Tag: positioning

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As a Company, Do you Listen? A Halloween story

I’ve been using social media for many, many years. I know I joined Twitter in 2007. It says so in my profile there and over the years I’ve advised several businesses on how to get results with social media. Unfortunately, up to this day, what I see is most businesses using social media as a broadcasting tool, pushing content, pushing what they think and pushing annoying selfies more often that anyone can digest.

It is a rule that if you want to mesmerize an audience or group of people, get their attention and loyalty, you need to become relevant to them. Well, that is very hard to achieve if you are the only one talking and never listening. It is also very hard when you don’t pay attention on what matters to others and how they tend to behave. You really just spend time, get no results and will end up  joining the “Social Media Doesn’t work” group.

Some companies do get it though. They listen, they act and make bold moves. All according to what is relevant to the people they serve.

A few days before Halloween my daughter told me this story about one of her friends.

This friend has 2 little daughters and was asking them what costumes they wanted for this year when one of them said:

“I’m going be a fairy panda bear!”
“Do you mean a furry panda bear?”
“No, mom. A fairy panda bear.”

Cute and funny. So her father gets this tweet out:

“Our 3 year old decided what she wants to be for Halloween. I hope Amazon has a wide selection of Fairy Panda Bear Costumes!

A few hours later this happened:

amazon's tweets

And a few days later:

amazon halloween costume

 

Fairy-Panda-Bear-Toddler

 

Now, any company could put this together right? But only if they were listening and really participating in social media. Not just wasting time saying how great they are. Amazon did way more than make one little girl happy. They got a whole family to become loyal customers, the kind of customer that would give them a big hug every time they click on the buy button and a whole legion of the father’s followers to see the company in a better light.

They got me to spend my time thinking and writing about them. They became relevant, way beyond 2 day shipping. They reached me on an emotional level.

Simple, inexpensive way to become relevant by listening and acting. This is something any company could do.

But Amazon does not stop there. They don’t follow the herd either and they take bold actions. Something all businesses should do. Stop the excuses and act without fear. But most of us, just want the mass to validate a move before we take a step.

This week Amazon announced its first Brick and Mortar store. Yes, the giant online retailer did not join the crowds saying “Retail is Dead“, it put its money on a traditional model. That is bold and wise. Why rely in only one outlet of revenue when you don’t have to? Do people shop in different ways? Does Amazon sell to different generations? With different behaviors? If so, why not adapt to their behavior?

What about you? What are you waiting for?

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How Irresistible are you?

Discover the real secret to achieve long lasting prosperity and to become irresistible to your market. http://www.bestbuzzgift.com

There are 2 things you need to have on your mind and three things you need to act upon.

When you are thinking on how to promote your business, three things need to be on your mind:

  • How do you get attention from your market- very different than visibility
  • How you increase the appeal for your brand
  • How to you generate abundance coming from the results of the two above.

There are 3 things that you need to work every day in order to create long lasting prosperity in your business:

  • Your mindset. This is probably a lot more important than you think
  • Your message. The message needs to be irresistible to the market. Always refine your positioning.
  • Your marketing. Your actions in marketing should lead to conversion of lead or sale and to support all of the above.
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Success is not a one time meal, it is an ongoing feast- The process for success and the unstoppable you

The coaching and consulting business can be really fun, really exciting and really frustrating.
When clients follow the advice and take action, they see results and everyone grows. That is when it is fun and exciting.
But, there are those that follow some advice, see some results, get a taste of what success is and go back to what they were doing before. That is when it is frustrating.

Unfortunately that is the nature of the business, some people will move forward and some won’t.

Even though I understand this dynamic, I still get frustrated when I see a business full of potential not go anywhere. Usually this type of entrepreneurs goes after every new magic tool, every new social media tool and jumps from coach to coach.

I work a lot but every night I take some time to watch documentaries and some TV shows. I love Shark Tank and Kitchen Nightmares. I usually watch Kitchen Nightmares with my daughter because we love to bitch about those restaurant owners that don’t do what they are told, go into business without knowing anything about the restaurant business and are so ego centric. That is fun for us. After each episode we check on our tablets if they are still open or not. We watched the whole UK series and several of the US ones so far. This amounts to about 45 episodes. From this group less than 5 restaurants are still open. Think about that, it is less than 10%. You can blame Chef Ramsey but that is the same percentage you get for super performers in a sales force and the same for most consultants.

Something is clearly wrong. You can blame the coach or consultant, you can blame, in our case, marketing or social media but if you go and watch those episodes you will notice that fear, lack of vision and bad habits are really the culprit.

This made us re-think our own approach. We traditionally focus on very strong positioning, message and then marketing but as I mentioned above, even if you do some things right, experiment success it does not mean you will keep on the right track and keep being successful.

business feastIn order for you to become an unstoppable entrepreneur there are a few more things you need to work on and these is the process we have incorporated:

1. You need to develop a kaleidoscope vision.
On a daily basis, we see things in pieces, we have to-do lists, we forget to think big (or we don’t even know what that is)and very seldom we acknowledge any limitations. We need to combine these elements in order to create the right picture of our future in business.

2. Find your broken windows. We talked about this concept before. You need to access and identify what is not working, habit patterns and how you can incorporate new business habits.

3. Who is really in charge? When you put things together you find out that you really live with 2 different personalities. Crazy huh? But true. There is the you that is rational, wants to succeed, knows there is more out there for you and this other person who just leaves in fear and disbelief. You need to take a specific set of actions and decide who is in charge.

4. Show your real side. Here is where you craft the story you tell your audience and create points of similarity. Here is where you develop you full potential and then,

5. You just worry to always increase the level of trust with your audience- clients.

Remember that for this process, you do need a pair of fresh eyes that are not emotionally involved with you or your business. Being real is crucial.

Once you get this right, then you can worry about positioning, marketing, prospecting etc.because here you will get what you deserve and will keep getting. Success is not a one time meal, it is an ongoing feast.

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Christmas is over but Santa has a big problem

Even Santa has to re-think his business.

Now that the holidays are over… you ate, you rested and spent time with loved ones, it is time to go back to business.

Let’s take a minute and think about Santa for a second, since Christmas is still fresh on our minds.

Santa has been in business for a long time and since I hear no complaints from children, we can assume he has a healthy business.

Now, Santa has a seasonal business so he must be careful and work very hard during a specific time of the year.

When it comes to manufacturing his toys he faces brutal competition coming from China. He cannot pay his elves such low wages. This type of unfair competition makes his work even harder.

How many reindeer does he have? 7? Have you checked the price of hay lately? It is through the roof and he has a very big route to cover.

When it comes to memorabilia and places to meet Santa to deliver the list, well, we can get most of it online at very cheap prices and send the list by e-mail or just get an app for that. It is almost as if we could replace Santa.

It is not a pretty scenario is it?

I’m sure Santa will be able to thrive and survive despite the challenges. What about your business?

All of us, including Santa have seen drastic changes in the market, in consumer behavior and in the perception of value people have of our businesses.

There is either a lot more competition out there or more technology to replace what we do. Every day we need to make a lot more effort to get people’s attention.

Not a pretty picture.

There is a huge need for you to not only use the beginning of this year to plan and craft a well crafted market plan for your business but also to think about fine tuning your positioning or in some cases even re-invent yourself.

We all need some fine tuning in our position if we want to be in business for the next five years.

Yes, it is going to involve some changes (oops, I just wrote a word marketers don’t use, because people don’t like it), some work, (oops, another one) and some money. (ai, ai, ai)

The truth is, with changes in the economy and consumer behavior, you have to stop fooling yourself that there is some magic or software out there to fix things. Take charge of your life and business. You and only you can change the outcome for better.

You need to take action and do what is necessary or you will see your business vanish from this planet.

Have in mind that I do wish you the best year ever, but it is not going to be great if you don’t do what you have to do.

ornaments8x10Position your mind and your business for success in 2013.

I advise you to take a look at our program: Magnetic Influence: Become Irresistible to Your Market.

It is a multi-media program that you can take on your own time. It covers the 7 Steps of Becoming Irresistible to Your Market. We go in-depth with several action steps.

No fluff here, just real, simple strategies for you to attract more clients and keep them buying from you.

It shows you how to position your business for this time/era, this new consumer, this new reality we live in.

You can do it. Just go to: http://www.buzzboostersuniversity.com/how-to-have-an-irresistible-business to get lifetime access.

We have used this system for 3 years now with our clients. It has been tested in several industries and three different countries. It works if you implement.

Don’t wait: http://www.buzzboostersuniversity.com/how-to-have-an-irresistible-business

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A business thought

You cannot become irresistible to your market if you don’t focus on the way you deliver your services.

Every touch point with customers and prospects, every detail before, during and after the sale.

Pay attention to these details and you will see more results