When meeting someone in a networking situation, a simple technique that makes you memorable is to keep eye contact. As the other person talks, give them your full attention and nod your head from time-to-time letting them know that you are sincerely interested in the exchange. Don’t be scanning the room looking for the next conquest. There is nothing worse than spending any amount of time talking with someone who is mentally checked out and already on to the next person.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Marketing Tip #28 - Become Proactive
If you are like most business people, your time is mainly spent being reactive to your clients needs and in turn, you neglect the needs of your own company. Why not become proactive by setting aside the first half hour of your work day to focus on what you need to do to expand your business. Create a checklist of updates you have been putting off and work through the list as you can. Need help creating a checklist? I’m happy to help.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Practicing What I Preach! A 90-Day Journey
My client was in a panic. Within the next two weeks, he would finish a long-term project for one of his clients and was concerned that there was no new project immediately in the pipeline.
It didn’t take me long to figure out his problem. After delving into the mechanics of his business, it was blatantly obvious that he was primarily "reacting" to his client's requests, rather than "managing" them. Even after being in business for a number of years, he still hasn’t made the effort to be proactive by getting his corporate infrastructure in place.
We reviewed his goals and aspirations for the company and came up with a 90-Day Marketing Plan. For the next three months, before he concentrated on his clients, he was to commit to spending the first half hour to an hour every day working through a checklist of things that he has to explore in order to expand his business. To help him get 'up-to-speed' quickly, he has hired me to manage his list and implement the plan.
While looking over his checklist to determine what marketing advice I was going to suggest to him, I 'subconsciously' reflected on my own business. It was obvious that I needed to take my own advice! So, I’m inviting you to come along on my 'journey'.
Today is day one of my own 90-Day Marketing Plan. I’ll be reviewing my existing Strategic Marketing Plan and determine where I need to re-evaluate and update.
A Strategic Marketing Plan is a living document that changes at least monthly, sometimes weekly, or for some, daily as your company evolves and adapts to your business environment. It is a companion to a Business Plan. The marketing plan describes, in depth, how you are going to promote your product or service to your target market. The business plan defines all the other aspects of your company.
The first thing I did was to bring out my neglected marketing plan and created a checklist of areas that required my attention. The first order of business was to redefine my target market, or sometimes called a niche market. I simply made a list of all my current clients and determined what they had in common.
Do you currently have a strategy in place to market your business? There are a gazillion books and online resources to help guide you through the process of creating your own business/marketing plan
or just email me at Sandra@MaurerMarketingMinutes.com and I will send you FREE, a simple outline you can use as a guide for creating a business plan and marketing strategy that I give to my clients.
It didn’t take me long to figure out his problem. After delving into the mechanics of his business, it was blatantly obvious that he was primarily "reacting" to his client's requests, rather than "managing" them. Even after being in business for a number of years, he still hasn’t made the effort to be proactive by getting his corporate infrastructure in place.
We reviewed his goals and aspirations for the company and came up with a 90-Day Marketing Plan. For the next three months, before he concentrated on his clients, he was to commit to spending the first half hour to an hour every day working through a checklist of things that he has to explore in order to expand his business. To help him get 'up-to-speed' quickly, he has hired me to manage his list and implement the plan.
While looking over his checklist to determine what marketing advice I was going to suggest to him, I 'subconsciously' reflected on my own business. It was obvious that I needed to take my own advice! So, I’m inviting you to come along on my 'journey'.
Today is day one of my own 90-Day Marketing Plan. I’ll be reviewing my existing Strategic Marketing Plan and determine where I need to re-evaluate and update.
A Strategic Marketing Plan is a living document that changes at least monthly, sometimes weekly, or for some, daily as your company evolves and adapts to your business environment. It is a companion to a Business Plan. The marketing plan describes, in depth, how you are going to promote your product or service to your target market. The business plan defines all the other aspects of your company.
The first thing I did was to bring out my neglected marketing plan and created a checklist of areas that required my attention. The first order of business was to redefine my target market, or sometimes called a niche market. I simply made a list of all my current clients and determined what they had in common.
Do you currently have a strategy in place to market your business? There are a gazillion books and online resources to help guide you through the process of creating your own business/marketing plan
or just email me at Sandra@MaurerMarketingMinutes.com and I will send you FREE, a simple outline you can use as a guide for creating a business plan and marketing strategy that I give to my clients.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Fun Definition of Social Media
While reading “How to Make Money with Social Media” by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D., I came across a fun definition of social media and thought I’d share it with you.
“What is social media? You can find dozens of answers on the Internet, some helpful and some flat wrong. But for our purposes, social media are the digital tools that enable a two-way conversation between your prospects or customers and your business.
Unfortunately, most businesses are social media for one-way monologues instead of two-way dialogues. This brings us to our first analogy:
Social media is more like a telephone than a megaphone.
Businesses that use social media as a megaphone are missing the point. You know the kind we’re talking about. They’re the businesses (or consultants) that can’t stop talking about themselves and what makes their products or services special.
Now let’s take that analogy a step further. If using social media is similar to using a telephone, then what is Facebook like? Or LinkedIn? Or Twitter?
• Facebook is like a pub. It’s a casual place where you can go to talk about what you did over the weekend, tell a dirty joke, or tell people about the checkers convention you attended last week.
• LinkedIn is like a trade show. You wouldn’t tell people at a trade show what you did in Vegas last weekend, would you? Limit LinkedIn to your professional side. Talk about business. Talk about interesting articles in the Harvard Business Review. And use plenty of phrases such as “value chain” and “business model” in your profile. That should do the trick.
• Twitter is like a cocktail party. Just be sure you send out tweets that are helpful. New Tweeple make the mistake of taking Twitter seriously when its home page asks, “What are you doing now?” Well, we’ve got some bad news for you. Nobody cares what you are doing now. They care about information that will help them in their daily lives. So stick with helpful tweets that will position you (or your company) as an expert, drive people to a landing page on your site, or promote someone else in your industry who will someday return the favor.
• YouTube is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Times Square on New Year’s Eve is packed with people clamoring for attention, which illustrates the problem. Just as it’s hard to stand out in Times Square, it’s hard to stand out on YouTube. Too much competition exists. [You’ll have to read the book to find out their solution.]
• MySpace is like Woodstock. MySpace has suffered the same fate as AOL – it was huge at one time, but it has faded a little during the past few years. That said, MySpace still provides some very good uses. If you’re a musician or a cause-oriented marketer, you should be all over MySpace. But if you’re selling industrial widgets in the B2B space, you should do two things: 1) avoid MySpace like the plague and 2) think about getting a new job, because selling industrial widgets in the B2B space sounds like a terribly boring job.”
Taken from “How to Make Money with Social Media: An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business” by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D. FT Press, 2011. Pgs. 34-36. More info at www.60SecondMarketer.com
“What is social media? You can find dozens of answers on the Internet, some helpful and some flat wrong. But for our purposes, social media are the digital tools that enable a two-way conversation between your prospects or customers and your business.
Unfortunately, most businesses are social media for one-way monologues instead of two-way dialogues. This brings us to our first analogy:
Social media is more like a telephone than a megaphone.
Businesses that use social media as a megaphone are missing the point. You know the kind we’re talking about. They’re the businesses (or consultants) that can’t stop talking about themselves and what makes their products or services special.
Now let’s take that analogy a step further. If using social media is similar to using a telephone, then what is Facebook like? Or LinkedIn? Or Twitter?
• Facebook is like a pub. It’s a casual place where you can go to talk about what you did over the weekend, tell a dirty joke, or tell people about the checkers convention you attended last week.
• LinkedIn is like a trade show. You wouldn’t tell people at a trade show what you did in Vegas last weekend, would you? Limit LinkedIn to your professional side. Talk about business. Talk about interesting articles in the Harvard Business Review. And use plenty of phrases such as “value chain” and “business model” in your profile. That should do the trick.
• Twitter is like a cocktail party. Just be sure you send out tweets that are helpful. New Tweeple make the mistake of taking Twitter seriously when its home page asks, “What are you doing now?” Well, we’ve got some bad news for you. Nobody cares what you are doing now. They care about information that will help them in their daily lives. So stick with helpful tweets that will position you (or your company) as an expert, drive people to a landing page on your site, or promote someone else in your industry who will someday return the favor.
• YouTube is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Times Square on New Year’s Eve is packed with people clamoring for attention, which illustrates the problem. Just as it’s hard to stand out in Times Square, it’s hard to stand out on YouTube. Too much competition exists. [You’ll have to read the book to find out their solution.]
• MySpace is like Woodstock. MySpace has suffered the same fate as AOL – it was huge at one time, but it has faded a little during the past few years. That said, MySpace still provides some very good uses. If you’re a musician or a cause-oriented marketer, you should be all over MySpace. But if you’re selling industrial widgets in the B2B space, you should do two things: 1) avoid MySpace like the plague and 2) think about getting a new job, because selling industrial widgets in the B2B space sounds like a terribly boring job.”
Taken from “How to Make Money with Social Media: An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business” by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D. FT Press, 2011. Pgs. 34-36. More info at www.60SecondMarketer.com
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Marketing Tip #27 - Watch What You Post!
In matters of defamation of character, the hard truth is that when you are careless with your postings on Facebook, Twitter, or any social media site, you can get into ginormous legal trouble with statements that directly target an individual, company, association, or anyone that has a reputation to be damaged. And if the matter is pursued in court, it can cost you big-time. Also note that even a truthful statement can bring on legal issues if sharing that information damages someone’s reputation. Once it’s out in cyberspace, it’s out there forever.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Can You Be Sued For Posting the Truth Online?
During a meeting this past week, a client revealed that he had been drawn into an on-line argument with a friend. What began as a private email conversation between the two of them, evolved into the “friend” posting snarky remarks and innuendos broadcasted to all their mutual friends on Facebook. He wasn’t sure how to proceed and was wondering if these remarks were defamation of his character.
First of all, there are two kinds of defamation of character: Libel is the defaming of character or reputation in the form of a written statement, in this case, on a social media site, or slander, that is a damaging statement which is spoken.
As a former publisher of a newspaper, I was faced with the issues of libel and slander every day. I purposely wrote the content of the paper from the “third” person, disconnecting my feelings and opinions on any given matter. It took a lot of discipline not to be dragged into disagreements that were between two embattled neighbors or one business owner who was doing everything he could to put the other out of business. But my reputation was that of fair and unbiased reporting, a reputation that I am proud to have.
The hard truth is that when you are careless with your postings on Facebook, Twitter, or any social media site, you can get into ginormous legal trouble with statements that directly target an individual, company, association, or anyone that has a reputation to be damaged. And if the matter is pursued in court, it can cost you big-time. Also note that even a truthful statement can bring on legal issues if sharing that information damages someone’s reputation. Consult an attorney for the laws governing defamation of character in your state.
Before you begin sharing your matters of discontent on the internet, here are some things you should keep in mind:
• Defamatory language does not have to be direct. It can also be innuendo.
• That language must be “of or concerning” the person claiming to be harmed by the language.
• The language must have been “published” for all to see.
• The language has to damage the reputation of the person of whom the remarks are directed. It should be noted that even a statement of opinion can get you in trouble.
The bottom line: Use common sense with everything you post on the internet for all to see. This is especially true before you post something in a hasty moment of anger. Once it’s out there in cyberspace, it’s out there forever.
First of all, there are two kinds of defamation of character: Libel is the defaming of character or reputation in the form of a written statement, in this case, on a social media site, or slander, that is a damaging statement which is spoken.
As a former publisher of a newspaper, I was faced with the issues of libel and slander every day. I purposely wrote the content of the paper from the “third” person, disconnecting my feelings and opinions on any given matter. It took a lot of discipline not to be dragged into disagreements that were between two embattled neighbors or one business owner who was doing everything he could to put the other out of business. But my reputation was that of fair and unbiased reporting, a reputation that I am proud to have.
The hard truth is that when you are careless with your postings on Facebook, Twitter, or any social media site, you can get into ginormous legal trouble with statements that directly target an individual, company, association, or anyone that has a reputation to be damaged. And if the matter is pursued in court, it can cost you big-time. Also note that even a truthful statement can bring on legal issues if sharing that information damages someone’s reputation. Consult an attorney for the laws governing defamation of character in your state.
Before you begin sharing your matters of discontent on the internet, here are some things you should keep in mind:
• Defamatory language does not have to be direct. It can also be innuendo.
• That language must be “of or concerning” the person claiming to be harmed by the language.
• The language must have been “published” for all to see.
• The language has to damage the reputation of the person of whom the remarks are directed. It should be noted that even a statement of opinion can get you in trouble.
The bottom line: Use common sense with everything you post on the internet for all to see. This is especially true before you post something in a hasty moment of anger. Once it’s out there in cyberspace, it’s out there forever.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Marketing Tip #26 - Think Like a Celebrity!
Are you speaker, trainer, author or anyone who speaks to groups? Stop promoting your events as “speaking engagements” or “training sessions” or “lectures”. That’s what ordinary speakers do. Celebrities promote their “appearances”. Why not add a tab to your website or blog listing any upcoming appearances you may have, as well as articles, podcasts, and upcoming events you will attend. It will make you look in-demand, an authority in your niche and even a celebrity.
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