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How to get talked about when you are not in the room

February 25th, 2010

Networking is one of the most effective forms of marketing, especially when you run your own business. Even with the explosion of sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, nothing quite beats being able to get in front of “real” people, shaking them by the hand and having a face-to-face conversation.

But, let’s be honest here. The big downside of networking is time. There are only so many hours in a working week and, although it is very easy to attend networking events from breakfast right through to evening drinks, it doesn’t allow you, the business owner, much time to manage your day-to-day business.

One of the best definitions of successful networking I have come across is “being talked about when you’re not in the room.”

So if this creates an opportunity to use the power of networking without physically networking,, how can you come up in these conversations?

The secret to this is in what you offer.

Getting yourself talked about is not about defining yourself with a job title but helping others clearly understand how you may benefit specific people. And the clearer and more specific you are in what problems you there to solve, the easier it is for people to bring you up in conversation.

That’s right – I’m talking niches here!

Let me give you an example: Coaching.

You can’t go to a networking event without bumping in to at least 2 or 3 coaches in the room, can you? And what do they all tell you what it is they do? Yup, that’s right – coaching.

But what makes them stand out from each other? Not an awful lot, to be honest.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am sure that a lot of coaches are lovely people! And yes, some of them say they are career coaches, business coaches or help people with their work/life balance.

But come one – how many coaches have you met in the last few weeks who stand out enough for you to have specifically talked about them to someone else?

Let me ask you another question. Of the people you have met over the last few weeks, who have you talked about to other people? And let’s go one stage further. Who have you talked about to someone else, only to find that 2 other people also know their name?

How powerful is that? Instant social proof that this person must be someone to be contacted if not just one person mentions them, but 2 others do as well.

More often than not, the real reason behind you remembering this person is because they were “niche” enough for you trigger a “oh, really – that’s interesting”.

They were “niche” enough for you to check them out on LinkedIn or have a read of their blog when you were back in your office. Perhaps they were even “niche” enough for you to sign up for their newsletter or follow them on Twitter.

Telling people what you do is not enough to get you remembered. And being “niche” enough is not just about targeting a particular client type.

Being “niche” enough is about being able to clearly define yourself in terms of what problems you solve and the results that your clients achieve. The more specific and niche you are in the results you create, the easier it is for someone to “get you”. And thus talk about you.

And remember, it’s not just about the conversations that happen in networking events. The share-ability of social media makes you being talked about online even more powerful. Someone’s comments about you become evergreen, staying right there for others to read and share too.

So stop telling people about what it is you “do”. And start getting clearer on your “niche” so that others remember the problems you solve and the results you create.

Got a comment to make? I’d love to read your thoughts and ideas

Tags: branding, networking, Niche Marketing
Posted in Featured Articles, Marketing Small Business, Neworking Tips, Selling You & Your Business | 5 Comments »

How grateful are you for your clients?

February 24th, 2010

I met up with a new client last week and was blown away by her photography. A self-taught amateur turned professional, it was obvious – even from someone who knows nothing about the art of photography – that she had a real eye for capturing startling images.

But talent, a business does not make!

When she started to tell me about the story behind her business and where she was at today, it became clearer and clearer to me that it wasn’t a lack of business skills that was holding back her business.

What was holding her back was her business attitude.

Her pricing was so low, that even she couldn’t quite believe what her hourly rate really was once we divided her commission rate by the number of hours she took to do the project (and I know I was being generous with the actual time she spent!). What was her reason for charging such so low prices?

“I am just so grateful for any work that I can get,” is what she replied.

Grateful is very dangerous word to use when talking about your clients. Thankful and even appreciative are great words. But grateful – never!

Grateful puts you in a place where you secretly beg for a client to work with you. When you are on the phone to them, you find yourself crossing your fingers and talking randomly to fill up the silence while the potential client decides whether to hire you or not. And when you do get a “yes” from them, you throw yourself in to the project, nothing being too much for you to do, despite the number of hours you end up spending.

Grateful will make you bend over backwards for a client who never pays you on time.

Grateful will make you drive for miles just to have a cup of coffee with someone who picks your brains and then says goodbye, leaving you to pick up the tab.

A grateful mindset must be left well alone and you must be able to speak with potential new clients with a “I’ve got a full diary this week” mindset. Even if you have to pretend to flick through your calendar to arrange a meeting (I did this on many an occasion in my first couple of years!!), you’ll notice a huge difference to how your potential clients make their decisions and how much you are able to charge.

Have you found yourself being too grateful for clients? And how has a grateful mindset affected your business? It always great to read your comments, too.

Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business, Prices & Charge Rates | 1 Comment »

How to Manage Your Googleability

February 11th, 2010

How many times have you checked someone out on the internet before meeting them?

Perhaps you are off to a conference or networking event and you’ve checked out the speaker’s credentials before attending.

Some may call it stalking! But for most of you, being able to read someone’s LinkedIn profile or look at their website before picking up the phone to them, is a useful gauge on what this person is all about. You get to check out what they may stand for, their tone of voice and even a find a picture to see what they look like.

But when was the last time you Googled yourself?

And what did you find when you did?

(Quick Note: When I refer to Google, I am referring to all search engines)

Hopefully Googling your name produced some great results. Possibly professional looking online profiles, a comprehensive About Us page from your website, half a dozen articles authored by you and perhaps even a link to a photo of you accepting an award the other month.

But what if you find something that you would rather not have others see?

Here are some of the common pitfalls to being found on the web and what you can do to overcome them.

1. Your social life is there for all to see. Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are packed full of photos and videos. And what happens when one of your friends decides to upload photos from last weekend’s party and you get tagged?

Tagging is a process of adding someone’s profile link to the photo, thus allowing this photo to appear in a search of your name – easy to do but perhaps not something you want to be associated with. If you find anything you don’t want to be associated with, go and un-tag yourself.

2.Business v Social. You use Facebook for friends & family but what happens when a business contact wants to become your friend? Rather than ignore them or reject them, make use of the privacy settings. You get to set the privacy settings specific to your needs.

For example, did you know you can update your status and set it so only certain friend lists are able to view it?

3.Your abandoned online profile is ranked higher than your website. Sites such as LinkedIn and Ecademy are ranked very highly by Google because of the size of these sites and the continuous updates and activity. So it is very likely that your online profiles can appear above a link to your website’s contact page.

And if you are not active on those profiles or, even worse, they are out of date and don’t reflect what your business is all about today, it could sway the judgement of the person who is Googling your name. If you have an online profile that shows up on the search, make sure it is up to date.

4.You don’t appear anywhere. Ooops! No record of you anywhere on the internet? Perhaps not critical for some businesses, but for the majority of you who read this blog I would expect a link to your website to come up when your name is Googled, at the very least.

Perhaps your name is not mentioned anywhere on your website – a common preference for some businesses who like to promote their “corporate” brand over their “personal” brand. Unfortunately when using this approach, your name is nowhere to be found so add your name on your website somewhere, even if it is just in the “About Us” page.

5.Too many other John Smiths! A common problem for name Googleability is having a common name. This is where sites like LinkedIn and Ecademy can really help get your profile ahead of others who share the same name. Also submitting articles on sites such EzineArticles.com can get you found more easily.

One other consideration is to use a middle name or even a pseudo name – authors and bloggers often do this to help their name be found more easily.

Getting found on the web is not always easy. But whether you want to be found on the web or not, is immaterial. Hide yourself away and protect your identity by all means. But think of your potential clients out there.

How many of them are able to find you? And if they can’t find you, what do they do? Do they try a bit harder and find another way of tracking you down – or take the easier option and move on to the next supplier or contact that has been recommended to them?

Let me know what you find when you Google your name!

Quick Note: This is a huge topic and it seemed to get huger, huger (!) as I wrote it – so if there is anything you are not sure of, or I have glossed over a point too much – do get in touch. Delighted to answer any questions you have.

Posted in Featured Articles, Online Networking, Social Media, Website & SEO Tips | 8 Comments »

Getting started with social media: where to begin?

February 9th, 2010

There is no doubt that social media is having a huge impact on the way we communicate. Now that Facebook is cited to be the 3^rd largest country in the world, having more registered users than the population of USA, and social networking has become the number one activity on the web, taking the place of … well, you know what was number one before, don’t you? (don’t dare type the word and get shown up in the wrong kind of keyword searches!!), it looks like that social media is not a fad.

Social media is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

So rather than bury your head in the sand and try to pretend it will all go away, at some point you will have to acknowledge these new ways of communicating with potential clients.

But where to begin?

Just because social media is technology based, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by it. But social media is just like any other type of marketing tool in that it needs proper planning, objectives set and a timeline planned out to make sure it is an effective use of your resources.

And like any other marketing tool, the place to start with social media is with your clients.

Too many business owners get sucked in to “all that glitters” and before you know it, they are tweeting, facebooking and blogging all hours of the day.

But how many of you have considered your clients first?

You wouldn’t dream of placing a £5K advert in the Sunday Times without thorough market research to gauge the return on your investment.

You wouldn’t dream of getting in to your car and driving 500 miles to see a potential client without having a phone conversation with them first to understand what it was they were looking for.

And yet, there are business owners all over the world who are jumping on the social media bandwagon – without taking the time to consider how their target clients use it.

It actually doesn’t matter what you like or dislike about the different social media tools, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. What matters is how your target clients are beginning to use social media and what they like and don’t like about them.

So before you tweet, poke or blog – STOP! Take the time to understand how your target clients use various social media tools. Once you’ve done that, your investment in integrating social media in to your marketing strategy will be spent more wisely.

What thoughts do you have about getting started with social media? It would be great to read your comments

Posted in Marketing Small Business | 2 Comments »

Is it Time to Ditch Traditional Marketing?

January 28th, 2010

The past few years have created very exciting marketing opportunities for small business owners. The ability to get yourself known, both locally and internationally, has been made easier and cheaper than ever before.

The explosion of social media has allowed you to upload videos, publish articles and reach out to potentially thousands of new clients – every day. And without having to shell out thousands of pounds to do it.

But does that mean traditional marketing, such as printed brochures, face-to-face networking and advertising are things of the past?

Can’t we just ditch all that expensive stuff and put all our energies in to these new, web-tech tools?

It’s tempting isn’t it?

But be tempted and you’ll probably find yourself left with a very quiet business pipeline.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Social media and online marketing techniques can be incredibly effective. I use tools such as facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn because of they do generate great results for me and my business.

But use them in isolation? Absolutely not!

Behind my very visible online presence lies speaking schedules, regular face-to-face networking, newsletters as well as postcard campaigns and word of mouth referrals to name but a few other marketing activities I embrace.

Let me give you a great example of a recent campaign that has taken place over the past couple of months. Google released its own internet browser, Chrome. And if there is one company that is synonymous with the internet, it is Google.

Google is dominant in the world of online advertising and it has become a verb, just the way the brand Hoover did all those decades ago.

And yet, when Google launched its new internet browser, did it rely only on the internet?

Absolutely not!

They took out full page spreads in national papers. They were on billboards up and down the country. They had posters in and around the underground in London.

They had a full scale, offline advertising campaign going. And all to spread the word of an internet based product, that could only be used on the internet.

So, it’s not a case of choosing between using social media and traditional methods. It’s about integrating the two worlds together and making sure your offline world is backing up what you are doing online, and vice versa.

How do you do this? Here are a few simple suggestions to get started with (and none of which involved a national advertising campaign, you’d be relieved to know!)

Have your online profiles on your business card, along with your phone number and business address – give people the option of how they want to get in touch with you.
Arrange to have a coffee meeting with a new contact you “meet” on LinkedIn – get to really know your online network.
Have your phone number listed on your website, blog and social networking profiles – make it easy for people to speak to you, rather than be forced to message you electronically all the time.
Pick up the phone to someone rather than send them a message online – it’s amazing how these conversations can go!
Follow up the people you’ve met at a networking event and search for them on LinkedIn – get connected online with the people you meet offline.
Use postcards to promote your facebook page or LinkedIn group to encourage more people to visit and sign up – don’t just rely on those automatic email invitations that seemed to get ignored most of the time.

These are just a few ideas to get you going and very few of them need any cash to follow them through. So, don’t get caught up with the sparkles and glitz of social media and ignore your offline strategies.

The more you can integrate your social media marketing with your traditional marketing, the more effective it will be.

Posted in Featured Articles, Marketing Small Business, Social Media, Website & SEO Tips | 4 Comments »

Social Media: What’s the worst thing you can do?

January 26th, 2010

There’s lots of bad things you can do on social media, isn’t there?

You can sell to everyone all the time and create noise that no-one listens to. You can automate your updates to the point that people wonder if you really a bot, rather than a human being.

You can get obsessed by numbers and spend your whole week focusing on getting more and more followers, irrespective of whether they are porn stars, get-rich-quick-system-sellers or C-list celebs.

You can even kid yourself that because you spent the whole morning replying to tweets and retweeting other people’s tweets that you are actually contributing to the profitability of your business.

But what is the worst thing you can do?

It’s getting started and quitting before you achieve anything.

Most small business owners throw themselves in social media tools, such as facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, create a profile, start updating their status and then after a few weeks, let it all peter out and give up.

It can actually be more damaging to your brand and business to have a twitter account lying dormant or a LinkedIn profile with a half-done profile than having nothing at all.

Sites like LinkedIn and Twitter are indexed so quickly by search engines that your online profiles can appear very quickly in the search results. Go on, try it now – google your own name and see how many of your half-done social networking profiles appear.

And that’s what your potential clients will see too.

By all means, you need to have a play with many of these online tools before deciding how best to use them in your business – there’s a lot to get your head round, isn’t it?

But, start your social media marketing with purpose. Have a strategy, know what you want to get out of using these tools and work out how you are going to incorporate them into the rest of your marketing.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, so don’t start until you are ready to achieve.

Posted in Blogging, Marketing Small Business, Social Media | 7 Comments »

How does the style of your writing need to differ between your blog, your brochure and your website?

January 21st, 2010

Most business owners find it incredibly difficult to put down in words why they are so great to work with. Writing can be one of the most challenging skills to learn and master and it’s certainly not high on the list when you first start out.

All the focus in the first few months is around financing, cash flows, business planning and marketing strategy. But one of the most beneficial skills to have as a business owner is often the written word.

Contracting writing out to copywriters can be expensive and often time-consuming. So when small business owners decide to get on with the writing themselves, without thinking about how to write effectively, they are can be costing themselves dearly.

And writing copy for your brochure, your website and your blog all need different styles and approaches.

Let’s take them one by one.

Writing for your brochure. Your brochure and leaflets are going to be printed so design and layout can be just as important considerations as the words you write. Your headline needs to be eye-catching and stop readers in their tracks. This is the time to be selling, to be focusing on what problem the potential client has and how you can make it all better.

Your style has to be strong, punchy and to the point as you’ve usually got limited space. But you’ve also got to get all the facts in to enable your potential client to make a decision.

Writing for your website. Again, this is the time to be selling. But just because you may have unlimited space and pages, doesn’t mean you can ramble on aimlessly.

Strong headlines are essential. Use questions to stop your online visitor in their tracks quickly (you’ve got less than a second to make an impact!) And sharp, clear benefit-driven copy to outline how it is you may be the answer to your potential client’s problems.

People read differently on a screen than they do from print so use short sentences, 2 to 3 word paragraphs and bullet points where appropriate.

Writing for your blog. Whilst your brochure and website is there to sell your business, your blog is there is to build relationships. It is here you need to stop selling and focus on giving value, content and useful information.

Your blog is place to showcase your expertise, to share tips and ideas with your readers and build up a useful resource for potential clients to come back to again and again.

Your blog is one of the doorways to your business so welcome your readers and invite them to check out what is inside, linking relevant pages to your website where the selling can take place. If you try to sell hard at the doorstep, your potential client won’t think about crossing the threshold.

So when thinking about writing, consider the different platforms for your writing. Know when to sell and when to give value. And a blog is place where you will sell more but selling less!

What have you done differently in your brochure, website and blog copy writing?

Posted in Blogging, Marketing Small Business, Website & SEO Tips | 3 Comments »

7 Ways to Build your Blog Following

January 19th, 2010

A blog can be a great marketing tool for a small business. It allows you, the business owner, to showcase your expertise, share ideas and tips on what you help your clients with and give potential clients a real flavour of what you are all about.

A blog can be your online personality, giving some umph and meaning to an otherwise static and boring online brochure.

But for a blog to make real impact on potential clients, it helps to have some life in it. It helps to have more than just you contribute content.

And this is where your blog following comes in. Have people following you, reading your content on a regular basis, stopping by and commenting from time to time – all of this helps give it some credence.

After all, people tend to purchase via recommendations and if others are seen to be contributing and commenting to your blog, it gives the right impression to a new visitor.

But how do you build your blog following? Here are 7 ways.

Tweet your articles – set up your RSS feed to automatically tweet your blog posts and it is instantly tweeted once published for your followers to see. As twitter users are already used to publishing content online with their tweets, they tend to have less reservations for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Tweet your comments – when you get a great comment, tweet about it. If there is one thing that people like more than a great blog article, is someone leaving a great comment. Some of the best blog articles I have read in recent months have had comments that have been more interesting than the articles.
Make your blog subscription easy – don’t hide your RSS feed button away. Make it prominent and usually the best place is top right corner. The more people who subscribe, the more likely you are to have people stop by and comment, as well as share your articles to their network.
Offer email subscription too – not everyone who visits your blog will know how to subscribe to their RSS feed so don’t assume they know how to come back and read your blog. Most people know how to subscribe via email, so give them the option of receiving updates via email. Feedburner is a great system for this.
Link your blog in with your email newsletter – invite your email subscribers to come read your latest blog articles and, again, specifically ask for their comments. If your readers aren’t used to commenting on blogs you may need to lay out some guidelines – make them feel safer about leaving a comment for the world to see.
Email your articles to specific people – if you have a good offline relationship with your network, take the time to email specific articles to specific people and invite comments. By valuing their opinion, they will more likely make the time to drop by and leave them on your blog.
Thank your followers – take the time to thank everyone who visits and leaves a comment. You can, as the blog administrator, see someone’s email address so drop them a line and tell them how much you value their thoughts. They will appreciate it and come back again. And probably tell their friends to come too!

Building your blog following takes time, but it is time worth taking!

What do you think? Have you got another way of building a blog following?

Posted in Marketing Small Business | 3 Comments »

How to get talked about when you are not in the room

How grateful are you for your clients?

Getting started with social media: where to begin?

How does the style of your writing need to differ between your blog, your brochure and your website?

7 Ways to Build your Blog Following

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