Provided by BCSG, LLC              

You might also call it “the law of small requests.”

The essence of the law is this: If you make a small request of someone to do something and then follow-up later with a bigger request about something similar, you will get a much better response than if you made the big request first.

The difference is often dramatic. This law is the foundation of an approach to marketing. Like many people, you may have discovered that making big requests end up in a lot of rejection. Over time, you may have discovered how small or incremental requests made the process a whole lot easier.

This is called “The Law of Consistency” because once people agree to do something small, they tend to be consistent with their words and actions when asked to do something bigger. One of the biggest keys to marketing success is to offer small things, make small requests and then follow these up with bigger requests.

Here are a number of examples.

You’ve just joined a chamber of commerce and many members are good potential clients. Contact them and say you’d like to take them out for coffee as you’re a new chamber member and want to learn more about their business. If there is a good connection, it will be much easier to ask for a sales appointment later. After talking to them, you will want to get the participants to sign up for your email newsletter. You hold up an article at the end and say, “I have an article that covers much of the material we talked about today.

Who would like a copy?” When you get a show of hands (the small request), you then make a bigger request: “OK, please give me your business cards; I’ll send you the article and also give you a complimentary subscription to my weekly eNewsletter.”

You want to get some good testimonials from your best clients.

Instead of asking for them directly (which is often a problem as people have a hard time writing them), you say, “I’m putting together a series of client testimonials. Can I show you a few I’ve gotten so far?” You send them and call back in a few days and say, “I’d like to have someone interview you for a similar testimonial. May I have them call you?”

You have very few prospects from networking and have concluded you need to go after prospects directly. But cold calling and asking for appointments is a big request and results in lots of rejection. Instead, you make “introductory calls” and ask if you can send a special article and complimentary subscription to your eNewsletter. A few weeks later you call back, make a deeper connection and set several appointments.

Do you see how powerful this law of consistency can be?

Think of all the times you have not approached a prospect because you didn’t understand this. You were afraid to make a big request (understandably), but felt that a small request wouldn’t get you anywhere. I hope you see the major difference this could make in all your marketing efforts.

The Bottom Line: Remember that it’s always easier to make small requests of prospects than bigger ones. But you can’t leave it at that. You then need to follow small requests with the bigger requests if you want results.

Provided by BCSG, LLC    

One of the most persuasive things you can do in marketing your services is to give away something for free.

When a prospect receives something free from you, they feel obligated to reciprocate in some manner. This law of reciprocity should be at the heart of all your marketing.

Giving things away can be controversial, however.

If we give away something for free, doesn’t that undermine its value? Not necessarily, if we do it right and see this as the first step in a chain of actions that can turn that prospect into a client.

Let’s look at one thing every business can give away to their prospects:

Free Information.
The first thing to understand is that to blindly give away free articles, reports, recordings, even books, isn’t going to to get you very far.
For instance, if you go to a web site and find links to a whole lot of articles, you may pick the ones that interest you, download and print them, and then click off that site, never to return. In my experience, that doesn’t work. Instead, you need to set things up so that there can be reciprocity on the part of the visitor. You actually want to ask for something in return for this free article – their name and email address.

This isn’t a lot to ask, and they will value the free information a lot more because there was a reciprocal exchange. That simple act of giving their name and email address also qualifies them as a future prospect. (They’ve put up their hands and said: “I’m interested, keep marketing to me!”)

Of course, those who request your article are also added to your email newsletter list. This leads to ongoing communication, more free information, and the opportunity to reciprocate by inquiring about your services or buying an online product.

You can use this same article in several other ways. You need to see this article as a valuable commodity that can stimulate reciprocity in the receiver. As you give, so shall you receive (but only if you do it right)!

When you meet someone in a networking or social situation and the topic of your business comes up, they might show interest in your services. Usually the most we do is talk a little about what we do and exchange cards. Unfortunately, this doesn’t get you very far. (What do you do with all those cards you collect?)

When you have someone’s attention and interest, they usually want more information. By giving your card, they may visit your web site, but why not be more proactive and offer to send them your article?

However, if you just send the article, don’t expect this person to call you up the next day, salivating to buy your services. No, you have to offer the article as an opportunity for them to reciprocate.

Here’s what to say: “I have an article I think you’ll find very useful. It goes into more depth about how to market your services more effectively. Can I send it to you?” Then use this article as an opportunity to follow-up: “Once you’ve read the article, I’d love to talk with you and find out more about your business and how the ideas it contains would apply to your marketing. Can I give you a call next week?”

In almost all cases they will be happy to receive the article, and will reciprocate by taking your follow-up call. If you do this in a low-key, non-threatening, conversational way, it’s easier than you can imagine. (But you MUST make that promised follow-up!)

If you are generous enough to give something away for free, this builds good feelings and trust. Then reciprocity is natural.

If you understand the law of reciprocity and take advantage of it, you can leverage every contact you make with potential clients. If you don’t take advantage of it, you leave the ball in the prospect’s court, where they are unlikely to do anything with it.

Does this seem rather cold and calculating to you? Even so, if you cannot get past the hurdle of trust, you may never have the opportunity to work with someone and make a difference in their lives. This isn’t about tricking people into doing business with you; it’s about paving the way to a relationship.

I promise that once you start using the law of reciprocity in your business, everything will get a whole lot easier.

The Bottom Line: Start using articles as tools to stimulate reciprocity: on your web site, in networking, at talks, etc. But never give away anything without setting up the opportunity for the prospect to reciprocate. If you do that, your response will increase dramatically.

Midsize companies increasingly find the need for outside consultants, but how do you find the right people and manage the relationship successfully?

Not every company has the internal resources to pull off every project. Midsize firms are just as needy as larger companies that frequently find themselves understaffed when it comes to developing and implementing sophisticated new systems. The most common solution is to get help in the form of consultants and other IT service partners.

But how do you evaluate, pay and manage these outsiders? With the right partner and a well-planned project, the result can be mutually beneficial for both sides. But bring in the wrong people, and you might experience an extensive—and expensive—bust.

Clients are scared of exorbitant hourly expenses, while consultants are afraid of being locked into endless time commitments.

Midsize companies with “reasonable” consulting budgets don’t have to take a back seat to their larger counterparts when it comes to securing top-notch IT service partner talent, says Michael McLaughlin, a principal with Deloitte Consulting in Portland, Oregon. Some people believe that the largest clients with the richest projects get the best talent, but McLaughlin insists that excellent consulting services are available to anybody who is willing to pay for them.

Assuming that’s the case, how do you find the help you need? As founder and principal information security consultant for Atlanta-based Principle Logic LLC, Kevin Beaver has had an insider’s perspective on many consulting engagements. He and others agree that the best way to find IT service partners is through word of mouth and referrals. That process can be expanded to include Internet searches and contacting professional organizations such as the Independent Computer Consultants Association. He also suggests checking out consultants who have written articles or books on various IT topics.

Do Your Homework
When it comes to evaluating consultants, Beaver says the key is to find someone with solid credentials and hands-on experience that you can trust. “IT consultants have their hands in very sensitive areas of your business, so it pays to do your homework early to reduce any liabilities and risks associated with hiring the wrong person,” he says.

Beaver also extols the virtues of service partners that have experience across multiple industries and both technical and business knowledge. These multifaceted individuals with business backgrounds have extra value, he says, because they “understand technical concepts and know how to balance that knowledge with business operations and financial decisions.” He maintains that business know-how enhances their ability to assess and overcome possible political and cultural barriers when integrating technologies within corporate infrastructures.

McLaughlin decries the tendency of some firms to put sales or businesspeople in front of would-be customers, and stresses the importance of meeting the people who will actually be doing the work before you sign any contracts. “That way you can begin to understand more than just their technical capabilities, but whether or not they’re going to be able to work with you,” he says. “Is there going to be a fit? Will there be some chemistry that will work?” He notes that initial references are almost always very positive and recommends asking for additional references to find more realistic information.

Evaluating Fees
Determining fee structures and fees is an inexact science at best. Clients are scared of getting sucked into a bottomless vortex of exorbitant hourly expenses, while consultants are afraid of being locked into a deal that leaves them with no protection against endless time commitments.

McLaughlin maintains that the standard hourly rate structure puts both client and consultant at a disadvantage, and instead espouses fixed pricing to “so you’re not spending time monitoring hours and the financial piece.” This scenario, he says, tends to work out because the consultant typically figures out approximately how many hours the project will take, attaches an hourly rate to that number and suggests an overall fee. The client gets a chance to reverse-engineer the process and determine if the proposed fee is reasonable. But, he adds, when using hourly billing, the smartest move is to check out the going rates in your specific marketplace and negotiate from there.

Buyer Beware
Many companies turn to their vendors to supply consulting services, figuring that’s a safer bet. But that’s not always the case. Jeremy Kahn, assistant vice president of IT at Hartz Mountain Industries, in Secaucus, New Jersey, one of the largest private owners of commercial real estate in the U.S., thought he had covered all the bases early in 2003 when he purchased a storage area network (SAN) and implementation services from a leading systems provider.

Kahn relied on a VAR closely affiliated with the systems provider, and enlisted the services of a reputable storage consultancy to evaluate products and guide him through the acquisition and implementation processes. But problems cropped up with the software, and he found himself watching helplessly while the implementation team brought out one new inadequate version of the software after another. The vendor was reluctant to stick with the process of making sure it worked properly when it became clear that the fixed implementation fee was not going to be profitable. Kahn was determined to persist until the job was done right, which eventually occurred only after a lot of nagging on his part.

Consultants and other third-party IT service providers can be valuable, affordable resources for midsize companies lacking the internal resources to organize and execute their own projects. Let the buyer beware, however: Finding, evaluating, managing and paying consultants is a task worthy of the same effort required for planning engagements once the outside help is in place. Kahn says that if he had the chance to turn back the clock, “I would have negotiated a contract that more specifically said that we were not going to be laying out monies until our end goals had been met,” he says.

Thumbs Up !

Here are some instant ways for you to bring in more customers and grow your business.

The following are 30 questions that will immediately pinpoint where your business is doing well – and where you can take action that will produce rapid results.

These are the questions that may help your business, if you are willing to spend a few minutes giving them serious thought – the results can be quite profound.

You should be aware that each question you answer ‘no’ to probably means that you are losing out on untapped profits. But the purpose of this process is not to have you feel bad – it’s to motivate you to make marketing a top priority. Have fun!

1 Can you and your team name three things that set you apart from the competition?

2 Do you communicate the benefits of your product or service in all of your promotional literature,
websites, letters etc?

3 Have you tested Telemarketing to attract new customers? Did you accurately measure the results?

4 Have you tested Direct Mail to attract new customers? Did you accurately measure the results?

5 Have you tested PR to attract new customers? Did you accurately measure the results?

6 Are your ads powerful direct response ads that compel the reader to contact you – or are they
mundane like all the competition?

7 Do you advertise in certain publications just because your competitors do?

8 When you speak to a potential new customer, do you use words that set you apart from the rest and
immediately capture the customer’s attention?

9 Have you tested pay per click search engine advertising?

10 Have you tested Internet Advertising?

11 Do you send regular email communications to your customers and prospective customers?

12 How much time each year do your key team members spend learning leading edge sales skills?

13 Do you have an excellent lead generation process in place?

14 Do you set up an ongoing communication with qualified leads consisting of phone calls, letters,
and emails?

15 Do you obtain and use testimonials from your best customers?

16 Do you have excellent referrals systems in place?

17 Did you know there are more than 90 ways of obtaining referrals?

18 Do you offer something of value to your website visitors in exchange for their contact details?

19 Do you know how to write a press release to instantly grab the attention of the person reading it?

20 Do you personalize your email newsletters?

21 Do you know the most important piece of marketing information there is – your clients’
birthdays!

22 Does your team understand that the best way to sell is to ask questions?

23 Do you rent or purchase mailing lists of your target customers?

24 Do you take amazing care of your current customers?

25 Do you know why it’s important to include a ‘PS’ in all of your sales letters?

26 Do you communicate by mail, email and telephone on a frequent basis to your current customers
to ensure they know what you have to offer?

27 Do you use just one or two ways of marketing to promote your business? Do you know why you
should be using between six and ten?

28 If you used ten ways to market your business have you any idea how successful you would be?

29 Did you know that if you follow up a mailing with a phone call you can increase response rates
by 100 – 1000%

30 Do you realize that your competitors probably answered ‘no’ to even more questions than you
did!

Now here’s a Free Tip. Pick just three of the above that are important to you and take some action today to improve those areas. Print this out and come back to the checklist in the weeks and months ahead. You can use it as a very good way of measuring your progress as you implement the marketing strategies that are going to make a difference.

Are you helping your referral sources?

Referrals are a great way to build a business, unless they’re not. Here is what I mean. We all love the referral that’s a perfect match. They have the right kind of need or problem, they know how we work and what we offer that’s valuable, and maybe they even expect to pay a premium to get what they’ve learned we have.

 But then we’ve all received that awkward referral – one that’s not such a fit at all, one that wants to know why they can’t get a deal.

 If your referrals, or perhaps your referral sources, don’t understand how, why and when to make a referral, chances are you’re not going build much momentum with your referral generation efforts.

 Below are five things that everyone that you may recruit to refer your business, customer and strategic partner alike, must be taught in order to effectively refer business. Don’t view this idea as a selfish act, teaching those who want to refer how to do it more effectively makes their job easier as well.

 1) How I would spot your ideal client
 Be prepared to describe in glorious detail the exact type of business, person or problem that fits your ideal client profile. Of course, this means you’ve got to have that narrowly defined description internalized in all of your marketing efforts, but this is step one in making sure you don’t get the wrong kinds of leads.

2) How to describe in simple terms what you do best
 Don’t tell your referral sources all the glorious details of your business and expect them to demo your business for you. Give them a core understandable and easy to talk about phrase or image that they can use to simply define your unique benefit, like they’re our outsourced CFO or they help us get paid faster. Keep it simple, benefit laden and short and teach them to use the simple and short version only. Do you really want a referral source explaining your process? Again, I hope you see that this requires you to understand what it is that makes you unique in simple terms. Hint: You probably don’t fully understand what it is, ask your customers to tell you what it is to them.

3) What phrases prospects use to trigger me to know to refer
 If you sell accounting software don’t count on a prospective referral asking his golf buddy if he knows anyone that sells accounting software. But, what he might share during a round of golf is his frustration over the fact that he can’t ever get a handle on his receivables aging or that his data is housed in two places and neither seems to be up to date. These are what I call trigger phrases. If you were in front of a prospect and they said something like that, you would know immediately that they needed what you have to offer. Create a list of these kinds of tell tale phrases and offer them to your referral sources in a kind of a – if you hear a business owner say… give them our card. Don’t know what these are? Ask your salespeople, I’ll be they do.

4) What your marketing process looks like
 The single greatest hold back when it comes to referrals is the unknown factor. So, if I give you the names of my book club buddies what are you going to do with those referrals? Spell out your marketing process step-by-step. First, we’ll invite them to an online seminar, then we’ll send them a guide to getting more from XYZ, etc. Show them you have a professional, special and non-threatening marketing process. And please, no phone calls during dinner!

5) What others say about you and your results
 It can be helpful to share success stories and testimonials as a way to offer a little social proof that you’ve gotten other people results. In some cases, these might be quotes from the referral source or success stories from specific industries.

You can create a formal referral marketing brochure, web page or even mini presentation on your iPad, but taking the time to educate your referral sources will produce wins for all.

Steven J. Beaman is the founder & principal owner of BCSG, LLC, a professional business advisor/coaching organization whose primary focus is independent professionals and small businesses. Steven helps businesses to determine the constraints that are causing them to become stagnant or unproductive. He also assists start-up businesses to determine the roadblocks or obstacles that they may not have perceived. He also guides organizations through the start-up process, rapid business growth, or a turnaround situation. He does this using his wealth of management experience gathered during his over 35 year career of managing a variety of business functions in both small and medium businesses. He has expertise in numerous types of businesses (for profit and non-profit).

Does your content stand out?

Tip #1: Don’t Stuff Keywords All Over the Place
Just don’t do this. It looks awful and your readers won’t appreciate it. It is fine, if you want to put your keywords here and there (whenever it makes sense) but don’t overdo it. Your goal is to get buyers, not just visitors. You will repel your visitors if all they see on your website is keywords.

Tip #2: Give Too Much Away for FREE
Many people are putting out good information these days. “Good” isn’t good enough anymore. You have to go the extra mile and reveal all your secrets. The good news is that most people will see your content and think “this is great. This person really knows what she’s talking about. But, this is too much work and I don’t want to do this myself. I’ll hire her to do it for me.” Don’t be afraid of people “stealing” your secrets. If you don’t reveal them, your competitors will.

Tip #3: Make Complex Things Simple
Nothing is new; everything has been written already. The problem is that most people out there are lousy communicators and they write complex and boring articles. Take complex information and lay it out in a simple “step-by-step” way that your readers can easily understand.

Tip #4: Be Yourself
Most people that find writing hard are trying to be someone else. Just be yourself. Write like you talk. People appreciate original personalities.

Tip #5: Have Two-Way Conversations
Ask for feedback and comments. Ask questions. It shouldn’t be about you; it should be about your readers. Get them involved and they’ll feel part of something. This will help you to find out what they are looking for.

Tip #6: Seven Proven Types of Content
Here are seven types of content that have been proven to work time and time again:

* “How To” articles (How to Read Faster, How to Save $100 per Week, etc.)
* Lists (7 Secrets, 5 Ways, Top 10, etc.)
* Demos and tutorials (don’t tell them how it’s done; SHOW them)
* Step-by-step guides
* Case studies (people love reading about others just like them who made it big)
* Expert interviews
* News (tie current events to what’s happening in your industry)

Steven J. Beaman is the founder & principal owner of BCSG, LLC, a general business consultancy and coaching organization whose primary focus is independent professionals and small businesses. Steven helps businesses to determine the constraints that are causing them to become stagnant or unproductive. He also assists start-up businesses to determine the roadblocks or obstacles that they may not have perceived. He also guides organizations through the start-up process, rapid business growth, or a turnaround situation. He does this using his wealth of management experience gathered during his over 35 year career of managing a variety of business functions in both small and medium businesses. He has expertise in numerous types of businesses (for profit and non-profit).

Are you committed to doing the work to make your business easier? Or are you committed to blaming others, making excuses and living in denial?

The truth is only you can make a difference in your business and your life. If you want to create amazing results in your business and your life you must take total ownership of it, be held accountable for your results, and be totally responsible for your actions.

The challenge is most business owners are lazy. They will not take action to do the work they need to do to make their business easier. They would rather react to everything that comes their way for the next 20 years as opposed to disciplining themselves over the next 2 to 3 years to do the work that makes their business easy.

Why is this? Tony Robbins states, “Most of us base our decisions about what to do, on what’s going to create pain or pleasure in the short term instead of the long term”. We have associated more pain with doing the work to make our business easier in the short term, than we have with associating the long term significance we will receive by doing what it takes right now, to make our business easier in the long term.

We have a fear of the unknown and we allow it to trap us. Even though we are not happy with our current situation we are fearful that by making a new decision and taking a new action we might fail. So, why bother. We do everything we can to avoid short term pain as opposed to doing what is necessary to achieve long term significance.

The challenge with this is that anything worth achieving in life requires us to expand our comfort zone. When we expand our comfort zone it is inevitable that we are going to experience short term pain. So even though in many instances we know what to do to achieve success, we refuse to take action. We would rather avoid short term pain than achieve long term significance.

The long term results can be disastrous?  Why? When we take action to avoid short term pain we end up suffering more pain in the long term as a result of not taking action. Does this sound familiar? How is this currently affecting your desire to live your ideal life? Is there an action you know you need to take to achieve your ideal life, and even though you know it will bring you success you still won’t do it?

It is because you are associating too much short term pain with taking the required action to accomplish this goal, than you are by associating the long term significance gained by taking action today.

How do you overcome this challenge and open up the door to tremendous opportunity. It’s simple. The first step is to commit today, to make the decision to do whatever activities are necessary for you to achieve your long term desires.

Next, draw yourself a picture of how you envision your ideal life after you commit to taking the required action to achieving it. Then associate massive pain with not accomplishing it. Now commit to taking immediate action to make your ideal life a reality!

Steven J. Beaman is the founder & principal owner of BCSG, LLC, a general business consultancy and coaching organization whose primary focus is independent professionals and small businesses. Steven helps businesses to determine the constraints that are causing them to become stagnant or unproductive. He also assists start-up businesses to determine the roadblocks or obstacles that they may not have perceived. He also guides organizations through the start-up process, rapid business growth, or a turnaround situation. He does this using his wealth of management experience gathered during his over 35 year career of managing a variety of business functions in both small and medium businesses. He has expertise in numerous types of businesses (for profit and non-profit).

Do you wish you had a magic wand when it comes to marketing your business? You think a magic wand would have amazing power, but you need to know how to use it to get results. You need to point it in a certain way, you must have a clear intention and you often need to use certain words in order to get the desired result.

I know this might sound silly to you, but let’s think of planning as a magic wand. You create an intention, wave the wand, take action and produce a result. And if you have the right wand, you can consistently and repeatedly produce the results you want.

You could have a magic planning wand and use all the time.

It’s called the “marketing action plan wand.” And it indeed does produce consistent results: a never-ending stream of clients and customers.

Many business people have a tremendous fear and resistance to using this strategy. Why? It is because they don’t know how to use it. They don’t have an instruction manual. So it doesn’t produce the desired results.

What happens when people don’t have instructions on creating marketing action plans. They try to put them into action and they also create all kinds of haphazard results. Either they attract no clients or they actually push clients away.

So we give up the magic of creating marketing action plans and retreat to the default plan: “Do a great job with existing clients and hope for referrals.” (Notice how well this has worked!)

If you’re tired of that, here’s a basic guide for creating effective marketing action plans.

1. Define the service you want to offer. Marketing action plans aren’t for “general services” but for specific services such as “A six-month coaching program,” or “A complete business makeover program.”
2. Target Market. Who are your ideal clients for this particular service? What are their specific challenges and needs?
3. What is the price for this service? Also how will it be packaged and delivered? What does your client actually get?
4. What marketing activity will you choose to implement? Will you use networking, speaking, email, joint ventures? Pick just one. Each marketing activity needs a plan; you may have several plans that are similar, just don’t mix them up.
5. What is the main objective or outcome you want to produce with this marketing activity? It should always be a specific result related to generating more business. I.e., “Through giving speaking engagements I want to attract 10 new clients this year that each pay me an average of $10,000.”
6. What additional results do you want to produce with this activity? Other than immediate financial results, with speaking you might also accomplish the following: Increased personal confidence, better exposure in the community, build your brand and reputation as an expert, increase your email list, expand your business network.
7. Materials required. For speaking you may need the following:  A web page describing the various talks you give, a list of organizations where you could speak, a “speaker’s kit” with a talk outline, biography, testimonial list, and perhaps a CD with a sample talk. You’d also need handouts for the talk, and a form for participants to fill out if they were interested in your services.
8. Resources required. Resources include, time, money and manpower. So you’d have to budget a certain time to contacting organizations and giving the talks. You’d have to spend a little money for your speaker’s kit and perhaps hire a writer and/or a graphic designer for your materials.

These eight steps comprise the initial planning stage.

You now know what you’re offering, who you’re offering it to and what it will cost. You’ve chosen a marketing activity and have outlined the main objectives and results you intend to produce using this marketing activity. Finally, you have determined the materials and resources required to put this marketing activity into action.

You now have the foundation for your plan.

Next are the action steps to actually get the word out, connect with prospects and set up appointments with those who are qualified to purchase your services.

The Bottom Line: To get consistent marketing results, you need knowledge and a plan. First you need to understand the basic steps of creating an effective plan that will produce the results you intend. If you don’t follow these steps, nothing will happen.

Steven J. Beaman is the founder & principal owner of BCSG, LLC, a general business consultancy and coaching organization whose primary focus is independent professionals and small businesses. Steven helps businesses to determine the constraints that are causing them to become stagnant or unproductive. He also assists start-up businesses to determine the roadblocks or obstacles that they may not have perceived. He also guides organizations through the start-up process, rapid business growth, or a turnaround situation. He does this using his wealth of management experience gathered during his over 35 year career of managing a variety of business functions in both small and medium businesses. He has expertise in numerous types of businesses (for profit and non-profit).

Imagine you are walking along in a park one bright sunny day. You happen to look down and see an envelope, which you decide to pick up. It is very fine quality envelope with a logo and postage on the front of it. You think it is very impressive.

To your amazement, the envelope has nothing written on the front, no recipient’s name or address. And you can tell, on closer inspection, that the envelope is empty.

This envelope is like most small business marketing activities. All the investment is spent on the vehicle or marketing strategy, represented here by a quality, stamped envelope. This is like buying advertising, creating web sites and brochures, Chamber memberships and having trade show booths.

What is missing is a target market (address) and a message (letter inside the envelope). Who should get this envelope? What do you want them to know?

In marketing terms, this missing piece is a unique and different brand message stating who your products or services are for, and why they need to purchase them from you. Without a unique brand message, you may as well throw your money out the window, because your marketing strategy is doing nothing for you.

Not having a brand is like sending out sealed, stamped envelopes without addresses or anything inside.

This is why so many small business owners find marketing expensive, difficult and a waste of time. If they just did Strategy #1, things wouldn’t be this way.

Strategy #1: Identify Your Brand Value

A brand is the unique identity of a business. It’s not just what we communicate; it includes all the impressions and beliefs your target audience has about who you are and what value you bring them.

Well-branded businesses attract attention with clear, compelling, authentic messages. This can actually shorten the sales cycle, because prospects more quickly understand why they should do business with you. They also appreciate your value, so you can charge premium prices and expect both repeat business and referrals.

No Brand? You’re Not Alone.

If your client attraction marketing strategies aren’t working, you are not alone. Many business owners don’t feel confident they know who their ideal clients are and how they were different from their competitors.

A majority of business owners are wasting money on marketing strategy, sending out sealed, stamped envelopes without addresses or anything inside!

Strategy #2: Your Edge in Any Economy: Brand Your Business

Before you waste more money implementing strategies that deliver NO message, invest in identifying your brand. Here is what you need to do:

1. Develop a Vision of where your business is going, and the role your brand will play in getting it there. If you can describe what significance will look like, it will be a lot easier to build a bridge to it. After all what is success without significance!

2. Determine the alternatives to your brand. When people don’t choose you, what do they choose? How, why, and for whom are you actually the better choice?

3. Define your target market. Exactly who needs what you offer and will find the most value in how it helps them?

4. Identify your specific point of difference or Unique Selling Proposition. In other words, what is your special or secret ingredient? Whatever you choose, it must be clear, compelling, authentic and consistently communicated.

5. Package your unique differences, verbally and visually. Here is where you create your audio logo, saying who you are for and what you do that no one else can do as well. Develop a look and feel for your brand, also: a logo, color scheme and visual style, imagery and a “voice” to use in your marketing materials and communications.

6. Select the marketing strategies you will use to deliver the message of your brand to your target market. Great ways to shout out your brand message include writing articles or speaking on related topics, networking, and blogging.

7. Promote your brand through all your “touch points.” Every place your brand is seen or experienced by your target audience should be consistent with your core brand identity.

Well-branded businesses attract more prospects with less effort, get superior, charge higher prices and enjoy more profitable and significant businesses.

If creating your brand right now seems like a luxury you can’t afford, consider the money you are currently throwing away on ineffective marketing strategies. Why wait any longer?

So, How is Your Brand Doing?

Stuff your envelope with a unique brand message that will differentiate your products and services, attract perfect clients and build the significant business of your dreams!

Steven J. Beaman is the founder & principal owner of BCSG, LLC, a general business consultancy and coaching organization whose primary focus is independent professionals and small businesses. Steven helps businesses to determine the constraints that are causing them to become stagnant or unproductive. He also assists start-up businesses to determine the roadblocks or obstacles that they may not have perceived. He also guides organizations through the start-up process, rapid business growth, or a turnaround situation. He does this using his wealth of management experience gathered during his over 35 year career of managing a variety of business functions in both small and medium businesses. He has expertise in numerous types of businesses (for profit and non-profit).

Let’s address an impossible topic: Delegation.

It’s not that delegation is impossible, it just seems that way to many Independent Professionals.

As self-employed professionals, we went out on our own because we enjoyed working on our own; we liked to be our own boss; we preferred to make our own decisions, and we liked doing it our way. The reality is that many things get done well, some things get done just okay and many things don’t get done at all because we can’t bear to have someone else do stuff for us!

Right now we have so many things we would love to do but just can’t fit them in. We know that if we mastered delegation, this would help us take our business to the next level and create some freedom.

Here are a few of the things I’ve noticed about delegating. Any of them seem familiar to you? What delegating beliefs are you stuck in?

I can do it better

They’ll screw it up

It will take more time teaching them

I’ll lose control

Working with people is a hassle

I have to do it myself

The Bottom Line: Are you having problems with delegation? If so, one place to start is noticing all the limiting beliefs you have about delegation and start to work on them.

Steven J. Beaman is the founder & principal owner of BCSG, LLC, a general business consultancy and coaching organization whose primary focus is independent professionals and small businesses. Steven helps businesses to determine the constraints that are causing them to become stagnant or unproductive. He also assists start-up businesses to determine the roadblocks or obstacles that they may not have perceived. He also guides organizations through the start-up process, rapid business growth, or a turnaround situation. He does this using his wealth of management experience gathered during his over 35 year career of managing a variety of business functions in both small and medium businesses. He has expertise in numerous types of businesses (for profit and non-profit).