Hello, My Name Is . . . What Your Name Tag Says About You
When you attend networking functions, what kind of name tag do you wear? One of those sticky things you scrawled your name on, or something a bit more sophisticated? For just a few cents to a few dollars, you can have a classy, customized name tag that will draw attention and comments and help you make the most of every networking opportunity. Instead of relying on those disposable sticky tags, you can get your own engraved or imprinted name badge at your local office supply store. Some even allow you to add art, such as a full-color logo or even a color photo. At prices ranging from $10 to $20, you can have a distinctive and attractive name badge. In addition to your name, your tag might include your company name, the URL of your web site, the name of your product, or your slogan or tag line. A catchy URL or slogan can be a conversation starter, inviting the people you meet to ask about your business. If you have a graphic designer create your logo, letterhead, business cards, brochure and other marketing materials, ask him or her to also design a special name tag. As an author, I like to draw attention to my book. For less than $3, a local copy shop made a laminated tag with a color image of my book's cover. Wearing it guarantees that people will ask about the book. Your tag might include an image of your company logo, or photos of your products or storefront. Make your name tag large enough that the people who meet you can recognize the images and read the text. One entrepreneur breaks this rule in a creative way. He uses a name tag that is a miniature version of his brochure! The tag gets attention, and gives him an opening to offer a full-size brochure. Do you have an attractive and distinctive web site? Get a name tag that reproduces the home page. Wear a name tag or button with a provocative question or statement on it. It will inspire those you meet to ask questions, and give you an opportunity to tell them about what you do. You can print a tag yourself and put it in one of those plastic name tag holders, or go to a copy shop or graphic company where they can make one for you. In a pinch, you can put one of your business cards in a plastic tag holder. Consider having more than one tag. Each tag may be designed to appeal to a different audience or emphasize a different benefit. You can even make them to coordinate with your outfits! Wear your name tag proudly at the next networking event you attend. Wear it to professional meetings and conferences, when you make a speech or teach a class, or when you are just out and about running errands. You never know when the person in line with you at the post office will become your next customer. Copyright Cathy Stucker. As the Idea Lady, Cathy Stucker helps entrepreneurs and professionals attract customers and make themselves famous. Get free marketing tips at http://www.IdeaLady.com.
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Sell Big Ticket Items Now! - 1 Simple Step To Keep Your Fears From Holding YOU Back
First, some background on today's topic. I've had a terrible week. Not
terrible as in I got nothing done because I did actually get quite a bit done.
But man, I struggled. And I didn't even really understand why.
I have to admit, most of what I got done happened between Thursday and Sunday.
Have you ever had a week like that where you struggled to get things done?
Or worse yet, struggled and didn't get anything done? Or maybe it just FELT LIKE
you didn't accomplish anything?
I hate weeks like that and I rarely feel that way. So why was this week
different? At first, I couldn't put my finger on anything specific. Looking back
and replaying my week in my mind didn't cause anything to stand out either. In
short, nothing really clicked as the cause for the way I was feeling and acting.
So then I decided to do what I always do when I am trying to solve a problem. I
just kinda let it go for a while and did something else.
And THEN, I finally figured out what the problem was!
It wasn't anything specific about THIS week. It was related to something I had
done several weeks ago. And it's very ironic that this was the cause of my
problem.
You see, several weeks ago I had drafted my 90 marketing plan. This document
describes what I plan to do in my Big Ticket Marketing efforts over a 3 month
period.
It's actually not that hard to figure out but it is something that you need to
track closely and see which weeks of marketing effort have the biggest payoff.
In other words, you want to track which things you did that resulted in the
biggest payoff in sales, opt-ins by potential customers, joint ventures,
branding, etc.
Basically all the stuff we need to do to as part of our Big Ticket Marketing
efforts. We want to repeat those things that give us the largest payoff in our
next 3 month marketing plans and drop those things that didn't work out. And of
course we always try new things that we think will work, as well.
Anyway, the reason that I was struggling and feeling like I wasn't accomplishing
this week was because...
I was in OVERWHELM!
I had a lot of tasks I wanted to accomplish, because I'm an ambitious guy. I
want to do well and I have a lot of goals I want to reach. This is all fine, but
the point of having a 90 day marketing plan is so that it will be easy to focus
on the specific set of tasks that I need to accomplish each week by focusing on
ONLY ONE main area each week.
And normally, this system is very effective at keeping me focused. But,
ironically, the act of creating the 90 day marketing plan made me look at
everything I had to accomplish in the next 3 months and I was sort of stuck in
that mode. I wasn't being effective at focusing on this weeks tasks because I
was in OVERWHELM thinking about everything I had to get done, overall.
Have you ever experienced that?
I think we all have at one point or another.
However, I am disappointed that I didn't recognize what was going on sooner. My
background as a software engineer for Microsoft forced me to be pretty
disciplined about focusing on what I needed to do and what our team needed to do
every week to accomplish our goals. And sometimes the ship cycles lasted between
1.5 to 2 years.
Plus I have a black belt in Hapkido (a Korean martial art like a cross between
Tae Kwon Do and Aikido), which requires a lot of training discipline, patience,
practice and long term view. But at the same time requires you to learn and work
on smaller portions of the entire body of techniques, patterns, because that is
the only way you can really learn what you need to know.
Anyway, my point is that I should know better and yet I still fell into the fear
from OVERWHELM. And I think everyone experiences not only overwhelm but other
fears about what they want to do as well.
The title of this article promised you a simple secret to keep your fears from
holding you back - from selling Big Ticket Items. Can you guess what the secret
is?
I'll give you a hint. It's not really a secret at all. In fact everyone knows
about this but unfortunately not everyone knows what to do especially in a case
like overwhelm.
Ready... the secret is ACTION!
Yes, ACTION. Now you are probably wondering... "Hey, wait a sec, you just said
you were in overwhelm, how can action possibly be the secret for that?"
Napoleon Hill, in his book "Think and Grow Rich" said, "Action is the real
measure of intelligence". Thomas Huxley said: "The great end of life is not
knowledge but action." Intelligence means nothing, action means everything.
I knew what I had to do this week and yet I was struggling to do it. I even had
a 90 day marketing plan with each week spelled out for me and yet I was stuck. I
got unstuck when I realized I was overwhelmed and decided to do something about
it. What I decided to do was to take action. But the type of action I decided to
take was influenced by my precious experience both in software development and
martial arts.
Have you heard of Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese word which basically means 'continuous and incremental
improvement'. The word came from when the Japanese were introduced to the work
of W. Edward Deming when he was stationed in Japan to help them rebuild after
World War II. While there, Deming introduced them to what later became know as
Total Quality Management.
What I like about Kaizen is that it takes small action steps over time to solve
problems. The beauty of this approach is that you can take something that
currently seems daunting or puts you in overwhelm and start by only focusing on
one small step that you can take to help improve the problem. The small step is
so easy that you bypass your overwhelm and fears and just do that one small
step. Then after a little while you introduce another small step and
continuously improve the situation or problem until it is solved.
So in this way you CAN take action, even if it is very small, and slowly over
time each action you take has an effect that builds on all the others and
creates an unstoppable force until your problem has been solved. The fact that
the action is so small makes it easy for you to do SOMETHING and not focus on
how much you have to do.
Maybe a short example will help. One of my goals is to increase the readership
of my articles and to get more people exciting about Big Ticket Marketing. One
of the best ways to do that is to get my blog and my articles out to as many
readers as I can. So this week, I wanted to get my Blog and my articles listed
in as many E-zine and Electronic List directories as possible. I even have
software to help me do this.
Guess how many directories and list locations there are?
Well... there are over 1000 just in the built in database in the software I am
using.
I kept putting this off, because I had a bunch of other stuff I needed to get
done as well. But this was a major focus for me this week. Finally, what I
decided to do was to just add my information to ONE directory or list every time
I finished another task. Breaking it down so that I only had to worry about one
entry every so often REALLY helped me make some progress in this area, without
worrying about how many there were.
I still have a long way to go, but my initial goal was to get listed in 20-25
sites and I'm currently sitting at 17. A few more sites and I will have met my
goal!
Plus, Kaizen is really how I study martial arts so the process is very familiar
to me even when applied to something else.
Ok, so the one 1 simple step you need to take anytime you have a fear to conquer
or an overwhelming situation to deal with is to decide on one simple action that
you can do in a very short amount of time that will ultimately help you solve
your problem. Do this, and then increase what you are doing in that area by a
little bit each time and before you know it you will have your problem solved.
Try this! It works amazingly well with very little effort. And you get a huge
amount of satisfaction knowing that you are taking steps to accomplish what you
want to get done... and you'll be doing it almost effortlessly.
By the way, if you want a great little resource on how to apply Kaizen, you
should get The Kaizen Way - One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert
Maurer. It's a relatively recent book and a quick read at 182 pages. You can
find it on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble online. Maybe this is your first small
action step.
Also, check out the resource box below for some websites that will give you some
resources you can really use related to your Big Ticket Marketing efforts!
How To Recover Your Almost Customers
You'll always need to find new prospects for your business. But don't overlook the prospects you already attracted. Many are close to buying. Use these four simple procedures to convert those "almost customers" into paying customers.
2 Little Words That Work Marketing Magic
In his classic best-seller, "How To Win Friends And Influence People," Dale Carnegie's second chapter is entitled The Big Secret of Dealing With People. The secret is summed up in this principle: Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Your Marketing ? From The Couch To The Cash Register
When you put time or money into any marketing plan, your only
objective is to MAKE A SALE. Are you sure your marketing is going to
get your customer from their couch to your cash register?
The Five Most Common Joint Venture Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
Joint Venture marketing has become a highly popular way for small businesses to maximize their profits. When two or more businesses combine their resources synergistically, it creates greater marketing impact and bigger profits than either can have alone.
The Dare-To-Be-Different In Marketing Checklist
There is a big payoff in being different. When you accept "what is" you place yourself in the category of "sameness," and people don't buy sameness. Why should they? They can do sameness themselves. If your prospects aren't seeing the value you offer, you may be coming across as the same and not daring to be different.
How to Booste Your Profit Quickly
There are so many competitions by running business. So you must do something in a smart way. Check this list to see which ones you can use in order to pull more profits from your business.
The Anatomy of Hype
On a copywriting board I frequent, someone expressed
bafflement that several respected marketers criticized the
tone of a sales page he wrote. "Why did they apologize to
their subscribers while linking to my pitch? This approach
sells," he said.
Digital Printing vs. Press Printing ? A Comparison Guide
When it comes time to print your brand identity materials, there's one overarching question for you to consider - whether to print the resulting materials on a digital printer or traditional press. There are many differences between the two processes, some of which are outlined below.
Budget Marketing: Managing Your Marketing Money Wisely!
There's a saying that half of all marketing efforts are wasted, but it's impossible to tell which half!
3 Ways to Gain and KEEP Customers Using Postcards
In today's competitive (sometimes cutthroat) marketplace, savvy business owners need to constantly look for ways to get and, more importantly, keep their customers. When used properly postcards offer a great opportunity to do both.
Marketing Operations Elevates Public Relations and Communications Professionals
Is your marketing department taking advantage of MOM and MRM? Do you have
BAM and DAM systems in place? Do you know how to measure NPV? Do you even
know what I'm talking about?
Use a Guarantee In Your Headline To Increase Trust
Sometimes you can use a guarantee effectively in your headline. Doing so often creates increased trust in the reader. After all, if you guarantee it, you must believe in whatever it is you are guaranteeing.
Marketing Success - Marketing Strategy - Brand Identity Guru
Marketing message x Credibility x Visibility = Marketing Success
Money Making Real Estate Marketing Ideas
Real estate marketing is a lot simpler than most Realtors
make it out to be. Some equate expensive products and
services with quality.
A Forgotten Marketing Tool ? The Postcard
The postcard can be a very powerful marketing tool. Many of our customers and/or students use them in their business. The key is to set up the card to market effectively for you. Concentrate on a specific item or niche.
Trade Shows Are Not a Waste!
According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (the trade association for trade shows), industry spends more than $60 billion annually on trade show participation, more than the expenditures for magazines, radio and outdoor billboards combined! And, trade shows are more cost-effective than direct selling when it comes to reaching new customers.
First to Market Theory
AGE OLD QUESTION
Five Tips to Make Your Marketing More Creative
Same old same old just doesn't sell anymore. To make your marketing stand out, you need to get creative. Below are five tips designed to get your creative juices flowing. Some are brainteasers or are what Michael Michalko in "Thinkertoys" calls Linear Thinkertoys. Others fall under intuition or Intuitive Thinkertoys.
Some tips may appeal to you more than others. My suggestion is to try them all. Even the ones you're not drawn to may still open some doors that wouldn't have opened any other way.
These tips will work whether you sell a product, a service or both.
1. Find the "second right answer." Roger von Oech talks about this in A Whack on the Side of the Head. Don't be content with the first good idea you come up with. Take the time to think of a second, or third or 50th idea. Quantity counts ? the more ideas you have to choose from, the more likely you'll discover an excellent or even a brilliant one. Remember, Thomas Edison discovered thousands of ways a light bulb didn't work.
2. Change the question. If you change the question, you're probably going to get a different answer. You say you want to sell more products? What if you changed the question to how can you make more money? Well, there are other ways to make more money than to sell more products ? maybe you lower the cost of making the product or you raise the price of the product. Now you suddenly have new avenues to explore rather than just going down the same tired path.
3. Ask your product or service how it wants to be sold. Now we move into more intuitive techniques. Start by getting yourself into a relaxed state. Take a few deep breaths or practice some relaxation techniques. Imagine your product or service in front of you. Now ask it questions. Who do you want to be sold to? How do you want to be sold? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Who do you think you can help? Why do you want to help them? You can also do this technique as a journal exercise. Write down the question and answer. See what bubbles up onto the paper.
4. Paint a public relations campaign. What would a press release look like if you painted it? Or sculpted it? How about a dance number? A collage? Take any part of your marketing that troubles you and turn it into a piece of art. By combining two dissimilar acts, you may discover your answer. Or you may not come up with anything at all, but just the act of "playing" and "creating" could jolt something loose. Hours or days later your idea may suddenly end up in your lap.
5. Walk away from it. If nothing is working, then stop. You can literally walk away by taking a walk, or just quit thinking about it. This is especially important if you find yourself getting frustrated or discouraged. Give your subconscious time to mull things over. The idea may just suddenly appear to you. Or, after a few days, try another exercise or two. That may be the catalyst you need.
The most important tip of all? Make sure you have a blast. Being creative should be fun. Keep it light and fun, don't struggle too hard with it, and see how many ideas you're rewarded with.
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