My colleague reported a huge sales boom this week, which we celebrated. “How did you do that?” I asked.

“Oh, I marketed my program,” she said.  “I’d been distracted for a long time by some tech issues and I finally got a chance to promote it again.”

Everything is, in retrospect.

Hey, that sounds familiar…

My client Christine just got a little burst of business also. She did an event last month and, even though they hadn’t attended, several new clients were reminded of her and called for appointments.

Similarly, I attended a networking event last week and came back with 5 leads to follow up on.

Time and again we’re reminded how effective it is to just …

Do some dang marketing!!

(Crazy, I know.) What exactly constitutes marketing?

Beginners:  Message + Visibility + Intention + Habit

• Be clear on your marketing message – who you help, the problems you solve and what big benefits your clients get from you.

• Get out and be seen! Whether in your local community or online, you have to get your message in front of your prospective clients.  You can try networking, speaking and writing, or any one of the twenty-four specific visibility methods I teach in my affordable Attracting Perfect Clients course.

• Know why you’re doing what you’re doing; carry your intention consciously into each activity.  “I intend to attract three Moms who are feeling stressed about their children and would benefit most from my services.”

• Build habits, or rituals, that you enjoy and will do regularly.

Advanced:  Improve One + Add One

Often, established businesses struggle to keep up their marketing activities. Consumed by client projects, operations and, well, running a business, they sometimes get lazy in their marketing, or distracted away from their big revenue generators.

My solution lately – and it’s proving to be quite effective – is simply to improve one thing you’re already doing and add one new activity.

• Improve one: For example, if you’re blogging twice a month, blog weekly.  If you offer a freebie when people sign up on your website, try a new one on a hotter topic.

• Add one: Then, do one thing you haven’t done, such as speaking engagements in your local area or answering one question per week one LinkedIn.

One of my clients has been giving lead-generating free webinars that attract new clients. Improving the sign-up process has helped him follow up more effectively, and crafting a better offer has gotten him many more appointments with interested prospects.  With that working well, he’s now able to try a new one for him: video blogging.

At this point you may feel skeptical.

“Oh, please!  I know I need to do more marketing, but it’s not like any of these ideas will help.  Real marketing should be comprehensive and strategic, like a military campaign. It’s gotta change with the times!”

Yeah … that’s not what I’m finding. We doom ourselves by looking for overly ambitious, big ideas or magical new methods that will finally do the trick.  There aren’t that many new methods. Social networking is just networking moved online. A website is just a mashup of your brochure and your office.

You can call it South Beach or P90X, but the truth is boring ol’ diet and exercise is how to lose weight.  Same with message plus visibility; it gets you clients!

At this point you may feel overwhelmed.

I do too, sometimes. So, stop doing ONE thing that’s not a good use of your time. It could be a marketing tactic that isn’t working, a task you should be delegating or a time waster like reading news online.

At this point you may feel motivated.  Hurray!  Here are your action steps:

1. Review the two categories above to see if you need to work on your beginnings or if you’re ready to add more advanced steps.
2. Schedule time on your calendar to work on getting those activities done.
3. If you’ve fallen off the wagon, do something today - even sending a keep-in-touch email, placing a 5-mnute phone call or writing a 300-word blog post.  That will get the energy moving again.
4. Celebrate! You did something crazy-good by getting the word out.  May abundant success follow!

Did you recently do a little marketing and get a good result? Share your story in the comments, why don’tcha?

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1. Attract Way More Clients with Way Less Effort: Free Teleseminar

Clients often approach me wanting a tagline. I don’t assume that everyone means the same thing when they say this, so I usually dig for more information:  “When you say you want a tagline, what do you really mean?”

Hope Grows

Most of the time, people who want a tagline are searching for a concise, effective way to talk about what they offer.

They want something catchy and memorable, easy for their prospects to remember as well as themselves.

Have you ever had to fumble around for an explanation of what you do, as if it were the first time you’d ever been asked? Many business owners find it so hard to put their value into words that they yearn for a quick easy answer.

But a tagline isn’t exactly it.

When prospective clients approach me wanting a tagline, what they really mean is they need to define their brand.

They need to articulate exactly whom they help and what they can offer them that no one else can.

When you know exactly what your brand’s value is, you can speak confidently about it, and concisely.  And, from this clear defined brand, a tagline will often emerge.

I’m not opposed to taglines; it’s just that, without the foundation of a brand, they’re difficult to create and not very valuable.

However, WITH the foundation of a brand, a tagline can be a great mnemonic device, reminding our target audience quickly of our value.

Just as a logo is a visual prompt, the tagline is a short audio version.

Good taglines are short, punchy phrases that express the essence of a brand, as you’ve seen in famous taglines (also known as slogans) like “Just do it” or “Coke is it.”  With Nike’s “no excuses” command or Coke’s self-confident declaration, you also get a quick feel of the personality of the product.

One of my current favorite taglines is from Secret deodorant for women: “Because you’re hot.” I love the double-meaning, which flatters its users (my secret: I’m one of them).  It also reminds us of the essence of the brand: honoring women, femininity and offering a product “strong enough for a man, but made for a woman” (its tagline from the past).

Back in 2007, one of my clients created an exemplary tagline. April Ambrose, Executive Director and Board Chair of Arkansas Earth Day Foundation, spent hours with me working on the brand for the one-day special event, Arkansas Earth Day (AED).  The essence of the event is delivering “fun activities and educational experiences in a hopeful, motivating spirit.”

Yes, it took hours to distill all that we wanted the event to be down into those ten words! (It always looks easier in retrospect. How many meetings do you think “Just do it” took?)

April had been immersed in the brand for five years, and in the clearly articulated brand definition for over a year.  So, it wasn’t surprising that…

In a fit of boredom in a meeting one day, she gave birth to a new tagline for Arkansas Earth Day: Hope Grows.

[I, too, do some of my best work in boring meetings!]

What makes this one such a winner?

Here are the aspects of the AED tagline “Hope Grows” that make it successful:

1. It expresses the spirit of the brand, which is “hopeful and motivating”
2. It uses a nature-based metaphor – “grows” – which is another way of connecting it to what we’re about
3. It’s fabulously short (so difficult!)
4. It contains an internal rhyme (the “oh” sound repeated in both words)
5. It describes progress and momentum which has been achieved in AED’s brief but effective history

In short, it quickly says what they’re about in a memorable and inspiring way. The tagline can be used in all communications next to the AED logo and brand name.  They can add it to merchandise that will carry the logo.  It can be the featured message of advertising and press releases.

If your business could benefit from a tagline, start first with a clearly defined brand, articulating the singular benefits that you offer.  For assistance, contact me to learn how to speak your brand identity with confidence!

Photo: Simon Peckham

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1. What Makes You Look Like a Serious Business?

There’s nothing more important to getting referrals than becoming known for what you do.

You do this with spectacular work for your clients and by being able to articulate what makes a good referral for you.  When you’ve got that down, sprinkle in one of these three tips and you’ll really thrive.

Related posts:

1. 10 Ways to Generate More Referrals
2. Attract Way More Clients with Way Less Effort: Free Teleseminar
3. Free teleclass: How to Get More Referrals

For too many small business owners and solopreneurs, getting more clients seems wrapped in an air of mystery. Why is it that some business owners get all the clients, while others struggle? If you are among the latter group, it could be that you have fallen for some of these client attraction myths.

Client Attraction Myths as Old As Zeus! Image via Wikipedia

Myth: I need an impressive sounding name or title (listing all of your qualifications) to get clients now.

Reality: Although your official qualifications may make you better suited for the job or you may feel that they give you an aura of prestige, clients do not really care about your title or your academic background.

If you focus your marketing on being a “certified” this or a “registered” that, you are ignoring what is most important to your clients – namely themselves and their problems, not you. We call this an “audio logo” as opposed to a job title. Your audio logo is so important that it is lesson number one in Attracting Perfect Clients.

Myth: If I just do a great job, I’ll start getting referrals and business will develop on its own.

Reality: Of course, doing a great job with your current clients is the foundation for client attraction in the future. However, it is unfortunately not true that your satisfied clients will automatically refer you to other clients.

To get referrals, you have to ask for them. Furthermore, you have to teach your clients whom to refer to you to. For more information on this topic, check out our program Asking for Referrals. It’s usually $17, but you can get it now for free at http://askingforreferrals.net/.

Myth: Some people get all the luck when it comes to client attraction!

Reality: I hate to break it to you, but luck has nothing to do with getting more clients over the long term. At Enlightened Marketing, we’re big believers in including “magical thinking” in our marketing.  That’s our term for things that work, even though we don’t know exactly how or why.  It could be affirmations, prayer, holding intentions, thinking positive thoughts or whatever works for you.

There is a big difference, though, between magical thinking and luck. Magical thinking is a way of bringing fun, lightness and positive energy while still focusing on our goals and being intentional about everything that we do.

Luck is merely wishful thinking – or, worse – self-defeating thinking. It’s the difference between going to a networking meeting and holding the intention “I’m going to deliver a great audio logo today and therefore meet a prospective client!” and merely thinking, “Oh, I hope I get lucky today and find some clients.”

Do you believe any of those myths? If you do, start taking action today stop their damaging effects on your business.

How have audio logos, asking for referrals and magical thinking benefited your business?

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1. A Day in the Life of Your Ideal Client

Reenactment of Samantha's Reaction to Night Work Album Cover

The other day, I bought a new record, the Scissor Sisters’ Night Work. While I was having my first listen and gazing at the album sleeve, I realized that there was a great lesson in it for enlightened small businesses.

The album cover itself is not of the traditional “glamorous picture of the band” type. Rather, it is a somewhat sleazy and very direct photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe, the renowned (and controversial!) artist who had his heyday in the 1980’s.

The album cover makes a very bold statement about the contents of the record. The black and white picture has a late 1970’s or early 1980′s look, and the title, “Night Work” implies an album full of music suitable for late nights on the town. Furthermore, if you do not like the subject matter of the photograph, you probably will not care for the lyrics of the songs, either.

But what makes a pop group’s album sleeve a case study for small business marketing?

1. Well, it sets up expectations in the customer. It says, “if you like somewhat sleazy ’70s music, buy me.”
2. It also increases customer satisfaction for the perfect customer, because they get exactly what they were expecting.
3. Finally, it warns away imperfect customers who recognize that this record is definitely not for them.

Does your packaging – for example, your website – evoke the right expectations in your clients?

Let’s take a look at another example: the Enlightened Marketing website, which is currently in its second version. Now, you, the Enlightened Marketing community, are the judge of whether the website creates the right expectations for when you work with us. I can say, though, that the new design arose in part directly from your feedback. Again and again we heard (with regard to the original website): “The design of the website does not match up with the energy and inspiration that we feel when we work with Enlightened Marketing.”

Therefore, when we designed the look of EnlightenedMarketing.com, we combined earth tones with the bold orange highlights and included a dynamic picture of Samantha in the header to boost the energy level.

The look and feel of your brand needs to be both congruent and consistent.

• It must evoke the right expectations in your clients – and help fulfill them.
• It needs to be consistent, because consistency builds trust.

For example, when we launched Attracting Perfect Clients, we included familiar imagery and used the same color scheme. Even though Attracting Perfect Clients is by far the most affordable option for working with us, it still combines the proven, Fortune 100-tested help you expect, mixed in with the energy and the “magical thinking” that can make your marketing enlightened.

Now, remember when I mentioned the packaging scaring away the wrong clients? Our website does that, too. See the flower in the logo? That “more joy” part of the tag line? Those send out signals to clients who expect cut-throat tactics that they will not feel at home in the Enlightened Marketing community.

So, when you are evaluating the design elements of your brand – your website, stationery, business cards, etc. – there are two questions that you need to ask yourself:

1. “Does this create the right expectations for my perfect client?”
2. “Is this consistent with my brand and what I’ve taught my audience to expect?”

By approaching with intention these issues – congruency and consistency – you will attract clients who are the right fit for you, create expectations you can fulfill and build a trustworthy and profitable brand.

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Today we conclude our short series on “looking” like a serious business.  Our first post was about aligning your appearance with your brand, and the second detailed a higher priority than your website.

One FAQ I get is: “I work from home, and I’m a little embarrassed about it. Does working from a home office damage my credibility?”

More joy, some productivity challenges

Not necessarily.  There are many good reasons to work from a home office, including cost savings, tax breaks, a smaller ecological impact and time saved by not commuting, and the ability to be closer to family throughout the day.

There are also good reasons to locate your office outside your home, including visibility with potential clients, access to equipment and technology, privacy, in-person meetings and the potential for increased productivity.

While the days of start-ups spending all their millions of seed capital on cool offices are long behind us, offices still say a lot about brands.  That doesn’t mean an expensive skyscraper office is the only way to go. It just means you should decide what kind of office fits you and your brand best.

Ask yourself these three questions when deciding what kind of office situation is best for you:

1. What is required to deliver my brand’s solution to my clients? If you’re a therapist, you probably need an office outside the home in which to meet with your clients. Services requiring special equipment, like printers and caterers, and those who collaborate with several people in person, such as attorneys or trainers, may locate in offices as well.  

2. In what conditions do I do my best work? Having worked in both private offices and cubicles in my corporate days, I know I need a quiet place to work without distractions.  I also find that I’m more peaceful when I’m able to be near my dogs and take a break now and then to walk them.

While I spend most of my workday on the phone with my clients while in my home office, I will occasionally work from the library or an office in town for a change of pace.  A close colleague finds those conditions too isolated and depressing. She needs more in-person interaction to keep her in her productivity and joy zone.

Disregard what you think you should do. Combine your ideal working conditions with what you need to deliver your solution to your clients.

That will point you to the right office situation.  Then ask yourself:

3. What do I want my clients to know or understand about my office? Make a case for why you work where you do.  If everyone is in the expensive, prestigious part of town and you’re not, you can build a case for investing in the revitalization of neglected areas.  (I’m not suggesting you say something that isn’t true; I’m recommending you present your reasons in their best light and not be ashamed of a potentially negative interpretation.)

You carry your legitimacy within yourself.

Some of my clients serve large corporations and believe working from a home office lacks legitimacy or credibility of one located outside the home. For them, I can only tell you: you carry your legitimacy within yourself.

There are well-known consultants and experts working from home offices who are never challenged about this.  Why?  Because their work is so good that no one cares where it’s done.  I once heard Alex Mandossian say that he wants to be the first work-from-home billionaire.  Personally, I like how that sounds!

How about you? Where’s your office, and why did you choose that place?  Do your clients seem to care where you work?

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Subscriber Deborah, a “struggling new business owner,” writes:

I started my business several times in the last two years thinking that I need something more to get it off the ground.  I struggle with developing the “things” that make me “look” like I am a viable, serious business and not a hobby.  One of those “things” is a website and a blog.  What are your thoughts?  What do you need REALLY to look like a viable business these days?

I’d say to look like a viable business you need clients.

Believing that you “need something more” keeps you stuck in waiting mode, and a lot of businesses die in that place.

Stop struggling with things that make you look serious, and get in front of potential clients right now. If they hire you, you’re obviously viable and serious in their eyes.  

If, however, you can’t get clients during in-person interaction, you have one of three problems:

• You’re not clear about what you’re doing (a common issue – not as obvious as it seems)
• Your message is confusing
• The market you’re reaching doesn’t want it.

If you’re not clear about what you’re doing, spend some time thinking about how you’ve helped people in the past. What were things like for them before you started, and what results did you get for them?  Talk to those you helped and ask how they benefited. If this is a new business, imagine the answers to those same questions.

If a confusing message is your problem, it’s time to take what’s inside you and form it into a concise and compelling audio logo, whose ingredients are:

• Who do you help?
• Which of their problems do you solve?
• What solution or outcome do you provide?

If your services and message are crystal-clear, yet you still aren’t getting clients, you may NOT have a viable business. You can look at changing audiences or pricing and delivering your services differently.  Not every business IS viable, and you certainly want to know it before you invest a bunch of money into it.

But what about a website and a blog?

I want you to erase any excuse for going out and attracting clients now! You don’t need a website or blog to talk to your friends and colleagues, get out to networking events and go speak in front of audiences.  Your audio logo is your main tool.  Yes, a website is incredibly important and can catapult your business long-term. And later, when you have enough funds to invest comfortably, you can build a “real” website.

Agree? Disagree? Have an awesome website but no clients? Let me know in the comments below.

Related posts:

1. What Makes a Good Tagline?
2. 10 Habits That Keep Your Business Going
3. Attract Way More Clients with Way Less Effort: Free Teleseminar

Subscriber Drew Noble writes:

I just want to say how much I appreciate your blog and newsletter. I’m a 25 year old who just started her own marketing consulting company. I’m so glad that someone finally said what I’ve been thinking all along: Elevator pitches are stupid!  I hope you will write a blog post about “dressing for success” soon. I am curious as to your opinion.

Two of our main values here at Enlightened Marketing are joy and effectiveness. These are the driving forces behind everything we do.  If it doesn’t make you happy, you shouldn’t – and probably won’t – do it.  And if it doesn’t work, why do it at all?

Dressing for success doesn’t have to be an either/or, so I’d look for a way to dress that is effective and also feels joyfully aligned with the truth of who you are.

What’s effective dress?  Your personal appearance is the packaging of your brand, just as a cover design positions a book, or box art sells the product inside it.  You want your appearance to convey:

• What people should expect when working with you.
• What kind of experience they’re likely to have
• Whether you and your target audience are a good fit for each other.

A few years back my client Denise, a massage therapist, asked me about what she wore at work. She felt she SHOULD wear scrubs “like other massage therapists do,” but she longed to wear the brightly-colored T-shirts that she tie-dyed herself (joy).  She worried that she’d hurt her business by doing so.

I asked Denise whether she did sports or medical massage or anything else associated with scrubs.  She didn’t.  She specialized in relaxation, stress release and might even use aromatherapy or crystals if a client was open to it.

By presenting herself in scrubs, she was actually sending an inaccurate message.

When Denise realized she not only could wear her tie-dyed shirts, but she should do so to align better with her brand, she was overjoyed.

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2. Home Office: Bad for Brand Credibility?
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From all the highlighting in my copy of The Zen of Social Media Marketing, the inside pages have started to look like the cheerful yellow cover.  There were several smart ideas I wanted to capture, as many for myself as for my clients.

The book is subtitled “An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue,” and I have to say it really delivers on that promise.  While social media marketing seems incredibly overwhelming to all but the 2% who are clearly thriving on it, Shama Hyder Kabani’s book makes it feel possible.

You could boil all the advice in ZSMM down into this list from Shama:

Strategic first. Be human. Have patience.

Like all good advice, it’s universal.

In the opening chapters Shama shares general marketing principles and online marketing basics that need to be in place before you try to leverage social media. Summed up in her ACT Blueprint – Attract, Convert, Transform – it reminds you that there’s no magic social media will do that will make up for lack of a business model.  Basic ideas, like the futility of driving social media traffic to your website if you don’t have an email capture system, are explained here.

Social media engagement is about having a compelling brand that attracts just the right people to your website and, better yet, your blog. Unless you begin the process with intention and a strategy, Shama explains, it’s likely to be a waste of time – which is what most disgruntled small business owners experience in the beginning. Now many wonder, “Why should I even get on social media if it’s a time suck that may not yield results?”

First, it’s where people are. Your prospective clients are there, AND they’re already talking about you. Unless you engage them where they are, somebody else will.  Second, after you read ZSMM you’ll learn exactly how to do it efficiently and for maximum results.  While I wouldn’t call it easy, I would say it becomes measurably simpler.

The bulk of the book is dedicated to the main social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – and to online video, the “next frontier” of engagement.

The chapter on Facebook sets the stage with a collection of tools, dos and don’ts, daily and weekly action steps and an intriguing (and motivating!) case study from the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.  Shama’s advice here teaches beginners how to make a good first impression, “Use the status updates in a strategic way,” and also coaches more advanced users how to set up and leverage Groups: “Do not create a group around your brand or business …

“Groups are best built around an idea, a thought, or a topic.”

I sure wish more people followed that advice!

As a Twitter fan I loved her chapter on it, especially reading, “You can get clients and customers directly.” Shama reports at least two leads a week come to her company from Twitter.  My favorite tip here was to use the search function to find relevant conversations.  I actually subscribe by RSS to some of my searches, a convenience I like. Once again valuable tips abound, including a note not just on what to Tweet, but how to turn mundane Tweets into valuable ones.

I enjoyed the emphasis in the LinkedIn section on keywords and search engine optimization to get bigger benefit from your profile. I’d also never heard anyone talk about answering a LinkedIn question (from the LinkedIn Answers section) on your blog and posting the reply link there.  Details like this really make the book worth reading.

My favorite chapter, because it’s so new and interesting to me now, was Video: The Next Frontier. If you’re not sure about how to use video or what the myriad benefits are, you’ll be a believer when you see the case study presented by Dave Kaminski of Web Video University.  Dave shares the success principles of his best students:

“They stop thinking about it, they start doing it, and they never quit.”

The 12 (twelve!) social media profiles from the back of the book show again and again how the Internet has leveled the playing field for small businesses and, notably, non-profits.  What I find interesting is how those with smaller budgets are forced to be more creative, and how a clear sense of mission drives them to engage more than reticent entrepreneurs.

Have you gotten results from social media? Are you looking for a simpler approach you can follow to finally get some results?  Share your experience or a favorite tip in the comments below.

* I was gifted a copy of this book by Shama and also contributed a tip to it, found on page 8. The link above is an affiliate link to Amazon.

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3. How to Avoid Overwhelm

After 7 years in Russia, I take kefir for granted. You may not know what it is, but when I say it’s an Eastern European dairy product that– I’m usually interrupted by someone:

“Oh, is that the yogurt drink that helps you live to 100?”

Yep, that’s pretty much the definition. Kefir is a cousin of yogurt and, while I couldn’t drink the real stuff in Russia (too sour and awful-tasting), I do love the fruity kind they sell at Whole Foods.

When I bought some recently at Kroger, the checkout lady asked, “Is that the stuff that you drink and live to 100?”

Literally repeated the exact same words as before.  The checkout lady!

I’m sure you’re wondering, “What the heck does this have to with branding, or marketing or anything except living to 100?”  I’ll tell you …

You want your brand to be like kefir.

Even though kefir is a commodity, we can use the way it’s described as a lesson for our own brands.

• Is your message clear? It should be understood immediately – without diagrams, stories, explanations or Power Points.  “Live to 100?  I want that!”

• Is it compelling enough to get attention? Seems like the whole “live to 100″ thing has caught on.  Where did that come from anyway?

• Is your message benefit-oriented? Kefir has such a big benefit (live to 100) that people forget the features – runny yogurt, sour flavor, probiotics….

• Is your message concise? We may bemoan the sound-bite attention span, but they sure are easy to learn and repeat. Our new barbeque grill has us chuckling “Stop, Drop and Roll” all the time now.  Concise for a reason, right?

• Is it consistent? You may find it hard to believe that the same words are used to describe kefir every time someone mentions it.  But, interestingly, when my clients field customer surveys, they find the same words being used to describe them over and over! When you find out what they are, you can use those words to describe your brand to prospects.  If you don’t like them, define your brand better and teach new ones.

Kefir’s reputation has become a kind of meme or ideavirus, passed through word-of-mouth almost word-for-word.

We business owners would love to have a message that catchy! How to do it?

1.    Name the biggest benefit you deliver. It’s doesn’t have to be immortality. My car insurance guy once walked from his office to a little fender-bender I had.  I tell that to everyone who asks me about him.  Yours may be about increasing revenues or self-esteem, helping people get the job they want or express their anger safely.

2.    Craft it into a concise sound-bite. This is always harder if you don’t know the full message, so think first about whom you help, what problems you solve and the unique results you deliver.  Then you can whittle it down to a nugget like “the pain-free massage therapist.” I always say my favorite photographer takes the most beautiful photos that still look like you.

3.    Repeat it exactly, without variation. Once you get the language you want, stay consistent.  Too often we get bored with a message we’ve heard repeatedly. But your prospects have not learned it yet – and won’t if you keep changing it!

I had a client whose brand message changed every meeting. I realized he liked tinkering with it.  This is like putting a plant in your garden, then digging it up and moving it every day.  It may be alive, but it will never take root and flourish.

What’s the “kefir”  example in your experience?

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