We decided to do some bird photography and used the holidays for a photo expedition. The first thing I learned was how important it is to invest in self-improvement. Being from the “film age” dealing with a digital camera was not as easy as i thought, especially the automated focus part. I got some magazines to help me with that and this week I’m heading to a photo club to be able to update myself. Same applies to having a business, self-improvement is crucial and no, we don’t have all the answers and we have to adapt to new times.Also good is to create relationships with people that can help you get to the next level.

Right on the first day we saw a bald eagle. It was my first bald eagle in the wild. How thrilling that moment was!  The impressive bird was far and I messed up the focus again so the pictures were not too good, but the excitement was still there. We decided to come back the next day to try again. Persistence in life and in business is crucial. We can never forget that.

The next day the eagle was there and the pictures came out a lot nicer. I noticed a funny thing. Nashlah would take a picture, get excited about it and would keep looking for the pictures in the camera, while the bird was there, waiting for her. She got excited with the result and chose to pass the real moment in order to focus on her achievement. Well, it is a good thing to praise ourselves but you cannot let a shiny thing take you away from the real moment and the real work that needs to be done. That moment will never come back again. It is so precious and cannot be wasted with things that can be done later.

We then decided to focus on finding more eagles and big birds and that is what we did for the next 3 days.

We saw on the map that there were some bird refuges close by and some water fowl management areas so we headed there.

It was a holiday and when we got to the first water fowl area, the place was empty. We had no idea what a water fowl management area was and it looked a little scary riding our brand new car in a very small strip of land surrounded by water on both sides, plus the silence and the fact you could not see an end on the road.

My heart started racing and I was a bit scared. The situation was new to me, with a lot of unanswered questions and I a feeling that I could not control the outcome. Then I realized I had made the commitment to try something new everyday in order to face my own fear and limitations and to show myself there are new possibilities, opportunities and I don’t have to be in control of every outcome. At that moment I really started enjoying the experience. Yes, same thing should be done in our businesses.

We didn’t see many birds there, since it was a very cold day in winter, not the best time to start bird photography. We shot pictures of some birds we didn’t know and some flying hawks. That night before heading to the hotel we got some western bird’s books. We needed some self-improvement in that area as well. We also had a little talk about the fact that we started taking the pictures not in the best time of the year and with little planning and preparation. Isn’t this typical of entrepreneurs? It was good but it could have been better. The fact is, we would go on no matter what but next weekend, believe me we will be better prepared.

The next day was just fantastic! We spotted a bald eagle right at the beginning. Well, now we knew what to look for, we had learned to see and due to the books, we knew a little about their habits.

She was on a tree not too far. We stopped the car and started walking with the equipment. We were really close when she flew away. We learned a few things. Disappointment happens no matter how excited you are and some “thinking through the end” before acting helps. Why we though that the eagle would stand still seeing two voluptuous girls walking with big equipment, very colorful clothes and chatting at full lungs is beyond me. That lesson sank in really fast. This week we are out to buy some camouflaged clothes and we are training in keeping our mouth shut.

Entrepreneurs should live by the motto “fall seven times, stand up eight”, so we decided to go after that eagle and find her again. Using our best judgement we started going around until we finally saw her again. Standing on a tree on a farm ground.  There we went. Almost quiet this time. It was so exciting! We had to do a minor trespassing, but we could not loose that opportunity.

We got a lot closer this time. The lens could be a little longer, the light a little better I kept thinking but my finger could not stop taking the pictures. Then I noticed that I should take care of composition, different exposure times etc. Things I should take care in order to get a good picture. So I remember one thing my photography professor taught me many years ago. He would say every time we were shooting. “Cut your anxiety in half and go closer”. I finally took a deep breadth, corrected what needed to be corrected and took another step, and another one.

The eagle was looking at us the whole time and at some point decided to fly away, but this time it flew towards us. I kept shooting, it is so much easier to shoot several pictures now than before! It flew right above our heads, really close. I don’t know if eagles attack humans but I couldn’t care less. We were jumping up and down for at least half an hour.  I got a very good picture and Nash got several.

Now we went looking for more bald eagles, we felt unstoppable. Not a big deal that there are not that many bald eagles flying around, we knew we could do it. After a few hours we spotted another one. She flew, we chased and we got a few more pictures. We were able to fulfill our challenge and the feeling was great. That night we were exhausted but had a hard time falling asleep. That feeling was so exciting! Knowing that you are able to reach your goals and go after challenges is great. I made a side note to start doing some exercise. If I need to keep doing this, I need to be in good shape. Changes are necessary and good.

Next day we headed to some other bird refugees and water fowl management areas. Now we decided to get as many western birds documented as possible. We like challenges just like most entrepreneurs. Last year we took a geocaching challenge of finding one cache in each page of the Utah atlas and we did it. We covered the whole state of Utah. Could tell you a lot more about planning ahead before venturing into deserts with that story. (We thought deserts would have gas stations and restaurants).

I had to deal with another little problem in the water fowl management area. These places have a lot of hunters. I respect their right they have to kill but have a very hard time with this, especially with the sound of fire arms. My brother was killed some years ago and every shot would bring that memory back. I had to keep telling myself that this was another thing I needed to be able to face and force to think that instead of his death, each shot would remind me that he loved life and his hobbies too. Need to work more on this one.

We were reminded again that planning ahead of time would have been a good strategy, since we were freezing in the low temperatures. Funny thing is that when you are shooting the pictures, you don’t feel cold at all, but waiting for the birds can be painful. We got some interesting pictures of cool birds, a lot of birds butts flying away. There are many more bad pictures than good ones but the good ones make up for all others. Can’t refrain from saying that in business we all have more failures than successes but the few successes make up for all the work and frustration.

Besides all things we learned with this experience, one was clear: It is really necessary to take a break every now and then. Not only to release stress but also because with trying new things not related to business gives you the opportunity to find another side of yourself and see different ways to deal with different challenges and to challenge yourself is to find in you a strength you probably didn’t know you had.

Hawk Flying

Jon Jantsch

I had the privilege of interviewing Jason Mars and he shared some great insights on how to work price in different business models.

Here is the interview for you, just click on the link:

Listen to Price Strategies Now

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This week. Reel seo blog talks about the next wave of QR codes and their debut on Tv and online videos.

Read the post here: QR codes and Online videos

So, I decided to share with you that call because I believe it can transform your business and help you grow.

Would love to hear your comments!

Listen to Achieving Long Lasting Prosperity Now

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Every offline business wants more customers. That s why you hang signs in your window and outside your door, to attract people s attention and entice them to come in.

But if you are focusing solely on the people who walk past every day, you re missing out on the huge market that constantly looks for services online. There are 300 million internet searches performed every day and a whopping 3 billion of them are performed on a monthly basis! About half of these people are looking for local businesses to buy from. The question is whether or not they can find YOU.

This is why it s worth spending some time making sure you are listed in as many online local directories as possible. Don t restrict yourself to the people who are already walking down your street. Get yourself listed online in some of these directories and you can reel in people from further afield as well. Just imagine there are people out there who are driving around trying to find a business just like yours. If you re listed online they have the ability to find you immediately. And, if you have more than one location you can list them all so they can find the one nearest to where they are.

An offline business can list all the important information quite easily online. Your business name, address, phone number and location can all be listed. If someone searches for your kind of business online, they ll find you on search engines, online directories and local directories of all kinds. You can also make it easy for them to find you on social networking sites, which means you don t even have to have a website. Simply link to your Facebook or LinkedIn profile or whatever other social network you belong to.

In this way people can find you by using their computers or even their cell phones. Once they ve got your details they can find you with their mobile or GPS navigation devices. Could you imagine how many more customers you might get as a result of listing your business in these local directories?

You won t have to worry about customers finding incorrect information if you happen to change phone numbers or locations for some reason either. Quick changes are easy to make in order to keep your listing accurate. When you consider that most of these directories are free to use as well, you d be missing a trick if you didn t use them. The only reason you would pay to use some of them is if you wanted to have an enhanced listing to gain more visibility.

The majority of offline business owners know how important advertising is to keep their business going. But you don t want to spend more than necessary to get the results you want. These directories not only reduce PPC costs, they also reduce your overall advertising costs. So not only can you increase your revenue from being more visible to more customers, you can also do it for less cash.

What kind of savings are we talking about here? Well, think about the amount you spend on your print advertising every month. Whatever that amount might be, you ll be spending a lot less getting listed in hundreds of local directories online. These listings not only bring you direct traffic, they can also provide you with a way to brand your business on a consistent basis.

Having a website isn t necessary to enjoy all these benefits. But if you do have one you can get a one-way link back to that site further strengthening your position and credibility, especially with Google, with the search engines.

The best thing about being listed in every appropriate directory is that your customers can review your business online too. Monitor the feedback and respond to it quickly, making changes for the better as you do. As you gain more feedback and reviews you ll find you get ranked more highly in Google Places as well, so you ll be found even more often.

The only question that s left is why you haven t already started listing your business with all the online local directories?

© 2010 Davis Virtual Assistance. Publication rights granted so long as article and byline are reprinted intact, with all links made live.

Bonnie Jo Davis submits and manages offline business listings to local internet directories. She is a published author, expert in article marketing, and feels comfortable working in a virtual environment. If you need help getting your business into local directories visit http://local-map-listings.com/services-2/local-directory-submission for more information.

This year thousand of biking professionals and aficionados watched with heart ache how Lance Armstrong started losing time daily through out the Tour of France stages. Weeks before the Tour I read several articles where Armstrong positively explained the superiority of his team, the coaching staff and his personal readiness to make a new attempt for the title.

There is quite a story behind the stunning results. Armstrong was disheartened to realize to what extent the younger cyclist participating in the 2010 Tour de France were capable of. The fans, the critics and the world witnessed also the defeat of the champion. Many of them heavily criticized Lance for the foolish decision to attempt to conquer the yellow jersey one more time

Now that is all over I look back and try to put myself on Lance’s position attempting to discover the WHY he decided to do it and what I come out with is that in order to do what he did takes a lot of courage, dedication, toughness and a huge desire to reach success. I truly believe that he was not so much interested on the yellow jersey at the end but rather test his ability to fulfill the expectation to succeed.

As a biker that loves the sport I can see the evolution of the bicycle and how the industry has created the sleekest and fastest bicycles in the world. Without a champion who could provide the resources, passion, design facilities and expertise, the great biking athletes would never have realized their dream.

7. Increase Trust.( if the other ones above are done right, the level of trust will increase naturally. Testimonials here help a lot).

You can listen to a full hour audio here: Irresistible business audio

Are you willing to face your fears and take action? You can create a multitude of excuses but for a coaching program to work you must be willing to face your fears and take action.

Do you follow instructions and test new approaches?

Are you receptive to ideas that are different and take you out of your comfort zone?

Do you trust that your coach has your success in mind?

Do you listen with the intent to learn?

Do you allow the coach to follow his/her system or do you come with your own agenda and spend all the time asking questions?

Do you understand the breakthroughs might come during and after the session and credit your coach?

To be coachable means to lack arrogance and defensiveness… to minimize pride and ego. Completely teachable. Completely trainable.

Can you be coached?

A short while ago we decided to get a coach that could take us to our next level. One of the things we agreed on was to try not to over analyze each idea and do what he told us. When one thing didn’t work our approach was to try to figure where we failed instead of blaming him. We acted fast and followed instructions and what we saw was not only our business changing into a far more profitable model, our income doubled after 3 months. Funny enough, on the first 30 days some things we tried didn’t work, but we kept going. Major breakthroughs happened later, not because he was there but because we were able to learn a different thinking process. Made all the difference. How much is that worth? A lot.

Every business owner needs a coach or mentor. No matter where they are in their business. But they need to allow the time for things to happen and be open to changes.

Here it is:

Many solopreneurs and small business owners focus on creating a “kick-ass” elevator pitch so that they’re armed when they are at networking events or asked the age old question, “what do you do?”

One of the reasons they struggle with creating the clarity needed to create that powerful elevator pitch is because they aren’t clear on their unique marketing message.

This unique marketing message is as clarifying for you as it is for your prospect or client. It demonstrates that you know your prospect’s pain, why they’re experiencing it and how you can help them relieve the pain with your solution.

So, how do you create YOUR unique marketing message? Read on to learn three simple steps to begin crafting your message today, that will help make your elevator pitch more powerful and get your prospects take notice immediately!

Step #1 – Define your prospect’s problem…what is their pain point?

What is the pain they are facing today? Is it that they are not generating enough leads, they aren’t retaining their clients and need a simple “stay in touch” tool, or they don’t have enough energy to be more efficient and effective in their position?

How can you define the pain, SO clearly that the prospect will instantly know that you “get” them? Can you give them examples from your own experience? Can you tell them about case studies that illustrate the pain so that they can feel it, know that others experience it and have found a solution?

You have to make it as real for them as possible, because we are not always able to identify our own pain, so that we can easily find the solution.

Step #2 – Explain why they are having the pain.

Let’s use the “need to generate leads” pain point as an example. Perhaps the strategies they’ve been using are to attract local prospects. And either they aren’t finding new prospects with their current methods or they should consider shifting to an online presence.

How often do you see smart business owners networking at local meetings and yet their websites don’t even offer the ability to capture their prospects contact information? It may be obvious to you, but the prospect may not see the “gold 3 feet in front of them”.

You have the opportunity to give them clear examples as to why they are in this place of pain and demonstrate that you have some expertise by explaining the what and why of their challenge.

Step #3 – Demonstrate how you and your solution can relieve their pain.

Once you’ve identified the prospect’s pain point to the degree that they KNOW you get it and then explain the WHY of their pain, your next step is to demonstrate how you relieve the pain with your solution. This becomes a welcomed conversation. It’s as if your prospect hears you describe a headache and the reason they are having the headache and they can’t wait until you give them the aspirin to remove said headache! And if your solution provides that kind of relief, you are obligated to help them. And they are far more likely to want to work with you.

So get some paper and a pen and dedicate some time to writing out your unique marketing message based on this three-step process. It will help you identify your prospect’s pain, the situation they are in that’s causing the pain and how you and your solution can provide the “painkiller” they are searching for.

This exercise will give you your unique marketing message in the language your prospect easily hears, responds to and appreciates.

• Yellow Pages are difficult to track and have limited tracking options. Online marketing offers extensive tracking options.
• Yellow Pages reach can only go so far and if you advertise in more than one directory it can get very expensive. Online marketing has an unlimited reach and is very cost effective.
• You can only change your advertising message on a yearly basis with Yellow Pages. You can change your message online at any time.
• There are over 13 billion searches on the web/month and growing. Yellow Pages receive an approximate 1 billion references/month and is losing more and more customers that advertise in the Yellow Pages every year.

Don’t forget we can help you with local marketing.

Here are several tips for securing talent that will save your project time, mistakes and money when choosing a Marketing Consultant:

- Meet 1 on 1

- Look at their work product, PR, past strategies, designs

- Ask about the products they have launched themselves

- Check the Alexa Rank and Page rank of their websites.

- Check their presence online.

- Ask about their revenue models online and check examples given.

- Have they won or been nominated for  industry awards?

- References are nice, but really, who gives bad references?

- What specific, off-the-cuff strategies does the consultant propose?

- Do the strategies proposed seem cogent, offer fresh perspective?

- Check if what he/she is offering are real strategies or just a bunch of tactics you could learn from a book.

- Do they have hands on experience in business?

- Don’t price shop. Good consultants are not cheap. Here the saying “you get what you pay for” really applies.

- Listen to your guts.

As you probably have noticed, almost every one carries a mobile phone. Some of us cannot imagine life without a cel phone anymore and many families are getting rid of land lines because they have no more use for them.

When you think about marketing a business, most of the time we think how to reach them in a specific place. For example when they are online in a search engine on a social network or we try to reach them with direct mail or phone when they are at home.

Up to a short time ago we had no way of reaching people wherever they are. Here comes mobile marketing and QR codes, geo-based games like FourSquare and text messaging. All very powerful ways to reach your audience and if used properly, a great way to increase sales and do follow-up.

Here I want to provide you with a list of things you could use mobile marketing, more specifically, text messages to promote, sell and follow-up.

- You can send people a Today’s special
- Buy one get one free
- contests
- New items arrived
- Raffles
- birthday specials.
- Restaurants can text when a table is ready.
- Send basic info about an item
- Basic info about you
- Photos of products
- for Real Estate you may want to send the property description
- Property virtual tous.
- New property listing
- Link to websites
- Appointment remiders
- Meeting reminders
- Networking events
- Special promos
- Emergency alerts
- Events
- Fundraisings
- Time to refil your prescription
- Reminder to set next appointment

There are probably many more ways to use mobile marketing in your busienss. Remember that text messages are usually received within seconds of sending, which means it is a great delivery method and is more reliable than e-mail.. you don’t need a special phone to received messages, most phones have this capability.

Americans sent over 90 billion text messages just last month, that is a lot more than voice calls.

You might not be texting a lot but you are not your audience. Mobile marketing is simple, effective and very low cost so there is no reason to not use this as a way to keep in front of your audience.

Basically you choose some keywords that you display in other marketing amterials like flyers, car window etc. People dial a number and input the keyword. They will see a personalized message(ex coupon) and now you have access and permission to send that person other messages. Be careful not to over do it. Ideally not more than 2 messages a week.

There is one social tool that I think is one of the best things out there for savvy business owners.

It is the QR code. This simple code does something that every small business owner should dream about every night. It creates a bridge between the printed or offline world to the online world.

How powerful is that?

I don’t know about you but when I started my business money was not easily available and every penny spent counted. One thing that annoyed me a lot was going to networking meetings and passing some flyers knowing most of them would end up in the trash really soon. If at that time QR codes were around things would be different.

QR codes stand for quick response codes. They store a lot of data- around 250 characters. Not enough? Well, it is a lot more than a tweet and people are doing just fine marketing themselves with tweets.

The QR codes can be scanned with any smart phone and will take the person to a web page, a coupon, a contest, whatever you can imagine. Just think of the possibilities. They are simple to create and very inexpensive. People can check right away and get the offer right away too.

Authors for example can have QR codes at the end of their book with an offer. Yes, I know you can add a web address to a page but let’s face it, how many times have you gotten a book or a flyer with a web adreesand took to your computer to check the URL? For me, most of the times I make a mental note to check the URL and then just forget.

I think QR codes can become huge allies for small business owners. Maybe what is missing is just some ideas on how to use the codes, so here is a list I compiled:

1. linking to full text journals from print journals; making mobile friendly videos available at the point of need; embedding videos & links to extra help online in printed guides.

2. QR Code on bus stations to allow you to purchase ticket without typing the message.

1. At bus stations with the schedule

2. Geo caching adventures

3. Share presentations

4. Music Downloads

5. Apps downloads

6. Self-branding

7. Geo-based reviews

8. Geo-based tours

9. Green tickets

10. Fashion

11. Product details

12. Offers

13. Event details

14. Contests

15. Competition details

16. Contact details- we use them in our business cards

17. Coupons

18. Random coupons- Starbucks does this very well, each time you scan you get a different offer.

19. Social media Ids

20. Links to your videos

21. how to information in products

22. How to information in printed materials

23. Book offers

24. Authors bio

25. Use in Billboards

26. Use in your shop window to entice reviews

27. Maps

28. Invitations

29. Link to your blog

30. Special offer on flayers

31. On trade shows

32. On trade shows where when you scan tells you to go to a specific booth for a freebie. (saw this one done by a company called Print concierge. Very clever!

Probably there are many more ways to use QR codes, just takes a little imagination and as usual, action.

Want to master marketing for small businesses? Try Small business marketing mastery program

This is only 6 transactions a month!

That is not very exciting!

It is also clear that if you just put a site out there and don’t take very specific action to convert better, you will never see a good return in sales.

There are two things that you need to pay a lot of attention and work towards improving:

1- increase the traffic to your website. This can be done through SEO, Pay per click or social media. Hopefully you will use all of them.
2- Increase the rate of conversion from visitor to leads to buyers. so, you need to capture some of the visitors and conert them into leads and then into buyers.
In order to do that you might want to offer an ethical bribe that they give name and e-mail to get it. Those e-mails will go to an auto-responder program where you can do proper follow-up in order to get them to buy.
You will also make sure that your website is very clear in which path your visitors need to follow. what they need to click next, what they will get and how many clicks it will take them to get waht they want.
You want as fewer clicks as possible when asking them to buy something and you want to make the purchase process as simple as possible.

60% of sales are lost in the checkout process. This is a lot! Some of the resons why this happens are: asking for irrelevant or too much information in the checkout, too many screens before transaction is complete, name of product different than what was offered.
The next thing to improve conversion is to pay attention to your follow-up strategies.

Leads need to go to an auto-responder system where you have sequential messages increasing credibility and asking for the sale.
Remember that if people don’t buy from you, usually the main reason is that they don’t trust you. Use messages, newsletters, videos, video testimonials and direct mail to increase the level of trust.

From moment zero, when you think about your website, think how you will improve conversion into sales.

These are facts from the video social Media Revolution

You might have felt this in your business, but do you know how to adapt to the new reality?

BuzzBoosters has just release a new flash program that will guide you step by step on how to sell more in the new economy.

I don’t want to brag but this program can change your life.

This program targets decisive business owners that want to take action and generate more sales.

We’ll not be offering this program in the same format in the future.

Check more about the Off-Road Sales Strategies for the New Economy

Nashlah started using FourSquare on its first moments. She just loves it. Even though, right now, there are a lot of professionals saying they know all about it and are super users, you should take a look at what she’s done in a small place like Salt Lake City: Nashlah on FourSquare

Most social media gurus focus on tactics and telling people how to use the tool, but they seldom talk about business strategy.

Let me show you how  businesses can benefit from Foursquare. Have in mind that the application is addicting because users will compete for mayorships and badges which is something that ends up benefiting businesses. The app promotes exploring the town and trying new things which is great in itself. It will tell you if a place is trendy by the number of check-ins, and if you accomplish some requirements that vary from business to business you may win a badge.

Why is all this important to businesses: visibility, popularity, more customer loyalty, more business.

Why do people do it? They like to compete, they have ego, it is fun and they can promote your business even though you might not be aware of it happening.

Have in mind that people want to become mayor of locations and oust previous mayors. When this happens they get posted publicly to twitter and Facebook with your business name and a link to your business’ profile page on foursquare.com. The same may happen when they arrive at your business.

Well, there are already savvy businesses using Foursquare to promote their business. A bar in San Francisco gives free drinks to the mayor of their location, and gives $2 off any performance night for those that show the phone and prove they checked in. This obviously motivates people to come back to the business and to use even more the application. In Las Vegas if you become the Mayor of the Miracle Mile Shops you’ll get your face and name on the 126-foot LED video screen. Big companies like Brave network,  Pepsi and the New York Times are also using Foursquare. AJBombers a restaurant, did a Foursquare party and increased business in 110%.

Foursquare is already working on showing banners with the promotions.

The other day we were checking in at the movies and a message popped up telling us to try a restaurant around the corner with a coupon for us to use. What a proactive way to promote businesses in nearby locations!

The application allows people to recommend the place and suggest favorite dishes. It allows businesses and people to connect, bring foot traffic to the place and recommend to others. What more can a business wish for?

Badges for your business and badges to sponsor events is another possibility. For the users the more badges they have the more fun it is.

So, to put it into perspective, here are a few things you can use Foursquare in your business for:

I always say that the gold rush today is for being found, and getting attention.

About the being found part: Google and Bing maps are showing Foursquare venues when people search locally. Foursquare pages rank on search engines which means your business name, phone number and link come up.

Foursqare has the potential to revolutionize social media and turn it into a form of currency.

Out of the over 1.4 Million venues, only about 1200 venues have special offers. Less than 1% of businesses are going after this amazing opportunity. It is free.

Remind me how much you’ve spent with advertising that didn’t work? So what are you waiting for?

The search engines are the new phone books, where people go to get the information they want, when they want and wherever they are.

Local businesses need to wake up and start promoting their businesses online now more than ever and if they think that they just need to wait until things go back to normal, they will never wake up. They will die a slow painful death.

Due to the economy, people are more resistant to buy and they don’t buy from businesses they don’t know about or don’t trust.

It is your job to increase the level of trust, be in places they can easily find you, (like on their phones) and promote your business more than ever.

Today is naive to think one ad in one place will do the trick. You need to do more and on a constant basis and you need to be the marketer in your business like it or not.

We live in an age where the gold rush is to be found and to get attention and this is your main job.

You need to be found on search engines, social environments, phone applications if you want to be in business for the next five years.

You will need just a fraction of whatever you have been spending in advertising and some time.

You can outsource most tasks or you can learn how to use local marketing and mobile marketing in your business.

The only thing you cannot do is wait.

1. Your message is not clear

2. They don’t trust you.

3. You are not getting their attention.(it doesn’t matter if you have 5 k friends on Facebook, it matters how many people are paying attention to what you say)

4. Fail to create desire. (This can be very simple as offering a free report)

5. You think talking to them once is enough.(in a noisy market place you need to reach people several times and you need to do this without being annoying)

6. You don’t follow-up.

7 Not having a strategy for them to initiate the contact. (which is proven to increase sales by 60%)

8. You are not leading the sales process.

9. You don’t have a sales process, you just sell.

10. You don’t clearly state the value of what you are offering.

Bonus: You are not talking to the heart. Remember, you sell to the heart.

Bonus 2: When using social media to market your business you cannot just offer people your services or products, you need to provide value, interact and engage them first. Sorry but the advertise age is dead.

Things have changed a lot, the way people buy has changed and the way we sell has changed and the sooner you understand that and change the way you have been marketing, the better. This is especially true if you are still using the same channels to market your business and see decreasing results every time. They will not go back to what used to be normal and most likely they will adapt to the new economy or they will just cease to exist.

There is a reason why last year there were 273 magazines going out of business and you hear all the time that newspapers are dying.

Here are a few things about the new economy and the way you should be marketing to prospects and clients:

1. You need to focus on your prospects problems and not only on your company and products like before. Remember, people search for a solution to a problem.
2. Define the top emotional reasons people purchase your products.
3. Start a dialogue with prospects and clients. This is crucial today and not at all like before where you would just broadcast a message to them using TV, Radio etc.
4. Look for quality of prospects other than the quantity. Everybody is not a prospect and some can bring a lot of headaches. Don’t forget that the gold mine lies in existing clients.
5. Try ideas, fail fast and come back. You don’t need a business plan, you need an action plan.
6. Master business storytelling and tell true stories that are compelling.
7. Provide valuable information using social media tools. That is a lot more effective than spending a lot of money with advertising.
8. The more education you provide, the more profit coming your way.
9. Use an ethical bribe or a compelling offer to build a list of people interested in what you are talking about.
10. Position yourself as the to-go expert.
11. Use tools like teleseminars or online videos to get the word out and position yourself in the market.
12. Make a sale to get a client. Don’t focus only on the first sale and create upsells.
13. You need several products or different services. There is a lot of money in the back-end offers. Give buyers more chances to buy and they will spend more. Repeat sales can increase profits by 22%
14. Create a continuity program
15. Leverage technology. Stop giving excuses that you were not born in front of a computer, or you are too old and start using technology not only to attract prospects but to follow-up in an automated way. For example, using auto-responders.

We are living in the age of personal branding. What most people don’t get is that this is not only related to solopreneurs, coaches and speakers, it is also related to companies.

Personal branding is when you put your unique personality, or the personality of your business in your marketing, giving you a big advantage over your competition.

Every business today needs to have a strong personality not only to stand out but also to create a following. We don’t need more of anything and we certainly do not talk about things that are not worth talking about.

Personal branding should broadcast a clear and unique message that would distinguish you from your competitors. It also mix company facts and traits with the human side.

In order to build your personal brand you need to answer a few questions:

1-     What do you do better and different than your competition? (price and quality is a given and don’t count here)

2-     Who is your ideal audience?

3-     What are the characteristics you want to be know for?

4-     Do you have interesting stories to tell?

5-     How are you going to tell these stories? Which channels, how often?

Here is where you can use and abuse from social media tools. Share ideas, educate and give them reasons to trust you, your products and services.. Remember, if people are not buying from you is either because the message is not clear, it is not good or they don’t trust you.

Remember that your prospects and clients don’t like to be interrupted, shouted of harass with sales pitches, so be careful not to confuse a good story with a sales pitch.

Your prospects will see you as you present yourself or your company. Respect your prospects. If you want them to trust you, you need to help them get to know you and demonstrate that you are someone who can help them solve their problems.

It is like a little diamond that you have to find, dig the dirt to be able to enjoy. Marketing your business is not different. You need to do some digging in order to find precious opportunities. Truffle farmers use Beagles to sniff and find the truffles. Smart people have coaches to spot their diamonds.

1. Be consistent. This is the most important thing. It is better to have 5 videos that you post one every week than to have one long video. People will learn to expect your videos and they get frustrated if you are not consistent.
2. Post frequent. Whatever is better for you and helps you be consistent. Some people can post a daily video, others do once a week. The idea here is to post as frequently as possible.
3. Use short videos. Sometimes you have to go longer, but try to be under 5 minutes. Trim all the fat.
4. 1 story per video. Focus is king
5. Don’t be boring. Being boring is a big sin in marketing.
6. Pay a lot of attention on the title, description and tags. Titles need to entice people to click and they need to contain some keywords so people will be able to find your videos. Add your url to the description and use as many keywords as possible on the tags.
7. Uberpublish. Post your videos everywhere. YouTube is just one video sharing place, post on all of them and don’t forget to post on your blog. Use a distribution software like Myvideosubmitter to make your life easier.
8. Be part of the community. Especially on YouTube. Subscribe to people’s channels, comment on their videos.
9. Have your channel on YouTube.
10. Always have a call to action and take them to a place where they can take action.
11. On YouTube use the call to action overlay to take them to a place where they can take action. It is a great way to get YouTubers to know more about you.
12. Share your videos on the social networks that you belong to.
13. Get rid of all excuses and start posting videos today. Don’t postpone.
14. sign up for our in depth training program on how to use online videos for business