Turning Ideas into $$$$s takes WORK!
Are you always on the outlook for new ideas to turn your ideas into $$$$s?
Do you look at new promotional media and new ways to to get the word out about your product or service or do you do the same old
media (magazines, newspapers, Television)?
DIGITAL has CHANGED the WORLD
According to an article in Newspaper Death Watch professional marketers are changing their use of media, especially print. Depending on their target audience, they are using the media that is actually relevant to their audiences. That sometimes means digital. That could mean visual in places where their prospects frequent or it could mean finding new fun promotional techniques to help people reach their audience.
The professionals are aware that the world has changed.
(professionals meaning here people who are paid to do the promotion)
Competitions, social media promotions and games or contests allow direct and indirect promotion. They create fun and excitement. One such option is a scavenger hunt like the one currently being run by Firepole Marketing. (Wow do I admire what they are doing)
Now doing a contest or a competition, a scavenger hunt or even a social media campaign takes WORK.
You need to keep priming the pump.
You need to keep the excitement happening.
You need to track what you are delivering.
You need to keep people informed about what is happening
In the good old days of advertising, you designed your ad, placed it in your media and made sure that when people responded to the ad, your suppliers and staff could fulfill the orders. The work came in preparing the ad and making sure you could deliver what was promised in your advertisement.
In the second decade of the 21st century, you need to keep the energy and excitement going.
- You need to respond to the tweets,
- Support the Facebook likes, shares and comments,
- Answer questions and comments on blogs and
- Spend time and energy interacting with people to keep the excitement up.
And that is WORK.
Work that many small business people fail to understand or plan for.
Yes Virtual assistants can help you but only if they have clear, measurable goals.
The other day, Sherryl Perry, in Keep up with the Web wrote a blog on what to measure (Tracking Your Blog Post SEO Meta Tag Data). I asked Sherryl about how she tracks and I am hoping that she will write a blog around her answer to my comment. One thing – even to track takes WORK.
Writing a book takes WORK!
Writing a blog takes WORK!
Creating a product takes WORK!
Delivering a service takes WORK!
Building a relationship takes WORK!
Maintaining a relationship once built takes WORK!
Work is a four letter word but it is one that will help you earn dollars rather than one that gets your mouth washed out with soap (do they still do that?).
If you want to turn your ideas into dollars, you need to plan to work. And finding out what to work at, what to do takes PLANNING and PREPARATION.
Remember if you have the money to pay others to do the work, you are using the money that you worked for to save you time and buy the time and effort of others.
WORK costs – money and time.
What work are you doing today to help your ideas become the dollars you want? Share your work in the comments below. And yes that takes work but it helps get your message to a wider audience.
To your success in making those ideas = $$$$$s
Researching Expectations for 2013
On going research is essential for any business to succeed. Today would you please answer 8 simple questions that will allow me to develop materials and blogs to help you more effectively. The survey is here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/62YM3QN.
Your expectations in life and business often dictate how you respond to your environment and the events that happen. In life this can affect things like:
- Relationships
- Career
- Children
- Where you live
- How you live
In business your expectations can affect:
- your cashflow
- how you deal with clients
- your sustainability
- how you run your “business”
If you expect your clients will have problems with your price or service, they often do.
If you think of your business as a way to keep you busy then it does.
If you expect to grow each year and find new opportunities you will but if you buy into the dire economic woes that sell media, then you can struggle and feel challenged.
So what are your expectations. Please take a moment to fill in the survey and remember that if you want help to grow your business this year, a mentor can make the difference between same old same, old and expecting more.
Take you ideas to $$$$s in 2013 and have fun, earn funds and be fit.
Roberta
LinkedIn Is Rapidly Growing – Are You On-Board?
In case you haven’t read recent articles, LinkedIn is growing by leaps and bounds — solid and steady. So, what I want to know is…. are you on-board?
This is icon for social networking website. This is part of Open Icon Library’s webpage icon package. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
LinkedIn Now Has 175 Million Members – article by Todd Wasserman on Mashable Business
If you find yourself wondering, “Why isn’t my business growing? Why don’t I have greater visibility? Why is my business growing at a slow and steady pace rather than exploding?” — it’s time to get serious about LinkedIn.
LinkedIn affords you the largest and most focused professional social platform on the planet. It delivers a tremendous opportunity to source connections, leads and prospects. Exactly how should you take the leap into LinkedIn? A great technique you can implement immediately is…
Connection “Tags” – Build Your Lists
I’m sure you’ve heard the statement, “The money is in the list.” LinkedIn lets you build a list almost immediately upon setting up your profile. Organizing your connections, from the onset, will not only save you time but will also enable you to engage target markets.
LinkedIn “tags” is a great tool. After accepting connection invitations, it is crucial to visit “Connections” in your LinkedIn profile and “tag” these people.
You can create lists for specific prospects, types of clients or even according to location.
“Tags” also build your lists and provide an awesome opportunity to ‘in-mail’ that particular list (tag) in order to share company information, links to videos, gain important information (go ahead…ask questions!) or anything else you might do when attempting to turn leads or connections into customers or clients.
Visit your LinkedIn profile and click on “Contacts” – this will take you to your list of connections.
Next, click on the link entitled “untagged.”
Hover over the first connection, click, and the information for that contact will appear on the right side.
Under the connections information, you will see a link entitled “Edit Tags” — click on that link.
A list of tags will drop down. Select one or however many pertain to that contact. You can also ADD new tags too!
Be sure to “Save” the tag(s)! You can confirm that your contact was tagged by viewing “All Connections” to ensure the numbers have increased. Next, check to ensure your “untagged” numbers have decreased.
After completing the above steps, you are now ready to begin connecting with contacts within the specific lists you created through utilizing “tags.”
This is just one of the many features that LinkedIn offers to almost make your profile a custom business website. Take some time and check out how ‘tagging’ your connections can be help you start prospecting for leads and building your list.
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Guest Author: Lynn Brown – Social Media Marketing Manager, Coach – Blogging Strategist and LinkedIn Specialist helping small business owners, online marketers and professionals achieve increased company branding and visibility through social media for their specific products, programs or industry. Complimentary consultation available.
3 Mistakes made by business in creating their Operational Manuals
An operational manual is a tool created by the business owner, administrator or other person that details how to do
English: This image shows the life cycle of a task by using a state machine flow diagram. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
the tasks and jobs necessary to operate the business.
Every task within the business from answering the phone to cleaning the kitchen area to paying or collecting money can have a detailed process to be followed. When you get clear on the way things are to be done it is simple to manage the business regardless of who works in the business.
There are three mistakes many business owners make in writing their manual. These are:
- Thinking that it is unnecessary and never writing one. This is especially true of one man bands but if you ever want to hire someone, you need to have the process that you want them to follow written down.
- Making the processes so complicated that no one can follow them or implement them
- Never reviewing and updating when new equipment, people or services or products are added to the business.
A simple operations manual is written as follows:
Task or Job Title
Who does this task
When do they do this task
Why is this task necessary (the purpose of the task)
How the task is to be done (the measurables)
Where to go for more information or support in doing the task
Keep it simple. Have any staff review it often. And as a business owner, remember the more working in the tasks you can delegate to others, the more time you have to grow your business.
To your operating success
Roberta Budvietas
5 Tips Grow your business with Free PR
PR means public relations and is thought to cost lots of money and is really hard to get.
Here are 5 tips plus a few more things that media coach Louise Pagonis shared the other night at a National Speakers Association event. Louise was on the platform with Tom O’Neil and Lindsey Dawson who also shared special information including how Tom has had articles published in the Harvard Business Review.
English: The CNN Center in Atlanta. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
These two comments really stood out for me that night.
- The MEDIA NEEDS YOU
- Journalists are LAZY
- Know the opportunities out there. Listen to the news in your niche and remember that any media, even the smallest has value.
- Approach the media with an angle. If the media is talking about a topic related to what you are interested in or work with, then contact the media with an angle or a new trend that you have observed
- Build a big picture for the media. Tell them a story and give them a picture. Put together a package that teases them without telling the whole story. Give them a reason to be interested in what you are talking about and tell them why their audience might be interested too.
- Find the right person to send your materials too. One of the advantages with PitchRate and Reporter Connection have is that they daily tell you the names of people and what they are looking for today.
- Follow up on your materials. Remember a Yes is a yes and a No is a NO but a no answer means you can try again with a slightly better headline or pitch. And remember the receptionist can be your best friend to get to the right person to hear your story.
Oh and another idea – keep records of where you are published. Nothing helps with the next publication than saying you have been published in….
Content matters but if you hate to write, let a journalist write your story.
If you talk well remember radio stations are picked up all over the place on line.
If something is online then you never know when it might get picked up again. Personally, I have seen publications on our topics come up in searches 10 years after first published.
Have you ever been published in anything other than your own blog? Tell me where in the comments below and give yourself a publicity plug.
Now I have to go find my clipping file. I wish I still had my TV appearance clips!
To your business growth
Roberta Budvietas, mentor
Maven Connect
CommentLUV
Guest Blogging with Jon Morrow
