Tag Archives: Advertising and Marketing

Are you doing the right things?

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As small business owners, we need to constantly be doing the right things to be selling and marketing to get new clients each moment of every day. At least that’s how it feels to me. Every activity or event that I participate in needs to have a quantifiable return on investment (ROI) and bring me one step closer to getting a new client.

Trade Shows

I was with a client this morning who was investing tons of time, money and staff in a trade show with the only objective of raising awareness of their product. I pointed out that while that was a great idea, wouldn’t it be a better idea to do a quick survey to make a case to gauge interest in one of their new products or to create an event where they could invite people to?

Sampling

One conference that I went to, gave away a swag bag that had mostly paper in it. Most interesting was a pack of kleenex packed especially and branded with the company’s logo. The company was a marketing consulting firm so I have no idea how the kleenex related but at least it was a creative way of introducing their card. If you’re sampling a product, how are you telling your brand story and giving them a call to action through that sample? If you’re selling a service and it’s specific to some people (ie. most people don’t want or need your services) then consider adding a sample of a related product to what your service provides as a benefit. For example, I saw a stress ball shaped as a brain at a headhunters’ booth they were giving away. It was memorable and related to their service.

Speaking

I’ve spoken a lot about this in the past so I’ll just make it short by simply saying if you’re not offering a way to connect or a next step to help your audience with respect to the topic that you’re covering, you’re doing both you and them a disservice. They are in the room because they are in pain and you can help them. If you do a great job helping them with that pain and don’t make an offer, the next guy who does a similar speech but actually does make an offer will get the business you were supposed to get.

So if you’re not offering a call to action or a next step that allows the people you interact with to eventually become your loving fans and clients, then you may not be doing the right things…think carefully about it and stop wasting opportunities.

Need more chicken soup for your biz? Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook or connect with me on LinkedIn –and let’s talk!

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“The Terrified Networker”

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I used to be a terrified networker–afraid of those milling crowds and round
table breakfasts.  How could a self confident professional speaker extravert
like me be afraid? Here’s my story…

My first networking experience scarred me for years. As a brand new coach, a
networking seminar I attended taught me how to use a 30 second elevator speech
to introduce myself to individuals in a crowd and to allow (force) them to
experience what it is that I do (coach) on the spot through a series of
questions directed at the victim in front of me.

Let me tell you how fast most people I encountered at that cocktail ran away
from me. The most memorable, however was the woman who flat out declared with
wide eyed fear (while physically backing away from me) that she felt that I was
trying to sell something to her and after delivering that blow, fled out of the
building.  I followed her not long after and vowed never to return to the foray
of networking for as long as I lived.

Now, years later, I can recognize that there were more than a few issues with
my approach on that fateful day.  I had honestly decided to take this key
marketing tool out of my personal toolkit to gain new clients.

I then discussed this terror around networking with my own coach and she
referred me to Coach U founder Sandy Villa’s book titled Power Networking (Bard
Press, 2000).   I started experiencing a whole shift in not just the way I
viewed networking but in the whole way I approached marketing my business. Continue reading →