Almost everyone has shoes with different models and sizes. Differences in the quality shoes, shoes are determining the price. High quality shoes, of course, a price more expensive than the price of low quality shoes.
One of the shoes shop where the quality is at ShopWiki. This place is very different from the traditional shopping because ShopWiki provide ease of shopping online so that buyers will get the goods and good quality instantly. For example, if you need Running Shoes, get here with a various type.
If you need shoes on your special day like wedding day, Wedding Shoes are the right choice for you and you can get it here. You can choose according to your size and type. Here are some products you can buy here.
In this place, lots of products that they offer, such as Nike, New Balance, Asics, Reebok, Saucony, Brooks, and Adidas, and others. They also provide many type of shoes, such as Stability Shoes, Motion Control Shoes, Cushioned Shoes, Training Shoes, Racing Shoes, Off-Road Shoes, etc. It is look very high quality and new edition.
So, if you want a quality shoe shop, then come to ShopWiki. Here, you find certain items and luxury with a variety of models available. Happy shopping.
High Quality Of Shoes
Marketing Mindsets
Ten Marketing Mindsets for Success! Having the right mindset for your marketing can mean the difference between amazingly impactful marketing and marketing that is blasé and falls flat with little to no results. These ten marketing mindsets will also help you stay the course and focus, expand past your comfort zone, and keep your energy up so you don't get down on yourself and get frustrated with your marketing before you've given it a chance.
1. Give Yourself Time
Most of my clients are their own worst boss! Their expectations are so high that they don't really give marketing efforts time to work before they start doubting, questioning and wanting to ditch the whole effort. Acknowledge that you are a lifestyle entrepreneur. This is a business owner who won't compromise on her lifestyle - she's not about to sacrifice her relationships, miss the big school play, go without a vacation or working out and taking care of herself. Given your commitment to your lifestyle, create marketing programs that support your lifestyle success. Just because someone else looks like they are moving fast doesn't mean you have to pile on a load of stress and sacrifice everything that's important to you. Build time (we're not talking perfection here) into your side.
2. Commit to Frequency
I heard this in the early days of my career in newspaper advertising back in the 80s and it's still true today. Actually it's probably more important today than ever. We are literally bombarded with over 68,000 messages a day. Your client has learned to put up a big filter and be selective about how much information she lets in. So, you have to be consistent in your efforts so that little by little she'll develop an awareness of who you are, develop a trust in you and your services, and be there when she is ready to buy. This is also about trusting your vision and making a commitment to keep showing up in real, vulnerable, confident ways with your marketing.
3. Create a Support Team
Doing it alone will have you burnt out and is a sure-fire way to zap your creativity. Create a plan for your ideal support team - both for your business and for your home life. You don't have to hire them all at once. Knowing that you have a plan for which people you want to add and when you want to add them can be liberating in itself. Then gradually hire people on a project basis or for a few hours. As you are ready to step into the next level of success for your business, you'll hire another person to help you expand your capacity. Growing with the evolution of your company allows you to keep focused on your "strengths-based" work - the juicy, creative part of your business that is directly related to growing the business. Let others (who are working with their strengths!) handle the rest.
4. Look for and Create Systems
This is a key area for a lot of growing business owners. To handle the growth look for anything and everything that you do over and over again. Make a system out of it. Design a template, checklist, procedure list so you aren't redoing it every time. I have to say, I equate "systems" with "freedom." Every 10 - 15 - 30 minutes count in my busy life. Learn how to use your online systems and programs to help support you not having to hold so much information in your head (i.e. birthdays, appointments, to-do's, ideas). As you build your support team co-create systems with them. My amazing assistant, Jan, helps me with my newsletter. Not only does she do all the behind the scenes management of it (shopping cart, template, editing, list management, etc.) but we've created a system to help me get it out on time. We have calendarized the newsletter so we know our publish dates, and then three days before it's due to her she sends me the template with as much information as possible already updated. I just have to write the welcome, provide the article, and product announcement. A system set up for my success! (Thanks Jan!)
5. Let Out Your Personality
Surprisingly - this is such a big area for creative entrepreneurs! You would think with all that creativity busting at the seams in your business that this would be easy. What I find is that a lot of creative entrepreneurs are so conscious of their creative side that when it comes to marketing they think they have to button it up and "be professional." Being professional can be a business-killer. I don't like to use that word much but I have to say - being professional and blending in - will get you just that - blending in and not standing out to your ideal client. For starters, just be a little more personal and creative in your marketing than you think you "should." You will be surprised at how you will connect with more people when you tell them about your cat, your vacation or your real -life stories of "annual summer schedule nervous breakdown" (oops - talking about me!).
6. Claim Your Expert Status
This is another big one for many women entrepreneurs. We have been raised with those stories: "Don't be too big for your britches," "Don't brag," and the biggie, "Just who do you think you are?" The thing is your clients WANT to know that you know what you are doing. The only way they'll know is if you tell them. You can tell them in many ways that are fun and creative: through stories of your clients and how you solved a problem or they achieved a success working with you, through photos of you in action, and especially in your newsletter or blog. This is where you can shine with each publication, giving them tips, resources and stories about what you know works.
7. Take a Stand
Don't be wishy-washy. You'll get lost in the sea of mediocrity. All those businesses you hear about failing each year - many of them were indistinguishable from each other. What are you passionate about? Let your clients and potential clients know. Sure it's a bit risky - they might not agree. The key here is to really know your client! Your ideal clients will feel closer to you and more attracted to you. They will keep coming back. Even dare to be controversial - not just to get attention but to really let your passion out. People love passionate and engaged people. They want to know how you are different from someone else. I do this every time I publish this Joyful Business newsletter. Many people like the idea of a "joyful" business but then they'll say, "Yeah, sure, but can you really enjoy your business?" As you know, I take a stand for including your passion, creativity and lifestyle in your business. Some people don't agree and they quickly go away. The ones who stay are true fans. They want to hear and know how they can keep this philosophy alive in their own businesses.
8. Build Your Celebrity Mystique
I recently bought an audio CD series from Rev. Michael Beckwith through Sounds True (an audio learning company). My coach was curious and asked me what their email said that prompted me to make the purchase. The truth of it was that I bought because he's built up his expert status and his celebrity mystique. I've heard him speak on The Secret DVD, Oprah and Larry King enough to know he drips soul when he speaks. So, I've been waiting for a product from him. Now, you might say that you haven't been on Oprah (yet). You can start today - right in your own life. Share pictures and stories of you and your coach, your mentors, your mastermind group - these show commitment and professionalism in your business. Get your picture taken when you go see famous speakers. Share pictures of you speaking, at special events, or charity fundraisers. All these situations are opportunities to share more about you to your readers, and they shape your personality and your values and make you real. Bottom-line is that people want to buy from successful people. Show them how you are a success!
9. Keep Learning About Marketing
You want to keep learning and growing in your marketing expertise. Marketing vehicles change, your ideal client evolves and so does your business. You want to always be filling up with how can you improve, tweak, change, make adjustments and try new things while keeping the successful marketing strategies fresh. Schedule learning from the experts (this is not to suggest you should follow every new marketing idea - manage your energy here!) and track what is working for you and what needs a fresh tweak. A great example of this is a sales page for a product. It might work at the beginning, but you'll eventually find that the conversion fizzles. Is it that you need a fresh message, updated testimonials, a stronger headline, installment payments, or is your current market saturated and it's time for new markets or to add to your list? This takes time. Put it in your calendar to visit your stats, get feedback and determine what needs to be changed. After all, marketing is a like a game, and to play the game you always have to be in movement trying something new, paying attention, stretching, being curious or systemizing what's working to free up energy.
10. Get a Mentor
Unless you want to spend energy, effort and lots of money recreating the path on your own - do yourself a favor and make a leap forward by learning from the best mentor you can afford. The key to having a successful relationship is to find a coach, consultant, or mentor who shares a similar philosophy and values as you do. For example, I am a heart-centered, bring your whole life to the table, creative attraction expert. If you are looking for a linear, push, push, rush, rush, dominant personality - I can refer to you some who will fit the bill. What I do is help creative entrepreneurs who are similar to me - they want creative expession, meaningful work, a lifestyle they love and financial success to support it all. I help them get down the path further and quicker with less stress and more ease. What type of mentor do you need at this point in your business cycle? Who do you see that you admire and want to be where they are? What I know is that when I've worked with mentors who push and are more domineering - I just don't flourish. When I work with someone who has a business that is where I want to go and approaches it with fierce love - I blossom. Who do you need for your next evolutionary leap? If heart centered marketing speaks to you and you're ready for a leap in your business, then stay tuned for our upcoming Platinum Mentor Program -Magic & Miracles in Marketing & Mindset.
How To Build Your Business By Speaking
"I started off speaking because I had always heard that it was a good way to build your reputation. In the beginning I would speak to anyone who would invite me. In a way that was good, because it gave me the chance to hone my speaking skills, which weren't that great in the beginning. Toastmasters and a personal coach help me gain the confidence I needed.
After a while I started to develop a reputation as someone who could deliver an interesting talk and the offers started to multiply. This was somewhat of a mixed blessing. While I enjoyed the audience attention, I began to realize that there were precious few people in the audience who could potentially become clients.
Eventually I realized that I started to focus on trade associations that served my targeted group of clients. These groups were a much more productive use of my time. Speaking to these audiences both enhanced my reputation as an expert in my field and also led directly to some new accounts." Michael Schonefield,
A key component for building your reputation for expertise is public speaking. It's important not only for building your success in rainmaking, but also for gaining visibility with the senior management in your company. One of the most effective ways to build your organizational visibility is through making presentations, so you've got to learn the basics.
Where can you go to learn? Lots of places. Your company may have an internal presentation skills program that they offer. If they do make sure you sign up to take the class. There are also a lot of outside resources available. Perhaps the best known is Toastmasters, and it is excellent. You learn how to structure a speech and present it before an extremely supportive group of audience members. Aside from toastmasters, there are a number of training companies, mine included, that offer this type of training.
When you're starting your speaking career, it doesn't make a great amount of difference who's in the audience. The general rule is to speak to any group that will have you. In the beginning you just want to get experience. Public speaking is like many other things in life, it's frightening the first few time you do it, but after a little bit of experience you wonder what the big concern was.
As you develop your reputation for being able to give an interesting speech, you'll find that it's pretty easy to get speaking opportunities. At this stage in your speaking career you'll want to be selective about where you spend your time. I recently spoke to a local civic group and think I lowered the average age in the room down to about 70. It's not that they weren't a wonderful group of people, but they were all retired. Unfortunately, I can't market my services to the retirement set, although a few of them did promise to pass my information along to their grandkids. Maybe I'm being short sighted, but I still don't think it was the best use of my time.
Although there are no hard and fast rules to this, after you've gotten comfortable with your speaking skills, you'll want to make sure that you ask whoever is requesting your speaking services the following questions.
1. How many people will be there?
2. What's their background?
3. What's their motivation for attending?
I often find that the answers to these questions are extremely helpful in determining how beneficial the speaking assignment is likely to be.
Marketing Techniques: Viral Video
If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, viral video marketing provides you with the most powerful and effective method of connecting with your market. A quality video that establishes your credibility and professionalism is a hot ticket to reaching your market in the best way possible. Most website and blog visitors do not like to read volumes of information. They will scan headlines and sub-headings, look at images and if the overall design and content get their attention, they will eagerly click on a video to get the full scoop. Marketing videos can be one of the most effective viral marketing techniques online.
There are three considerations for making your video presentation create a viral marketing effect online. These include:
1. Making your video marketing message effective
2. Getting your video to the right market
3. Using the internet effectively to get your video to the largest numbers of people in your market.
1. Making Your Video Marketing Message Effective
Before you set out to make marketing videos, keep in mind that you have one shot at winning your market. If your message lacks a strong appeal for your market and isn't compelling and powerful, you might as well not waste your time. Unlike a live audience who doesn't want to offend you by leaving, the internet visitor will end your video and be on to the next site in a heartbeat.
Think about your goals when designing marketing videos for syndication on the internet. Your video may be for promotion, sales, lead generation, branding, education or entertainment. Craft your presentation carefully and make sure that it follows a logical order with a powerful opening, body and conclusion. End with a clear call to action with your offer and incentive to act right now. Your presentation should include all of the elements of an effective sales letter:
* Your opening should offer a clear benefit or solve a significant problem for a particular market. The more niche your market, the better.
* Establish your credibility and what motivated you to solve this problem.
* Present your easy, unique solution and how it is different from everything available to your market.
* Answer all objections, e.g. easy of use, risk free, price, support, guarantees, etc.
* Offer testimonials.
* Offer bonuses.
* Provide low risk offer with incentive to act immediately.
* Include a form that allows them to join your list regardless of whether they purchase your product or service.
Viral video marketing requires that you project a powerful image on video ...
If your goal is to create viral marketing videos, your professional appearance and video production must wow your audience. If it creates the "wow" effect, your market will naturally want to share your video with those in their network. That is where the power of viral video marketing explodes your brand, lead list and profits. A big part of your professional appearance includes clothing, hair, make-up and jewelry. Long dangling earrings and overly revealing outfits act as distractions from your message. Keeping your appearance, clean, professional and simple is the best rule of thumb. Dress in colors that appeal to your market. Black and white are good choices for projecting a powerful image.
Setting the stage for video marketing video productions ...
You do not need to be an accomplished videographer to make a good video production. Professional consulting with an Internet marketing expert can however, help assure that your video marketing production will capture and convert your market into quality leads and customers. If you are producing your own video, quality camcorders are inexpensive, compact and easy to use. Having a tripod allows you to control uneven movements and keep the camera steady. Carefully consider the setting where you will record your video. Good lighting and a plain, simple background are recommended. If that is not possible or desirable, make sure the background enhances your message and is appropriate for your market and goals. If you are sitting at a desk in your office, remove all clutter and items that will distract and make your presentation uninviting.
2. Getting your video to the right market
Once you have produced a professional quality video with the "wow" factor, you will want to share your video with people in your niche market. When promoting your video through websites, blogs, email marketing, social networks or video sharing websites, be sure to optimize your content with keywords and keyword phrases that will attract your market through search marketing.
Why is search marketing so powerful and effective? Unlike the visitor who finds your information online through a link, ad or news item, search marketing produces a visitor who is looking for something in particular. They do not just casually find your information. Through search marketing, the results that appear in top positions and match closely in relevance to the visitor's search inquiry, have a very good chance of getting a click. If the visitor can be wowed with a good quality marketing video, a conversion is much more likely to happen.
Video Sharing Websites ...
Just about everyone on the Internet has been exposed to the power of YouTube®. YouTube is only one of many free video sharing websites that allow you to easily connect with your niche market. By incorporating some relevant keywords and keyword phrases into tag fields when submitting you videos to these sites, visitors searching for those terms can easily find, share and rate and review your marketing videos, creating a powerful viral video marketing effect. Statistics are readily available and help you to learn about the effect of your videos on your market. They also reveal strategies for making your video marketing more effective. Taking time to analyze marketing videos that are produced by your competition can often provide valuable insights about the most effective viral video marketing techniques.
3. Using the internet effectively to get your video to the largest numbers of people in your market.
Blogs, social networks and RSS Feeds are one of the best viral video marketing strategies. When set up and managed properly, they effectively work together to reach and propagate a highly targeted market with automation, ease and cost effectiveness.
There are many benefits to blogging. Some of these include:
* Blogs build like-minded communities.
* Postings achieve higher search engine rankings.
* Postings contribute to powerful back links for websites.
* Communications are more efficient and effective.
* Standard versions are available for free.
* Blogs can be syndicated through RSS feeds and provide subscribers with an instant notification of changes.
Here is what some of the experts have to say about blogs, social networks and RSS feeds:
According to Business Week, "Blogs Will Change Your Business & Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later..."
Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki has this to say, "According to our research, 58 (11.6 percent) of the Fortune 500 are blogging as of 5/17/08"
Bill Gates in a speech at the 2004 Microsoft CEO Summit in Redmond, Washington said, "If you just put information on a Web site, then people don't know to come visit that Web site, and it's very painful to keep visiting somebody's Web site and it never changes & And so, getting away from the drawbacks of e-mail -- that it's too imposing & blogs & RSS is about solving that."
Posts made to blogs and social networks:
* Make it easy to share content with a particular community for relationship marketing.
* Make distribution of content readily available through RSS feeds.
* Create more website traffic as search engines value and reward new content.
* Make it easy to rapidly build opt-in lists and connect with leads that can be reached through email marketing.
* Distribute powerful content that can enhance branding, credibility, education, marketing, lead generation and sales.
MSN had this to say about social networks: "While their use is still largely limited to less-than-mission-critical purposes, online social networking services are becoming more popular each day . . . there is growing evidence to support claims that some social networking services can be a powerful professional ally to businesses . . . in particular, independent entrepreneurs and smaller companies, for whom each new personal connection is a significant business building block."
Blogs and social networks such as facebook, Linkedin, friendfeed, flickr, twitter, plaxo and many others can be linked together so that entries in one area automatically update the others. I think you can begin to see the powerful effect of sharing your video through your blog and social networks. An added bonus is the fact that the search engines love fresh content. That means your postings that incorporate relevant keyword terms, are much more likely to produce a high ranking in search engines.
RSS feeds - a key viral video marketing technique ...
The value of RSS to viral video marketing cannot be overemphasized. RSS means - really simple syndication. Millions of website and blog owners publish feeds. A feed can be made for just about any type of content that is updated - blogs, articles, ezines, videos, podcasts are some common examples of syndicated content through RSS. As updates in feeds are made, subscribers receive instant alerts and can access the content easily and choose to share it with others in their network. Feed readers provide an easy to access directory where multiple feeds are available to the subscriber. Websites like feedburner.com make it easy to syndicate your feeds throughout the internet. RSS feeds can easily be incorporated in your blog and important social networks like facebook. Hundreds of RSS feed directories allow you to publish your feeds for free or a low cost so that people searching within a category can find and subscribe to your feeds.
In conclusion, this article has provided you with information about powerful viral video marketing techniques and strategies. You have learned:
1. How to make your video marketing message effective through your presentation.
2. How to get your video to the right market through optimization of content in blogs, websites, social networks and video sharing websites.
3. How to use blogs, social networks and RSS feeds to create the most powerful internet viral video marketing effect.
Many business owners and entrepreneurs do not have the time or patience to figure all of this out for themselves. This is where a good internet marketing expert can take all the confusion out of the set up and management process. Regardless of whether you do this yourself or hire a viral marketing company, viral video marketing through the Internet is a powerful trend that is growing by leaps and bounds. Those who pay attention and invest in these strategies will achieve great success. The others will be left far behind.
Trust Your Intuition
You might be wondering . . . can this really be true? Yes. When you hone your ability to tap into your intuition then you'll thrive in any economy because you have a strategy that is more powerful than a marketing flash. Marketing ideas are a dime a dozen. Great marketing ideas are rarer, but your intuition will tell you which ones are right for you and your business in this moment. Without your intuition you are just flailing like a flag being whipped around by the wind.
This was the case in a recent Intuitive Business Consultation with a client who wanted clarity on her niche. She is a life coach who works with women in mid-life. That narrows it down to about 40 million women. She knew it wasn't focused enough as she wasn't really gaining any momentum in her business. It's not a focused enough niche so she can use her marketing resources wisely and effectively. She came to the call frustrated. She said she had been in business for years and had studied a lot of marketing strategies. She felt she should know this stuff.
She was looking outside for marketing solutions first instead of looking on the inside for the clarity and alignment of her gifts and her passions.
In the process of getting clear we tapped into her energy flow and patterns. Where was she on fire and excited? What is her passion for these women about? What was she so passionate about that it flipped on her and caused her to shut down the possibilities? Where did she get angry and hold back? What is so unique and magical about my client's way of offering life coaching that she doesn't even see it? Much like a fish doesn't notice the water they swim in, it's often hard to see for yourself without practice. These are energetic clues to my client's path to growth and success in her business. These are not the typical marketing questions you ask yourself in a business planning class and yet they are the key to sustainable success. Start inside for alignment and then the inspired actions, i.e., marketing strategies, packaging ideas and products, will come easily.
Everyone has the ability to tap into their innate wisdom, knowledge, ideas and inspiration drawn from intuition. It's not reserved for a select few. However, it does take practice to hone the skill so you can depend on it and use it on a consistent basis. Chances are you are already using your intuition occasionally without being consciously aware of it.
What are your signs that you are in tune with your intuition? The experience is different for everyone. Here are some common experiences from my clients about when they know they are tapped in:
My inner voice sounds different than the usual chatter. I feel a quiet sense of calm. I feel an alignment of energy inside. I had a dream. It feels right. I feel a surge of energy and elation. I feel a tingling in my arms and shoulders. I see a picture in my mind. I find many of my clients are naturally intuitive, but something happens when it comes to their business and especially marketing. They shift from their inner wisdom to frantically chasing more marketing knowledge and ideas outside of themselves. Knowledge is good and we need information for the "how to's" of successful marketing, but most entrepreneurs I know get stuck in collecting information.
The real goldmine is in listening to what you need to do next. This might be scary; in fact, it usually requires you to claim your brilliance in a new way and step into the spotlight. Even stepping in to the spotlight graciously and with integrity requires you to own your personal power. This is where getting support from a coach or mentor will help you shift your mindset, trust your intuition and take the actions aligned with your vision.
In this rapidly changing world you need to have skills that go beyond "great marketing." The economy changes, demographics change, lifestyle desires change and then your marketing needs to change. Relying on your intuition to tell you what your business is wanting from you next, what your clients want and which decisions to make is where the power to your success is in any economy.
This week: Think about one area of your business you want more clarity on or a decision that it's time to make. When you think about this area, notice the signals your body sends to you. Pay attention to the ideas that pop up to inspire you to take action. Notice what resources are right in front of you waiting to help.
Laura Howard West is an award winning entrepreneur, certified professional coach, author, speaker and the President and Chief Creative Officer of The Center for Joyful Business. She is the creator of The Joyful Business Guide™, a business attraction system combining law of attraction tools with smart business practices, designed for solo-entrepreneurs and business owners. Laura and the Joyful Business Guide™ system has been featured in Choice magazine as well as internet radio, tv and blogs around the globe.
You Have to Know: The MOST Powerful Marketing and Advertising on the Planet
It sounds too simple to be true, but it really is... A well-targeted and timely PRESS RELEASE to the media is the most powerful form of marketing and advertising on the planet! A high quality press release, with the proper targeting and distribution to reach the correct media members, could have many businesses sailing on a sea of new sales and profits. Just one feature or a mention in a popular or targeted business publication has the potential to cause some business's phones to literally be ringing off the hook!
The next big question that arises, "How do you go about writing a quality press release that will grab the attention of the media and your particular audience?" Here are some tips to help you succeed:
* Pick a "Newsworthy" Angle. Press releases are not an advertisement. Do not try to sell your product or service. Do not use "hype" in press releases. Instead give the media what they want and they will give you what you want. Now, what the press and media really want is a story! Just provide the Who, What, When, Where and How with regards to the uses of your products and/or services in a story format. Show examples of ways that people have used your products and services to their benefit. If you can include some emotions in your story all the better. Ask yourself: "Would this be something that I might read in a newspaper?"
* Get a Good Start. The headline and the first few sentences of the first paragraph are the absolutely most important part of the press release. If you don't catch the reader's interest here you will lose your audience. The best way to do this is to use your most hard-hitting information FIRST rather than build to a climax. This may be opposite to what you would normally do when writing other material - but it does work! What follows in your press release are the details that SUPPORT your story or theme.
* Write to the Media. Remember, a journalist, editor or reporter, not necessarily a client, is reading your press release. It's not your job to sell them your product or service. It IS your job to give them an interesting story or piece of news that they will be happy to share and announce to their audience.
* Keep your release short and to the point. It should contain no more than about 500 words and no more than two pages.
Include your contact information. Provide full contact name, company name, full address, phone number, email address and Web site URL. The contact name should be someone who is knowledgeable and available to answer any questions by media members such as editors, reporters and journalists.
Targeted press releases to the media have helped thousands of companies succeed. They are the most powerful form of marketing and advertising on the planet! Remember: One article is all it takes!
For more information on how you can get a quality targeted press release written or have your press release distributed to the targeted media contacts in our 600,0000 press and media contact database, please visit our Advanced PR department at Majon International.
Getting Your Home-Based Business off the Ground
Are you ready to pay the price for the freedom of owning your own business? Are you ready to create a business that feeds your spirit -- not just your bank account? If so, how do you get ready mentally and emotionally to take that leap of faith? Leaving the past behind and focusing on these 7 steps will help you kick into high gear and launch your new business.
1. As a new business owner, one of the first things I did was hire a business coach who could support me mentally and give me a kick in the pants when it was needed. Since I was new to the construction industry, my coach gave me ideas about how to market my business. I couldn't tell you how to frame a window or put in a faucet, but today I know how to market our business and get the telephone to ring.
2. The second thing I did was attend a class called Calaveras Entrepreneurs. This class took me through all the steps to write a business plan. I don't know about you, but before I became a business owner writing a business plan rated right up there with going to the dentist. But a funny thing happened as I was going through the process. I could see what we needed to do to make the business work, and how we could get out of the debt we were incurring as a new business start-up. That alone was worth the time and effort it took to go through the process -- not to mention my peace of mind.
3. After I got my mental state on the right track, and I had a plan developed, I began working on my internal belief and motivation. Since I worked for AT&T for 24 years, I was deep into the corporate mindset and sorely missed that regular paycheck. It was critical that I develop the belief that I could survive outside my old mode of operation.
Building belief is a matter of getting your mind to accept that you can (1) survive, and (2) thrive in a new home-based business that you've created. In other words, it's an inside job.
I'm a spiritual person, so that's the first place I turned to work on building belief. I believe that we're all put here to lead a wonderful life, but sometimes we get in our own way. If you've been exposed to the movie The Secret you understand the principles I utilized. For you, building belief may come from studying how other successful people have reached their goals, or surrounding yourself with people who have already done what you're trying to do, and emulating their steps to success.
4. Action, action, action . . . We worked the hours and did what our coach told us to do to the best of our ability -- no excuses. We sat many a night stuffing envelopes with our marketing information to reach potential customers -- and it worked. The more effort we put into reaching out and finding customers and joint venture partners, the more rewards we reaped. The bottom line here is the Universe has to know you're serious. If you get all this information, then sit back and expect a yellow page ad to bring you all the business you want, you're fooling yourself, but not the Universe, which has the power to bring you all the business you want. So get busy and take action!
5. Since my husband and I were new to the community, we made sure we attended the local business and Chamber of Commerce functions. We networked with other business owners and with our suppliers. Visibility is another critical component of a new business start-up, whether it is a face-to-face or online presence. People need to know you exist and what you have to offer.
6. No matter how discouraged I got during this process, I kept doing what I had to do to keep our business "healthy". In those days to me healthy meant that we maintained our good credit rating and our good standing in the business community. I had many "dark nights of the soul" when I had to borrow money to pay our bills. I struggled with the feeling that we were going one step forward, and two steps back, but I did what I had to do anyway. I just kept taking the action steps that moved us forward.
7. Be grateful for all of your successes, and you will be paving the way for even more to appear. If I had moaned and groaned and complained about our business not looking like I thought it should, there would have been no room left in my mind for the wonderful ideas that came my way. I had to stay open to the possibility that even though I couldn't see the progress at the time, it was percolating beneath the surface of my awareness. Since I had an open mind, ideas came that helped us stay on track to creating the million dollar business we have today.
If you've chosen the right business, it will be more than a road to making money. It will express who you are and what you value. In reality you are not your career or your business. You're a unique and valuable person with much to offer the world. Ideally your business will be a way for you to express this value and uniqueness in the world. In my case, I was pursuing a business that expressed my husband's unique gifts, not necessarily my own. At that point in our lives, it was necessary for both of us to focus on this business to pay the bills. My dream business came later . . .
Home Business Success, Get Your Fast Track
SOME PERSONAL HISTORY
Just a few short years ago, I was a working stiff just like you.
One day, I bought and read a book called "Multiple Streams of Income" by bestselling author, Robert Allen. Immediately, I began my journey.
Every night after work and after my wife and children went to sleep, I would get online and explore different ways of using the Internet to make money.
In the two years that followed, I spent over $10,000 racking up credit card debt buying eBooks, membership sites, special reports, opt-in leads, and joining every "guru" recommended business opportunity that flew into my email inbox.
I stayed up learning, working, and drinking coffee until 5:00 in the morning, month after month filled with the hope of making money online.
In my third year of working part-time to build a home based income, I finally broke through and earned over $100,000 in just twelve months from the Internet.
BECOME THE MASTER OF YOUR LEARNING CURVE
Research the lives of all of the "gurus." The one thing that you will learn is that my own experience is not unique. Most of the high earners on the Internet experienced a learning curve very similar to my own.
Chances are that your curve will also be similar to mine, but it is my hope that you can get to the top faster than even I did. Three years was a long time to struggle, but every ounce of struggle was worth the reward I have finally received.
In order to shorten your own learning curve, you must do a few things differently than the rest of us did. You must become the master of your learning curve.
THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO POINTS IS A STRAIGHT LINE
There is only one way to shorten the curve on the Internet:
You must plan to succeed!
Here is the deal. Most people put up a freebie website and select a few affiliate programs to add to their website. Right out of the gate, most people are running for the finish line without any real plan in mind.
After a few short weeks, people begin to see the writing on the wall that says, "This is going to be a long hard road."
People check their hit counters daily for six weeks before they realize that getting traffic to their free site is going to be tough.
At this point, they begin developing their first batch of advertising. Then they spend countless months finding places to show their advertisements for free. Some make an even more drastic mistake by blowing thousands of hard earned dollars on their new and untested ads.
These are the people who will learn the facts of life the hard way.
In time, they will learn how to make their advertising work for them, but most will earn very little money from their affiliate programs.
At this point in the learning curve, most people throw up their hands and walk away from their dreams in utter disgust. Instead of a walking away point, this should have convinced the struggling online entrepreneur that they were simply traveling the wrong road.
YOU MUST PLAN TO SUCCEED
From day one, you must begin to learn about the nuances of web promotion. Read everything you can get your hands on. Don't just read the hype, back it up with the opinions of others who have reviewed the same programs before you came along. Learn from their mistakes and successes.
As you begin to learn, you must also look to make a decision. Do you want to step into a pre-built program that is designed to help you to succeed, OR do you want to create a completely new program of which you are the sole owner?
If you decide to step into a pre-designed and complete turn-key online money-making venture, then you must select the right venture to step into. If this is your decision, I encourage you to examine the Plug In Profit Site at: http://www.HomeBusiness.us
If you decide to go the journey on your own, then do all of the necessary research, planning and preparation that is needed for your success.
What is The Business Building Secrets
On one level it would seem correct that your good work should simply be enough. After all that's where you put in your time and spend the majority of your effort. Certainly, in good economic times this strategy has more merit than during tough economic times. In fact during robust periods, many businesses simply live off repeat business from existing clients coupled with the occasional referrals. However, simply relying on word of mouth for all one's new business invariably results in the "feast or famine" business cycles that so many small business owners are painfully aware of.
So why is there such a reluctance to market one's services? Why do so many small business owners embrace marketing only as a last ditch solution, and then quickly abandon their marketing plans once referrals and word of mouth once again return?
A large part of the problem is that when faced with implementing a marketing program, many small business owners focus on activities rather than systems. For example, a marketing activity might include investing in promotional items, or sending out a postcard or hiring an appointment setting firm to do some cold calling. While there's nothing inherently wrong with any of those activities, they generally do not produce the desired results that one hopes for. The key to getting the phone to ring with eager customers is to think about what needs to occur before and after the marketing activity.
Let's take postcards as an example. These are a time-tested method for generating new prospects. However most small business owners focus far too heavily on the look and image of the card, and pay scant attention to which list they will mail the cards to, or what the call-to-action is. These two items are far more important to the success of a postcard mailing campaign than whether the font is in one size vs. another, or whether the predominate color is red or blue. As the late great directly mail guru Gary Halbert once observed, "If you have extra money to spend on a campaign, invest more money in the quality of the list that you are mailing to."
Of equal importance to the list, is the call-to-action. This means, what do you want people to do once they get the card? There are all sorts of options people have once they get done reading your postcard. Unfortunately only one or two of them are what you really want. So the question becomes, what is the best call to action?
What we have found after 17 years of testing, is that you want the offer to be as easy for someone to accept as humanly possible. This means it needs to be very risk free. That is the precise reason why a call to action of "Please call us for a free consultation or free estimate" does not work particularly well. People are assuming that if they call they will not really get a free consultation, but rather be subjected to a rather aggressive sales pitch. Thus your call to action needs to address this concern.
In the days before websites, a very successful call to action was for someone to call a 1-800 number for more information. The copy on the postcard always pointed out that this was a "recorded" message, thus alleviating the concern that someone was going to try to sell you something the moment you called. Nowadays the easiest approach is to direct people to a page on your website. That page, as I've discussed in other articles, is specifically designed to encourage visitors to give you their contact information in exchange for receiving a free report or article that offers some helpful information about the problem they are facing.
Thus an effective postcard marketing effort depends upon what takes place before the mailing occurs (determining the quality of the list) and what occurs immediately afterwards (determining what the call to action should be and where you want them to go for further information.) While this type of marketing requires a bit more planning and thought, the results will be far greater. That's why small business owners who are successful at getting new business despite the current economic conditions, focus their efforts on developing marketing systems, rather than relying on a single activity.
