As good as being your own boss sounds, with that freedom comes a big responsibility to you and to your clients.  No longer can you count on some company’s brand to bring in the big bucks.  You’re on your own, and you have to learn how to create your own brand and marketing strategies.  It’s up to you to make your business work.  You can get a business degree and hire good coaches and advisors, but at the end of the day it’s only you and your creativity that is going to make your business successful or not.  So, what makes some businesses work and some not?  Frequently it comes down to getting past the fear.  It comes down to not being afraid to put who you are front and center knowing that some people will like who you are, and some people won’t…

We are working with several new customers in our construction business.  Nice people with money to spend, looking for the right contractor to provide them the right service.  Yes, they are still out there, contrary to what you might be reading and hearing.  Yet we have had general contractors calling us looking for work.  What’s the difference between their “business” and ours? 

If you’re struggling to get your business into the black, it may be time to do some soul searching.  If you’re frustrated and stressed because you haven’t figured out how to make it work for you, here are 3 tips that can help you move out of the past and into a new way of thinking.

1. Be Yourself. No matter what your occupation, you have unique gifts and talents that need to be expressed, and no one else can express them in the same way you will.  Your business is your vehicle to touch people’s lives and fulfill your desire to express yourself at the same time.  If you want to leave this world knowing you had no music left in you to give, be sure you are honoring yourself by expressing the gifts that make you the happiest.  When you’re happy it becomes a pleasure to serve others.  Things like customer service are not an issue because you naturally enjoy what you’re doing and want to give the best that you can.  If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing enough to give your best, you’re doing yourself a disservice and it will show in your interaction with your potential customers.  

 

2. Share the Wealth.  As you share the wealth you’ll open yourself up to even greater prosperity and fulfillment.  Sharing the wealth doesn’t mean just money.  Giving of your ideas, time, kindness, hugs, or your smiles are just as important as money.  Sometimes those things are all that matters.  Any hospice nurse can tell you that there are times that money means nothing.  As you participate in the circle of giving, you enrich all of life, including your own.  I know the more I give of my inspired ideas, the more ideas I have.  If I get too busy and don’t take the time to think about and express those ideas, they fade into the background, and I begin to feel like I’m not creative and have nothing to offer.  Always nurture and take time to let your gifts flow and express them in whatever way you feel compelled.  As you give of yourself, more ideas and inspiration will flow and your business will grow as you act on these ideas.

 

3. Take Action.  Act on your inspired ideas.  It may be overwhelming to fit them all into our life.  The secret is to take them one small step at a time.  List the three most important things you can do each day to move your business forward, and act on them one at a time.  If something doesn’t get done, move it to the next day without guilt, which stifles your creativity.  You will find if you do the most important things each day, your business will progress just as it should.

The key to creating an authentic business is to be you – not your coach or mentor.  Step back and take time to discover what you have to offer and then give it in your own unique way and most of all – listen to and trust your inner voice.

Pulte Homes is in the middle of a class-action lawsuit right now because they cared more about their bottom line than about their customers.  The lawsuit claims that Pulte artificially propped up sales and home sale prices in a “house of cards” scheme that eventually caused values in its developments to plunge, according to a report the The Record.  With big business digging themselves into a customer service hole, it’s not too tough for us “little guys” to compete with them.

Here’s an article in the New York Times, “How Can We Compete With the Big Boys?” that drives home the secret ingredient that all small businesses need to thrive in any economy.  http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/how-can-we-compete-with-the-big-boys/

No matter how good your marketing and sales are, if your customers aren’t happy, your business won’t survive for long…

 According to a recent Citi poll, the majority of women with children told researchers that their spending and savings habits have changed “forever”.  While this permanent change in spending remains to be seen, it most certainly will affect all businesses now and in the near future.  So, how do those of us trying to keep our businesses healthy and profitable hang in there until cash flow and minds change?

Marketing to a public that is clearly holding onto their money longer and thinking twice before they spend it is going to call for all the expertise and skill you can acquire, if you want to keep your business in the black.  Not only do you need to keep up with your competitors, who are utilizing all the new marketing trends, such as social media, you need to get better and more consistent at all the tried and true aspects of marketing. 

One of the most important things you can do is make sure your customers know what you offer that sets you apart from your competitors, and that you value their business.  This means little things like returning phone calls in a timely manner and going out of your way to accommodate their requests.  There is nothing I dislike more than having a service provider tell me they can’t do something for me because it’s “their policy”.

If you’re looking for low cost marketing ideas that can make a big difference in your business, I recommend you read the book ”Appreciation Marketing, How to Achieve Greatness Through Gratitude” by Tommy Wyatt and Curtis Lewsey.  It’s a quick read, but packed with good information and ideas to help you build a better customer relationship.  After all, isn’t that the bottom line for succeeding in any business?

I’m a pet lover and have been for many years. My husband and I have owned dogs for most of our 34 years of marriage. I’m sure many of you know what it’s like to live with these companions day and and day out. They are like our children, and sometimes they even feel closer because they are with us all the time, after our children are grown and living their own lives. According to Answers.com, Americans spent over $39 billion dollars on pet food alone in 2006. This is no small chunk of change and represents a large and growing market for anyone serving the pet industry.

Into this growing market segment has entered Pet Airways, a brand new company whose mission is to transport pets around the country in twin-engine Beech 1900 turboprops. It caters to pets, giving their owners peace of mind as they send their pets off to their destinations.

Its aircraft fly at 25,000 feet without passenger seats, giving lots of room to up to 50 dog and cat carriers that are checked every 15 minutes by an attendant.  This frees them from riding in cargo holds with extreme temperatures and poor ventilation and less than ideal handling by cargo personnel.

We all know airlines have been hit hard by the recession, but Pet Airways has found a creative and much needed solution. It will be interesting and educational to watch their progress over the years. Check them out at www.petairways.com.

“Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes!”

- Theophile Gautier, (August 30, 1811 – October 23, 1872)  French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and literary critic.

The purpose of marketing is to connect you to another person, one with whom you wish to create a symbiotic relationship that includes the ability for you to earn income, and for your prospective client to receive a product or service that will make it easier, more enjoyable or more productive for them to live.  Marketing is reaching out to your ideal client in a way that compels them to contact you to hear more about your products or services.  If you touch your clients on an emotional level in this process it’s even better, because in reaching them emotionally you begin building a relationship even before they have talked to you personally.

How do you determine what will appeal to them emotionally – what will reach down into their soul and make them feel like they already have a relationship with you?  Here are three quick tips that will help you “reach out and touch someone”. 

1. Think about what makes you feel good, contented, excited, happy, etc. 
   When I watch an ad on television that has a golden retriever puppy, it always causes me to ooh and ahh, because in my opinion there is nothing cuter or more loveable than a golden retriever puppy.  Some examples of using dogs to appeal to the softer side of prospective customers include the old RCA Victor “His Master’s Voice” logo with a terrier mix featured named Nipper (for those of you old enough to remember…), and the adorable yellow Labrador retriever, which you’ve seen recently on the Cottonelle toilet paper commercials. If there’s an ad on television that touches your heart, and makes you consider getting out your pocketbook to buy, chances are the company whose ad you’re watching has done plenty of research to find out what appeals to the public.  You might want to consider swiping their “ideas” for your own marketing.  Just be careful you aren’t copying it verbatim, or you may have legal issues to address…
2. Notice what TV commercials, newspaper or magazine ads make you feel like buying their product or service.
   Examples that have appealed to me in the past are Kodak’s campaigns showing you the “times of your life” (hint – families having a good time always seem to hit the “feel good” spot).  Another example is State Farm’s “like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” (we all need a good neighbor sometimes – don’t we?)  Again, you may want to consider utilizing the same “idea” behind the ad campaign that makes you feel good about the product or service.
3. Pay attention to what people are “tweeting” about in your field of work.
   People are very transparent on social networking sites.  You can quickly find out what’s pushing people’s buttons and what is important to them.  You can search on your field of interest and check out what people are posting by going to http://search.twitter.com.  Reply to those people you can help, and retweet the posts that you feel have value.  You will not only be keeping yourself up-to-date on the current topics in your industry, you’ll be building relationships as well. 

Marketing based on what touches people’s emotions has been around since advertising began for a good reason – it works.  This type of Soulpreneur® Marketing can work in your business too.

See our business building tips, articles,
and member news below.    

The truth is that there is lots of fine print on the purchase agreements for their vehicles now.  Even more than before…

Here are some of the truisms about this “good deal”.

• No returns are allowed within the first 30 days of the purchase.  You can only return the vehicle between day 31 and day 60.  Apparently GM wants to give you more time to get used to the little quirks that show up in the first 30 days.
• A returned vehicle can’t have more than $200 in damage when it’s returned.  Well, all it would take is one small door ding to eat up $200.  You’re going to see lots more people parking in the back 40 in parking lots in the future!
• “Money back” doesn’t mean all your money – just the cost of the vehicle and sales tax.  You still have to foot the bill for the title, registration and other fees – which can add up to quite a chunk of change.
• The car can’t have more than 4,000 miles on it when it’s returned, so you can’t go on a nice long vacation and then decide to bring it back. 
• Only one return is allowed per household, and leased vehicles are not included in this offer.
• If you trade in your current vehicle, you don’t get it back if you return your new car.  It’s probably sitting in a used car lot somewhere, or already sold.

There is probably even more fine print than the above, but you get the idea.  The GM ad you see on television gets people excited about not being “stuck” with a car they may not like, without telling them about the hassles involved.  This type of concealed advertising may tend to backfire, when consumers find out what the real deal looks like. 

Of course, GM gives you an out.  Customers who waive the return policy receive a $500 rebate towards the vehicle they want, but will have to keep whether they like it or not.  By that time they have customers in the show room drooling over their new car, impulse buying may take over.  I’m sure that’s part of GM’s plan…

Hopefully your marketing is more up front and honest, so you get repeat clients and referrals.  GM, on the other hand, may be demonstrating how they got in this mess in the first place…

- Seth Godin, Tribes

A vision came to me this morning.  It was a vision of everything I ever wanted sitting there waiting for me to accept it and enjoy it and use it to build the life of my dreams.  But I kept saying, “No, I’m not worthy of this.  No, I’m not ready.”   But the Universe kept offering it over and over, and I kept refusing to accept it over and over…  Finally it occurred to me that I really can have it – all I have to do is quit turning away what is being offered to me.  The only one who can say no is me!

How many of you are turning away what is being offered to you right now because you keep hearing how bad the economy is, how difficult it is to find a job, build a business, find customers, etc., etc., etc. ?  This is a wake up call if this sounds like you. 

Quit listening to whatever is going on outside of yourself and listen to only what you believe.  As Seth Godin says, “Waiting doesn’t pay.  Saying yes does.”

Many of us marketers are using Facebook daily as one of our business building strategies, so you want to be aware of the concerns if you’re considering using Facebook Fan Check.   Fan Check quickly grew to 12.5 million monthly active users, according to NetworkWorld.  However many of those users have withdrawn due to concerns about possible virus attacks, and it has fallen to around 6.4 million. 

The following was reported in PC World.

“Malicious hackers are setting up malware-infested web sites that falsely claim to remove a virus from a new Facebook application called Fan Check, security vendor Sophos is warning…  As Facebook members use popular search engines to find antivirus information about Fan Check, they are getting results that point to sites that can infect their computers with malwar.”

I don’t know about you, but my computer has become the most important business tool I own.  If there is even a slight chance it could be infected for any reason, I avoid going there. 

The creator of Fan Check, Janakan Arulkumarasa, a developer based in Hong Kong, says that his Fan Check “is NOT a malicious application.  Unfortunately, some malicious developers have been spreading a lie that it is – and encouraging people to download a fake virus scanning software, which damages their computer.  This is unfortunate, but has nothing to do with us.”

 Here’s a link to the original article in The Christian Science Monitor - http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/09/14/is-facebook-fan-check-a-virus-careful-whom-you-ask/

It also has a YouTube video that gives you a demonstration of what happens when you search for anti-virus software to remove Facebook Fan Check and comments from users who have encountered this virus issue. 

If any of our readers have had any experience using Facebook Fan Check, I encourage you to share your experience with us.

Story after story has been published since that fateful day demonstrating selfless sacrifice, courage, and hope.   The spirit of life shines through in the middle of the stress and uncertainty even now, when the world is hopefully nearing the end of a major economic crisis.

 Some of you may be facing what would appear to be devasting job losses, debt, and personal loss.  I wish for you all today that you remember even in the most seemingly dyer circumstances good can ultimately prevail.   There’s always a way to get from where you are to where you want to be if you never give up.