How To Snatch The Golden COIN!
COIN – Circle Of Influence Networking.
On a regular basis, I am on the look out for new opportunities for companies and individuals within my circle of influence. Whether they are located within my immediate market, across the continent or around the world, I am keeping their best interests in mind. As you might imagine, I speak with CEO’s from many different types of companies all the time. If for instance, I speak with a manufacturer, I immediately curious as to who supplies their pallets or wood packaging? I have a client contact who does that. What about corrugated packaging? Looking to tie the knot, perhaps it would benefit you to speak with Atlanta’s ONLY Intimate Bridal Salon? No matter what the situation, I love the idea of my clients doing business together.
I subscribe to a service that looks for news sources. Whenever I spot a topic that a reporter is looking to research and one of my clients would fit the bill, then I pass it on. I consider these efforts part of my overall marketing strategy. One thing that it helps to spur is additional business. It keeps me on their radar. We are referring each other. Much of my new business is from referral. I see it as a two-way street.
Don’t forget that branding is all about the relationship. Take a look at your typical week. I’ll bet that you too trip over situations where your customers could benefit. Take for instance a retailer – if you’re smart and you’re building a customer database, find out what they do. Imagine if you were able to link them up with an opportunity? How golden would you be to them?
If you send out a monthly html newsletter to your list, feature a customer. It’s the little things that make a huge impact. When you’re in their company, pay close attention to what they’re saying about their daily lives. An irritant might possibly be addressed by someone within your circle of influence. What you will definitely find happening as a result of this, is that your customers will start looking out for you.
None of us are any different – we are all looking for new business. Ask your customers what they’re looking for?
Make COIN pay off for you!
Quality. Service. Value. Who needs them?
It’s time to stop beating your chest in your marketing.
There are some words, like quality, service and value that are so overused in marketing materials that consumers just tune them out.
They’ve lost all meaning and credibility and using them can actually hurt you. They don’t enhance your message, they cloud it.
These words have been so watered down and are so generic that the consumer makes the assumption that you don’t really have anything to tout, so you’ll just pulling out the generic words to take up space.
That doesn’t mean you cannot market your quality, commitment to service or value.
Just find other ways to get the message across. Let your customers talk about your quality. Let satisfaction survey results brag about your high level or service. Do price comparisons or a 110% price difference refund speak to your value.
Live them. Just don’t use the words.
Who You Are, How You’re Saying It and Do They Care?
Your corporate brand essentially involves two parties – you and them. It is the key in marketing yourself to be sure that you are resonating with your target audience. It’s time that you did some key research from three strategic perspectives:
ONE: Tell us – who are you?
It’s important to know who you are. In the past companies developed mission statements to define who they are. Many times it was wishful thinking. I’ve helped companies determine their brand values and personalities to help them understand who they are. One good way is to ask employees and principals for their understanding of who they think you are. Be honest with this evaluation because you want a clear statement.
TWO: What are you saying you are?
Do a communications audit of your company? In your marketing materials, what is the message you are sending? Does it differ from the “who you are statement” in step ONE? Is your corporate brand image in line with who you say you are? Is your materials consistent in their delivery of the “who you are statement”? Consistency of message is paramount.
THREE: What are they saying about you?
What your marketplace thinks of you is your brand. What they understand about your products and services may be completely out of your hands. If you’ve neglected your brand, chances are your competition have defined you, and this is what your marketplace believes to be the truth. Doing a competitive analysis will also assist you in discovering your short comings and establish a position of message.
Taking these three perspectives together using triangulation, you can now determine where you are RIGHT NOW. Digging deeper, you can also discover situations, language and expectations your target audience desire from you. The answers to each of the three perspectives will clearly show if your brand is in trouble and they also provide a strong direction for marketing effectively.
Outsourcing: How to Read the Price Tag
Small business owners wear many hats: manager, buyer, accountant, you name it. It is impossible for one person to take care of everything, and the most commonly outsourced tasks revolve around marketing, branding and design. When first deciding to work with a professional, you are going to be looking at the price tag attached to the promised services. It may be shocking to some small business owners how much certain freelance or consulting services can cost, but there are ways to save.
Reading the Price Tag
Next time a consultant charges you $1000 a day, don’t fall over backwards. First consider the following: if you would hire a professional on a one year contract, the salary, taxes and benefits packages would amount to about $200.000 on average. Take into account the consultant only has a certain number of billable days a week, you are paying a premium for the flexibility of not hiring him on a full time basis. You end up saving on benefits, and you probably don’t have enough work to keep someone busy all year so hiring simply doesn’t make sense for your business.
Pricing is, or should be, based on what your best alternative is. In this case, your alternative is to hire someone for a longer term. Considering there are maybe about 236 billable days a year, you need to look at how much an employee costs you a day if you would hire him or her. Don’t just think salary; consider all other costs and expenses associated with an additional hire. You’ll see you still end up saving by hiring a professional for a short term.
How to Save on Freelancers
There are many freelancers who have ‘virtual networks.’ If you need copy writing services, design services, and printing, you could get all your services from the ‘same’ provider. Basically, a virtual network entails a connection between different freelancers who work together on multi-disciplinary projects. This way, they resemble a fully staffed advertising agency, but at a more attractive total price.
Like with anything, you could shop around for the best possible deal. What is important is to look beyond the price tag and see what a freelancer is made of: not everyone will be right for your project, and although price does play a role it isn’t everything.
What has your experience been with outsourcing? Have you looked for a freelancer only based on cost, or based on expertise?
What Motivates People To Buy?
One of the biggest challenges for business owners and marketers is to step out of their own shoes and slip into the shoes of the buyer.
You need to put aside your own bias and perceptions and always remember that when creating marketing messages, the bottom line is – you have to create the need in the potential buyer’s mind.
Always ask yourself — does my marketing answer the question:
Why should they exchange their hard-earned money for your product or service?
Having an understanding of the human psyche pays off here. It sounds deceivingly simple, but all human decisions are motivated by one of eight things.
- Time/convenience
- Money
- Recovering something lost (like youth)
- Sex
- Knowledge/self improvement
- Security/safety
- Comfort
- Care of loved ones
Knowing this, how could you change your communications to better trigger a response from your audience?
THE introvert’s guide to selling
Not everyone throws on their spidey outfit and relishes leaping into the fray of the business sales arena. As a matter of fact a great deal of people sell because it is just part of what they do. If they could get the sales some other way, they’d probably jump at it. In the mean time all of the reluctant sales people out there, have to do they best they can with the few sale skills they have.
For the past few months I’ve been in touch with several reluctant sales people from around the world, and we’ve been sharing tips and techniques that has made selling a little bit easier. None of these contacts are Anthony Robbins clones or Dale Carnegie wannabe’s, BUT the one thing they did have in common was that they are introverts in an extroverts world. They’re tired of the books on sales that assume you love to put yourself out there.
So guess what? I’ve taken this valuable conversation and put them together in a little eBook that I am giving away for the asking. It was a pleasure putting together this information because of the insight it gave me. This is my first offering in the eBook realm. I call the effort, “The Reluctant Salesperson: An Introvert’s Guide to Selling.”
If you see fit to add this eBook to your reading, I’d love it, if you’d drop back here and let me know what you think. One thing about blogging that I find immensely gratifying is the breadth of opinion – all of it with the goal of helping all of us improve how we do business.
…for all the reluctant sales people who may be too shy to drop by my site and pick up a copy, I don’t mind if you get a friend to do it for you.
All the best.
Google Lively – A Platform For Marketing?
Many of you may be aware that Google has launched a new service for websites called Google Lively – a lightweight competitor to Second Life.
As this popped up, many marketing bloggers online have begun talking about how this might be relevant for for marketing purposes. I can’t say I have ignored it. In fact, I want to know – do you have any ideas for marketing and branding on Lively?
While Lively creates a similar experience to Second Life, it uses websites as a platform rather than purpose built software.
What Google Lively is About
It’s a platform for people to interact with one another when they visit their favourite websites. I think Niniane Wang (the creator) sums it up best on the Google blog:
“…to express yourself with and without words, and to do this in the places you already visit on the web.”
Can you imagine using your avatar in a 3D room to read the content of your favourite websites? This may be just one reality made possible with this new platform – and for those looking to connect with customers, it could be a dream come true.
Marketing on Google Lively
I’ve had a bit of a play around on it, and I’ve found a couple of features which I think could be very useful for any businesses looking to use this service. Currently you can:
- Promote Your Youtube Videos
- Post Links back to Your Site From Objects
- Place Your Room on Your Website to Engage Visitors
- Allow Users to Experience Your Brand First Hand
In the future I suspect you will be able to:
- Contribute Objects, Room Shells and Wardrobes
- Put RSS Feeds into Rooms
- Place Advertising in Rooms
- Program Events to Run
- Buy & Sell Objects, Clothes, Rooms and Shells
Could you imagine the worth of a room which attracts 10,000 people daily?
Are There More Marketing Applications?
Google is busy testing a number of initiatives to make the web into a more social place. Just take a look at what Google has under their belt:
With all these projects working together, I suspect Lively will become a lot more popular. Especially as it matures and Google opens the doors for innovation through APIs and what not.
What Marketing and Branding Opportunities Can You See on Lively? Discuss…
