Preparing For A Book Signing

An author signs a copy of his book as a part of the book promotion termed as 'book signing'. Book signing has become a major event as it gives the buyer an opportunity to meet the author. All the best selling authors understand the importance of this event and make the best of book signing.

If the book signing is such an important event in book promotion, it definitely pays to attach more creativity, thought and planning to make it a more impressive, innovative, and effective presentation. Let us see how this can be achieved.

The Perfect Setting

Typically, book signing sessions are held at bookstores. However, think about the venue that will be most suitable for the subject of the book. The very atmosphere and venue could make the audience more appreciative, and receptive to the book, making them more inclined to buy the book. The book signing of a book on nature, or gardening, if organized in an open air garden setting, is likely to receive a more fruitful response than in a formal hall or store setting.

Think about a book that is an autobiography or biography of an author or poet. How about planning the book signing session in a bookstore itself, with posters and banners of the book displayed in an attractive manner? It will definitely create more interest in the illustration of the subject itself, thus resulting in a great response in the form of more copies sold at book signing. You can think of such innovative ideas to plan the book signing session in a more appropriate setting.

The right focus

Remember, the author is the star of a book signing session. It will be the author, who will be in the public eye, who will persuade them into buying the book. Make the right impression; engage the audience in the theme with interaction and exchanges on the subject of the book, convincing them to buy a copy of the book. The author's performance should be effective enough to generate an interest, prompting the customer to buy a copy of the book immediately, to grab the opportunity of the brief encounter with the author that a book signing event provides.

Remember, it is a part of the book promotion process

Book signing is a part of the long process of book promotion. It provides the author an opportunity to interact with potential buyers. An author must realize the importance of promoting the services of a bookstore, in order to create an affinity between the buyers and the bookstore. Like the book, if the bookstore is highlighted, more people will visit it and the bookstore staff will ensure the best service to sell the book.

The bookstore sales people interact with the customer on a daily basis, thus creating a kind of bond, and acting as a guide while selecting a book. Therefore, using a book signing session to make a bond with the bookstore people helps ensure still greater residual sales over a period of time. All these things need to be considered while participating in a book signing session.

Book signing is an event that brings together the author and the book loving and buying public. It is important, therefore, to make the most of it by taking care of all the different factors involved for the effective marketing of the book.

About the Author

Victor Epand is an expert consultant about books. When shopping for books, we recommend you shop only at the best bookstores for used books, autographed books, and vedic books.

10 Resourceful Ways to Recycle Digital Or Small-Ticket Products

Have your product sales slowed down?

Do you want to give a new lease of life to one of your digital or small-ticket products?

At home, I've earned the title of 'Queen of the left-overs'. Did you know that left-over spaghetti sauce can be recycled? Add a bit of cumin and chilli, it becomes taco sauce; mixed with a bit of white sauce, you have a lasagna sauce; add a few vegies, wrap the lot in puff pastry and you get a pastie, etc.

Using the same principles, you can recycle a product and market it using a different mix: change your promotion, sell it elsewhere, use it to barter, bundle it with another product, etc.

Start recycling a product using one of the following strategies:

1 - Auction your product on eBay or another auction site. How much are customers prepared to pay for your product? Use this strategy to research your market and to experiment with a new selling outlet. Who knows, people in their bidding frenzy may pay more than you ever imagined!

2 - Reposition your product. Review your promotional and pricing strategies and give your product a new image. Change your sales letter (including words and graphics), add testimonials, increase or lower the price, etc. Now sell your 'new' product.

3 - Offer your product as a bonus with the purchase of another product. Sell the bundle as 'this month's special', 'buy one get one free' or 'value pack'. The bonus should boost your sales especially if you point out the dollar value of the bonus e.g. 'valued at...' and add a sense of urgency 'limited time offer till (date)'.

4 - Give to get. Ask visitors on your website to complete a survey and reward their effort with a gift, your product. Provided your product is relevant to the type of information you are seeking, this should yield a list of qualified leads and supply you with new ideas to create products and boost your business.

5 - Sell your product as a promotional item. This is a strategy I have used very successfully. I've bundled signed copies of my book from my first printing batch into packs of ten. Businesses bought them at volume discount price and gave them as gifts to their loyal customers.

6 - Increase your database by giving away your product for free as an incentive to join your mailing list. Your offer can be advertised for free on the online free stuff sites. When visitors are picking up their freebies, capture their email addresses and you will gain a valuable mailing list. (Note: this database building strategy will only work with digital products or else you will be out of pocket if you have to pay shipping costs.)

7 - Swap your product for things you need for your own business e.g. exchange your ebook for a software or another ebook. Your savings will make up for your profit loss. At a conference, I swapped my book for books from my colleagues.

8 - Organise an online contest and offer your product as the winning prize. This a cheap price to pay for free advertising for your product through online contest directories.

9 - Donate your product for an attendance or raffle prize at non-profit associations' events. In return, the organisation usually promotes your business by giving you an advertising space on their website or promotional flyers.

10 - Approach businesses with complementary products and find out if they would be interested in bundling their product with yours. Build on each other's equity and share promotional costs and profits.

Left-overs are delicious. Recycle your product for a new lease of life.

About the Author

Henriette Martel is a website strategist, author of 200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website and director of the Australian Training Guide, Australia's A to Z Training Database and Resources for Speakers, Trainers & Coaches.

Internationalisation and M&A operations

Often the concepts of outsourcing and plain internationalisation are misunderstood. The first one requires the research of productive factors at low cost, the second one is intended to recreate the company in a foreign country while looking for outlet markets.

The competitive pressure applied to a greater extent by foreign companies is a kind of competition that originates also from different fields because of the crossover of technologies and it implies a greater and greater projection of companies in the international contexts.

It is possible to achieve these aims in different ways: looking for suppliers and distributors, cooperating with foreign third-party manufacturers or through deeper M&A operations.

According to these positions, the entrepreneur can avail himself of different organizations and individuals:

* Organizations that support the internationalisation (ICE, Simest, SACE...)
* Entrepreneur networks (associations near to Confindustria...)
* Advisory Company* Commercial information suppliers and international corporate ratings

To the purpose of M&A operations, the last two items of the list above are surely more interesting:

Mergers and acquisitions have the prerogative to speed the process of internationalisation because they take advantage of the target company's know-how.

In order to be performed, they need capacity of corporate analysis, negotiation skills and last but not least the purchased company has to be run with a firm hand.

Therefore, we can point out the related risks:

* country risk (correct evaluation of the criticalities due to the foreign nation)
* operative risk (analysis of the micro-economic context of the target company)
* risk due to the value of acquisition

Here there are some data about our Country: M&A operations adopted by Italian companies drastically decreased in value during 2007-2008 but on the contrary they increased in number.

This fact clearly means that middle companies have been making more and more use of tools of this kind.

I am going to close this analysis with some purchase advice:

in a period of lack of cash-flow due to a drastic credit freeze, firms provided with a good cash-flow have considerable chances to purchase companies at extremely convenient costs.

There are several companies that operate in this way supported by a good brand: they purchase firms even located in different fields, but where high growth rates are expected.

Nowadays China and South-east Asia are in the centre of attention of different organizations because of their catchment area and productive capacity, while East-European contexts seem to be more risky.

SOME PRATICAL ADVICE:

Whether you want to make business with foreign individuals, or you think seriously to purchase foreign companies you will have to confront yourselves with the logics of corporate evaluation. Nowadays the definition of a true and correct rating is the decisive, essential requirement to take entrepreneurial choices, even more in international contexts.

It is a matter of relying on professional people that can base their analysis on the most accurate methodologies. The rating has to show clearly the informative resources from which it takes its information, it has to allow transnational comparisons or through different principles of accounting.

The risk can be reduced thanks to reliable information but it can be held in a more traditional way too and rationalized through insurance tools.
Usually when we speak about internationalisation and insurance processes we mean typical risks due to the country situation and credit. I want to focus your attention on some very common tricks to which the insurance world has reacted with ad hoc tools.

Let's start with the Director and Officer insurance that prevents managers and administrators from claims for compensation because of their conducts. In some countries the risk due to these events is very high and providing an entrepreneur with tools of this kind can be very useful in order to recruit professional people with high profile that will be able to work in a safer, comfortable way.

There are countries where conflicts caused by mobbing, downgrading, discriminatory dismissal are highly probable and this is why it is very useful to rely on ad hoc insurance tools.

Unfortunately it has become very useful the so called Crime Insurance that assures the company even against account fraud and embezzlement. Moreover there are advance tools that offer a coverage in case of purchaser's non-fulfilment during the purchase of a third foreign company.

The concept to keep clearly in mind is that with the internationalisation the risk outline changes and the frame of insurance tools on which to rely on has accordingly to change as well.

I'm going to close my analysis with an in-depth examination of a couple of topics bound to the international corporate law.

Subsidiary office or foreign branch? The first one has the advantage of being more easily established at lower cost. The second one, with its more complex structure, guarantees the limitation of the risk capital to the branch's alone; meanwhile in case of subsidiary office it is always the head office to answer jointly and severally for any events. Besides notice that the structure of a branch allows the entry of local partners.

An other extremely interesting aspect of this topic is represented by the join-venture: this is a contract that disciplines the cooperation among companies and its aim is the realisation of a specific economic project.

Though it can be established among Italian firms too, it is normally used for international cooperation. Just think about the importance of local partners' knowledge while penetrating into a new market as some topical operations have recently showed in the automotive fields.

The join-venture can be both contractual and corporative: in the first case and for temporary relationships, there is just a contractual bound, while in the second case there is a deeper cooperation represented by the establishment of a dedicated company.

Apart from the aspects of the matter considered above and since the complexity of economic context, I think the best piece of advice is to rely on competent professional people because this is no longer the time to internationalise in an off-hand, rough way.

About the Author

Dario Ferrigato
Marketing consultant, Senior consultant at ADVBOUCLE & PARTNERS Marketing consultants

Understanding And Commissioning A Virtual Tour - A Beginners Guide

A virtual tour is a complete 360-degree view of a space. The user can feel as if they're standing within a space, and then can control their movement within the area. They can look up above them, at the floor below them, and all around. Users are also able to zoom in and out, giving them the ability to focus in on areas of interest. Each virtual tour is usually made up from a number of photographs which are 'stitched' together

Where are they used?
One of the most familiar applications of virtual tours is by estate agents. These virtual tours tend to be small scale, and low-quality, as price is the biggest issue.

High-resolution virtual tours that can be viewed at full screen are the best option for any organisation for whom quality is important. A hotel group will use virtual tours to show the potential clients the quality of the rooms. Other examples of potential virtual tour customers include conference centres, museums, hospitals, car manufacturers, football clubs, universities, architects and property developers - all of whom benefit by showing off their space to its best advantage.

What extra features can a virtual tour have?
You can use the virtual tours in many different ways on your site, depending on how you'd like to display them. Virtual tours can be linked to a floorplan, so that users can feel orientated and choose how and where to move within a space. This is particularly useful for architects or property developers. Eye Revolution have created an example of this type for The Edison bar and lounge.

A Google Maps interface enables users to see virtual tours that are geographically removed from each other - a large number of virtual tours can all be linked via a map. Britannia Vista offers an excellent example of this type of implementation.

Many virtual tour providers will also be able to integrate hotspots - special links within a virtual tour. You may even want to include an audio script, a soundtrack or even some video in your virtual tours.

Talk to the virtual tour companies about the project, and they will be able to suggest interfaces that may be appropriate for you.

What's the advantage of a virtual tour on your website?
A virtual tour which is relevant to the viewer can help both build a brand and sell a product. So in the case of an architect's website, where part of their portfolio is available to be toured, the viewer is able to see the quality of the architect's work, choose where they'd like to focus on (rather than being dependent on the 'right' stills being provided) and then zoom in and see the small details. This gives the company a big advantage over their competitors as potential clients get a better insight into the product on offer.

How should I choose a virtual tour provider?
The good news is that there's a lot of choice out there. The bad news is that there are some very poor providers too. The best bet is to make a shortlist of virtual tour providers and then have a very thorough look through their portfolios. Look for 'stitching errors' - places where the photographs that make up the tour don't line up properly. Look for clarity - are the lines clear and sharp, or fuzzy, pixellated or indistinct? Can you see odd colours which don't look 'right', particularly on edges of objects in the tours. Check for over-exposure - so can you see through windows, or are they all white and hazy? Can you look around a full 360-degrees, or are the ceilings and floors blocked off?

If you're looking for a high quality virtual tour, it's vital that your providers are good photographers. If they're poor photographers, nothing will make your virtual tour look as good as it should.

So, going through their portfolio to make sure that you're happy with the quality of their virtual tour work and that they've got a good range of clients and experience is vital to the success of your virtual tour project.

Is it expensive?
This depends on the type of project that you're commissioning. Talk to the providers you've shortlisted, describe your project in as much detail as possible and ask them to quote. A 'menu' of prices (where you can see the cost per virtual tour, rather than the total cost for 10 virtual tours) is often useful, as it enables you to compare like with like.

The important thing to note is that the old adage still applies - if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys! Good virtual tour providers will be investing in new equipment, training and software on an ongoing basis. They will also be expert in retouching, and can use their skills to ensure your tours look as good as they can. This investment means that you get the best possible end result, and as you're going to live with it on your website - possibly for a number of years - you want to make sure that the virtual tours are perfect. If you're being offered a deal that seems to good to be true, again, look back carefully at the portfolio and assess the quality again.

How do I get it on my website?
Your virtual tour provider will provide you with files which can be uploaded to your site, or they can be hosted on your virtual tour provider's server. They will be able to liaise with your web designer to ensure the smooth delivery and upload of the virtual tours.

There are several plugins through which people can view virtual tours (for example, Flash, QuickTime, Java, Shockwave and OpenGL). Flash's high penetration (97% in developed markets) tends to make it the main choice, however, providers will be able to discuss the best options with you.

So finally...
Good virtual tours that stand the test of time and enhance your site visitors' experience will be likely to increase sales, will encourage people to return, and may over time increase the traffic to your website.

About the Author

Beth Menzies is a Director of eyerevolution.co.uk - a leading London-based virtual tour company. Prior to joining Eye Revolution she worked in top-10 Advertising Agencies handling advertising for clients like Volkswagen, Nissan, Hertz, Axa, Carlton TV & Odeon Cinemas.

The Mini Site Formula and the Need for SEO

The Mini Site Formula is a well constructed system for building Mini Sites. An important consideration though when building your online business is driving traffic. You can build all the sites you want, but they will do you no good if no one sees them. Search engine optimization is the key to getting traffic.

Put in the simplest manner possible, organic SEO is search engine optimization done manually using no black hat methods, no underhand methods and no automated scripting. It is the purest form of optimizing your website for the benefit of search engines, while still retaining interest for your site visitors, and done well it is exactly the thing that search engines are looking for in a website. Once they find it they will reward your site with better rankings and improved positions within the search engine results pages. Throughout the course of this article it will be referred to as simply SEO.

Understanding The Search Engines

Understanding Search Engines and their general concept is vital to the use of effective SEO methods. Search engines enable their visitors to enter a specific word or term, known as keywords. Once submitted, all pages containing those keywords that can be found in the search engineís directory are listed on the search engine result pages. Each page is ìrankedî according to relevancy, popularity and a few other factors. Therefore, in theory, the more relevant a page is to a given keyword the more likely it will appear at the top of the listings. Introducing The Search Engine Spiders

Another important factor to remember about search engines is that they donít use real people to crawl the billions of websites and judge how relevant they are. Instead they use automated software called a ìspiderî or a ìbotî that does this work much quicker. The calculations that the search engine uses to determine the ranking of a website are called algorithms and in the case of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN these algorithms are changed on a regular basis. The changes and the specifics of the algorithms are not released to the public in order to prevent black hat SEOs from manipulating their sites to reach the top of the pile despite containing to information relevant to the search query or keyword.

Optimizing For Search Engines Optimizing For Visitors

Of course to some extent, all of us reading this article are probably guilty of altering our web pages to meet the whims of search engines but it must be done in a positive and organic way. We understand that optimizing a page purely for the benefit of search engines spiders may massively detract from the actual value of the site to your visitors. Search engines understand this too, hence the evolution of the algorithms. With each new algorithm created and usually patented by search engines like Google, we are getting closer to a structure whereby sites are genuinely judged on their value to visitors. It may sound like an Isaac Asimov novel but the algorithms and the spiders are basically becoming more human like.

Basic Components Of SEO

The actual methods of optimizing your website are saved for another article, but the basic components of an SEO campaign are broken down into on page and off page optimization techniques. On page SEO includes factors like keyword inclusion, content optimization, page structure etc., whereas the main contributing factor of off page optimization is inbound links. There are many different factors to each of these areas and different SEOs will give you varying information on which factors are the most relevant to gain higher rankings. These extensive differences in opinion occur because nobody is certain of the algorithm criteria. The Benefits Of SEO

SEO is probably the most beneficial way to conduct Internet promotion. It is highly cost effective, can yield long term results and the leads it generates are opt in and targeted. This doesnít mean you shouldnít consider trying out alternative methods of advertising your site. For many, banner advertisements, press releases (can actually be used as part of an SEO campaign as well), PPC campaigns and sponsored listings prove to highly beneficial and including these will help your siteís popularity.

To Cost Effectiveness And To Life

The cost effectiveness is easily determined when you look at the potential of an SEO campaign compared to the method that many consider to be the next best thing, PPC. A PPC campaign will usually cost you anywhere upward of 5 cents per visitor generated. This means that for every thousand visitors you receive you will have paid $50. Some fairly basic SEO work on a web site containing ten pages will generate this kind of traffic on a monthly basis relatively quickly.

$50 doesn’t sound much but consider that you pay this in one month to receive the desired one thousand visitors. Over the space of a year you will have paid $600, and so on. Now consider that you are competing for a relatively competitive keyword and you find that you need to be paying a minimum of 50 cents per click to generate just the one thousand clicks in a month. All of a sudden youíre paying $6000 per year and you are still only getting one thousand clicks every month. $6000 will buy you an awful lot of SEO work and you should find that within a few months you are generating a lot more traffic using SEO.

Targeted Leads Drive Traffic

Targeted leads are the best type of leads you can generate. It means that the visitors to your site are already predisposed to the basic topic of your site and are interested in what you have to say. It means that they will be more likely to purchase goods or services from your site, click on affiliate links or click Google ads to earn you revenue. Because SEO leads are physically searching for the topic that your site relates to you are guaranteed that they are interested in whatever youíre offering. First of all they search using keywords relevant to your site. They then read the description and name of your site and this further compounds their interest in the page in question and click on the link. Already they have become highly susceptible to the message of your web page.

So Remember

SEO is a webmaster’s greatest tool but treated badly it can quickly blow up in your face. By ensuring you stick to the very letter of the law and do not use any underhand methods you should soon benefit from powerful leads that will frequent your site and earn you revenue.

How to Succeed in Internet Marketing With Organic SEO

In the old days of the Internet, there were no SEO Consultants, automated systems, or all that high technology stuff. A few years ago, in fact, the term 'Search Engine Optimization' did not even exist! Website owners struggled with ways and means to get the much-needed hits to their website (never mind if it was not targeted) to hopefully generate the needed revenues. Those were the days of IBM (or 'It's Best done Manually) and Organic SEO.

Organic SEO still refers to the processes and strategies that are undertaken to optimize a website so that it gets good relevance ratings based on the keywords that the site is responsive to. The only difference between Organic SEO and the SEO we now know is that Organic SEO is a manual process vs. the current automated processes of page submission and alteration that characterizes 'modern' SEO. Organic SEO, if you really think about is a 'purist' approach to website optimization because nothing is a 'black box'. As a practitioner of Organic SEO, you know optimization; you don't just blindly trust it.

Organic SEO is based on a clear understanding of fundamental concepts, including:

- Search engines and how they work
Obviously, you cannot practice Organic SEO if you don't even know how the first two letters of SEO (i.e., Search Engine) works. A search engine is a web site that provides the visitor a list of recommended websites to go to, based on a specific keyword or keywords. The rank of a website is statistically determined by what is termed as 'key word density' or the ratio of keywords to the total number of words of content in a website. The gatherer of this statistical data is what is called a 'spider' or 'spider bot', which is a program whose function is to count the number of times a keyword appears in a website through a process called 'crawling'.

- Search Engine Optimization
You can't have Organic SEO without the SEO part, which stands what Search Engine Optimization. SEO's main goal is simple: bring as many visitors to your website as possible by exerting influence on the search engine to position your website as close to the top of the list as possible. As a result of having more visitors, it is hoped that your website will generate business for you. This result is every Organic SEO practitioner's clear measure of success.

- Viral Marketing
This is an important concept to understand if you are serious about becoming a good Organic SEO practitioner. Viral Marketing is a strategy to exponentially increase the number of visitors to your website from a small base that you have developed from your initial Organic SEO strategy. An example of Viral Marketing is to offer visitors to your website an opportunity to generate income from their own website by simply putting in your website's link on theirs so that when people visit their website, then there is a good chance that they will visit yours. This strategy is certainly a handy component of the arsenal of a practitioner of Organic SEO.

- Optimized Domain Names
One of the simplest concepts to understand, yet also one that is not as easy to implement. Getting a keyword-rich domain name is every Organic SEO practitioner's dream because it carries so much weight in the relevance scale. If you domain name is exactly what you are selling, you will be able to smoothly sail on without much of a problem in the rankings. The problem, of course, is that there is a very high likelihood that the 'good' domain names already belong to someone, and this makes an Organic SEO practitioner's life more difficult.

- Keyword Research
This is the first step on the list of to-dos for an Organic SEO practitioner because it plays a major role in determining your optimization strategy. Since it takes months for any optimization strategy to take effect, an Organic SEO practitioner's efforts will be wasted if he makes the mistake of optimizing a website based on keywords that are not as popular as he assumed.

Becoming an Organic SEO practitioner is not an easy task at all because it requires a deep understanding of the fundamentals that those utilizing automated systems take for granted. There is a major advantage, however, of Organic SEO vs. the 'lazy man's SEO: A clear understanding of the concepts allows you to analyze SEO situations more accurately and come up with strategies that are more appropriate and responsive to your website's needs.

About the Author

Seomul Evans is a SEO Services consultant specializing with leading dallas SEO Consulting.

How to Create a Trade Show Promotional Plan

When operating a booth in a trade show, it is very important to have a promotional plan in place. Without one, the promotional aspect of the business can be complete and utter chaos. That is certainly something you don't want. You want a plan where everything is organized because nothing works without some kind of order. That is why there are processes to virtually everything and trade shows are definitely not an exception. There is a process to setting up the booth and there needs to be one for promoting the booth as well, so a promotional plan must be put in place.

Promotion is the biggest part of your marketing. You have to promote your booth before the show, at the show, and even after the show. So many trade show exhibitors do not have a solid plan in place that takes care of all three of these areas. The reason is because of the budget. Some believe that they cannot do such promotion on their budget. It is true that money will decide how much promotion can take place, but the budget can serve has a good guide as to what can be done and how much of it can be done. A little is definitely better than none at all. One sale can be the difference between making money and not making money, so every little bit helps.

When creating your promotional plan, it is a good idea to have a theme in mind that can be remembered by those you are promoting to. This should become a significant part of your promotional plan. You want to determine who it is you need to target and you may even want to consider having different approaches for the different types of people you are aiming for. You want to do such things as broadcast faxes, direct mail, PR sponsorship, advertising, and utilize the internet as much as possible. Of course how much of this you do depends on your budget, but try to touch each area at least a little bit so that you can get the word out in many different areas.

When using such methods as direct mail, you want to make your mailing stand out from the rest that ends up in the mailboxes of potential customers. You don't want them to glance at it and automatically think, "Junk mail." This means your money is going to go straight to the trash. Also, in any of your marketing approaches, you want to provide your prospective customers with an incentive to check out your business. Everyone has busy lives and sometimes an incentive is the only thing that is going to bring them to you. You also want to highlight what is new in your business because people take an interest in things that are new versus the old. People are always eager to learn about those things that are new, so be sure to provide them with the information they crave.

Also, sending press releases into local newspapers is a great way to get exposure. Public relations are very cost-effective and are very successful when generating sales and inquiries. That is why you want to send catchy and newsworthy press releases to the local papers that focus on what is new with your business such as a new product.

Another part of your promotional plan should be to have everyone trained and ready to communicate with anyone and everyone that walks up to the booth. This means customers, press, and whoever else shows up. By having your people prepared, promotion can be consistent, organized, and successful.

About the Author

A Canadian trade show display and display stand manufacturer, as well as an authorized online dealer for only the highest quality portable display systems. Offering portable banners stands, table top displays and exhibit booths.

When Marketing Professional Services - Don't Try to be All Things to All People

As a professional solution provider do you try to "specialize" in everything? Or do you specialize with every person in your niche, providing the services each of them require? Let me explain.

Years ago a friend of mine, a multiple lines insurance agent, had what he thought was the opportunity of a lifetime. There was a gas station in his community, on the busiest street in the neighborhood - that had gone out of business. The owner of the property could not find another oil company to lease it so he cleaned up the site and began trying to lease the building as a bakery, pizza shop, or small retailer, anyone really.

It occurred to my friend that this would be an ideal location for his insurance agency. It was on the main drag, there was parking in front, and it was on a corner for easy in and out maneuvering. The building was remodeled, the parking lot was re-paved and the original 15 foot high gas station sign was painted with his logo.

It read, "Suburban Insurance, We Specialize in ALL Kinds of Insurance" in a very professional look. And of course his catchy phone number everyone around there would remember easily. How could he lose? With all those people driving back and forth every day? They would see the sign on their way to work, call for an appointment on the way home.

What did the people driving by think? Who knows, no one stopped. He was trying to be all things to all people and it did not work. For three months he didn't make a sale that could in any way have come from one of those passing motorists. He was faced with the prospect of giving up this really neat space or cutting back elsewhere because he had signed on to a lease based on his untested assumption that people would drive in every day of the week.

During a chance conversation with the owner of an actual gas station in the area a light went on. He realized that he needed to specialize in something, offer something unique or timely - get people to stop in for that one thing, so he could tell them about the other products and services his agency offered.

He returned to his office and found behind the building a portable sign, we've all seen them - the kind gas stations roll out by the curb where the passing motorists can't miss it. He had it painted using his professional theme with the message, "Changing jobs, we have short term medical insurance - don't put your family at risk" and put it out by the corner.

Not being a savvy marketer he did not know that a major employer in the area was laying off a lot of the very people who were driving by his office twice a day.

Within the next two days nearly 20 drivers stopped in, over a dozen of them bought the insurance - they were about to change jobs and had never heard of this kind of insurance and the other picked up brochures for the short term medical and some of his other products.

Every week or so he would showcase another of his products - travel accident, International medical, errors and omissions, etc. Every time he did that, people would stop in. From the relationships he created he sold the other more complex and more profitable coverages demonstrating that his agency actually did specialize in all kinds of insurance.

For the last twenty years I have seen examples where professionals of all types claim to specialize working with home business owners, small business owners, and executives. They think that by covering the entire waterfront they won't miss anyone. The opposite if often the result however.

Too often we try to be all things to all people and lose our credibility. Just because we do a lot of different kinds of consulting or coaching, or offer several different and usually complimentary services - people really only want to know if we have what they need right then.

Start by thinking of your audience those people ideally suited for the services you provide. Maybe a should say audiences. Think about your several audiences vs. your specialties. So, if you are a business coach and do sales training, customer retention, and recruitment within one field that's not bad if you tie them together under one umbrella firm name providing a range of services for a specific audience/category.

On the other hand, if you position yourself as a marketing expert and as engineering expert, you may want to consider your audiences again and use different materials, literature, etc. for each audience. Savvy professionals have several bios or web sites, not linked together - one they use for speaking for instance, those they use when they are emailing to a specific category prospects, those they use for different audiences they serve.

Remember, you can't be all things to all people but you can be different things to different people.

About the Author

Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them. They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.

Disagreement Can Be the Key to Success

Is the economy slow? I hadn't really noticed. Okay, so that may be an exaggeration - but the point is that I haven't let it get to me, and most importantly I've decided not to agree with the "fact" that all businesses are hurting because of the economy.

It's very easy to say "There's nothing I can do, it's the economy."

But as usual, the easy way is not the best way. The easy thing to do would have been to pull back, get smaller, cut jobs and blame it on the economy. No one would have judged me poorly. Some may have even commented on what a shrewd businesswoman I was for making the hard decisions. I disagree with them, and with the "fact" that there is nothing I can do.

The economy is simply a factor to consider when planning your growth strategies - just like all the other factors you have to consider and plan with. This is the time when you have to dig deep. You have to work harder, and you have to find the things you can control, and delineate what you cannot. Once delineated, you can figure out your way around those barriers. You have to get creative. You have to take action on plans that haven't materialized. These things will give you control over the course of your sales, even in the current economy.

You can't say you weren't warned. The year ahead may be a bit dicey, but there is absolutely no reason why you can't still show growth. Start by making a plan for 2009. Plan to do the hard thing, the right thing, and take control. There is no greater reward than succeeding while proving the nay-sayers wrong!

If you haven't noticed, I've been hammering in the fact that you need to plan for the New Year and not let the economy determine whether your company grows or not.

I am not suggesting that you simply put your fingers in your ears and yell "La! La! La!" at the top of your lungs, the whole time pretending there is nothing wrong with the economy. What I am suggesting is that you not let the external force of the economy be your excuse to fail!

So, guess what? You are 100% responsible for the future of your business. Yikes! If you really consider what that means, it really puts YOU in the hot seat.
Don't spend your valuable time whining about the economy! DO something about it.

Quick story about a buddy of mine who is a "Lemon" lawyer... he basically represents folks who wound up buying a lemon of a car. Well, a bad economy means fewer car sales, which means fewer lemons, which in turn means less business for him! What did he do? He hired a couple of attorneys that are experts in creditor harassment suits. He put a marketing campaign in place with TV ads, direct mail - the works! He is so excited about 2009 and is predicting his best year ever!

So, what can you do right now to counteract the media hype of doom and gloom?

1. Get Perspective: Take a few days and get out of your office so that you can take a panoramic, objective view of your business and your industry.

2. Research: During those few days, get your wits wrapped around what is occurring in your industry in terms of your competitors.

3. Set Goals: Where do your numbers need to be? Break down your income needs. Not just what you need yearly or quarterly, but what you need to bring in on average on a daily basis in order to make your targets.

4. Implement: We've all had ideas that have been brushed aside in the fray. Find those ideas and figure out which ones need to be implemented to solidify your sales.

5. Get Advice: Reach out for sources where you can learn and get your questions answered. It's possible that as a business owner you have not been through this before, and reaching out to those who have can be a real help.

In the end, no matter what the economy is doing, it's up to you to plan ahead and make the right choices for success. Start 2009 off right and you won't regret it.

About the Author

Using a powerful, simple, extremely cost effective way of communicating with customers has earned Joy Gendusa Inc. Magazine’s recognition as the nation’s fastest growing direct mail postcard-marketing firm with year 2008 revenues close to $19,000,000. Gendusa began in 1998 with zero investment capital. Today, her Clearwater, FL firm called PostcardMania (www.PostcardMania.com), employs over 160 people and prints 4 million and mails 2 million postcards representing 35,000-plus customers in over 350 industries each week. Download the first three chapters of Joy’s book "The Ultimate Postcard Marketing Success Manual" here: (www.PostcardMarketingSuccessManual.com)

Professional Partnering The Key To Effective Growth For You and Your Clients

If you have been serving business owners for very long you have come to some important conclusions. You only know what you know, you can only see what you see, and there are other professionals with blind spots in different places than you.

Let's face it, if we all knew the same things - most of us would not be needed. And if we had productive relationships with other professionals - those our clients use who services compliment ours, our clients would receive our coordinated ideas and insights. Plus we would be in a position to refer business to these professionals - now that we know how they work, and they would tell their clients about us. This is a perfect scenario all the way around.

Partnering, on a case by case basis or in an ongoing relationship with consultants, financial planners, accountants, coaches, lawyers, and other professionals can be a very good idea indeed.

And of course there are many different workable business models for doing this. For many of us it works best when we to do it quid pro quo basis vs. referral fees. Here are a few quick suggestions that you should consider:

1. Always work with someone you trust. In over three decades working with business owners I have found that if there is any doubt in your mind about the person you are considering working with - no matter how casually or infrequently, do not do it. I am still reminded from time to time, in a nice way - about the time I partnered with the wrong person - years ago.

2. Be the one to give more than you think you have to, in time, money, energy, etc. The other professionals will appreciate it and the law of reciprocity will kick in. The one thing everyone will remember about you is whether or not you did what you said you'd do. If you always deliver more than they expect, and because of your example your project partners do the same - you will all be proud of the results.

3. There are lots of opportunities to work with other professionals these days. I would suggest that you not enter into long-term relationships until you have a lot of experience with each person. In fact you may find that your clients hold you in greater esteem when you become known as the person who can put the right people on the team - no matter the situation, and they may be different people almost every time. You are seen as the go-to person because you are the one with the connections, the one who fits the pieces of the planning team puzzle together.

4. Give, rather than look for, credit. It is as true today as it was the first time someone told me that there is nothing we can not achieve if we do not care who gets the credit. All relationships are give and take. Give more and you'll get more.

5. Think outside the box when choosing your partnering relationships. Naturally if you are in the life insurance business you think of partnering with an accountant and a lawyer, or if you are an engineer you work with architects and people in the construction industry.

If there is anyone you should consider putting on your team, in addition to the usual suspects, it is a workplace conflict resolution professional. Why, because where there is conflict - no matter how far they keep it under the radar, nothing gets done. Wills are not signed and we never know why, estate plans end up in the file cabinet when doing nothing is just dumb.

When nothing happens to your (team's) proposals it is either because of you or the client. If it is you - they don't trust you or your partner's recommendations, that's one thing. You may or may not be able to overcome that.

If it is them, it may be that there are unseen disagreements and conflicts going on that are keeping them from taking action. And you may not about them until later, long after the deal has gone sour and the proposals are taking up space on your hard drive.

When you are putting together your next planning team - add someone who sees what you can't see, both traditional number crunchers and workplace conflict professionals.

About the Author

Successful professionals are always on the lookout for ideas and resources to help them. They are also looking for creative ways of marketing their professional services. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, learn more about marketing professional services and share your insights with others, visit us and join in the discussion.