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Copyright (c) 2010 Audrey Burton
Giving free talks is an excellent way for a good speaker to promote her business. It's like giving a free sample, and sampling is a proven marketing strategy for all types of industries.
The problem I most often hear is this, "I don't know how to create a talk!"
It is much simpler than you think. Once you finish this article, you will be wondering why you didn't think of this yourself.
The first step that is often overlooked is to figure out what your...
Why Entrepreneurs Cannot Keep a Daily Schedule
Copyright (c) 2010 Audrey Burton
Have you tried over and over to keep to a daily schedule, but just can't do it? There is a good reason for that! An entrepreneur's life does not usually allow it.
When you have a very small business, or a microbusiness, you are often responsible for many tasks.
1. You are the Communications Officer, meaning you answer the phone and you answer all the emails. 2. You are often also the bookkeeper, so you must keep track of every dollar that comes in and goes...
The Green is in the Phone - Start Calling
Copyright (c) 2010 Audrey Burton
No matter what stage you are in with your business, there is always a balance between cash flow generating activities and planting seeds for future sales. If you are struggling to pay the rent every month, the majority of your focus must be on cash flow generating actions.
Generating cash flow can be as easy as giving talks in your community. Getting clients by giving talks can be the easiest, least expensive marketing strategy you employ.
If you have a...
Your Website Should Make People Cry
Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
Do you improve your clients' lives with your service? If you are a wedding planner, professional organizer, life coach or therapist (or other personal service business), your marketing needs to really touch your prospects in a compelling and emotional way.
Most service business owners are passionate about helping their clients, and feel the need to talk about that in their marketing - a lot. This is natural, but is usually not effective. In fact, it is...
3 Biggest Website Building Mistakes - Are You Making Them?
? Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
Creating your small business website is a big job. Many entrepreneurs put it off for a long time, or start and stop over and over. It is very stressful!
Then there are those who jump right in - but make big mistakes along the way. They spend a lot of money before realizing they have made these big mistakes, and end up completely redesigning their sites.
The first mistake I see A LOT is hiring a website designer without knowing what you want. The website...
2 Solutions for Procrastination
Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
To solve procrastination, you must first understand it. By understanding the two main reasons for procrastination, you can then solve the problem!
I have found that the two main reasons people procrastinate are perfectionism and poor time management.
Perfectionists are hesitant to put anything out to the world until it is perfect. I have seen this most often when it comes to websites. You know you need a website, and you really want one, but you don't...
Close More Sales by Being LESS Brainy
Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
Sales is a lot of fun, and can be pretty easy. Don't believe me? I think I know what your problem is:
You're too smart for your own good!
There are a few keys to a successful sales meeting. You need to be prepared, run the meeting well and ask for the sale. Sounds so simple, doesn't it?
Be Prepared: Have a clear understanding of what you hope to accomplish during your sales meeting. This may not be what you think - if your only goal for the meeting is...
Give Away More to Sell More!
Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
To some, it sounds counter-intuitive to give away value in order to sell, but it can work brilliantly!
Here's a perfect and simple example: a food manufacturer pays to give away samples of their new food in grocery stores - then they also give a discount with a coupon! Of course they do this because they are confident that if you have a small sample of their fabulous product, you will want to buy it.
Sampling is an extremely successful marketing strategy...
Increase Your Sales Fast by Warming Up Your Cold Calls
Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
There is an incredible amount of information on how to do cold calls. I have seen 3, 4, 7 and 8 step processes. While there are similarities, each expert's process is different. Based on my training and experience, I have boiled it all down into a straight-forward process for small business owners.
The basics include preparation, action and analysis.
Preparation: Success in all kinds of marketing, including sales, is contingent on selecting the right...
Bartering: Blessing or Burden?
? Copyright (c) 2009 Audrey Burton
Bartering for needed business and personal services can be a lifesaver! On the other hand, you cannot pay the rent with massage therapy, new logos and make-up.
When you do any kind of networking, even casually through everyday contacts, you will eventually be asked to do a trade. I recommend you create a company policy - even if your company consists of just you - that you do not trade or barter. When you are approached by someone with whom you have no...
Start a Business with Do It Yourself Marketing
When you first start a business, you have a million marketing ideas! Most of them are great - brilliant even - but exactly how do you do them, and which ones do you do first?
The best marketing tool you will ever use is knowing your target market. You may have heard that target marketing is important, but probably didn't fully understand why. Even if you understand the concept, you may feel like you are turning your back on a lot of potential revenue by using target marketing.
Most people...
Time Management or Just Too Much to Do?
? Time Management is a huge business problem for many small business owners. Often, time management is not even the issue - the issue is task management!
Most of the time, entrepreneurs have too many great ideas - product ideas, marketing ideas, other ideas. They constantly feel overwhelmed, but don't know exactly why. Sound familiar?
You can certainly do everything you want, but not all this month. You need a plan. The big question usually is: How do I do that?
First, you need to...
Make Your Sales Process Easy - for You AND for Your Prospects!
Are you making your sales process harder than it needs to be? Many small businesses over-complicate their process unnecessarily. Here are some steps to make it much easier for you - and for your prospects!
The first thing you need to do is to identify what you are selling. This may sound ridiculous, but you are selling more than you realize. Most business owners who are selling services and many product sellers offer a free consultation or demonstration as the first step. So, the first...
Is Your Marketing Making You Miserable?
? Do you enjoy marketing your business? For start-up businesses, it is common to spend 85 percent of your time marketing. So, if you spend 5 hours per week actually servicing your clients, and you realistically work about 50 hours per week, you should be spending 38 hours per week marketing.
That's a lot of time for marketing! That's about 160 hours per month.
If you really don't like your marketing, then having your own business can get to be a big drag very quickly. What can you do...
Staying Alive and Thriving - Maximizing Opportunities for Small Business Owners
Survival for very small businesses can be very challenging in a recession. We don't have the resources to ride out the storm if we experience a dramatic downturn.
What we do have is the ability to make changes quickly, which bigger businesses cannot do. We are not burdened with a huge payroll and big vendor contracts - we can add new services as easily as setting up a new page on our websites and announcing it at our networking meetings.
The recession will end as they always do - history...
Get Corporate Clients - the EASY Way!
Do you want corporate clients? Do you know *exactly* how to get them? If not, you need a good plan with specific action steps and deadlines.
You may be networking and telling everyone you meet that you are looking for corporate clients, sharing the fabulous benefits you offer. And still, you get very few (if any) referrals. People who know you *want* to refer business to you, they just may not know exactly how - or who.
If you do more preparation and planning, you can make the process...
Create Your Newsletter in Phases!
Do you ever get overwhelmed thinking about starting an email newsletter? You don't even know where to start, so you never do?
It is not as difficult as it seems. The trick is to break the big project into several smaller phases. Here are the smaller phases to consider:
Phase number 1: Education
Phase number 2: Research and Planning
Phase number 3: Implementation
If you think about doing all of this at once, you will have a difficult time focusing, so just concentrate on one phase at a...
Solopreneurs - Get Real; There is No Secret!
There are a lot of very intelligent people on the internet telling you all kinds of secrets to making tons of cash working 4 hours a week. I have seen a lot of their offers, but none that sounded like they would work for regular solopreneurs.
If you already have a huge emailing list or lots of mon'ey you can spend on programs and seminars, and this sounds fun to you, let me know. I would love to hear your reviews on all of them to see which ones worked exactly as they said they would.
For...
You Can Have Everything You Want...Just Not All Today!
"You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." - Zig Ziglar
This is absolutely true, with one caveat: It won't all happen today!
Most people want the same things - health, happiness and mo'ney. Our definitions of these vary widely, especially happiness, but there is one constant. It will take effort.
Anyone who tells you that achieving their goals was effortless is not giving you the complete picture - especially if they...
Don't Go Broke Starting Your Business
When you first start your business, you get very excited - that's understandable! Just don't let your enthusiasm bankrupt you before you even get going.
For many new business owners, they want to feel 'legitimate' so they go get business cards first thing. Sometimes they spend huge amounts of money to do so, then spend a lot more getting stationary, envelopes, brochures and post cards. It's all so exciting!
Don't forget the wardrobe - if you are going to meet clients and rub elbows with...
3 Secrets to Profit in a 'Bad Economy'
When the perception in the marketplace is that there is a bad economy, you must stand out against your competition. Even if you don't believe the economic problems affect your business directly, your clients' confidence may be suffering and they may be afraid to spend anything.
The three secrets are: 1. Use Outrageous Marketing 2. Let Your Personality Shine 3. Network, Network, Network
What is outrageous marketing? I know a woman who owns a wig shop and occasionally attends the same...
Your Intuition Could Save You Mo'ney!
Have you ever gotten that little feeling that you should not do business with someone? When you ignored it, what happened? It seems we all learn this lesson the hard way.
For me, I have taken on clients that were way more trouble than the revenues I received, and I have invested my precious marketing budget in campaigns that returned far less than I spent. The good news is - I have never made the same mistake twice. In addition, I have learned a great deal from each experience and can use...
Don't be Discouraged!
Just about every small business owner I have met with has felt discouraged at some point. Usually it happens around the end of the first year, but it could happen at any time. Why does this happen?
There are many contributing factors, but the most common problem is the lack of sales. In many businesses, you can sell to your warm market first. These are your friends and family, and even acquaintances. Often, this source dries up, leaving you with no new clients.
Small Business Marketing...
Use Your WebStats to Save Time and Mo'ney!
Have you ever gotten a client and they didn't know how they found you? "I think I found your website somehow..."
In order to have the most efficient marketing plan possible, you need to know where all your clients come from, if at all possible. If you are using the internet to promote your business in several ways, it is helpful to know what tactics are working best.
Here are some of the ways you might drive traffic to your main website: - Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace...
Emotional Connection - Why Do People Buy?
? People buy based on emotion. You can benefit from this with careful planning and execution of a plan. It all starts with your target market. Having a narrow target market allows you to create a conversation with your ideal customer through your marketing.
Selecting the best possible target market is not easy. Your target needs to qualify in the following ways: - Viability - they must be willing and able to pay for what you are offering and they fit within your life or lifestyle -...
Home-Based Business Work/Life Balance
'Work Life Balance' has been talked about for years, but it also applies to small home-based business owners. The biggest difference is that when you are an employee working for a company that works toward work/life balance, your boss is (hopefully) looking out for you. When you work for yourself, you have to look out for yourself!
I have a built-in monitor - my children. They need to be picked up after school whether I have work to do or not, and I'm an only parent. They also need to eat...
Pay Attention! It's Your Most Important Job
Pay Attention! It's Your Most Important Job
by: Audrey Burton
Anyone can become a parent; there are no tests or interviews to pass. Children can become parents, mentally disabled people its even possible to become a parent while in a coma!
When my mother, who is a truly great parent still, became a mom the first time, she was 19 and had very little experience with children. The hospital gave her 1 piece of paper with instructions and sent her on her way. Dolls come with more...
Prepare to Sell!
Prepare to Sell!
by: Audrey Burton
Sales is a critical part of any business, including non-profits. Sales is not complicated or difficult, but requires preparation, consistent action and a plan. Before completing any preparatory work in sales, consider asking yourself some tough questions.
Why are you in this business?
Do you believe in your product/service?
What are you trying to accomplish?
When you believe in your product and understand why youre doing what youre doing,...
Get Over Your Resistance to Sales
Get Over Your Resistance to Sales
by: Audrey Burton
I have found that there are two best ways to eliminate your fear or resistance to sales. First, become so familiar with your product/service and any objections that might surface, that you simply cant be flustered during a sales call. Second, you need to truly believe that your product or service will be of value to your customers that youre really helping them by sharing your product with them.
The next most important step is to make...
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