The Real Secret of Success in Life and Business
Success comes in many shapes and sizes. For some, it might take the form of becoming extremely wealthy, well known, or highly regarded. For others, it might be an athletic achievement, solving a crime, or discovering the cure for a deadly disease. Regardless of what your definition of success may be there is a secret to realizing your personal victory.
In addition, there are also many qualities
that have been attributed to success. Like
courage, perseverance, and a positive attitude. But, the real secret behind any success begins with your beliefs, thoughts and words. If you have ever read a self help book I am sure this concept or theory is not new to you. However, now there is scientific evidence or proof to back it up!
Several years ago I picked up a book, The Hidden Messages in Water, by Masaru Emoto and David A. Thayne. The book illustrates the amazing results Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto discovered when conducting experiments with water. If you’re thinking, "What does water have to do with our thoughts and words?" The answer is: everything! Because Mr. Emoto discovered that molecules of water are affected by our thoughts and words.
Mr. Emoto studied the effects of words, images and sound on water. He exposed distilled water, and water from various places around the world, to a variety of photographs, music, and words written on paper. Afterwards, he placed drops of that water onto specimen slides, froze them, and then looked at them under a microscope. What he saw is phenomenal! Have a look for yourself: http://www.hadousa.com/comparisons.html
Water that was exposed to positive words, images and sounds created some of the most vibrant, beautiful crystals ever formed. On the other hand, water that was exposed to negative words, images and sounds either did not form a crystal or the crystals were deformed. What his experiments demonstrate is that water — when crystallized into ice — mirrors the subtle vibrations or frequencies of energy that are created by our thoughts, feelings and words!
Mr. Emoto’s remarkable discovery scientifically reveals that our very thoughts, feelings and words do have the power to shape and influence control over our lives and world. Words like love, gratitude, peace, and thank you created the most stunning crystals from water drawn from places all over the world. That’s pretty mind-boggling, don’t you think?
Hopefully, if you are ever feeling as if success is beyond your reach, you will remember how potent your beliefs, thoughts and words really are and that you have the power to change them and change your world. It’s a scientific fact!
Five Tips for Identifying Your Ideal Client
Before starting any marketing campaign you MUST know who you want to reach. Without this critical information, no matter how much time you spend creating your marketing materials, your efforts will undoubtedly fall short of the mark. Want to see better results? Identify your choice client first and then create marketing messages that will solve their most pressing challenges.
Here are five tips to help you determine your ideal client:
Tip #1 - Ask your self, "Who do I most enjoy working with? What group of people am I passionate about helping?"
Tip #2 -Ask your self, " Who do I least enjoy working with?" Sometimes it becomes clearer to see who you want to work with after you eliminate the folks you don’t want to work with. Why settle for working with people who don’t stimulate, energize or appreciate you?
Tip #3 - Study your ideal client. Once you know the answers to tip one and two, you want to start gathering information about them. One way to find out more about them is to visit places where they spend time. For example, if your ideal client is a stay-at-home mom, you might find them at the library, school PTA, homeschooling association, or parenting group.
Tip #4 - Develop a profile sheet of your ideal client. Collect as much information about your client as possible. You want to know common problems, special interests and demographic information such as age, gender, income, and lifestyle. The more you know about your choice clients the easier it will be to craft the kind of messages that they’ll notice.
Tip #5 - Survey them. In order to determine the "hottest" problem they want solved you can set up a short survey of one to five questions. Bonus Tip: The best way to get people to take a survey is by giving them a gift in exchange for their time.
Armed with this information you are better prepared to create marketing messages written directly to your choice clients. Then, they’ll be more likely to hire you or buy your products because your messages resonate with them!
How to Avoid Selling and Still Attract More Business
Wouldn’t it be great if clients came to you ready to hire you or buy your products? Can you imagine no longer feeling anxious sitting through awkward sales presentations or pitches? I know, it sounds too good to be true, right? Honestly, it’s not!
You can avoid "selling" altogether when you understand two simple things. First, and most importantly, marketing your business is really about building relationships. When you shift your focus and efforts onto building relationships with your prospects rather than selling them something, you remove the anxiety of "getting" the sale.
The second thing to keep in mind is that every prospect may not be an ideal client for you. I know that may sound crazy especially when you are hungry for business. However, taking on a client just for the sake of having more money is actually not the best business practice. Instead, you want to screen or pre-qualify your prospects.
When you pre-qualify your prospects first, you get people that are serious and truly interested in the services and products you have to offer. So, how do you screen or pre-qualify your prospects?
First, you must know who is your ideal client or customer. When you know "who" you want to reach then you’ll want to customize your marketing to attract them. That means all your marketing materials including your business card, brochure, website, product catalog, email campaigns, sales letters, and promotional events must focus on capturing the attention of those choice prospects.
As a result, your marketing efforts act as a filter that screens prospects for you because your messages speak directly to them and address their specific concerns. Now your messages have created a natural desire for them to want to hire or buy from you even before you speak with them. So all you have to focus on during conversations with potential clients are their needs, and rather than selling them something you can offer to be of assistance to them - which also helps to cultivate the relationship.
When you use your marketing materials to drive prospects to you, your only job is to ask them, "How can I be of service to you today?" Can you see how this approach will make a huge difference to your bottom line? If you focus your efforts on building lasting relationships you will never have to worry about selling your products and services again!
SuperCharge Your Business: 7 Reasons to Specialize Your Services
Did you know you can supercharge your business by laser-focusing the services you offer? It’s true. In almost all service-based businesses, your business will increase as a result of narrowing the scope of services you offer. Not only does specializing help you as the business owner, it also helps attract your ideal clients.
For example, if you are a coach, positioning yourself as a parenting coach for parents with teenagers is a specialty. If you are a photographer, positioning yourself as a corporate photographer is a specialty. When you specialize the type of service you offer you develop a reputation within your field which ultimately helps you attract more clients, and it also helps you have clarity and focus in building your business.
Here are seven reasons specializing will help you supercharge your business:
1) Specializing helps you get clear about the kinds of problems you solve for your clients. It’s much easier to explain to a potential client how you can help them when you can demonstrate that you have helped others faced with a similar challenge.
2) Specializing helps you get clear about the type of clients you enjoy working with. While it’s possible that you may enjoy working with anyone obviously there isn’t enough time in the day for you to work with everyone in the world. Besides, you really want to focus your marketing efforts on only one group of people at a time. Why not choose people who really excite and energize you?
3) Specializing helps you know what projects to focus on. If you have lots of great ideas for books, programs, and products to create, it’s much easier to decide which ones to create if your business is built around your specific area of expertise.
4) Specializing helps you know what business model to select for your business. The model you choose determines how much time you will spend working with clients to fit your lifestyle.
5) Specializing helps you know how to market your services. It’s impossible to reach everyone with you marketing efforts, so it only makes sense to target your marketing to just one segment of the population. You will be much more successful in reaching them when you know where to place your advertising and promotional campaigns.
6) Specializing helps your potential clients know whether to hire you over someone else in your industry. With virtually thousands of service businesses to choose from, how can you make it easier for them to select you? Specializing prequalifies your services because it demonstrates your field of expertise to your prospects.
7) Specializing helps you position yourself as an expert on a particular topic. Your potential clients are looking for help to overcome their challenges, solve their problems and reach their goals. So it stands to reason they’ll hire someone with in-depth knowledge and experience about their particular challenge. Would you hire a fitness trainer to help you resolve your financial problems? Probably not.
Like a compass and map, specializing within your industry gives you direction to make powerful and wise decisions about every aspect of your business. Choosing a specialty also helps potential clients tell the difference between you and other similar businesses to determine if you are the best person for them to hire for their particular challenges. It just makes sense to choose a great niche to supercharge your business.
Does Your Email Signature Double as a Marketing Tool?
One quick, simple and free way to promote your business is by making the most of your email signature.
An email signature is the basic information about you and your business that is positioned beneath your name at the end of your emails. (See mine at the bottom of this article for an example.)
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Tells people who you are and what you do. By putting your tag line or unique selling proposition (USP) in your email signature you create awareness for the recipient about you, your company and what you can do for them.
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Helps you stay "top of mind" for clients. With your USP or tag line in your email signature, your recipient will repeatedly connect you with your products or services every time they open your email. This can help your clients identify others who may be in need of your assistance, resulting in more referrals.
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Helps you promote an event, special offer, or new product. When you include a link to an event, special offer, or new product your email signature helps you attract more participants and increase your sales.
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Helps you build your mailing list. By simply adding the active link to the sign-up page for your newsletter, special report, or other free gift you offer as an incentive your email signature can help build your mailing list.
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Drives traffic to your website. Besides having your email signature send the recipient to your website, you never know who or when your email might be forwarded to others so there is also the potential for driving new traffic to your website.
How to Succeed at Anything: 12 Tips for Bringing Your Goals to Life
The countdown is beginning. In just a few short weeks we’ll be waving goodbye to 2008. Will you look back proudly on your accomplishments and successes over the past year? Or, still wondering why you can’t seem to breakthrough and reach your goals?
Here are the top twelve strategies I use to attain my own goals. If you apply them, I’m certain they’ll help you to reach your goals and bring you more success in life and business.
Tip # 1 - Include accountability. When you have to answer to others it raises your level of commitment. Having a coach, support group or being a member of a mastermind are all excellent ways to incorporate accountability.
Tip #2 - Begin the journey. Pick a task and begin taking action. Sometimes we’re held back by the fear of failure and we never get started. Remember, even if you take the "wrong" first steps, you’ll have learned what doesn’t work. There really is no such thing as failure, except the failure to act.
Tip # 3 - Create a plan. The act of sitting down and planning out the steps of what needs to be done creates a force of energy that propels you forward and gives you the momentum to keep going.
Tip #4 - Add inspiration. You can influence your results by using positive affirmations. If your goal is to get 5 new clients, create a simple affirmation such as, "Five new clients are attracted to me this month."
Tip #5 - Apply the power of vision. Take a moment and write about your life with the goal completed. Use lots of details. Afterwards (and daily) take a few seconds to picture this in your mind and allow yourself to feel the excitement of having reached your goal.
Tip # 6 -Be honest with your self. Get quiet and check to see if your goals are in alignment with your authentic and true self. Trying to reach goals that are not yours (maybe someone you know has this goal) are counterproductive and starts you chasing after a dream you don’t want for your own.
Tip # 7 - Tap into the benefits. When you recognize the benefits achieving your goal will bring, you’ll internally begin to place a higher value on your success. If you don’t buy into your goal, what’s going to motivate you when challenges arise?
Tip # 8 - Brainstorm. If you activate your creativity, you’ll never be without solutions, innovative ideas and breakthroughs that will lighten and shorten your journey.
Tip #9 - Embrace change. Whatever your goal may be, it’ll often require you to learn a new set of skills or expand your thinking, and that may feel uncomfortable at first. It’s normal to grow out of your old self in order to achieve your goals.
Tip # 10 - Enforce limits. There will be times when working toward your goals will require you to say no to other people and activities. In order to protect your goals it’s okay to set boundaries and limits on what other things you’re willing and able to take on.
Tip # 11 - Reframe your thoughts. Often times our thinking gets in our way and we unknowingly sabotage our progress toward achieving our goals. Become aware of those thoughts that stop you from taking action. Hint: words like, "hard, impossible, unlikely, difficult, or hopeless" are indicators you need to reframe your thoughts and words.
Tip # 12 - Make a commitment. If you’ve ever pledged your money or time to a charity event, you’ve made a commitment to that organization. If you make a written commitment to your goals you’re making the same kind of pledge to your own success.
All twelve of these tips work great together to reinforce your success in reaching your goals. Of course, even if you only use a few of them, you’ll notice a significant change in your ability to follow through and bring your goals to life!
Writing Sales Copy is Simple When You Follow These 10 Rules
by Kim Lednum
When it comes to writing sales copy there seems to be a lot of apprehension, fear and false perceptions surrounding this critical topic. The three biggest concerns I hear from clients when it comes to writing sales copy is that they don’t want to appear to be pushy, phony or unethical. The best piece of advice I have to offer is that your sales copy doesn’t have to be when you write from a place of integrity!
How to Use Social Networking as a Marketing Strategy
by Kim Lednum
If you spend any time on the internet you have probably heard about social networking sites and that they can be an asset to your business. If you haven’t experienced using any of these sites you may be wondering if it’s all just a bunch of hype.
Personally, I believe these sites are extremely helpful and can be used as part of your marketing strategy.
In fact, I have cultivated a dozen new business associates, recently received several referrals from those connections, increased my mailing list, and landed two new private clients as a result of social networking connections.
1) The right mindset. Social networking on the internet should be just as courteous and professional as you would be at a live event. The right mindset for any type of networking is to see it as a vehicle for building relationships. If you approach your social networking in a friendly and upbeat manner you can gain new friends, prospective clients and customers, referral partners, and create strategic alliances.
2) Choose the best network. Not all social networking sites are appropriate for business use, nor may they attract your target market. Before joining a network, spend a few minutes researching who the site is for and if the members are either your ideal clients or ideal business partners.
3) Actively participate. Make it a habit to regularly post to your personal space. Many sites allow you space on a personal page to add links to your website, products, as well as space to post a blog, podcasts, media releases, photos, events, etc. By doing this you are able to keep your space filled with up-to-the-minute news about you and your business.
4) Communicate with members. Take ten minutes a day to post comments on other members’ pages. It’s a great way to connect and build relationships when you post comments, share resources, ideas, useful information, inspiration, and praise with other members.
5) Be real and genuine. Include personal information about yourself such as hobbies, interests, favorite movies, quotes, books, etc. Keep in mind that you are ultimately creating connections and trust with folks, so be professional and conscientious about the type of information you post.
6) Join groups. Many social networking sites have a diverse variety of groups you can join. Select or create your own groups that are relevant to your business and interests.
7) Participate in forums. If the site offers a forum, join in and share your expertise, thoughts, ideas and resources with the other forum participants. Remember, forums are also a great place to do market research, test your ideas and get feedback from your target audience before you commit to a new project.
Keep it simple and fun. Social networking sites can provide you with a light-hearted and exciting new approach to networking. Be sure to make your personal page or space a place where your ideal clients and business partners would like to visit.
