I received a call on July 1^st from a potential client.  She was very concerned about the marketing mistakes she had made during the past six months.  It seems that she had not use her marketing dollars wisely and was missing the marketing bullseye.  After talking with her for about an hour, here is a list of the 10 marketing mistakes that she had made when marketing her two-year old business over the past six month.  She was:

1. Centering the focus on her company and not on the prospects.
2. Not educated enough about her prospects and their problems.
3. Not fully aware of the specific benefits her products/services offered.
4. Not taking time to qualify her prospects before spending money marketing her products/services to them.
5. Focusing her marketing message to the masses – and not speaking to her target.
6. Not stating the specific problem her prospect has and what the problem was costing h/her every minute it is left unsolved.
7. Not using the most powerful first line of her marketing pieces to attract attention.
8. Not giving her prospects a compelling reason to act immediately – while she had their attention.
9. Not using testimonials in all of her marketing communication.
10. Not offering a guarantee of satisfaction.

If your marketing dollars are not generating new clients, and the sale of products and services you are probably making one or more of these marketing mistakes.

According to Jennifer Sprague (Full Circle Strategy Improves Profit), “the basic principle is that best prospects will always closely resemble your best customers. The best place to start is to analyze your customer base and determine key traits held in common by your top customers. Consider business demographic elements such as industry, size, and location.

Then use this information to find prospects who look just like your top customers’ profile. Once the target market is defined, start planning the campaign and developing marketing offers that are customized to meet your target audience. Once these steps are completed, it’s time to execute the plan by obtaining lists, designing mailing pieces, queuing telemarketing calls, qualifying leads, and making sales calls.

Tracking the results from every campaign will help improve the results for future campaigns and further ROI. The end result of full-circle marketing is measurable. By analyzing and planning first and executing and tracking later; marketers can hone selling strategies and maximize marketing dollars.”

If you would like to know more about how to avoid marketing mistakes and how to form collaborations, partnerships and strategic alliances to stretch your marketing dollars, why not become a member of the Global Association of High-Achieving Women.  Membership does have its privileges. 

Love, Success and Greatness

© 2010 Dr. Laureen

One of my former clients called to ask me what she could do to ensure that she keeps her customers coming back for her services.  My first question was this, “What have you done for your customers lately?”

There was a pause.  I knew at that moment, she had not done anything for her customers recently.

Remember, it costs five to seven times as much to acquire a new customer as it costs to get a current customer to buy from you again. 

Here are my suggestions to maintain your current customers: 

Are you communicating with them on a regular basis? 

Send an email with a report you think they’ll find interesting.  Better yet, create a Google search with the customer’s name and every time the customer shows up online, Google sends you an email.  When they’ve done something newsworthy or get some great publicity, congratulate them.

Are you asking how they are doing and what you can do to help them? 

Ask the hard questions – how can I make you look good, make your company more productive, and help you achieve your corporate goals?  If you can’t help them, are you referring them to someone who can?

Are you reminding them how important they are to you? 

Send a handwritten note thanking them for their service.  Take the extra step and show them how much you value them.  Answer the phone when they call, take the time they need, and be genuinely friendly and warm.  Be helpful, even when there is no immediate profit.

Are you developing new products or services to keep them coming back?  Offer some specials for current customers only and when you roll out a new product, let your customers know they get to the front of the line with an exclusive introductory offer.

Are you rewarding your customers for being repeat customers? 

Perform a small service for free, or give a discount when they refer others to you.

Think about it, if your customers are not hearing from you; then they are listening to your competition.  One of the best things that you can do is to tell your customers what you’ve done for them lately and then, do it often. 

I have found that if your career and business plan includes success, you must step up and play a bigger game. If you need someone to assist you in up-leveling your career or your business, visit: www.masterpiecesolutions.biz.

, Career Success and Business Growth Expert

In order to tell you what habits help me to be successful, I’ll have to share with you my idea of success. Success means living a purposeful life, where I experience radiant health, abundant prosperity and meaningful relationships.  Here are a few habits that I’m cultivating as I move from success to significance.

1. Meditation
2. Exercise
3. Journaling
4. Waking up between 5 am and 6 am
5. Keeping the important list to 3 items
6. Having a “fantastic” day
7. Reading daily
8. Less television time

8.5        Personal development at all times

It’s this simple – when your energy is high you can bring your best to every task you take on. When your energy is low, you can’t.  You must focus on raising and maintaining your own energy, keeping yourself strong and well, so that you can be focused and effective and brilliant while taking on the next steps for success.

What daily habits do you have that help you to be successful? Why not share them in the comment section of this Blog.

You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://highachievingwomen.biz/?page_id=185

A vision without a plan is just a dream.
A plan without a vision is just drudgery.
But a vision with a plan can change the world. 

Greatness is about one’s day-in and day-out habits, character and core values. In other words, no matter what your past was like, you have the ability to achieve greatness—starting now. You just need to hone in on the small things you do every day—those tasks and chores that may seem trivial and unimportant—and start doing them based on your best, all the time. Here are some guidelines for greatness to help get you started:

1. Walk your talk.
2. If you make a promise, keep it.
3. Do sweat the small stuff. (Or at least pay attention to it.)
4. Align yourself with the other “greats” in your life.
5.  Always act as if someone is watching you.
6. Surround yourself with people who don’t think like you.
7. Be known for your integrity.
8. Know when to ask for help.
9. Read at least ten books a year.
10. Shape your life around your passions.
11. Talk to strangers. 

11.5    Expect Greatness to come.

Success doesn’t just happen by accident.  It also doesn’t happen just from working really, really hard.  It takes a great plan, a great strategy that you can work from.  And that takes the discipline to step back from the daily grind, to talk with other trusted and committed people and to create a plan and strategy that will take you where you want to go.

I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams.  You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://bit.ly/9AA92z

A friend of my Sophfronia Scott, Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company recently published this article.  It is so on target with a subject matter that is near to my heart From Visioning Great to Successing Great™.

This article, How to Rock Your Expertise re-enforced the importance of visioning great, then successing great so that you become an “Expert Who Rocks”.  Take a moment and read this article, I would love to hear your comments.

Before I forget, she is also the Editor of the soon to be released anthology: How The Fierce Handle Fear – Secrets to Succeeding in Challenging Times which details personal stories, proven techniques and tips on how each contributor handled fear and pushed through it. The book demonstrates that even the most successful business people (Experts Who Rock) like Donald Trump, Jack Canfield, Sophfronia Scott, Frank McKinney and I experience fear just like everyone else.

How to Rock Your Expertise! By Sophfronia Scott

Are you an expert? Yes! In what? You tell me. We’re all experts at something. You gain your expertise in one of two ways: doing a thing or studying it. I’m an expert in writing and publishing books because I’ve done it. My clients are experts in marketing, motivation, cooking, feng shui, and dealing with credit because this is what they do in their businesses every day. I can also say I’m something of an expert in the Beatles, cooking, potty training, gardening, yoga and road cycling because I’ve done or studied all of these things.

Having the expertise is important–you have to be able to walk your talk and pony up the goods when the opportunity presents itself. But here’s the rub: the opportunity comes from how you make your expertise known.

Wielding Your Expertise

You see, having authority is kind of a double-edged sword. People like to defer to people who have it, but if you’re perceived as a know-it-all who can’t or isn’t willing to share or teach for the benefit of others, then people (and by that I mean customers or clients) aren’t interested in being around you.

Former Vice President Al Gore is a perfect example. During his ill-fated run for the White House in 2000, he took a lot of flak in the debates for coming off as smug and condescending. Fast forward to 2006-2007, when Mr. Gore began putting his brains to use for the good of our environment. He filmed An Inconvenient Truth and suddenly people started seeing him as the kindly yet kingly professor who was compassionately letting us know we were headed for a world of trouble with the global warming stuff. They were even begging him to run for president again!

How can you demonstrate that you are willing to teach and share your expertise? With a book! When you craft a book, you seek to solve a big problem for the reader. You instantly start from a position of wanting to help, and that’s the first place where the reader will connect with you.

You start out by clearly outlining the problem and how it may be negatively affecting the reader. You let him or her know you have experience with the problem either from your own life or working with your clients. Then lay out your solution in whatever way you see as the best.

Don’t worry if it seems like you’re giving it all away. When people have a good experience they usually want more. In your case, they may want to hire you or come to a workshop so they can meet you in person. In fact some authors, like Dan Kennedy, encourage this by giving away free seminar tickets in their books.

What to Do With That Power

© 2010 Sophfronia Scott

Sophfronia Scott is Executive Editor of the Done For You Writing & Publishing Company. Learn what a difference being a published author can make for your business. Get your FREE audio CD, “How to Succeed in Business By Becoming a Bestselling Author” and your FREE online writing and book publishing tips at www.DoneForYouWriting.com.

If you want to be an “Expert who Rocks” sign up for the Visioning Great Successing Great™. Virtual Retreat to be held on March 20, 2010. http://highachievingwomen.biz/?page_id=185

The only way to fail is to quit” – Chris Widener.  Why not take this partial list of habits that drive business success and start to put each one into practice. By learning and instilling new habits in your daily business life, it will have a dramatic effect on your level of success.

1. Cultivate Inner Networks: Take the time to identify and build relationships with key peers, mentors, and advisors.
2. Practice Centerness: Focus away from business and profits toward what you can do to improve the life of your customers.
3. Be Humble and Honesty: Be open and honest about yourself and your business creates growth as an individual and as a company.
4. Embrace Adaptability: Be flexible allows us to respond to changes without being paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.
5. Be Opportunity Focused: Look at both sides of the coin. Every problem has an opportunity.
6. Find A Better Way: Productivity is the cornerstone of business success. Start by embracing technology, automation, outsourcing, and improving business systems and processes.
7. Maintained a Balanced Lifestyle: Business success requires the habit of balancing all aspects of your life; free time is a habit that will make your business and life more enjoyable.

     7.5. Love What You Do and Who You Are: Everything else follows.

Here my suggestion, review each of the 7 habits and choose one habit to focus on for a month or until you achieve mastery; then gradually incorporate each of the 7 habits of business success into your life and watch yourself attain your business dreams. Adopting these 7 habits will help you create a business or career that will give you not only success but also joy and fulfillment in your life. 

I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams.  You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ http://bit.ly/9AA92z

Are you actively seeking out speaking engagements?  Why not?

Public speaking is one of the most important activities you can do to promote your brand.  Speaking events are an additional opportunity to make money, plus they boost your marketing power and lead to more sales leads.  Public speaking gives speakers a special status, making it easier for speakers to meet prospects. According to the American Society of Association Executives, the conference and meeting industry is a $56 billion dollar market.  To get your piece of that market, follow these six specific steps to get you started today:

1. Research potential organizations, conference and other events that would provide you with more exposure to your potential customers, then develop a contact database.  Start out free for local events and group, then work your way up.
2. Know your niche.  Choose 2-3 topics that relate to your industry.  Your titles should be interesting and you should have a brief blurb describing each topic.
3. Develop a personal bio and make sure it highlights your brand’s ‘tag line’ and speaks to your background.
4. Create marketing materials (post cards, website, podcast, videos, etc) that highlight your speaking topics and promote your brand.
5. Develop a marketing plan and execute it. Visit organizations where you could potentially speak.  The face-to-face interaction will give you a strategic advantage.
6. Maintain your database with copious notes on every conversation you have regarding possible speaking engagements.  Look into sites like Speaker Services (speakerservices.com) and Speaker Zone (www.speakerzone.com), but be prepared to make calls.

6.5         Work on creating your marketing kit.  It should include video demo, professional photos, a press kit and a fee schedule and letters of recommendation.

By following these steps, you will launch your speaking career which will generate anothr stream of income to help you achieve your bold money goals.

I specialize in helping high-achieving women reach their success factor.  I can also help you brand to your next career, business opportunity or build your speaking platform.

One of my favorite books is Good to Great by Jim Collins. This book along with my 12 years entrepreneur experience got me to thinking a lot about greatness and what that really means. I have identified what I call the essential elements that must exist within a company to achieving lasting greatness.  They are Quality, Service, Leadership and Accountability.

Below is a list of business success rules from my Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat. 

1. Be On Target: Decide on your niche–narrow your focus and broaden your appeal.
2. Be Different: If your competitors are doing it, then you don’t.
3. Be Diligent About Building a Team: Employ a person to be part of a team to build your business; you are not hiring an employee to fill a position.
4. Be Fast: Time is the most precious commodity.
5. Be Thankful: Tell your customers and employees how much you appreciate them; the old fashioned way work great… pen to paper and write them a note.
6. Be Consistent: Make sure your business has a consistent look and feel and the same flavor from everyone within your organization.
7. Be Smiles: Get rid of the notion that people buy from you because of price, product quality or your warranty. They buy because they like you and your product.
8. Be Optimism: Attitude will always win out in the end and infect all of those around you.
9. Be Soft: Don’t ever hard sell. Solve problems. Satisfy wants. Always do what is best for the customer.
10. Be Comfort Zone: Never accept the idea that this is the way you’ve always done it. Never accept that a new idea or technology could never work for you.

10.5.   Be the Best and Beyond™

Let’s face it, if you already had all the tools and information necessary to create all the success you want; you would already have created it, right?  The keys to lasting greatness are the missing link to help you get out of your own way and connect to that power and passion and consistent action that create success.

“Greatness is as greatness does” I would love to help you develop and expand your portfolio of success through discovering your purpose, unleashing your passion, helping you achieve next-level results and enjoying the realization of your result-oriented dreams.  You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. http://bit.ly/9AA92z

Marketing does not need to cost a fortune to reap tremendous rewards.  Marketing in 2010 is a whole new world.  Now, we can create our own community around our business and our services or products. No longer do we shout out sales messages that interrupt our customers as they watch television or read magazines. Now we are able to speak directly to customers and, most importantly, our customers are able to speak back.  But to succeed, you have to know the three shoestring marketing ground rules:

1. It takes commitment: To become a shoestring marketer means that you will try many methods, test them, see which ones work best and then add the winners to your marketing repertoire.
2. It requires consistency: To build a business, people must hear a consistent message from you repeatedly.  Eventually, they will know that you will not be undersold or whatever it is that you promise your customers.
3. Results must be measured: The only way to know whether your shoestring marketing campaign is working is if you are able to measure the results.  You must create a measurable campaign.

  3.5     Learn everything you can:   With the Internet, there is no reason not to learn more about marketing.  Whether you are interested in social media marketing, direct mail marketing or just marketing, people are talking about it, they want to share what they’ve learned, and you can learn from them – for free most of the time. 

I love the analogy that marketing is a lot like changing dirty baby diapers.  Nobody really wants to do it, but they do because they want healthy, happy babies.  We do things we don’t necessarily want to do because we want good outcomes.  However, I am not convinced that we don’t actually like marketing.  I think we’re scared of it.  Fear keeps us from expanding our marketing.  We’re scared to waste time, scared to learn something new (I confess, even I took a little time to navigate Twitter!)- scared to mess up. 

Not every marketing technique you try will work, but some will.  Remember this – your customers already expect you to be marketing – particularly online.  More than 86% of consumers recently surveyed by marketing agency Prodo said: “that they believe companies should incorporate social marketing into their regular marketing activities.”

“If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived?  Find your passion, whatever it may be.  Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen for you, to you and because of you”. – T. Alan Armstrong

Here are my 5.5 tips for greatness:

1. Develop a Vision Plan for Greatness: Once you decide to commit, then create an action plan and take action.
2. Think Less, Do More:  Day dreaming has it place, but it is not the goal.  You must take proactive, powerful action to achieve your goals.
3. Small Steps: Plan tasks out in small manageable steps.
4. Surround Yourself with Mentors:  When you have someone you can look up to and model, you’re bringing yourself one step closer to greatness.
5. Survive Setbacks: When you hit a snag in the road, you need to pick yourself up, change course and forge on.

5.5.   3E Success Circle™:  This is part of my full-circle success wheel designed for greatness.  The E’s are: Engagement, Empowerment, and Expectation.

• Engagement: consistently seeking the right career relationships and business opportunities.
• Empowerment: constantly acquiring and applying knowledge and maintaining an impeccable presence and brand.   
• Expectation: confidently setting career plans and business goals to manifest even when the manifestation cannot be seen.

Consider this point:  Your life right now is perfectly structured to create what you already have, and is not structured to create that amazing vision of yours.  If it were, you would already have it!  After all, it doesn’t matter how hard you are working and how fast you are going if you are headed in the wrong direction with no vision!

You can take action now and attend the upcoming Visioning Great to Successing Great™ Virtual Retreat of March 20, 2010. It’s your time to sparkle. ™ For more, visit: http://bit.ly/9AA92z.