If you have spent anytime at all on my site, you will know that faith is something important to me. As such, I often find and/or receive stories, and the messages they contain, that are very inspiring. However, in this particular case, not only is there a very inspirational message, but there is an underlying message for anyone that is involved in marketing of their products/services.

While I can’t take credit for the story below, I am sure you will enjoy it.

Life will inevitably present challenges to us and depending on a number of factors they may or may not be easier to handle. Attitude, and your approach to any of life’s challenges will always make the biggest difference in our handling of that challenge.

As in life, business is no different. There will be times of great prosperity and times of challenge in business. When it comes to the success of our marketing efforts the simplest of changes can often make a significant difference in the results of our marketing and our ability to attract more clients.

Please read the inspirational story below and look for the marketing tip that is included.

—————–
Faith Is About Being OK

“A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.” There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.” I wrote: “Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.”

Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story:
Be thankful for what you have.. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively. When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show life that you have 1000 reasons to smile. Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear. Keep the faith and drop the fear.

“Faith is not about everything turning out OK; Faith is about being OK no matter how things turn out.”
—————–

So, did you see the profound difference in the two marketing messages?

If you saw the important tip in story, my question is: What was so significant about what the man wrote?

Why did the second message move people to action?

Leave a comment below letting me know what you think was the important marketing message in the story. Or, for those that have questions please feel free to ask questions and I will be sure to respond.

To Your Success!

If you believe much of what we read with regards to Sales, Marketing, Social Media, and Business in general, there has just been a “major breakthrough” that will allow you to instantly generate massive quantities of cash flow!

I am just a susceptible to being lured in by these types of headlines as anyone else, but the truth of the matter remains the same. Often, after beginning to read the content following one of these get rich quick headlines, I will come to my senses at which point it the remainder of what I will read becomes very predictable and in some cases humorous.

They all promise massive results overnight, with little to no effort and in more cases than not, they are talking about increasing cash flow to the point of ridiculous.

We all have (at least everyone I have ever met) this weakness whereby we are looking for “Success” without the effort that is required to truly achieve success. If you haven’t read it my article, “Outliers: The Story of Success by is Malcolm Gladwell”, it addresses this very topic.

Keep in mind: “The Magic Formula”, “The Silver Bullet”, “The Secret to ……..”, “The Latest Breakthrough”, and any other radical promise that you have seen, are all FALSE. There never has been, never will be any shortcuts to success and riches.

I firmly believe this is based on the universal fact that if we don’t truly earn things, we simply do not have the same appreciation for what we have gained. In support of this belief, I can point to countless winners of lotteries that within 5 years of winning large sums of money they are broke.

When it comes to growing your business, attracting more of your ideal clients, leveraging social media to improve your marketing and all of the other areas where I help clients, I will tell you upfront, I don’t have any magic formulas. Yes, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, Digg, Delicious, Blogging, YouTube and the countless other resources that are now available, have forever changed the landscape of marketing.

What these tools have really done, is allow the small business owner, with a limited budget the ability to attract clients that they would have never found in years gone by. What these tools have NOT done, is remove the need for hard work and effort.

While results are inevitable, they all take effort, education, persistence and time. The good news is that there are almost always things that can be focused on in your marketing that will allow you to see some quick results. With a long history of weight training and running, one of my favorite analogies is the guy that has done zero weight training, walks into the gym and expects results tomorrow. Not going to happen.

Marketing and weight training are much the same in that you should start seeing some results within the first few weeks. However, the real benefits won’t show up for months to come. And, with continued effort the benefits are compounded over months and years.

When it comes to attracting more of your ideal clients, I have discovered there are a number of strategies that with study, planning, and the work required for implementation, they get consistent results.

These strategies increase your business visibility, put your message in front of more of your ideal prospects, and increase your credibility which ultimately attracts more of your ideal clients.

While I have seen people double their business in less than 12 months, others have attracted more of their ideal clients thereby increasing their profit margins, but ultimately all are having more fun with their business as a direct result of increased confidence.

Persistence is the magic ingredient when it comes to marketing your business, increase your cash flow and ultimately the Success that we all so desperately want.

This is by far one of my favorite questions to ask small business owners, entrepreneurs, and independent business professionals alike. Followed by a long period of silence as they contemplate the question, the tension is unbelievable. Almost as if they have never heard the question or contemplated it themselves, they seem more than just a little puzzled that I have even asked the question.

For those that are quick to respond, I hear a broad range of answers from their employees (for those that have them) to their skills as a ___________ professional (fill in the blank). All reasonable and defensible answers.

So, as a small business owner: What is your most valuable asset?

What are your business goals for the next month, quarter, 6 months and/or year?

Are those goals written down somewhere such that they can be reviewed periodically to adjust your activities when required?

What are your personal goals, family goals, etc?

The most successful people that you will ever meet in life have well established goals that enable them to stay focused. From a more personal view goal setting enables small business owners the ability to be very specific about what they would like to accomplish, work toward those objectives and more times than not greatly increases the chances of success.

The biggest reason for having written goals is that it is a proven fact that the simple act of goal setting will have little impact if you do not periodically check your performance in relation to the goals you have set.

About now you may be asking what goals, goal setting and the above discussion as to do with the original question.

The answer is very simply this: Consistent and well established habits as it pertains to personal development, often most easily attained through goal setting is of critical importance to the success of every entrepreneur reading this. Regardless of whether you are an independent business professional, a serial entrepreneur or a small business owner the majority of your success rests squarely on your shoulders. You are your MOST valuable Asset!!!!!

What you know, what you have been doing to date and who you are as a person is what has gotten you to where you are today. If you are 100% without a doubt completely satisfied with your success to date then you can stop reading right now.

For the rest of us in the world that have the drive and determination to achieve more and to go further in life, the only path to that success is through personal development! And, make no mistake, I am not suggesting that you read a book, attend some conference or participate in a webinar – once. This is not a single event, but a way of life – a habit – who you are.

For those of you who have spent any time at all on my site will note that I have a number of posts under the category of “Recommended Reading”. While there are a number of books listed and commented on there are far more that I have read and have not posted for one reason or another.

Beyond the reading, I am continually attending workshops, webinars, meeting with and talking to other professionals that have been where I want to go and in short looking for every opportunity available to improve myself.

What is your plan for Success?

While you may be the best at your chosen profession, I would be willing to bet that there are a number of areas in business that you could improve by learning more.

Maybe you could benefit from improving your Communication skills: Listening, Negotiation, Speaking, Written

For others it could be Leadership skills: Delegation, Planning, Evaluation, Building Trust

Then there are those who could benefit from improved Creativity: Brainstorming, Imagination, Problem Solving, …….

Who couldn’t improve from learning more about Marketing, Sales, Social Media (Facebook Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging), Trend Analysis – What would happen to your business if you were on the leading edge of the next big market sensation?

Take the time to have a serious conversation with the most successful business owner that you know (or don’t know) and you will quickly discover that they are constantly learning, stretching themselves, and improving their skills in a broad range of areas. For many they are very adept at surrounding themselves with the best and brightest people they can and the outsourcing the things where they are the weakest.

Determine today that you are going to make a conscious effort to invest in and improve your most valuable asset – You!

Have you been diligently investing in yourself for sometime now and as a direct result you are now experiencing the benefits of those efforts? Please take a moment to share with us what that journey has taught you.

Are you at the beginning stages of a sincere personal development plan, but have questions? Let us know we all learn and grow by sharing.

This veterans day, ask yourself a simple question:  What is a Vet?

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye. Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the  leg – or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul’s ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem. You can’t tell a vet just by looking.

What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn’t run out of fuel.

He is the bar room loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She – or he – is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang. He is the POW who  went away one person and came back another – or didn’t come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor that has never seen combat – but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each others backs. He is the parade – riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career Quartermaster Corps officer who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by. He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean’s sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket – palsied now and aggravatingly slow – who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being, and a person who offered some of his life’s most vital years in the service of his  country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That’s all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded. Two little words that mean a lot, “THANK YOU”.

Remember — November 11th is Veterans Day!

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, and Whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

I am as guilty as anyone that may be reading this. Guilty of what you may be asking yourself? Reading any number of my articles/blog posts and you will see that I put a lot of focus on business, business growth, marketing and ultimately generating new leads and prospects. All of those things are very important and key to gaining new customers.

Let me put this another way: Website Design, Blogging, Search Engine Optimization, Facebook, Twitter, Social Media as a whole and having a Marketing Strategy are all VERY important. However, if you forget the very simply and undeniable fact that your customers are people first, you will never have the success you deserve. I am willing to bet that I could ask any number of you reading this article: How much you care about your customers and I would get a resounding series of positive responses.

If that is truly the case, when was the last time that you really listened to your customers?

Every business owner in the world will actually listen to their customers to some extent and least the ones that are still in business. However, the point that I want to drive home today is that really listening to your customers is not as easy as you may think. The reasoning behind that last statement is that if you are really listening to your customers you are going to hear what is being said and what’s not being said. That’s right as business owners we need to hear what they don’t say, which ultimately is more important than what they actually say.

As I stated earlier I am as guilty as the next business owner, because let’s face it good listening skills are hard to come by. One of the biggest challenges with taking time to hear what our customers are saying is that there are times that we are going to hear the things that we don’t want to hear. Human nature is such that we all naturally gravitate toward the pleasant, complementary feedback that we receive, but that negative feedback is a little harder to swallow. Let me ask you this:

If you never receive any negative feedback, how are you ever going to improve on the things that you aren’t doing so well?

The truth of the matter is that while hearing the good things is nice, from the simple fact that you now know what you are doing well. Negative feedback will help us correct the things that we aren’t doing so well. And, ultimately if our customers don’t like the way things are going we need to correct them.

Let’s put this in terms that are more central to my typical writing. If you have a marketing campaign that you are spending good money on that is not generating the results you expected are you going to make a change? Let’s say that you have decided to use Google Pay-per-Click ads to drive more traffic to your site. You have your ads setup and you are getting new traffic to your site on a daily basis, but very little of that traffic is being converted into new business. Do you keep your ads the way they are or do you start making adjustments? Every one of us would be quick to make the required changes to improve the conversion rate associated with our Pay-per-Click ads.

Why would we not take into account what our current customers are thinking?

Monitoring our Analytics for our website and the results we are seeing as related to our Pay-per-Click Google ads is much easier to deal with, because we are dealing with lot of data and statistics. Ah, now switch gears and start thinking about taking the time to truly care about what our current customers, what, need and expect from us. Not so easy, is it?

That little thing called human interaction when it comes to relationships is something that many of us struggle with in all areas of our lives. I have a high level of confidence that there are few business owners that have not heard the cost comparisons of obtaining new customers verses keeping the existing customers, yet way too many of us spend a large portion of our efforts on obtaining new customers. All the while, we are barely if at all taking the time to listen to our current customers to find out what they need.

Ultimately, our customers are people first. They have needs, wants, desires, pains, and that ugly word “expectations”. Take the time to learn the skills required, to improve your relationships, both in business and your personal life and you will go further than you have ever dreamed. Be bold enough to care about what your customers need, what is causing them pain and how you can improve the products and services that you provide. If you are willing to be vulnerable and open yourself and your business to their feedback and criticisms, along with the praise, I can promise that you will not be disappointed.

Find your customers pain and provide the solution that best fits their needs and you will have a customer for life. Take care of your customers as people first and they will be loyal to you, provided you with referrals, more business and ultimately drive down your marketing costs.

In conclusion here are a few ideas that you may want to implement:

*Take the time to thank your customers for their business
*Send them a card to say thanks, wish them a happy birthday, or anniversary
*Take them to lunch and let them know you are trying to improve your business and that you value their input
*Feature some of your best customers in your newsletter, website, etc.
*Give them referrals for their business

These are just a few ideas. Be creative and think of different ways to show your appreciation for your customers. Do you have strategies that have worked for you? If you have other ideas for showing customer appreciation I would love to hear them.

To Your Success!

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Closely related to my last article on search engine optimization, “Search Engine Optimization, Keywords, Meta Tags & the quick fix”, strategies to increase blog traffic is a very popular topic when talking with clients and colleagues.

If you have a blog, have thought about blogging or wondered if blogging is right for you then this is the article for you. With that said, let me set the stage before diving in.

The amount of content that could be written about blogging, driving traffic to your blog and any topic that you may think of related to blogging would fill countless books. Needless to say my goal here is to to cover what I consider some of the most important strategies you will want to consider. If after reading you have some other words of wisdom that you can share I would highly encourage your comments.

Hosting Your Blog
One of the biggest mistakes that I see made on a regular basis is the simple decision with regards to hosting of your blog. Hosting your blog on your own domain with your primary website will search engine rankings, trust, links, publicity and ultimately your business. All too often I see sharp business owners that decide to host their blog on a hosted solution like Blogspot, Blogger, Blog.com or WordPress.com. This is the worst decision that you can make.

While there are a number of blogging software solutions that you can choose from, WordPress is by far my favorite. WordPress is easy to install, has a very well documented system for creating your own custom design, there are countless templates to choose from and WordPress is highly extensible.

Continually Monitor Your Analytics
Visitor tracking software like Google Analytics will tell you which posts your audience likes best, which posts aren’t being viewed and ultimately how your visitors are finding you on the search engines.

Additionally, you will want to know the average number of pages viewed, the time spent on your site, where your best quality visitors are coming from and the list goes on. Google Analytics and all that is provides is worth a lot more space than I have here, so come back soon as I will spend the time to give you the additional information that you will need.

An often overlook strategy is that by watching your analytics you identify posts that get search traffic for keywords that are not necessarily used very effectively in your post, paragraph titles, post title or tags. When these posts are generating large amounts of traffic for these keywords, this presents an opportunity for you to spend a few minutes updating the post to make more effective use of these keywords. Think about it this way: Your post is generating good traffic without having been optimized for these keywords and with a little time spent on search engine optimization you can significantly improve your traffic.

Tag Your Content
Tagging content is very valuable when it comes to moving your site toward getting traffic from big sites like Reddit, Digg & StumbleUpon. While it is not smart  to submit every post that you create to these sites learning how to properly make use of this strategy can be huge when it comes to generating traffic to your site. Technorati is a great place where you can begin tagging posts. There are a large number of people that would recommend having the tags right on your page, pointing to the Technorati searches that you’re targeting. Some of the other sites that you will want to consider are  del.icio.us and Flickr and Blogmarks just to name a few.

Start solving problems
You visitors will become regular readers of your blog when you start providing content that is wanted, needed and highly valued. The majority of your readers are going to be reading your blog to find answers to problems they are having, genuinely search out new information about their chosen profession/hobby, are searching for additional training on a particular subject or pure entertainment. As such avoiding off-topic posts like what your pet cat is up to today, will go a long way towards building repeat traffic and the great part is that it doesn’t take any extra time on your part. Time spent writing is time spent writing, so use your time effectively.

Effective Linking
There are a couple of different topics to cover here with linking. Creating smart and effective links between various posts within you site can create a number of benefits. By linking from some of your less viewed posts, with keywords as anchor text, to your more popular posts you can actually increase your overall site ranking on Google for those keywords. Additionally, you give your readers a reason to spend more time on your site thereby increasing the average time spent on your site by your visitors.

Secondly, when linking out of your blog posts to other sites be sure that you are aware how these links serve to improve the content of your post. You don’t necessarily need to link out from every post that you create. However, I personally tend to be overly generous with especially when I know that there are good quality articles posted by other bloggers that will be of benefit to my readers. By all means if you chose to quote, mention or otherwise make use of other online resources it is considered rude to not provide a link to their work.

In closing remember to host your blog on your primary domain, spend the time required to leverage the information provided by your analytics, make use of effective linking, content tagging and always strive to solve problems for your readers. None of the things that I have mentioned here can be considered the magic bullet that is going to make your site an over night sensation, but used consistently over time your site will pull in large amounts of consistent traffic.

Have some great tips that you use to build traffic on your blog, please take a moment to share by leaving a comment.

Have a question that you need some help with? Please let me know by leaving a comment.

If you like what I have shared here, please take a moment to pass along via your favorite social media site. Your participation is GREATLY appreciated.

To Your Success!

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Inevitably one of the first things that comes up in discussion when talking to a prospect regarding their website, their website traffic (or lack of) and search engine optimization is Meta Tags. Unfortunately, if that is all there was to this daunting task of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) then my guess is that they would not be talking to me.

With major search engines such as Google, their database basically houses every page on the Internet that they know about. Furthermore, considering the fact that every website owner has their own agenda the major search engines like Google can’t simply trust that the Meta Tags of any give site are a objective representation of the content of that site. In short search engines like Google are primarily interested in having pages that are most relevant to any given keyword show up in their search results regardless of who may own that site.

Secondly Search Engine Optimization is not something that ever stops – Never! That is correct if you expect that your site will dive any substantial amount of traffic on a continual basis, then the task of Search Engine Optimization will never cease.  While it is often approached as a quick fix you should approach your search engine optimization as a long-term investment for your site.

Here are some things to consider:

* Make sure your Title tags, Meta Tags, Link anchor text and Alt tags all match with the visible content of the page.

* Ensure that your site is overly graphics based, as graphics cannot be read by the search engines. A common mistake that I see is a website that has been created with graphics that are nothing more than a graphical representation of text.

*Pay close attention to the keyword density of your website and be certain that you use clearly understood language and phrases that will get your website ranked well with the search engines.

* Thoroughly researched keywords and keyword phrases are worth their weight in gold and the key to Search Engine Optimization.

*Monitor your Analytics on an ongoing basis to understand what is working, what’s not working, where your traffic is coming from, how they found your website, your bounce rate, conversion rates and all that tells you if what you are doing is paying off.

* Be patient! More often than not it is going to be a good 9 months before you start seeing substantial traffic from Google’s organic search results.

Think about the simple fact that there are literally thousands upon thousands of new sites added to the internet on a daily basis. On the flip side of that coin there are literally thousands of websites that cease to exist on a daily basis. Then we have to contend with the fact that there is countless amounts of new information added to the internet each day. As a direct result of this activity the search engines like Google are constantly updating their databases and you guessed it: They are ordering that data in searches according to relevance.

The Importance of Keywords
Take a moment to think about the importance of keywords for example. There will always be new keywords and niches for you to find, optimize for and or monetize. Your SEO strategy should focus on and prioritize for the most lucrative target keywords for your website, products and services. However, with an active SEO strategy you will be continually making adjustments in your priorities based on factors such as: response rates, marketing material, prices, product ranges, stock levels and industry changes. With each shift in priority you will need to complete additional keyword research to find appropriate target keywords.

How about those all important Back Links?
First and foremost if you are hung up on link popularity – STOP. Let’s take a novel approach to this subject and think about your target audience and what it is going to take to get them to your site. What we are talking about here is really nothing more than good old fashion marketing – plain and simple. You have a business that you happen to be marketing via the internet and your website. Additionally, we are going to assume that you are better than your competition, but it needs to be marketed and yes that may cost money.

If you have been sold on the idea of simply obtaining back links to your website for the explicit purpose of SEO, then you are approaching the task from the wrong angle. While an effective Search Engine Strategy is going to take some time to work there are a number of things that can be done to drive traffic while your SEO has time to take effect. Today more and more Social Media (blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Forums, etc) websites are playing a more prominent role in driving traffic. However, don’t forget the tried and true methods of newspaper, magazine, TV ads and other forms of advertising that mention your website.

End the end, the more visibility that can be created for your website, the more traffic your site will receive. With the correct planning and traffic being driven from sources where your target market can be found the better the quality of traffic, the lower your bounce rate will be and the higher your conversion rate.

Don’t forget that even PPC ads such as those offered by Google can help, because they put your site in front of people looking for what you offer. The primary objective is to get your website in front of your target market as often as you can, but regardless of how you market your site, don’t expect your website to become an overnight sensation.

A Quick Note on Social Media
There is little doubt that Social media marketing (SMM) on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon and Digg has exploded in the past year. But what exactly is it? And what’s in it for you? How does it work?

Here is an example of what can happen:
Someone making use of a social media discovers your story, likes it and then decide to share with their friends.  This simple act can cause your story and your site to ‘go viral’ and be shared with even more people. This is how sites will quickly receive hundreds of thousands of visitors, countless inbound links and launch a website or new product overnight.  Those inbound links will directly bring your site visits and indirectly help your SEO.

If you are planning to use social media marketing the overall quality of your content is critical, the better your content the more likely the chances of it being passed along.  However, please keep in mind that even the most brilliant content will need a push to get going, the bigger your network on these social media sites the better. You really need your network to help you give your content that initial push, thereby increasing the odds of your content going viral. Please, Please, Please remember that people do not want to be sold to, and that your initial social media marketing should be more of a conversation than the sale.

What has been your experience with Search Engine Optimization?
Having success with Social Media Marketing, take time to share with us what is working for you.

To Your Success!

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For years I knew that networking, more specifically business networking was a much better way to do business, but at best I was inconsistent in leveraging my network of contacts. Sure if you have been in business for any length of time you know that networking is all about leveraging your business and personal connections to bring you a regular supply of new business.

Do you really know and understand just how important word-of-mouth marketing can be for your business? Did you know that word-of-mouth marketing has been known to turn a business around from failure to success overnight?

Simple concept – right? Well like I started out saying: If you have been in business for any length of time you also know that networking to create referrals and ultimately more business is not so simple. Why? One of the most important aspects of the whole process, which is often overlooked, is that it involves relationship building.

The most commonly understood version of Word-of-Mouth marketing, Business Networking and generating Referrals is often associated with being a member of Referral Club, Word-of-Mouth marketing is actually much bigger than that.

And you will be happy to know that you don’t have to take my word for it. According to Wikipedia.org:

“Word-of-mouth marketing, which encompasses a variety of subcategories, including buzz, blog, viral, grassroots, cause influencers and social media marketing, as well as ambassador programs, work with consumer-generated media and more, can be highly valued by product marketers.

Because of the personal nature of the communications between individuals, it is believed that product information communicated in this way has an added layer of credibility. Research points to individuals being more inclined to believe WOMM than more formal forms of promotion methods; the receiver of word-of-mouth referrals tends to believe that the communicator is speaking honestly and is unlikely to have an ulterior motive.”

Wow! So, do I have your attention now?

This is no secret, we hear all the time that word-of-mouth marketing is the best marketing because it comes with credibility, creates customers that stick with you and costs you little to nothing. Any time I tell someone that they scratch their head and get that serious contemplative look and there is no mystery to what they are thinking: “How do I generate word-of-mouth buzz for my business?”

Word-of-mouth marketing can be generated, and very effectively so, but you must do things right in order to make it happen. What if you had a way that you could learn all of the best techniques, strategies and secrets of Word-of-Mouth marketing thereby enabling you to generate a higher quantity and quality of referrals?

Additionally, what if you were learning to leverage the internet, technology and social media to increase your business and the number of referrals that you could pass on to your referrals partners?

Enter The Prospection Network: http://bit.ly/8AQR47

So what is the Prospection Network? The Prospection Network was started by Steve Lawson as a way of making professionals more successful by economically providing the knowledge, tools, and connections to grow their business.

If you are an advisor, salesperson, or entrepreneur, then there is no mystery to the fact that you face a lot of challenges in growing a successful and profitable business.  The Prospection Network addresses those challenges by providing solutions that:

*Generate a non-stop flow of prospects
* Improve the quality of prospects you meet
*Build your credibility
*Differentiate you from your competition
*Provide an Advisory Board that maximizes your success
*Keep you on track performing the tasks that make you most profitable

While I could write a small book about Steve’s success in helping small business owners grow their business I would simply recommend that you take some time to check out the Prospection Network website as everything you could want to know will be found there.

If you are an advisor, salesperson, entrepreneur, or small business owner of any kind I would highly recommend learning all that you can from Steve and the Prospection Network. Check it out: http://bit.ly/8AQR47

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All to often I am talking with small business owners and entrepreneurs that know they need to start leveraging the power of email marketing, but find it to be a daunting task. Many times they already have a large database of contacts in their favorite CRM database and don’t want the hassle of having to import their contacts into a separate database just for the email marketing campaigns.

Well a great solution that I have used and find to be a very powerful and useful tool for managing my email marketing campaigns is Swiftpage. The really unique thing about Swiftpage is that it works with many of the more popular CRM tools allowing you the ability to manage your email marketing right from the comfort of your favorite contact manager. For those of you using Mircrosoft Outlook or ACT you will find it a snap to use.

In short, SwiftPage is a revolutionary email marketing service that allows anyone from a small business owner to an fortune 500 sales, marketing team to work more effectively.

SwiftPage integrates right into ACT! by Sage, Sage CRM, SalesLogix, or Microsoft Outlook so you do not need to import or export your list to the SwiftPage system each time. Send from 1 to 100,000 emails without using your ISP or tying up your own network through SwiftPage’s powerful and reliable servers.

With Swiftpage Email Marketing solutions you can view immediate results with graphical and detailed Open-Click reporting. They also include reports for unopened, opted-out, unsent, duplicate emails.

If you want to get real creative, create a SwiftPage Call List by bringing your open, click and score data back into each contact’s history within ACT! or SalesLogix. Based on a recipient’s level of interest, the most active person is at the top of the list allowing sales to click down through the list, access all of the contact data as necessary allowing increased efficiency and closing rate.

Swiftpage also provides an integrated survey feature with enhanced branding that allows users to create and edit surveys that match your marketing material, include custom HTML backgrounds and your choice of fonts and colors. SalesLogix users can bring survey data into the SalesLogix database for individual contacts and view the survey answers as a whole.

Worried about staying compliant with all of the SPAM regulations that exist. No worries: Swiftpage takes care of the heavy lifting so that you stay compliant with the CAN-SPAM laws and automatic suppression of email addresses that have opted-out (account wide).

What’s the point of spending a lot of time with your email marketing if you can’t brand yourself and/or your company. With the Swiftpage Email Templates being pre-populated into each account you can find a template that is right for you. Already have your own HTML emails, import your own HTML emails then make use of the Mail Merge fields to personalize, share your templates with other users in the account.

For those that have a sales/marketing team that may be using Swiftpage the account reporting compares open and click data across marketing and sales (all users) to give an overall view of a campaign ROI.

Revolutionize Your Marketing Efforts with Swiftpage. Swiftpage’s email marketing solutions give you and your team the tools to create, send and track email blasts to your contacts directly from your CRM database.

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How often is the outcome of your day dictated within the first hour or so of the day’s start?

How often do you let your week’s results get defined with the first day of the week?

How often are the results of your MLM business not what you had envisioned this month?

While I can’t speak for anyone else I can certainly attest to the fact that I have had my days that were a complete waste before the day had even had a chance to get started. My attitude about how the remainder of the day was going to go was set within the first hour of the day. I woke-up late, stubbed my toe, got to my car to discover that I had a flat, got caught in traffic making my late, or any number of other things happened within the first hour causing the remainder of the day to be a spiral out of control.

How about the new associate that you just sponsored into your business that has the ability to really create a huge business? With the promise of great things to come, you begin working with this individual only to discover that things are not going to workout the way you had expected.

If none of these rings true for you – congratulations! You are truly in a very unique group of people that have their act together even in the worst of times. However, this was written for the remainder of us mere mortals that have to work at keeping a GREAT attitude when faced with the challenges that life is sure to throw our way from time to time.

There are more than a few of us that have heard how important a positive attitude is when it comes to winning in life. More times than not someone is more than willing to tell us to simply keep a positive attitude and things will get better. Right! Life that is exactly what I want to hear when I am mad at the world, not happy with the things that life is throwing at me and then there are the poor results that I am experiencing as a result of not being on top of my game.

What we could be doing that would have a tremendous impact on our day, our week and more importantly our life, is keeping in mind that life has a way meeting us exactly the way that we show up in life.

Think about this:

How do you respond when you meet someone that is pissed off at the world, having a serious pity party for themselves or they just have a rotten attitude?

If you are like most people you avoid them like they have the plague. For the unfortunate of us that get trapped by them your kind and tell them that things will get better and then you run for the door. Well maybe not that drastic, but I am willing to bet that you will find that you have some pressing business that you must get back to complete.

Carrying around an optimistic, positive outlook on life has no negative impact on the people that we meet. Your positive attitude has a way of causing everyone and everything to respond to you in a positive way.

How do you want to experience life?

What would you like your MLM business to look like a year from now? Six months from now? One month from now?

Sure anyone at any given time can find an excuse or two to simply be mad at the world. Our attitude and how we meet life is our choice. I can promise you that the choice to hangout in the land of excuses and poor attitudes is not going to serve you well. In essence this choice does nothing more than create an environment whereby we create a series of self limiting beliefs that keep us from creating the success that we are all more than capable of creating in our lives.

There are numerous benefits to keeping a positive attitude:

*Achieving your goals
*Increased Energy
*Increased Happiness
*People gravitate towards you
*Increased motivation for yourself and others
*Fewer challenges in life and business

A positive attitude and the benefits that it brings will lead to increased success in your life and certainly in your MLM business. In short, adopting an “attitude of gratitude” by being thankful for what you currently have in life will create an overall positive change in your whole life. Learn to look at the bright side of life, focus on the positive things that are happening in your MLM business and you will achieve the goals and dreams of your heart. The best part is that it becomes contagious and your entire team will begin to mirror your attitude and success.

To Your Success!

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