down-time that cannot be anticipated or prevented.
There are, however, things a small business can do to
protect itself from some of the leading causes of computer
outages and reduced functionality.  Many of the leading
causes of computer or system outages can be avoided with
preventative service maintenance.

Few small business owners would ignore preventative dental
treatments or automobile maintenance. Yet many people
either do not understand or do not give the same attention
to preventative service maintenance of their computers,
networks, applications, and other systems.  The simple
truth is this: regular preventative maintenance can prevent
hard drive crashes, damaged power supplies, overheating,
lockups, freezes, intermittent interruptions, and more.

Many people also believe that once an IT system is created
and programmed, it will need no further attention unless
something goes wrong.  They do not understand that programs
must be updated and that other changes are necessary to
keep a system functioning at peak efficiency.  Computers,
programs and systems integration must be updated, patches
must be created, and drivers and links must be downloaded
and integrated into the system.  This is part of
preventative service maintenance.

So what is preventative maintenance?

(more…)

Entrepreneur’s drive America, all business started off from someone’s dream of providing better products or services.  It’s funny to think that a company like Dell started in a college dorm room, or that Wal-Mart started in a country town in Arkansas.  Both of these large companies today, started very small many years ago.

How do Entrepreneur’s start and how do they succeed? 

There are many different reasons why some small businesses succeed and become major corporations and many more small businesses fail.

The first place I would recommend any person looking to start their own small business is www.entrepreneur.com.  The magazine and website has so many articles, advice, and tips that will shorten your learning curve to success.

A new website that I recently came across is www.startupnation.com.  It is a fun website for entrepreneurs to pick up new ideas and meet with other entrepreneur’s.  Christine Hanisco is the founder of The Dippy Chick Company (www.dippychick.com) and she will be posting her successes (and failure’s) in the website’s blog at www.startupnation.com/blog.  It should be fun to watch, learn, and help in watching her business grow.

Learn from other’s mistakes and acheive the results to succeed in your own business.