Market My Holistic Biz

Even the Dalai Lama Tweets!

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When it comes to Twitter, which one of these best describes you:

• Totally sold on it

• There's got to be something to it if so many people are into it but can't quite figure out how to tie it into your business

• Could care less (then you may want to read this USAToday piece)

If you're in the first category, what follows will amount to preaching to the choir. 

If you are in the third category, you've already stopped reading. 

But if you are in that middle category, congratulations because your curiosity will serve you well if you take the time and make the effort to "get" what Twitter can do for you and your business.

In my fondness for keeping things simple, let's take the simplest possible look at the value of Twitter from the two key benefits it offers:

1. Build an audience that will hang on your every word (like a lot of celebrities have done, or the social media news source Mashable)
2. Keep your eye on trends and what people are talking about

Now let's look at why you should care about either of these.

Building an audience:

• It's cheap: free is about as cheap as it comes when you're talking about marketing tools!

• It's easy: sharing a thought in 140 characters doesn't require a degree in creative writing!

• It's powerful: Sheesh! if a spiritual leader like the Dalai Lama sees the value in how it can touch lives, can you open up your heart to the idea that it may be good for your business as well?

Keeping your eye on trends:

• People talk about what matters to them

• People spend money on and in support of stuff they care about. 

• Staying in tune with what people care about most, presents you with the opportunity to package and deliver your unique gift in alignment with what people are most interested in NOW.  Twitter gives you access to a free, up-to-the-minute gigantic marketing focus group!

Whether your goal is to build a REALLY big, 7 figure-impact-thousands-of-people-address-audiences-from-stages-around-the-world kind of business or you just want to be a big fish in your small local pond, Twitter is not to be overlooked as a means to your desired end.

But Seriously Folks!

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You’ve heard me prattle on about being authentic in your marketing before.  I prattle because it matters – a lot.

The single most important factor in creating a relationship that turns into a client or customer relationship is trust.  There is no better, faster or easier way to build trust than through authenticity. 

A discussion about being authentic in your business sounds serious.  Which brings me to the focus of this particular prattle:  you can be serious about what you do without taking yourself too seriously.  (A perfect theme for an April Fool’s post, don’t ya think?) 

I can hear what you’re thinking, “But wait a minute, Lisa.  Business is serious: it’s no joke.  People won’t take me seriously if I’m not serious.” 

Here’s my response to that.  Let your playful part poke its head out now and then and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the positive response it elicits from the playful parts in others. 

What people really want to know about your business ability is:

• That you know what you know
• That you are a confident expert in your field 
• That you can deliver the results you promise

Building trust is serious business but the way you do it doesn’t need to play out like a courtroom drama. 

It starts with knowing yourself and your nature at its core.  If you asked 10 people, who know you fairly well, to choose the top three words that best describe you, what would you hear repeatedly?

I’d hear knowledgeable, loving and funny.  I’ll be honest with you: I cringed a bit when I typed that - for two reasons:

1. It seems un-humble to talk about my good stuff.
2. It awakens the internal critic who wants to chime in and say, “Yeah, but don’t forget about the less than lovely parts of Lisa.”

The fact is that there is good and less than good in all of us.  And I wonder if a person exists who doesn’t struggle at some time with keeping the critic at bay.

I’m encouraging you to embrace the top three and let them shine through in all that you do in your marketing.  Because the easier it becomes for you to do that, the more effortless your marketing will become and the less heckling you’ll hear from that internal critic. 

You will become like a magnet attracting the perfect people to you. 

There is a chance that I’m completely wrong (but I know I’m not :) ).  If you doubt my theory, I suggest you test it out for yourself and please don’t be shy about sharing the results!

Attract Clients like Moths to a Flame

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Jeez, wouldn’t it be great if all you had to do to attract qualified clients was light a candle and watch them zoom in?

Let’s look at that model for a minute.  Why does it work so well?  Moths seem to have one objective: find a light and hang around it.

I don’t know why this is such a big deal to them and I don’t really have to in order to get them to show up.  Their mothly reasons don’t need to make sense to me.  If I want to be a successful moth attractor, I just need to be crystal clear about what they want and then provide it!

How simple! 

Now let’s explore how you can put this same principle to work in your business.  When you whittle it all down, there are only two things you need to know to build a successful business:

1. What is your flame
2. Who wants it

There, now go rake in millions!  I jest, of course.  There is much more that has to happen to be successful.  But scurrying about in a frenzy of business-like activity without having your customer relationship defined as well as the moth-to-flame coupling will leave you tuckered out (and possibly broke) in no time. 

Here are three simple questions to help you define your flame and identify your moths. 

1. What is the one thing that you do better than anything else and would do even if you never got paid to do it?
2. Who wants (not needs) this thing that you do better than anything else?
3. Are they willing and able to pay for it? (because even though you love doing what you do best so much that you’d do it even if you never got paid for it, you must get paid for it or you don’t have a business – you have a hobby or a volunteer project.)

Three simple questions that are not always easy to answer but hold the key to everything that follows in your business.  If you find yourself struggling to answer them on your own, getting help is easy … you just have to ask.  Flame on!

The Most Overlooked “How-to” of Marketing

It’s easy to allow hours and hours to get gobbled up by things like formulating the precise wording for the tagline on your website, picking the right font for your newsletter or figuring out how to create an event listing on Facebook.

Having the tools of marketing like websites, newsletters and social networking in place is important - REALLY important; but they are not enough to bring you the results you crave.

The hidden danger in focusing solely on the “how-to” of these things is that they can act as a smokescreen to keep you from focusing on the most overlooked “how-to” of your marketing and the one that holds the secret to making more money from your marketing.

That secret is mindset – and you may be surprised to learn that it’s not a marketing mindset, but a money mindset.

Wondering how the heck money mindset ties into your marketing?  Stick with me and I think you’ll see.

In order to have all of your marketing efforts truly pay off in the form of more clients paying you more money, it is critical to have the right money mindset in place.

No matter how hard you try, you just can’t will your way out of a mindset that is keeping you financially stuck – logic just won’t work.  I mean, think about it.  If it did, wouldn’t you have all the clients you dream of, investing with you right now?

In case you’re not sure, walk with me through this little exercise:
 

Do you agree that people deserve to be fairly compensated for the goods and services that they provide?  I’m not talking about getting a bargain from time to time.  Everyone enjoys that.

What I mean is this.  Do you think it is fair for a trained expert like a doctor or lawyer or a skilled professional like a carpenter or plumber to receive compensation equal to the results they provide?

If you said yes, it’s because one of the things you value is positive contributions to the lives of others.  Because this is something you value, you are able to recognize it in others and value them when they positively contribute to your life.

Okay.  So, here’s the logic part: according to your belief that it is right for people to be fairly compensated for making a positive contribution to others, LOGICALLY you should be able to raise your fees or structure your services in a way that pays YOU well for your time and expertise.  And yet I suspect you struggle with doing so.

• Do you ever feel compelled to discount your prices just because someone asks you to?

• Do you get a sinking feeling in your stomach when you think about raising your fees?

• When you are creating a package or program, do you feel compelled to pack practically everything you know into it?

Can you see how logically recognizing the inconsistency in your money mindset doesn’t help you get past the blocks around it?

GOOD NEWS!  This double standard in your thinking about money is not your fault!
 
The mindset that has you trapped in this way of thinking was almost certainly implanted externally, usually from your family of origin or some cultural influence.  These beliefs are being reflected or mirrored in your business every day.

As long as you remain unaware of what you are mirroring, for just that long will you remain a slave to it.

MORE GOOD NEWS!  You can break free!  There are many things that can help you get total freedom from a money mindset that no longer serves you; and if you joined me on my most recent teleclass, you learned one of them. 

Don’t fret if you missed it because you have another opportunity to learn how to unlock an even more powerful piece of your personal money mindset puzzle in a 2-part teleclass called Money Mirror Makeover.
 
You can learn what some of your underlying beliefs about money are, how you’ve been unconsciously mirroring them in your life and in your business and how to put them to use for, rather than against, you!

I know how powerfully this has impacted my life and would love to see you enjoy the same breakthroughs.  I do hope you’ll join me.

The 3 "C"s of Successful Online Marketing

The skyscrapers of Manhattan are found at the lower end of the island for an important reason - one that is not visible to the naked eye.  Deep below the surface of the soil lies the bedrock needed to support the superstructures.  The same bedrock is not part of the geological make-up of the entire island.

Even with state of the art engineering, were it not for the solid bedrock able to support the structures, they would collapse.  A similar bedrock is needed to successfully market you business both online and off.  Find out what the three "c"s that make up that rock are this 4 minute video clip.

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How to Build a Better Black Friday

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What do Black Friday and Mother’s Day have in common?  On the surface, not much.  But look a little deeper and you’ll see the connection lies in marketing ingenuity.  These invented events turn an otherwise ordinary day into an opportunity for consumers to purchase with purpose. 

When you think about it, the only things people actually need to purchase are food, clothing and shelter.  Pretty much everything else falls into the “want” category.  This dovetails nicely with the eternal human drive to attain a higher quality of life, providing plenty of ways for you to deliver the goods through your business.

And the really great news is that if you don’t like any of the current man-made marketing opportunities on the calendar, you’re free to invent your own.  One of the most recent examples of this is the invention of Cyber Monday (the online equivalent of Black Friday). 

So, what could you create?  The sky’s the limit. Here’s one of those places where being really clear about your niche and ideal client comes in super handy.  If you want to create your own Black Friday, start by answering questions like these:

• What is the biggest common problem your tribe seeks to solve? 
• What question do you most often get asked by prospects and clients? 
• What objection do they most often toss out as to why they aren’t taking action with you now?

Winston Churchill said, “A pessimist sees a problem in every opportunity and an optimist sees an opportunity in every problem.”

Your client’s problems are ripe with opportunities for your business.  The more creative you are at finding a way to serve them while solving their problems, the more commas you’ll have in your bank balance.

Decisions, Decisions

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Scenario A: You're sitting at your desk and the phone rings.  What do you do?

A.     Automatically pick up on the first or second ring.

B.      Check the caller ID to decide if you want to pick it up at all.

C.     Let the call go to voice mail regardless of what the caller ID indicates and decide on what if any action you’ll take later.

Scenario B: You're snoozing soundly in your bed and the fire alarm begins to blare.  What do you do? 

A.     Get annoyed because you were having a good dream.

B.      Assume it must be a glitch and sluggishly set out to turn it off so you can get back to your dream.

C.     Pop up, wake the family, get everyone out of the house and let the fire department tell you whether or not it’s a false alarm.

All day, every day, you are faced with hundreds of decisions and so are the people you hope to inspire to purchase from you.  The previous scenarios offer an illustration about the varying degrees of urgency that lie within these daily decisions.

Motivation is a key element of decision making and there are basically two forms of it. 

• Things you want to move toward or
  

• Things you want to move away from 

And remember, this is as true for you as it is for the people you are hoping will purchase from you.

This is why being crystal clear about who your ideal client or customer is in relation to any given product or service you offer is so important.

If you clearly understand what motivates your potential buyer, then you will be able to:

• Craft the product or service you are offering to truly serve them and

• Clearly communicate the benefit they will receive from it in the form of goals achieved and pains avoided.

The better you are able to do this, the less pain you’ll have when you look at your bank balance and the greater your sense of fulfillment in the making-a-positive-impact-on-others department - because you will be reaching more of the people you are perfectly suited to help and impacting their lives dramatically!

If this makes sense but leaves you feeling frustrated because you’re not sure how to actually do it, start with this.  And if you’re still feeling stuck, give me a call or shoot me an email.  Help is available for the asking. 

Business Networking: Making the Most of Face-to-Face Time

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Since no one has figured out how to make more land, it is considered by many to be the best investment money can buy.  But is it really?  I can think of at least one thing that has the potential to yield a virtually unlimited return on investment - your time.  Let’s do the math. 

1. Suppose you have determined that your average revenue from each client is $5000 a year.
2. Suppose you attend a two-hour networking event with a ticket price of $25.
3. Suppose you chat with 10 people and have a meaningful conversation with two of them.
4. Suppose one of those people becomes your client.

Would a net income of $4975 be worth the investment of two hours of your time?  Wouldn’t it be worth it even if the ticket cost $100?

Do your homework

Before you begin re-arranging your calendar so you can attend 30 networking events this month, consider the following to be sure you are getting the best return on the investment of your time.

• Be sure you know the average revenue impact each client has on your business.
• Evaluate how well the group attracts people who fit your ideal client profile or share it as a target market and could therefore be a good source of referrals, if not actual customers.
• Learn what you can about the mission of the group and the people in leadership roles.
• Once you’ve found a group that is a good fit, show up regularly and participate.  Consider volunteering in some form.  It’s a great way to build relationships fast.

Size doesn’t always matter
 
The percentage of ideal clients that the group attracts is far more important than the number of people it attracts. Using this formula, I have found groups with fewer than a dozen regular participants that have been excellent sources of ideal client relationships. 

Keep your eye on the big picture

If you find yourself calculating the value of an event according to the quality of the cheese or chicken, you’ve lost your business bearings and have strapped on your consumer cloak.  To borrow a line from Cher in the movie Moonstruck, “SNAP OUT OF IT!” and get back on business track.

These principles can be applied well beyond the realm of face-to-face networking.  Once you understand the dollar value of a client, you can apply this same method of evaluation to anything that calls for an investment of your time.  Choose wisely because you only get 86,400 seconds each day and every one is a nonrenewable resource.

If figuring out how to use online marketing tools to grow your business is not your strong suit, you might want to check out how the KISS’em Klub can help.

Embrace Your Unsubscribes!

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Remember Leo Buscaglia?  He was famous for exuberantly promoting love, starting with self-love.  He made his impact on me the day I saw him on the Phil Donahue Show. (Does anybody besides me and Marlo Thomas remember Phil Donahue?)

I was in high school at the time, bemoaning the curse of my Rubinesque form, at a time when curves were not cool! 

Anyway, Leo’s boisterous behest to the mostly female audience to “celebrate your thighs” has burned itself into my consciousness.  (If you’ve met my thighs, then you understand.)  I have come to appreciate my curves and give Leo much of the credit.

Here’s what this has to do with you.

You work hard to attract people to sign up to your email list and build your tribe.  But what happens when you get the notification that someone has unsubscribed and fled the flock?  Do you:

• Work yourself into a lather of soul searching trying to figure out where you went wrong?
• Get angry and wish them good riddance?
• Get depressed and equate it with failure?

If so, you’re not alone.  Lots of people react the same way.  In fact, I must confess that there was a time when I may have reacted in some of those ways myself.  But not any more!

Not since adopting the Leo Buscaglia outlook on unsubscribes.  Today, I embrace my unsubscribes and encourage you to do the same.  Not only is it okay when people remove themselves from your list.  I’ll even be so bold as to say that you actually want people to unsubscribe and here’s why.

• To keep your list fresh.  As you hone in on your niche, you will speak the language of your target market more clearly.  That will cause folks who have mistakenly made their way onto your list to, “Exit stage left.”
• To save you time.  There’s no need to spend time pre-qualifying a prospect who pre-qualifies herself by unsubscribing. 
• To maximize your impact. None of us are meant to work with everyone, but we are all meant to work with certain people.  When you, or the other guy, figures out the fit isn’t right, it frees you both to find the fit that is and get down to the business of fulfilling your purposes.

Now, if people are leaving your list like a stampede of angry bison, that’s another story.  Experts disagree on what a “good” unsubscribe rate is, but most agree that anything approaching or greater than 10% signifies trouble.

But don’t panic if you find yourself in that neighborhood.  Take it as a sign that it’s time to make some adjustments, and then make them.  Evaluate how well-matched your list is to what you’re offering. 

• Could be you’ve changed your business approach and your current list isn’t interested in the new you.
• Could be that your industry is shifting and you haven’t been responsive enough.

The bottom line is this.  If you panic every time someone leaves your list, your list is too small.  If you’d like some help fixing that problem, just give me a shout and I’ll help you out!

It Pays to Be Fluent in This Language

There’s a line from an old TV commercial that I’ve never been able to shake.  I can’t remember the ad exactly, but it involved a housewife - I know we don’t have those anymore.  Now we have homemakers and domestic engineers, but back in the day, stay-at-home moms were called housewives. 

Anyway, this housewife is on the phone with one of her housewife friends and thumbing through a magazine when the friend asks, “What are you doing” and the woman cheerfully chirps, “I’m cleaning my bathroom bowl!”  

The point of the ad being, she had discovered some miracle product that not only allowed her to accomplish two things at once but simultaneously relieved her of a most distasteful task.

• Are you suffering an aversion akin to the aforementioned toilet task when the time comes for you to produce an article for your blog or the next edition of your ezine?
• Does the thought of typing for tweets trigger a nervous tick?
• Do tasks routinely relegated to the bottom of your to-do list develop higher priority when deadline dates dangle overhead?

Suppose it were possible for you to publish with the same ease as our happy housewife from the sixties sanitized her porcelain pedestal? 

Would you communicate with your clients, customers and prospects more often?  And imagine for a moment the impact it might have on your business if you did.  Do you think if your customers heard from you more often - assuming it was about information that was of use to them – that you might see an increase in how often they hired you, bought from you or enrolled in your programs?

You’re right, you probably would.  And I’m going to let you in on a simple secret that is the first step towards relieving yourself of the journalistic jitters: identify your marketing fluency. 

While you may be quite capable of learning additional languages, you will always be most fluent in your native tongue.  The same is true where your business is concerned. 

There may be many topics about which you can speak expertly.  However, there is one core topic that you never get tired of discussing; the topic that you are so comfortable with and passionate about that you don’t have to think while you speak about it – the words just spill off your lips in a scholastic waterfall of wisdom.  This is your area of marketing fluency.

Identify this and your desire to communicate with your audience will take on a whole new perspective.  You will never again reach for the tweezers and opt for de-linting your keyboard over producing an informative article.

Sometimes what you know this well is so familiar that you forget you know it.  So, if you’re not sure where your marketing fluency lies, just ask a close friend or business associate.  If they know you well, they will be able to tell you without hesitation. 

Still not sure?  Then join me for this telecourse.  The first call is all about discovering your marketing fluency.