Tag Archives: Social media

Project a Successful Image: 7 Ways

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In my world of marketing my own business, image is everything. It is the packaging to your product. It is the first impression and sometimes only impression someone will have of your business. Projecting a successful one takes some planning. Check out these tips below:

1. Look Good for Any Occasion

Always dress one notch higher than what’s expected. If dress is business casual, put on a suit.

2. Write and Speak Correctly

Improve your grammar, spelling, and especially, your diction. If English is your second language, you’ll need to work harder.

3. Master the Art of Intelligent Conversation

Be up on current events. Be a lifelong learner. Take courses, read books, listen to interesting pod-casts.

4. Be Charitable

Give your time, energy, and wisdom to people around you as well as those in dire need.

5. Be Organized

You are judged on little things like timely response to messages and email. Showing up late disrespects others and makes you look careless or worse, indifferent.

6. Make People Feel Important

When face-to-face, have a firm handshake, make eye contact, and show respect by being present.

7. Spend Time with Successful People

Build a circle of people you respect and admire, and you too will be respected and admired by the people important to you.

via Project a Successful Image: 7 Ways.

At the end of the day, as the song goes: All you need is love. Love for yourself, respect for others and for how you treat them and yourself. My favorite author Robert Holden says “if your definition of success doesn’t have the word love in it, then you need a new definition” and I couldn’t agree more.

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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How Smart Companies Use PR to Get the Word Out

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English: WRAL-TV reporter Adam Owens in Chapel...

English: WRAL-TV reporter Adam Owens in Chapel Hill, NC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s pretty common knowledge that PR is the cheapest way for small businesses to market themselves. All it takes is spinning an interesting and timely story to the right media outlet whose audience is interested in your story. Here are some more tips to mesmerize masses of people with your message in the most inexpensive way.

1. No one cares about your story.Media is interested in one thing: the effect of your product. The lives that have been changed or made better by your company and your product.

2. PR masters don’t write stories about themselves. They write stories about their customers.

3. Here’s a powerful PR example. A story about a new website that sells discount airline tickets is not very interesting to many reporters, or their readers. But a story about two long, lost twins who attended a family reunion and finally met again is good reading. And the fact that those twins mention that they were only able to get to the reunion because the then-new website Priceline.com (which I co-founded) made the trip affordable to them is a great sidenote.

via How Smart Companies Use PR to Get the Word Out.

Having a clear vision of your brand voice, your niche and your audiences pain points, you will be armed to charm the headsets off any interviewer and get your story across.

Remember, it’s always about stories. Good ones, bad ones but always those that evoke deep emotion. Get out there and get your own free marketing. I can’t wait to hear your story.

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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Lunch Meetings: 5 Reasons They Work

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One of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to spend more time face to face with clients, prospects and other small businesses I can partner with. This is a perfect article if you’ve been thinking along the same lines. Here are some compelling reasons to have a lunch meeting with someone you want some alone time with to grow your business.

1. You’ll Control the Environment

Their office is their territory: their colleagues may interrupt you, or they may be distracted by calls or emails.

2. You’ll Be on Equal Footing

I hate going to someone’s office and sitting in front of their desk. They sit in the power position and wait for you to perform.

3. You’ll Have Captive time

Eating is an expected social experience and few people schedule a lunch for less than 60 to 90 minutes.

4. You’ll Create a Shared Experience

Create a memory that becomes the basis for your future relationship. Let it be an awesome experience you both recall with fondness.

5. You’ll Do Them a Favor

Pick up the check!!! It may seem obvious but many business people are inclined to split bills today. Going Dutch is not an option if you want to retain power.

via Lunch Meetings: 5 Reasons They Work.

I know you’re probably a social media maven but if you’re a small business, your face IS your business and it needs to get out of the office and actually look at other faces you want to do business with in person.

Go ahead, pick up that phone and make those lunch reservations, your business will be glad for it.

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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Are you guilty of oversharing?

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Too much

Too much (Photo credit: anyone’s ghost)

Last night I listened to a speaker who was highly touted by the host as being so phenomenal as to be back by popular demand from thousands of miles away. Her topic was the same as mine, helping small businesses grow through branding so I was truly looking forward to her perspective.

Gory Story

After listening to the speaker cataloging 14 deaths (some in gruesome detail) over 2 years in her family, the buffet dinner wasn’t sitting too well in my stomach. Neither was the speaker.  I couldn’t understand how  hearing her going on and on about the various horrible things in her life would help my business.

Down in the dumps

Don’t get me wrong, I teach my clients to tell a deeply moving and personal Phoenix rising story of how they were down and out but learned (and now teach to others) the skills needed to survive and to thrive. The key difference between what I do and what I witnessed last night was context. If the deeply moving oversharing has little or no bearing on why I’m listening to you in the first place, then that’s oversharing my friend.

Make it relevant

For example, I tell the story of how I had a miscarriage on stage during a talk due to self neglect and overwork as an opener to my Breakout of Burnout keynote. The point I make is that I learned the things I’m going to be teaching that night to avoid the same type of burnout from happening to the audience.

Just stop it

So stop playing on the heartstrings of softies and stop exasperating jaded souls like me and tell me a story that relates to how you can help with my pain instead. If I understand that you get me and because of your story, now trust and belive that you can help me, then you’ve got me, I’m yours.

Don’t waste people’s time or attention. There’s little enough of it to go around–use it to help them by telling them the story of why you can help them.

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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5 Ways Social Media Can Ruin Your Reputation

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Maxistheman

Maxistheman (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a relative social media newbie who helps entrepreneurs grow their businesses, I am really worried about doing the wrong things online. The other day, a friend had to explain that #FF on a tweet meant that they were praising your work. Who knew! So if you’re like me and you want to understand how not to damage your brand on social media, read the great tips below.

1. Boring posts. A boring post is anything that lacks your unique personality or perspective. Giving a fresh perspective on an old topic or going against the status quo is what gets noticed.

2. Disrespecting others. Social media is not the place to work out your problems with people. But don’t retaliate publicly. Simply delete the negative comment, block the person and then decide if you want to address the issue privately, or just move on.

3. Failing to promote others. When someone gives you a great piece of advice, post it on Facebook or Twitter and tag that person. Or utilize the Endorsements feature on LinkedIn and begin endorsing people within your network.

4. Not replying to comments. Actively monitoring comments and questions on every post can be time-consuming, but even posting one follow-up comment per post can show you care and that you’re engaged.

5. Being tagged in questionable photos.   As a business owner, be mindful of how you want to be perceived publicly. Untag or delete yourself from any inappropriate photos.

via 5 Ways Social Media Can Ruin Your Reputation.

If you’ve already made some of the above blunders online, don’t worry. Thankfully social media is so fast and furious that your mistakes are pages and pages of posts ago and what counts is your momentum going forward.

The key thing in social media is a nice blend of social and business while keeping it real and personal. I am such a newbie that I didn’t know how to mass invite my LinkedIn contacts to a workshop, plus I didn’t want to invite everyone. So, I personally wrote a different message to each person I invited including what I thought about their website or biz idea. Wow, did I get complimentary comments and great results. Sometimes, it pays to be a novice!

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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