Want to Use Your Blog to Build Your Brand?

Want to build your reputation as an authority in your field while build an audience of ideal clients who are interested in what you have to say?

My advice: Create a blog.

And, not on a free blogging platform (such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com) – but a self-hosted WordPress blog.

That’s the blogging platform that my blog www.annemariecross.com is built on.

The beauty of having a self-hosted WordPress blog is that it’s not just a blog; it’s also a fully functioning website, which I think is pretty cool.

When setting up your own self-hosted WordPress blog – while the WordPress (blogging) software is free (from WordPress.org) there will be some costs involved in setup, hosting and graphic design.

So why should you pay for something you can get for free?

Especially if setting up your blog over at WordPress.com has all hosting and management costs being taken care of by their team?

Well, if you’re serious about making a great lasting impression and money in your business (which I assume you are), then you’ll want to invest in a self-hosted blog. [I’ll share some of my reasons why I believe this so strongly, shortly].

To me, this isn’t an expense, but an investment. An investment in your reputation and overall professionalism – as a self-hosted blog that has been strategically designed and branded will enable you to continue building a professional and memorable online presence.

If you’re still temped to go down the free route and host your blog on WordPress.com, be warned – they frown upon users selling their products/services (or even making reference to their products/services).  You may just find your blog being taken down overnight.

Just like two of my colleagues. They lost everything overnight and had to start from scratch after WordPress.com shut down their blogs.

I don’t know about you. To me, it’s just not worth the risk.

So, in answer to the question “Your Blog: Free or Self-Hosted. Which is best for your brand?” Here are my top 5 reasons why I vote for a self-hosted WordPress blog.

1. Build a Consistent Professional Brand

While there are many free great-looking themes available for your self-hosted WordPress blog, once you get some funds behind you, I would strongly recommend you invest in a graphic designer to develop a professional personalised banner.

In fact, I purchased a theme from WooThemes.com, which cost me $70 for two standard yet very professional templates with some great features.

I hired a WordPress programmer who tweaked the theme to my brand colours; added a signup box on the top right hand side of the page (prime real estate) as part of my list-building strategy; and changed some of the formatting/layout to personalize it.

I also worked with a graphic designer to create my banner with the colours and fonts matching my business cards, brochures, images and flyers.

Having your own corporate colours, banners and images on your self-hosted blog will help you build a consistent professional on-brand message and online presence.

To brand your free blog to your corporate colours and images will also cost you money as well. My advice is to invest in your self-hosted WordPress blog from the start.

2. Build Credibility with Your Own Domain Name

Read both of these domain names out loud:

(A) www.[yourdomainname].com

(B) www.[yourdomainname].wordpress.com

Which do you think is easier for people to remember AND looks more professional?

Hopefully you’ve selected A.

It speaks for itself. Yes?

3. YOU maintain full control of your content

Because it can take hours to craft a well-written blog post, and months (if not years) to build a solid repertoire of inspiring, informative articles on your blog, you want to ensure that you retain control of all your content.

With a self-hosted blog you CAN maintain control of your information, whereas with a free option you can’t. If they decide they don’t like what you’re posting – they can shut you down overnight. Period.

I certainly wouldn’t want to take that risk and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to either. Especially considering all of the hard work you’re going to be putting in to building high-quality content for your audience.

Yes, of course having a self-hosted WordPress blog will mean you’re responsible for the security and updating of your blog software; however to me that’s a small price to pay for keeping my information safe and secure.

As one of my colleagues on Facebook so aptly commented:

“If you don’t own it – you don’t own it.”

4. Send traffic to YOUR site

With all of the effort you’re going to put into driving people back to your website through your social media and communications strategies, means YOU’LL benefit from all the traffic.

With a free blog – you’re sending all the traffic back to their site.

Plus, with your self-hosted blog, once you’ve captured their attention and interested they are far more likely to stick around and click through to review some of your product and service offerings.

Another advantage of having a self-hosted WordPress blog is the myriad of free (and paid) plugins available. (A plugin is a customised piece of software that provides specific abilities and functionalities to your WordPress blog.) These are easy to install and use.

Some of my favourite plugins include All in One SEO Pack to help me with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation); Shareaholic, which allows my readers to share my blog posts with their social network; and of course the GoogleAnalytics plugin, which allows me to see how many visitors are reading my posts and where they are coming from.

You can’t add plugins to your free WordPress.com hosted blog (unless of course you pay them.)

And, as I mentioned before, if you’re going to spend money – invest in your own self-hosted blog and reap the benefits.

5. Build Your List

As many marketing gurus state: “The money is in your list”, and having your own self-hosted blog/website will allow you to integrate your list-building strategy into your overall website strategy.

As you can see on my blog, I’ve set up my list-building strategy into the banner and footer and on selected pages throughout the site.

This list-building strategy works for me 24/7, 365 days per year with new contacts being added to my list on a daily basis. They don’t have to click through to another site in order to access it. They can access it directly from my self-hosted WordPress blog.

This is difficult (if not impossible) to do with a free WordPress.com hosted blog, and is going to require some investment costs on your part. As I have recommended before, invest in your own self-hosted blog and continue to enjoy the benefits.

So there are just five reasons why I prefer a self-hosted WordPress blog to the free WordPress.com hosted blog.

I also reached out to my community on Facebook and asked them the same question. Here’s what they said.

Have Your Say!

So, what do you think? Do you believe free or self-hosted is best? Do you have other reasons why you believe this? Please share! It’s always good to hear from you!

Till next time – stay brilliant and inspired

This is a guest post by Murray Newlands.

In the past, there were very few places you could go to verify what a company said. If Coke said it was refreshing, a lot of people believed it to be true. We weren’t sheep, but there were much fewer information outlets (even though newspapers were more diversified) and those outlets that did exist were dominated by people who could afford to run ads.

The Internet made it so that anybody with a keyboard and a web browser could buy a domain (or get one for free) and start their own website. If they then spend a little time building links to it from other websites, they could show up high on Google and reach out to a targetable audience who wants to hear what they have to say.

Personal branding and social media

Social media transformed Internet marketing by making it even more accessible and by giving advertisers a new avenue to reach potential customers. Perhaps more importantly, at least in terms of how it affects most people’s lives, social media gives us the ability to market ourselves and control our personal branding.

Facebook profile

In 2006, seventy-seven percent of employers look up potential employees on the Internet. Out of that 77%, 35% eliminated candidates based on their search engine results. This was before Facebook was popular so the information employers had on you was limited, but a lot of them still made decisions about who to hire based on what they found online.

A lot of recent college grads fear that their Facebook profiles will be seen by potential employers. Fearing employers finding your social media profiles is the wrong outlook, and I’ll tell you why:

Use social media to promote your personal brand

Most employers will look at your social media profiles after they read your cover letter and resume but before they call you in for an interview. Your resume already has started to shape your personal brand. What school did you go to and what was your major? Do you have a .aol email address? Does your email address have your name in it?

A resume is about whether or not you’re qualified for a job, and what you can bring to a company. You’re selling your experiences and your skills a lot more than you’re selling yourself. Resumes aren’t always very good indicators of things like personality, how well someone performs under pressure, and whether or not they’re a hard and intelligent worker. To a much greater extent than a resume, Facebook profiles and other social media give employers an explicit presentation of who you are as a person.

By building social media profiles to present a good image to prospective employers, you can leverage social media profiles as an opportunity to forge a good personal brand and thus be more hireable before you even walk in the door for your interview.

This is a guest post by Murray Newlands. Murray is the CEO and Founder of Influence People, a San Francisco-based online marketing and blogger outreach consulting firm. Jim Kukral and Murray Newlands recently wrote What is Personal Branding? How to Create a Memorable & Powerful Brand that Sells YOU! to help people learn how to market themselves.

Struggling to make sales and turning prospects into customers – FUN?

Does your throat go dry and your mind blank when you’re about to have a meeting with a prospect? If you answered ‘yes’ – you’re not alone!

Many ambitious entrepreneurs dread the ‘sales conversation’, which unfortunately can make it difficult for them to build a successful, thriving business.

Annemarie Cross has invited Meridith Elliott Powell – author of ‘42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers’ back on the show to share her wisdom about how you can finally get rid of your fear of selling and start turning your prospects into customers – easily.

Follow Meridith’s simple yet powerful principles so you not only feel comfortable with the entire sales process – you’ll also find it fun, “… because it should be” she says.

Listen to the show to find out WHY:

• There’s just no room for pushy and aggressive sales tactics.
• Relationship building and proactive listening are vital.
• The relationship doesn’t end after you’ve presented your proposal and what to do next.
• How to add value to the relationship so you continue being top of mind and the first person they think of when they’re ready to invest.

Meridith truly believes that anyone can learn how to sell – even you!

It’s easy!

If you love what you do, (and we ambitious entrepreneurs do) mastering sales is going to be a piece of cake.

Download Here

Find out more about the show here:

About the Show  | Be A Guest | Be a Sponsor | Be a Supporter

Show Transcript: How to make sales and turn prospects into customers – FUN!

Annemarie Cross: HI! Welcome to the ambitious entrepreneur show, I’m your host Annemarie Cross. Does your throat go dry and your mind blank when you’re about to have a meeting with a prospect? Many ambitious entrepreneurs dread having to have that sales conversation with a prospect. Which is why I’ve invited Meredith Elliot Powell back on the show to share her wisdom about how you can finally get rid of your fear of selling and start turning your prospects into clients by following her simple yet powerful principles? So stick around!

Meredith Elliot Powell author of “42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers” is on a mission to help ambitious entrepreneurs just like you to get to the stage where you can feel not only comfortable with the entire sales process but find it fun because it should be! Says Meredith. Now if you’re a regular listener of this show, you would have heard Meredith and I talk on numerous occasions about some of the 42 rules which I have to say, are just fantastic. You need to go back and listen to some of our previous shows. She’s back to tell us why she believes there’s just no room for pushy, aggressive sales tactics and why relationship building and proactive listening are vital when it comes to turning your prospects into clients.

Welcome to the call Meredith!

Meridith Elliot Powell: Well, thank you Annemarie! I’m very excited to be here and especially excited to talk about this subject tonight!

Annemarie Cross: I love this subject. I know many ambitious entrepreneurs out there are listening today and thinking “You love the thought of having to have a sales conversation with his prospect?” Really? Because selling really does scare a lot of people, yes?

Meridith Elliot Powell: Oh! It’s just unbelievable. You know I always say that ‘sell’ is like that. Again that 4 letter word, they’re just like all the other 4 letter word nobody knows how to use it or say it.

Annemarie Cross: And why do you think that is? Because I mean you probably meet hundreds of people and everyone has their own story about sales. But I think there’s probably a common theme isn’t there? The reason why we don’t like to sell?

Meridith Elliott Powell: There’s definitely a common theme and I have to admit Annemarie, I was one of those people. If you told me that I was going to grow up to be an expert in sales, I’d hold you nothing could be further. I was right there with everybody else. I think it’s because when we say the word, the terms that come across our mind are pushy, aggressive, somebody who’s very concerned about getting what they want and not necessarily concerned about helping you get what you want. And that is a universal theme.

Annemarie Cross: So really is about the bad experience that we’ve had with a sales person previously: we might have walked into a store, you think I’m just going to walk around and browse and all of a sudden, someone comes rushing towards you asking, “can I help you – is there anything that you need?”  And you reply “No I’m just browsing.” Fine, move away but it’s that person that follows you around and just won’t leave you alone, which makes you think I’m getting out of here.

Meridith Elliott Powell: Exactly! It doesn’t feel good. You know, I’m doing research on a new book and I’m trying to trace back to when sales really changed. When it really turned into something aggressive because it used to not be like that you know. That they say, you know we’re in such a relationship economy right now that almost our grandparents are almost better suited for this economy than we are. Sales used to not be such an aggressive you know, sport where you were playing to win and if we can get back there, people will learn to love to sell.

Annemarie Cross: You’re right. Years ago when I was shopping with my parents I don’t think it was that bad. People were there to genuinely respond to questions or help you find product. They weren’t in your face saying “come buy this”, “you need this”. It’s not long before you just want to get out there because you just don’t feel comfortable.

Meridith Elliott Powell: Absolutely! I think It’s you know, what I’ve really have come to the conclusion of it’s when sale come to business, really rather than a means to sell a product or service that you truly feel could help. That you could use to help other people. And that’s really what sales is. I’ve got to tell you, I’m on a mission. I want people to learn, to not only love to sell but to learn how to do it and learn to love the word.

Annemarie Cross: If we’re uncomfortable with selling, and we’re not generating sales and turning prospects into clients, it’s going to be difficult for us to run a successful business, yes? So really this is a skill that we have to get comfortable with.

Meridith Elliott Powell: It is. It is. In my opinion, it is the most important skill you can have if you want to thrive in this economy, If you want to be successful whether you work in a large company, whether you own business, whatever you do, if you can sell, you’re always gonna have a job and you’re always gonna have a healthy business. And in a lot of ways, you’re gonna take a lot of your stress out of your life if you become very comfortable with the sales process. And people always roll their eyes when I say that to them and they think stress but when you get comfortable with the process, sales is a means to generate revenue and nothing keeps ambitious entrepreneurs out more than how to generate revenue and keep cash flow coming in to the business. So it’s extremely important.

Annemarie Cross: You talk about the relationship building economy – it’s about relationships. I think this is a relief for ambitious entrepreneurs because they don’t need to be pushy with a prospect. In fact, I think you say, don’t do that at all because it’s really not going to enable you to turn a prospect into a client. Is that correct?

Meridith Elliott Powell: Absolutely and I think the difference is truly whether you’re in it for a short term sale or you’re in it for a long term sale. Sales, honestly is exactly the same. You sell for the same reason your ambitious entrepreneurs went into business because they were passionate about what they do, and they believe that somebody could benefit from them. And sales is taking that one step further and saying, I just want to tell you what I’m offering and perhaps it could benefit you.

You know, in fairness to people, I do understand why people hate the word and why they’re afraid to sell because it took me a while to get there. Because, somewhere along the line, the sales profession just went horribly wrong. I mean you think about terms like up selling, cross selling, closing the deal, it really became very much about what sales does for me as a person and somewhere along the line, the customer, the client, really got lost.

And when we put our focus back on them and really on relationship selling, you’re really out there for the long term.

Annemarie Cross: Yes. It’s not about walking into a store or ringing someone up with general inquiry with the sales person trying to sell, upsell or cross sell to you.

As a prospect I don’t appreciate that.

When you flip that scenario on its head and that person thinks about relationship first, how can I be of service to you? What are your needs, and how can I support you? When we look at it that way, as a prospect, I really feel that here is someone who is genuinely interested and listening to what I have to say and then providing me with some different options on how they may support me if that’s what I decide that I want to down the track. So really, it’s a whole different way isn’t it? It really is about relationship first.

Meridith Elliott Powell: It’s definitely about relationship first when you know and really when you understand how to sell in a way that’s comfortable for you. Honestly Annemarie, all we’re asking you to do, is to adopt what you do in your personal life all day long to your business practices. You know I’ll be standing there with a group of young professionals who in their thirty’s and early forty’s and everybody you know they all have children and they’d be telling me they don’t want to sell and that they’re afraid of the word and I think, “do you tell children to eat vegetables?”

You know, “do you convince your spouse to go to a certain movie?” that is selling. And you know, when you can get a child to eat peas, you do that because you care about the health of that child. It’s the same principle when you’re passionate about selling. When you’re passionate about selling your products and service, you want to share with people and often people say about me, I don’t want to be pushy, I don’t want to be aggressive. I’m not asking you to do that.

But think about this. Imagine you’ve got a customer that’s been coming in to your store for a very long time, and you’re not building relationship, you’re not going deep with that person, you’re not asking questions and you’re not listening. And it turns out that they buy another product or service from one of your competitors because you never asked and they had no idea you offered it. Two things happen. You lose a sale, but worse, you broke trust because now they feel that you’re not looking out for their best interest and that’s really what sales is about.

Annemarie Cross: Exactly, when someone rings you or comes into your store, they have contacted you for a reason – they have a problem. And if you have the solution to that problem and if you’re generating amazing results or could generate amazing results with that prospect, you really are doing them an in service or disservice by not saying “look, here’s some ways that I can support you”.

By sending them away and not saying anything, they could invest in something that is not going be the best option for them because you as you’re an ambitious entrepreneur with amazing products and services and by not saying something, you really aren’t doing them justice are you?

Meridith Elliott Powell: Not at all, you know it happens on a daily basis. People buy products and services that are not exactly the right fit or of lesser value to them because our ambitious entrepreneur didn’t speak up and have that conversation. And I think this is so important conversation you and I have so many times and I’ve really heard you repeated so much is that, truly what we’re talking about is relationship selling. Now I understand your competitors were out there being pushy and aggressive and all day long because that is still how we are taught to sell.

But relationship selling, the great thing about it is, you don’t have to master it overnight, this is something you can slowly and easily get comfortable with and it just begins by shifting your paradigm to thinking, not that selling is not about pushing and being aggressive but that it’s truly about helping people and thinking that, if I don’t speak up, if I don’t listen to my customers, if I don’t ask them questions, if I don’t offer solutions, then they’re not gonna benefit from what I have to offer and in my opinion, that’s sad.

Annemarie Cross: Absolutely. That prospect could say “I’ve been struggling for years and you didn’t tell me that you could help me overcome that problem.”

When you start thinking that way, it’s really sort of like “hey! I really need to let this prospect know that if they’re interested, this is how I can support them. This is the outcome they can achieve and you know, they can make the decision whether they really choose to do it or not and again, you don’t need to push them, you’re just explaining what it is you can do, how it is that you can do it, and the outcome and the results they can achieve should they decide that they want to work with you.

That’s really all it is isn’t it? It’s thinking – relationship first.

Meridith Elliott Powell: Exactly! It’s really thinking about helping people and you know, in all honesty, there’s still very much a fight to sort of speak in the sales world about the idea we’re talking about right now. I mean, so many people think relationship comes secondary and that sales is still very much about the person who is doing it, more so than it is about the client or the customer. And I really don’t subscribe to that, so I really want your listeners to understand that we’re not talking about going out there and being aggressive and pushy.

What we are talking about is making sales a lifestyle, not a task that you do but you’re proud of the product or service that you offer and you care about the people that come in to your business as well as the people you go out and you meet. And you want to share all the benefits that your product or service can offer and the difference it can make to them. So we’re talking about getting to know people, asking questions, really listening and leading with a servant’s heart.

Annemarie Cross: Meredith, as usual, you have provided some amazing information. We’re just gonna take a short break but when we get back, I want to ask you, What you think the next step should be for ambitious entrepreneurs if they want to take this into the next level, so that they can start turning their prospects into customers.

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Annemarie Cross:  And welcome back! I’m your host Annemarie Cross and I’m talking to Meredith Elliot Powell, author of “42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers”.

For someone here who is listening today, and they’re thinking, whew! What a relief! I don’t have to be pushy when speaking to a prospect. I can bring my own style into the conversation. I can put the relationship first.

So after putting the relationship first, what’s the next step?

Meridith Elliot Powell: The first thing I always tell people to do is to shift their paradigm and create a positive attitude. You really need to understand that people are buying your confidence and are buying your energy. So many things that you have said tonight, really discussed the fact that buying is emotional. It is so emotional and you know you read so many books that it’s about the tasks and the process and the systems that you do but people buy from you because they like you.

So understand the one thing that I can’t do for you, the one skill that I can’t conquer is, you have to believe in what you’re offering and believe your product and service is good and then you need to get right in your mind that I want to go out there and I want to tell people about it and then from there, your first job, your first skill that you need to do, it is so easy that all you have to do is, well, listen to people. Really listen to people and ask really good questions.

Annemarie Cross: You can have a set of questions that’s going to be unique to you and the service and the product that you offer. These can be some really great open ended questions that’s going to allow you’re prospect to really share where they are in their lives or in their business and some of the things that they’re struggling with.

Meridith Elliott Powell: Absolutely, you know some of my favorite questions and it’s almost a benefit if you’re a bit of a novice at sales because you don’t feel the need to jump but you know, not no better question out there than tell me about your business. And if you really listen, you will hear so much in there but another one of my favorites, you know, what are some of the challenges you’re having?

Or how is this economy impacted your business? Where do you see your business in the next 5 years? The information that pours out of people, if you listen it’s just, your little mind just starts clicking off not only with the product or service you offer that could help but other people that you could introduce them to, other products or service that could benefit them. I mean it’s just so rewarding to listen to people. It’s so interesting but they really tell you what it is that they need.

Annemarie Cross: I can see that those 2 questions alone, would open up a flood gate of information that really golden nuggets because and if you take it from the prospect that you really are interested in which because of course you are.

And you can also look out for opportunities where you can provide additional support. You may even have some resources that you can share with them to help build trust and like and integrity in that relationship.

Meridith Elliott Powell: Absolutely! And understand that you know, and the great thing about selling this way and selling from a relationship stand point is that, the goal isn’t on the first call and the second call to close the deal. The deal will close when it needs to close but you want sales to become a lifestyle and be proud of the fact that you’re out there sharing your own story and sharing with people what your product and service could offer.

Annemarie Cross: Yes, the deal will close when it’s reached that point in time where it just feels natural to do that. If you’ve been gone to a prospect and you’ve pitched them a proposal: (I don’t really like the word “pitch” but we know what it means) you’ve provided it to them, you’ve presented it to them and they say, “You know what, this is fantastic, we’re not ready yet”. And I know that the relationship really doesn’t end there does it? Can you say more about that?

Meridith Elliott Powell: Oh! You know, follow up is so important and so key. You know there’s two things that when you initially make a call, I always laugh at people and say “you know, as much as you wished that it was true, people aren’t just standing behind their door praying that you’re going to knock on it one day to sell them something”. That’s right!

So, often we present an idea and life happens and people can act on it at that time and that’s just all that means is that your prospect is not ready right now, So it’s your job to create at least stay in touch and continue to build the relationship. It’s just an indicator that the relationship just isn’t deep enough right now and the important things to know about follow up is, well it does need to be consistent, that’s important. It needs to be personal and it needs to add value. Follow up is really about continuing to build the relationship.

Annemarie Cross: Yes, it’s all about adding value and being personal. Again, you really need to think about building that relationship first.

What’s one thing that you would recommend as a way to add value to that relationship?

Meridith Elliott Powell: The best way to add value to a relationship is a back again to the term “listen”. Because when you listen to somebody, they’re going to tell you exactly the most pressing issue on their mind at that moment and it may be the fact that they don’t know where the local movie theatre is to take their child to the movies on Friday night and you happen to know where it is so you give them directions and you know, send them a link to map quest or the exact address to put into their gps.

Value is such a personal thing and it’s finding a way to take whatever you heard in the conversation and act on it. And that adds value and it builds trust. When people share their story with you, they’re telling you opportunities they’ve got and they’re also telling you challenges they’re facing and things that are most pressing on their mind. And when you act on that, when you find a way to help them solve their problems, you add value.

It’s as you listened to me, you care about me and you were interested in me. It can be such a simple gesture. But you know, the other thing that you do, is you, at that moment say, that our relationship, I promise is going to be more about you, than it is going to be more about me. Because you took care of their need before you took care of your need.

Annemarie Cross: I’m so glad that you shared that because I think when we hear the phrase ‘providing value’, we think it has to do with something related to our offer or our proposal.

It’s not at all. It really is building trust. You were helpful. You listened, there was a need, and it was not necessarily related to the business need; it could have been a personal need.

Meridith Elliot Powell:  Absolutely. You know I had one happened to me just last week. This woman I’ve been introduced to was at a very large resort and she was in charge of meetings and conventions and somebody made an introduction for me, gosh it’s probably been a year and a half or two years ago now, you know, I’ll admit I sort of thought there was going to be something in it for me fast and there was and we continued to build relationship and sometimes she’d return my phone calls then I wouldn’t hear from here forever but I just continued to build relationship, she called me out of the blue one day, needed a favor and I say sure no problem I took care of that.

I’m sitting in Baltimore, Maryland working last week and a phone call came across and answered my cell phone, I said hello and they were calling me from this resort and there’s a huge convention there in January and she just out of the blue just threw to me this amazing speaking engagement, had I looked at it like well, you know, I gave her 3 chances, she didn’t do anything for me, I’m moving on. Instead of always keeping that door open, always having the right attitude, always adding value and I mean the doors she’s opened for me is I mean extreme. The connection she made, the audience she’s put me in front of, it has led to other things already.

You just never know when things are going to come through and personally, you know, from a sales stand point, that’s how I like to live my life. I don’t want to be in a situation and most sales techniques teach us that, that you know, you got to get something out of it or you move on but you know by keeping those doors open, always building that relationship and sales being a lifestyle for me. You know, it’s something I do. You know, get a check mark on my off to-do list. Business is cost only pouring through.

Annemarie Cross: What a great example of how this can work.

When we don’t build relationships but rather put people through a series of questions and if they don’t tick all the boxes you just move on well, you can miss out on so many opportunities.

You don’t know who they connected to, so if you build a relationship, you’re helpful, they get to know and trust you. Then they may, just like you get a referral.

Meridith Elliot Powell:  Absolutely. You know it’s something I want to visit that you used the term “pitched” and said you know, you don’t like the term, and we absolutely don’t like the term. Here’s the thing, I feel like, with terms like sales and terms like pitch, what we really need to know is we’ve come so worried about the words that what we need to do is, it’s not the words that are the problem, it’s the definition that we have behind them.

And the point is, when you’re leading with a servant’s heart, when you know how to sell from a relationship standpoint, you can use whatever terms you want to use and they’re going to have the right meaning and the right connotation behind them. I just, I have to laugh at the presentations that I have been doing lately and people ask me to call it relationship client-advocacy. You know if by just changing a term, employees aren’t going to know what we’re asking them to do or consumers aren’t going to know that we’re selling to them when the truth is, the term isn’t the problem. It’s the energy that’s coming out of you.

Annemarie Cross: You know what, let’s just stand up and stand out for all of those words. We should start changing the meaning behind that. So we put relationship, we put the people; we put the person back into the mix so really it’s relationship first. I think it’s true.

Meridith Elliott Powell: It is very true, You know what Annemarie, I don’t know what your sales journey truly has been but you know the one thing and I feel confident you feel the same but the really the one thing I want you to get your listeners to know is that, you can learn to sell. It is an easy thing to do. And if you are passionate about what you do for a living, mastering sales is going to be a piece of cake.

Annemarie Cross: I think to hear someone like yourself say that, “It’s a piece of cake” is very empowering. To think that we can enjoy having a sales conversation, being confident when we put forward out proposal is inspiring.

A lot of what we’ve been talking about today, is also included in your book. There are lots of golden nuggets in there and I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it again, I think it should be a resource on every ambitious entrepreneurs’ book shelf. Tell us, what’s the title of the book?

And how can people go out and grab not just one copy but actually several copies? Because here what I think is a great way to build relationships next time you go and talk to other business owner, why don’t you go and give them a copy of Meredith’s book. What a great way to build relationships, open up the doors of possibility to a JV because I think there’s such a great information in there and I know that you and I are on a mission to change the whole paradigm around sales so that we really bring the person back into it. How can people get into contact with you?

Meridith Elliott Powell: The title of the book is “42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers” and it literally is a step by step process and a baby step by step process, you don’t have to move any faster than you want to move but every step has you making progress and you can get that on my website which is motionfirstnow.com or it is available on Amazon and it’s also available in kindle version.

Annemarie Cross: Fantastic! So again that’s Motionfirstnow.com and “42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers”. Again it’s been such an amazing show Meredith, I always love speaking with you because it really is bringing a whole set of different thinking and beliefs around what so many of us through the years have learned to sort of shy away from but you know we need to learn how to embrace it because really, we do it every day don’t we? We talk, we listen, and we do it every day.

Meridith Elliot Powell:  Absolutely. We do it every day and it is the one thing that is going to put you in complete control of your success and that just feels good.

You’ve been listening to the ambitious entrepreneur. If you’re struggling to get more clients and charge what you’re worth, get our 7 step audio series on how to get noticed, hired and paid what you’re worth at bit.ly/chargeyourworth.

[Music]

Still struggling to charge what you’re worth and get it?

You’re not alone!

In fact, numerous entrepreneurs and service-based business owners I speak to find this difficult, which is why I spent an entire hour with my Get More Clients Booked members on this topic.

As a gift, I’d like to give you exclusive access to the webinar recording so that you can learn the key steps you need to implement so that you can finally charge what you’re worth and get it.

Find out:

• 8 reasons why you haven’t been able to charge what you’re worth
• The importance of building a Signature Brand if you want to attract a steady stream of ideal clients to your door, who are ready to invest in YOU!
• Why building social proof is a vital component to becoming known as an authority in your field, so that you can finally charge what you’re worth and get it
• My secret 3-step formula that will enable you to compile and create client testimonials that will practically sell your programs for you
• Why it’s so important to have a Signature System if you want to become known as an expert so that you can dominate your niche online (and offline)
• How to craft powerful headlines that sell
• Why your Money Mindset may be blocking you from being able to charge what you’re worth
• And more…

Grab a pen and paper and be ready to take lots of notes.

Download Audio Version here

Listen to Audio Version:

Ready to take this a step further?

• Treat yourself to one my limited complementary Business Breakthrough Strategy Session so you can make 2012 your best year yet!
• Take advantage of my special offer to become one of my Rubies Biz Acceleration Coaching Club members
• Join our Get More Clients weekly webinar sessions

What was your biggest ‘aha’ moment after watching the video? What will you implement in your business TODAY so that you can charge what you’re worth and get it? Leave your comments below. It’s always nice to hear from you.

Stay inspired!

LinkedIn – the untapped social media marketing (networking) tool

Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

They’re all tools you’re probably quite familiar with and using in your business communications and social media marketing efforts.

But, what about LinkedIn?

Are you leveraging LinkedIn as well?

If you’re anything like many of the business owners I speak to – your answer is ‘probably not’.

At least not to the extent you’re using other social media technologies.

If that sounds like you – then you MUST keep reading.

Why?

Because your leaving money on the table. And lots of it!

While LinkedIn is less ‘social’ and doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles as some of the other social media platforms – don’t let that turn you off.

If your target market is B2B or B2C, or you’re looking out for potential JV or alliance partners, then you’ll want to make sure you have an optimised LinkedIn profile and are using the networking tools and resources LinkedIn offers.

Still not convinced?

Here are some interesting (and compelling) facts and stats about LinkedIn to further confirm that LinkedIn should play an important role in your networking and business building efforts:

• 45% of people on LinkedIn are considered key decision makers (in comparison to Facebook and Twitter with only 24-29%)
• LinkedIn has the highest average household income of $109,000 per person, topping all other social media sites
• People on LinkedIn are far more focused on business and networking than in comparison to other social media sites
• 3 out of 4 people use LinkedIn for everything business, from keeping up on trends to reading business news
• 64% agree that LinkedIn helps develop relationships and grow new business
• People are two times more confident in the information found on LinkedIn than any other social media site
• A new member joins LinkedIn every second – half of these people are outside of the United States

Impressive, yes?!

Another study recently completed by WebMarketing 123 confirmed that:

• 44.6% of business generated B2B leads through LinkedIn
• 12% of businesses generated B2C leads through LinkedIn

What would it mean to you and your business if you could capture a portion of the 56.6% of new business leads being generated on LinkedIn?

Before you hastily set up your LinkedIn profile, there are a few of key areas you’ll need to spend some time on to make sure your profile stands out from the crowd.

Here they are:

LinkedIn Tip 1: Build a Strong and Enticing Headline

With over 135 million people on LinkedIn (and growing daily) means that you want to make sure your Headline is informative and outcome focused.

You only have 120 characters in which to showcase your expertise and compel someone to reach out and connect with you.

Many people tend to put their job title as their headline.

BORING!

Would the job title ‘Business Coach’ or ‘Personal Branding Strategist’ compel you to connect with me?

Of course it wouldn’t.

But what if I wrote this?

Makes a difference doesn’t it?

I know that my target market’s desire is to get noticed, hired and paid what they’re worth so this headline will instantly catch their attention.

Here are some things to think about as you craft your headline:

• What makes you unique? Can you incorporate wording from your Signature Brand and Brand Message into your headline phrase?
• What do you help your clients achieve?
• What keywords can you include so that you show up when people are searching for someone with a specialty in your field so that you’ll rank high in the search results?

LinkedIn Tip 2: Use a Professional Photo

While this may seem blatantly obvious, I am constantly surprised (no, horrified) at the images people use as their profile photo.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, LinkedIn has a firm policy that requires your photo to be a professional headshot of yourself.

Not a picture of you and your beloved pet (or spouse); you relaxing at your favourite holiday destination; or your logo.

Your LinkedIn profile is part of your brand communications and therefore must be as professional as possible. Invest in a professional photographer who specialises in corporate shots.

When I had my professional portraits taken, the package included a session with a professional makeup artist before the shoot. She applied foundation used specifically for professional stills and videos as standard foundation just wouldn’t have done the picture justice.

My advice would be to find a professional photographer who also works with a professional makeup artist to help you prepare.  Pamper yourself.

You’ll be glad you did when you see your final images, looking like a million dollars!

After all, a picture says a thousands words. What do you want your picture to say about you?

LinkedIn Tip 3: Build a Powerful Professional Profile

You’ve sparked someone’s interest with a strong headline, now you want to follow that up with a powerful professional profile.

Here are some tips to help you:

1. Make sure you use a tone and style of writing that suits your personality. Speak as if you were meeting the person for the very first time and they had just asked you to share a little more about yourself.
2. Write in first person – not third person. When reading profiles written in third person, to me it comes across as being cold and unapproachable. You don’t want to sound unfriendly. Instead, you want people to feel as if they are connecting with you and getting to know you better. After all, people do business with people they know, like and trust.
3. Incorporate relevant keywords so that your profile will be amongst the results shown when people are performing a search for experts and potential connections.

I performed a search for Personal Branding Strategist in Australia and was number 1 out of 112 people.

That’s because I sprinkled the keyword Personal Branding Strategist throughout my professional profile.

And, in a global search, I came 5^th out of 4,217 people. With a little tweaking I could increase that, however I’m happy with the result and know that people would read more about me when searching globally for a Personal Branding Strategist as my details are above the fold.

Building a powerful online presence is very important, especially if you want to build your reputation as an authority so that you can dominate your niche online.

Follow the above strategies and you’ll be well on your way to building a professional profile on LinkedIn, ready and waiting for potential customers and JV partners to find and connect with you.

Was this helpful?  If you already have an existing profile on LinkedIn, what changes are you going to make sure your profile stands out? Let me know in the comment box below. It’s always great to hear from you.

By the way, here’s my LinkedIn profile. Let’s connect! And, if you’re struggling to create a powerful LinkedIn profile as well as leveraging the tools that LinkedIn offers and would like some support and coaching on this – let me know. It’s something we specialise in!

Till next time, stay inspired.

Is branding really a waste of time and money?

A few weeks back I stumbled across an article that had me shaking my head in disbelief.

The author declared that he believed ‘branding’ (your marketing materials, business cards, slogan, tag lines, advertising and so forth) were a complete waste of time.

What the?!!

He also believed your ‘brand’ was “the emotion that a customer feels when thinking about your product.”

While I agree with the second part of the author’s viewpoint i.e. “your brand is the emotion a client has when thinking about you and your business” – I certainly don’t agree with the first.

Here’s why.

While your ‘brand’ IS the perception other people have of you (i.e. your reputation) to me ‘branding’ are the elements you use to help create, build and maintain your Signature Brand message.

And, as a service-based business since the ‘product’ is very much YOU, this means your ‘branding’ is not only your brochures, slogan and business cards etc, but also how you act. So everything you do and say (both online and offline) has the potential to affect your brand/reputation.

Everything.

We were reminded of that this week, when a few high-profile people did some serious damage to their brand (reputations) due to inappropriate behaviour.

So, if like the author, you think branding is just a myth, read on.

Here are 3 branding mistakes I often see, where individuals expose themselves and their brands through their behaviour and communications.

Hopefully you won’t recognise any:

Branding Mistake 1: Uncensored comments

While I believe it’s important to be honest, there are some things that you just shouldn’t say (or discuss) in a public forum.

Well-known radio presenter – Kyle Sandilands (who has already been in hot water because of his comments) had many industry representatives and many members of the community in an uproar.

A journalist provided some negative feedback on a television show debut that Kyle and his co-host launched. Instead of debating the topic, he resorted to name-calling, using some pretty foul language, which I won’t repeat here.

Have a debate; provide your viewpoint; and/or agree to disagree if you have to. But DON’T resort to name-calling – it’s just plain childish and unnecessary.

I’ve got numerous examples of where people have had contracts terminated because of uncensored commenting.

While Kyle still seems to have his hosting spot on the radio network, he did lose several sponsorships. And, many of the people I’ve spoken to will no longer be tuning in to his show.

Don’t fall into the same trap. Be very careful how you speak about other people.

And while you’re at it, here are a few more uncensored things I’ve seen that you’ll want to avoid.

• Don’t complain about just having gotten off the phone from ‘your client from h$ll’. He/she may just read that comment and decide to take his/her business elsewhere. That may be good if they are a difficult client, however more of your clients may just read your post and wonder whether you’ll one day be complaining about them.
• Don’t whine that you can’t be bothered doing any work and will be taking the afternoon off. Your prospect (who has given you some initial work which you should be working on today) has just seen that comment and decided you’re not the person they want to invest in.
• Don’t openly discuss your relationships or personal things that should be kept just that – personal! While some social media platforms may give you the option of sharing certain things with ‘friends’, that conversation you’ve just posted may be the reason why your ‘friend’ doesn’t recommend you to their extended network.
• You know that wild weekend you had? I’m not interested in hearing about it. Nor do I want to see any pictures – even if dancing half-naked on the tabletop seemed hilarious to you at the time. It’s not – sorry.
• Speaking of pictures, please don’t post anything that your mother would NOT be proud of. [I’ve personally decided not to invite someone on my show – the Ambitious Entrepreneur because of inappropriate photographs and comments I’ve seen when researching potential guests.]

My advice: Be mindful of what you say, do and write. You just never know who may read, see or hear it.

Wouldn’t want a potential client (sponsor, employer, even your mother) to read your post; view your pictures; or listen to the comment you’ve just made? Then keep them to yourself!

Branding Mistake 2: Exhibiting inappropriate behaviour

Celebrity Apprentice ended last week, and while there were several celebrities that tarnished their brand through inappropriate behaviour, there was one in particular that did everything right.

Right of course if you were on a mission to completely destroy your reputation.

Introducing Ms Deni Hines.

Her behaviour and the way she spoke to her teammates was rude and obnoxious. And, while I’m all for having a healthy level of self-confidence, there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Unfortunately Deni erred on the side of arrogance – with a bolded capital A.

Her behaviour was so bad that it had people coming out in droves.

The number of negative comments being shared on several social media sites was proof that people did NOT appreciate her behaviour. And they certainly let their feelings be known.

Prior to the show I didn’t have an opinion either way about Ms Hines. However I can tell you now, I will never buy any of her albums or ever recommend her to some of my business contacts looking for someone to sing their corporate jingle. And, from the comments I read on Facebook and Twitter – there are many thousands of others that won’t either.

My advice: Be nice to others and treat them how you would like to be treated.

Exhibiting arrogant, rude and obnoxious behaviour is one of the quickest ways to turn people off – both your clients AND prospective clients. Just don’t do it.

Branding Mistake 3: Sending out contradictory messages

I’ve written many articles about the importance of sending out a consistent message in your social media marketing and communication efforts so that people can get to know, like and trust you as an expert in your field.

While it’s important to be on-brand, being the opposite (i.e. off-brand) and sending out a contradictory message can quickly damage your reputation.

In my article To Be or Not To Be On-Brand, I highlight the following examples:

• The driving instructor who’s driving is anything but, and certainly doesn’t reflect their business name ‘[Name] Safe Driving School’;
  •  The Personal Trainer (or other health professional) who is overweight and smokes;
  •  The Dentist, whose teeth look anything but like the pictures they have hanging in their waiting room;
  •  The Professional Organizer who arrives late to your appointment with a briefcase and/or handbag that looks anything but organized;
  •  The Graphic Designer whose own logo looks outdated;
  •  The Web Designer whose website states ‘Under Construction’ on many of the pages;
  • The Image Consultant whose clothing is less than flattering;
  • The business who claims “Nothing is too big for us to handle” who has nothing but excuses as to why something can’t be done.

… the list goes on.

I’m sure you have some examples you can share where people and/or businesses have communicated contradictory messages that ended up seriously tarnishing their brand.

Hopefully, your actions (or inactions) will not see you and your business added to this list.

My advice: Be on-brand at all times in everything you do and say. Your brand requires and DEMANDS it!

So, what do you think? Is ‘branding’ unimportant?

I reached out to my community and asked them what they thought. Here are some of the responses I received:

They believe that branding IS important, and as you can tell from the examples of branding mistakes that I listed above – so do I.

In fact I believe that branding – (any vehicle you use to communicate your message) is vital to building and maintaining your reputation, whether you’re speaking to a customer or a prospective customer.

Do you?

I’d love to hear your comments. Leave them in the comment box below – it’s always great to hear from one of my readers.

Till next time, stay inspired.

Social Media - a distraction?

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, and dozens of other social media marketing technologies are vying for our attention on daily basis.

So hands up if this has ever happened to you.

Be honest now.

While you have every intention of spending only a ‘few’ minutes checking your social media profiles, those well-intentioned ‘few minutes’ turn into (dare you admit it) an hour – or even longer.

Me? Guilty as charged.

In fact, this can happen to me more frequently than I care to admit.

I LOVE social media technologies, which means I can quite happily sit and chat with my online network for hours, while spending time clicking through link after link reading (and commenting on) the plethora of great content shared each and every day.

Combine that with my love of marketing and I’m in seventh heaven.

For me, social media plays a key role in my communications and business growth strategies allowing me to connect and share information about branding, money mindset, marketing and other business-building topics I’m passionate about with my community.

However I quickly realised that I am not one of these people who can function for days without sleep. So sitting at my keyboard for days on end just wasn’t an option for me.

I needed to put some hard and fast systems and processes into place to keep me focused and accountable to ensure I could balance my social media marketing activities as well as my general day-to-day business operations and client commitments.

Are you at the stage where your love of social media is starting to affect your productivity? Or are you struggling to fit everything in to your day already without even thinking about social media? So where on earth are you going to find the extra time?

Here are some of the systems and tools that I use which I’m pleased to say have allowed me to drastically improve my productivity while also enabling me to maintain an active presence on various social media platforms.

If I can do it – so can you!

Let’s start with my three key social media rules. I do have other rules, but these three are crucial if you want to gain the best results out of your social media activities, while maintain your productivity levels:

Social Media Rule 1: Develop a social media strategy and follow it

While it was wonderful to chat and share information with my online community I realised very early on that if I didn’t have a specific strategy and system in place, opportunities were being lost.

Yes, I realise that social media is meant to be ‘social’.

However if you are in business to make money (and I assume you are) then it’s important to have a strategy in place. A strategy that will help you nurture the relationships you are building so that you can convert those relationships into prospects and eventually into clients.

If you haven’t got a strategy in place yet, here are some things you need to ask yourself:

• Do you have a clear understanding of your brand, what makes you unique and why clients should hire you?
• Are you targeting a specific niche? Or is your target market ‘everyone’. If the latter, you need to define a specific target market and concentrate on becoming known as an expert in that field.
• Do you have an irresistible offer that helps you build your list on a daily basis? And are you constantly reminding your community of this amazing resource so that people you’ve recently connected with are aware of it?
• Do you have a strategic keep-in-touch communication strategy in place that continues to strengthen the relationships with people you are meeting online so that they get to know, like and trust you?
• Are you regularly creating content to showcase your knowledge? Building your reputation as an expert in your field will ensure you are the person they’ll want to work with when they’re ready to invest.
• Do you have a monitoring and tracking system in place? How do you know what’s working and what’s not working? You may be spending hours on an activity that hardly generates any return, yet ignoring an activity that’s working well for you. How will you know if you don’t monitor it?
• Do you have a plan in place that regularly drives people back to your website? I use my Brand Positioning Principle, which is based on a formula that I’ve developed over the years, which is working extremely well for me. This formula works strategically in the background and continuously has people commenting on my articles; retweeting my posts; and signing up for my free offer and other programs.
• Are you regularly sharing and interacting with people in your network or is the conversation you are having only one way and constantly self-promotional? If it is, then that’s the quickest way to lose trust and rapport and you’re probably finding many people are unfriending you. You need to know and follow social media etiquette principles.

I could go on; however these are some of the more important things you need to have in place to give you a solid start.

Social Media Rule 2: Get a Support Team

If you ever figure out how to add an extra few hours to the day – let me know!

I realised that I couldn’t do everything myself, so I’ve built a solid support team to take over some of the repetitive administrative tasks.

As a Brand Communications Specialist, one of the things I will never hire out is my ‘Brand Voice’ (i.e. having people manage my social media accounts and liaise with my network as if they were me).

Here’s how my team support me:

• Schedule the posts I have written
• Perform my bookmarking
• Upload my blog posts ready for my final review
• Upload my newsletter in preparation for broadcasting
• Broadcast my newsletters

So, what are some of the repetitive tasks that you can outsource that will allow you to concentrate on more important tasks in your business?

 Social Media Rule 3: Be Consistent in everything you do

If I were to perform an Online Brand Audit, would I find a consistent, professional message? Or would I end up confused (and even put off) by the information (i.e. Digital Dirt) I uncovered?

Consistency is vital, so make sure you:

• Share a consistent on-brand message that continues to position you as an authority in your field. From your bios right through to your posts – be on-brand.
• Use keywords that are relevant to your target market to make sure that the people you are connecting with are genuinely interested in what you have to say.

While you may be tempted to connect with anyone and everyone, having thousands of followers who are not interested in what you have to say, is pointless.

•  Be consistent in the amount of content you share and number of times you post. Social media is not a set and forget activity. You have to be there to manage, measure and tweak. If you believe that you can post once and expect a flood of orders – you’re going to be sadly mistaken.

My Social Media Productivity Tips:

These are things I do regularly and they have worked brilliantly in keeping me focused and accountable:

•  If you’re working on something important – turn the [darn] social media accounts off by logging out.

This tip isn’t rocket science, but I’m surprised how many people don’t do this.  Every time they see a new alert on Facebook, or hear the alarm on Tweetdeck, they just can’t help themselves and need to check out who the message is from.

STOP! Log out of all your accounts – they’ll be there when you get back.

• Set yourself time limits to respond and share and stick with them:

- 5 minutes on Twitter
- 5 minutes on Facebook Personal Profile
- 5 minutes on Facebook Business Page

 Use the timer on your iPhone and as soon as the alarm goes off – log out of your accounts. This works a treat for me, as I end up having little competitions with myself. “How much can I get done before the timer goes off.” It’s amazing just how focused you become when you know you’re on a deadline.

• Know the best time of your day and make sure you schedule your most important tasks during that time.

 Early mornings are the best time for me, so I schedule article writing during that time before I check my emails or any of my social media accounts.

Then throughout the day I’ll spend a few minutes checking my accounts to see what updates there are. However the main point is that this is timed and I’m being accountable for the time I’m spending online.

 Social Media Automation & Management Tools

Here are some of the tools and strategies that I love and use:

1: Hootsuite:

I love Hootsuite and have been using the free account with much success. [In fact I’ve only just this week upgraded to their paid account, however you can certainly use Hootsuite free account.]

I use Hootsuite to schedule my tweets (which my assistant now does for me), which leads into point 2 (next).

Hootsuite allows me to access all of my social media profiles, including multiple Twitter accounts, my LinkedIn Groups, my Facebook Personal Account, and my Facebook business page all from one convenient location.

No more logging in and out of different accounts – I can do everything from one easy location. If you haven’t checked out Hootsuite yet, I highly recommend that you do.

2.  Link Twitter to your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts so that one post is shared across multiple sites.

Some people believe that this will become annoying for your followers if they see the same message being posted across different platforms.

None of my followers have complained about this to me yet. And, I’ve found that with the amount of information being shared on these platforms, there’s little chance they will see my post across multiple platforms.

I’ve also found that people have their unique preferences as to the platforms they prefer and therefore tend to spend most of their time on this platform.

I want to make sure I reach them, so limiting my sharing of information on a single platform risks the chance of them never seeing my post.

One word of caution about LinkedIn: it’s less ‘social’ and more professional in nature so be mindful of what you share. I share business-related tips, tools and strategies so these resources are helpful and very much appreciated by my community.

3. Audio Boo:

I love speaking (hence why I host the Ambitious Entrepreneur Show), however another way I like to share information is through sound bytes of helpful information using Audio Boo.

The app is installed on my iPhone, and once a week (or more if I feel so inspired) I will record a 2-4 minute audio, which is saved and automatically uploaded to the Audio Boo website and then shared out to my Twitter and Facebook streams.

Can’t get any easier than that.

Here’s an Audio Boo I prepared earlier

4: Facebook Business Page to Twitter Stream

I love the community I’m building on my Facebook Business page and while I’m regularly sharing resources with my community on this platform, I want to make sure my Twitter followers hear about the same resources.

Therefore I’ve installed the Facebook Business Page to Twitter application, which automatically shares my Facebook post to my Twitter stream.

So there you have it. The tools and resources I use to ensure that social media does not reduce my productivity.

What Are Other People Doing to Remain Productive?

I’ve also reached out to some of my colleagues and asked them what they do. I’m sure you’ll also find these tips helpful.

Keri Jaehnig   does the following to maintain her productivity:

• I use Hootsuite to monitor & interact (except on Facebook – I try to do that all organically).  On Hootsuite I use lists to keep conversation straight.
• Workflowy — Don’t know what I did without it!  This helps me organize my thoughts, keep checklists — Even share notes with friends if I want.  (workflowy.com)
• I keep a paper list of my top small handful of targeted to-do items so that it is always looking at me, urging me to stay on track.
• I’m starting to use timers and self-kept deadlines for interacting/socializing.

So, what do you think? What tools or strategies are you going to use to ensure your social media efforts doesn’t pose a distraction thus reducing your productivity?

Perhaps you have another great tool you are using? Or strategy/process you’ve found helpful.

Go ahead and share below – I’d love to hear from you!

Till next time, Stay Inspired!

How can you capture your ideal clients’ attention? With a powerful Signature Brand!

Today’s the big day – the launch of your new business.

Your website is live; your business cards are printed; all of your social media profiles have been set up; and you’ve even attended a few networking events over the last few weeks to tell people about your exciting launch.

Feeling proud of what you have accomplished, you push a few buttons to send out your tweet to direct people to your sales page, you sit back and wait for the telephone to ring and your inbox to be flooded with emails from prospects wanting to hire you.

But, the opposite happens.

Weeks (or even months) have gone by yet despite all of the social media marketing and networking you’re doing, while there’s interest from the people you’re connecting with – people are just not handing you their credit card details to invest.

Or, they baulk at your prices and are never to be heard from again.

So what’s gone wrong?

You did everything the “Start Your Own Business” manuals told you to do.

Unfortunately this is one of the things I see time and again – service-based business with amazing services and products, struggling to convert prospects into customers.

Here are some of the common reasons why:

Recognise any?

• They haven’t distinguished their services from their competitors and are not showing compelling reasons why a prospect should hire them.
• Their message is not connecting with the emotions of their ideal clients.
• They aren’t positioning themselves as an authority in their field.
• They’re attracting the wrong sort of client who expects them to work for free or provide way too much time/resources than what they have paid for.
• They struggle to create a powerful introduction/tag line and fail to seize the interest and opportunity to speak further (both in person and online) to their target market.
• They’ve introduced themselves however people are still struggling to understand the value they offer because their introduction is too broad, has too many concepts, or includes language that is wishy-washy or filled with jargon. They are confusing their prospects and confused people say ‘no’.

In essence, they haven’t taken the time to identify and build their Signature Brand, which should provide a strong message that speaks to all of these areas.

What about you?

Do you have a Signature Brand that speaks directly to the needs of your niche/target market? A Signature Brand that continues to position you as a specialist in your field, and also incorporates that special element that prospects select ‘you’ rather than your competitors?

Hopefully you’ve answered ‘yes’ and are attracting a steady flow of ideal clients to your door.

However, if you’re not yet at that stage, but would like to be, here are 5 steps you need to take to develop your client-capturing and income-generating Signature Brand:

Step 1 to a powerful Signature Brand:

Define your Brand Attributes; your characteristics, unique qualities; your quirkiness.

Step 2 to a powerful Signature Brand:

Make a list of your Brand Strengths; your gifts and talents. The things you are naturally good at.

Step 3 to a powerful Signature Brand:

Define your Brand Promise; the experience people can expect when working with you. It’s what you guarantee them, time and again when working with you.

Step 4 to a powerful Signature Brand:

[This is my favourite step in the process where you breathe life and soul into your brand]. It’s your Brand Essence; and your Brand Story.

I use the Branding with Archetypes system to define a person’s Brand Essence.

I am the Explorer (Primary Archetype) / Ruler (Influencing Archetype) and continue to weave elements of my brand in all my messages.

Throughout my writing; in the banner at the top of my website; in the way I craft the titles to my packages and programs; and in the way I show up in my events.

I speak more about how and why I do this in my Brand Story.

Step 5 to a powerful Signature Brand:

Put these elements together, tweak and refine until the message and each of the elements you create are authentic and ‘fit’ with who you are.

That’s your Signature Brand.

And remember, make sure you incorporate elements of your Signature Brand throughout all of your marketing and communications so that you speak directly to your target market, and continue to confirm why they should hire you.

What do you think – was this helpful? Do you think it’s important to have a Signature Brand, or not?

Feel free to leave your thoughts. It’s always great to hear from you.

Till next time – stay inspired!!

Struggling to deal with conflict?

Are you working with a colleague whose behaviour is unacceptable? Or an extremely challenging client that is demanding way more of your time than what’s stated in your contract?

If you’re someone who won’t say anything but tend to keep your frustrations to yourself then you need to listen to today’s show, especially if you want to keep your stress and blood pressure levels at a healthy level.

According to Annemarie Cross’s guest Donna Smith, Holistic Counselor and Trainer from Own Your Own Power keeping things bottled up inside is one of the worst things you can do.

Learn about: 

• The importance of having clear boundaries
• Why it’s crucial to deal with a situation immediately (before it escalates)
• How to avoid ending up in a heated argument where nobody wins

Also find out about Donna’s 6-step process that will provide you with the right skills you need to create a win / win solution so that both parties are happy and can continue to respect each other’s boundaries. Your blood pressure will thank you!

Annemarie Cross is also joined by Meridith Elliott Powell – Author of 42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers. Today, Meridith talks about Rule 31, Learn to Love Accountability. If you want to turn your prospects into customers you have to start tracking your behaviours, measure your progress and learn from your results. Meridith shows you how.

Find out more about the show here:

About the Show  | Be A Guest | Be a Sponsor | Be a Supporter

Show Transcript: Win-Win Outcomes: How to deal with conflict effectively

(Jazzy background talk show intro music)

Annemarie: Hi, welcome to the Ambitious Entrepreneur Show. I’m your host, Annemarie Cross. Do you find yourself in situations of conflict and have no idea how you got there or how to address it and move forward? Or is there someone that despite how hard you try, you always seem to end up in a heated argument, and no matter what you say you just can’t fix it.

Donna Smith joins me today to share her six-step process on how to resolve a conflict to achieve a win-win outcome for both of you. So stick around.

(Musical interlude, then music fades out)

Annemarie: Have you ever been in a situation where someone just seems to know how to push your buttons the wrong way? And no matter how hard you try to ignore them or shut them out, you just can’t. They’re driving you crazy and then all of a sudden you get to the stage where you just can’t keep it inside anymore. You explode. Now I’m sure each and every one of us, at one point in our life or in our business has experienced that situation.

And according to my guest Donna Smith, who is a holistic counselor and trainer, she believes that remaining silent and letting things fester if they annoy you is the worst thing that you can do. And that if you do, it’ll inevitably turn into a conflict situation sometime down the track. So to find out how we should better deal with situations of conflict and how to avoid conflict in the first place, let’s welcome Donna to the call. Welcome to the call Donna.

Donna: Hi Annemarie, nice to meet you.

Annemarie: Conflict. Now this is something that I know a lot of my colleagues would say, “Don’t like conflict at all” and others say, “Bring it on.” So I think this is a topic that is going to be of interest to many many listeners. Now you’re someone that deals in this industry of course, so what would you say – how would you define what conflict actually is?

Donna: Look, conflict in its simplest form is basically a disagreement or an argument between two people or more. So that’s in a nutshell.

Annemarie: I think when we’re talking about conflict, depending on your personality or behavioral style, for some people when they have a minor argument or bit of a disagreement they may feel terrible. Where others might just say, “You know what, we’re just having a debate. That’s fine; that’s fine.” But whatever way that we think about it we need to be aware of how it is impacting what we’re doing, what we’re saying, and how this could impact the relationship on the long term basis.

Because as we know as ambitious entrepreneurs, everything that we do is relationships. Whether it be a colleague, whether it be a staff member or a team member, or whether it be a prospect, or even an existing client. So it’s very important to be aware of.

Donna: Absolutely, absolutely.

Annemarie: So when you’re thinking about conflict then, you probably don’t want to get into a stage where something has escalated into something where the two parties are in disagreement. So what are some suggestions that you had that people can avoid getting to a state where they are having a conflict situation with someone.

Donna: Well Annemarie, I feel boundaries come into this conversation quite prominently. And basically that’s because often, and it’s not only in our primary relationships, or our relationships at home, but definitely at work, we can tend to put others’ needs before our own.

So we tend to not, we tend to say “Yes,” when we’re needing actually to say, “No.”  So hence the secretary at work – the work load building up, but we’re not speaking up, and hence if we have poor boundaries there starts to be a sense of frustration cause I’m not meeting those work load needs of my boss, and then it becomes anger because I start to get resentful at him and then it does turn into resentment.

And then we have a conflict basically. So the secretary has something she does need to address with her boss, but of course, how does she do that? So boundaries really are essential.

Annemarie: Yeah

Donna: Good boundaries.

Annemarie: As you were talking about that example, I can see that happening. Especially for us women entrepreneurs, who want to make sure that we deliver the best of our service and the best of us to the relationships with our clients. However, what can often happen is if you do not set clear boundaries you can end up giving way too much than for what the client paid you for.

And rather than saying something to them, such as: “you know what, when we established the contract, this is what we said and at the moment, this is actually outside what the contract has allowed for. I am happy to alter the contract.”

But if we don’t do that, it could just build up inside. It can fester, can’t it to the point that we do then explode and probably over react. Far more than if we had of addressed it right at the initial time it the situation occurred. We would have taken a far different approach.

Donna: Absolutely, that’s spot on. And I think often as you alerted to depending on what our style of conflict is, you know, what we – what you and your family at home growing up. So whether we want to avoid it, or whether we want to, you know, take it front on. If we are trying to avoid it, often with that behavior of having poor boundary function we actually going to get exactly more of what we’re not wanting to deal with.

Because we get to that resentment stage. Where as if we were frustrated it’s a lot easier to express that frustration rather than by the time it’s built and built over a period of time. And two it remembering, you know, we’re talking about a client, a business relationship with your client.

We all co-create relationships so you know, when you’re feeling disgruntled because you’ve given too much it’s a wall, you know – and would like to blame the client for asking. The reality is that it’s the game you played between both of you is that you haven’t been clear about your boundaries, they can ask. And hence the outcome is the outcome, depending on how clear you’ve been.

Annemarie: I know a lot of our listeners operate a home based businesses, and a couple of things that people have said, that have been left, again we’re talking about boundaries here, and it’s been left to the point where something did fester and all of a sudden explode was: when you have friends or colleagues that think that they can pop around at anytime.

I had this situation that happened to me yesterday, and I tell you what – my blood boiled. I had a girlfriend ring and ask, “Are you busy?” I felt like saying, “Why do you always ask if I’m busy, of course I’m busy.” She said, “Well I’ve got a job interview tomorrow, can you update my resume?” [That's one of the things I did in another life/business].

Donna: Yes.

Annemarie: And I felt like “Ugg…” And she said, “I just want you to check it through” And I was like, “Uh, yeah, alright then…” Anyway, then she sent it through and also asked: “Can you add this to it? And while you’re there, can you do this too?” I tell you what, that was a definite boundary issue.

I can either choose to say to her, “You know what, well actually I’m happy to do this, but…” But, if I choose not to do that, that could fester and really could then turn into a conflict, if all of a sudden I say to her, you know “You’re always doing this…” I’m sure, many of us can relate to that.

Donna: Exactly, you know. It’s that saying yes, when you’re really wanting to say no.

Annemarie: Yeah

Donna:Basically, it’s us calling us on our own sort of behavior or our own style of, you know, interacting with others.

Annemarie: I think when we’re talking about boundaries, we need to recognize that we do have control over whatever situation we are in. Whether we are dealing colleagues, a spouse, or whether it is your business partner, or a client. Or your boss you know, if you’re working for someone. You really do have a part in that relationship. Because quite often we feel that we don’t have control. Is that something that you find when you’re working with a lot of your clients?

Donna: Absolutely, people have a lot more control over areas of their life that they think they don’t. You know? Clearly there are some things, or circumstances, which are out of their control. But we are – for the majority of it, we do have control of. And that’s a real eye opener for some of them. And that’s the empowering part of it.

Annemarie: Yeah.

Donna: That’s, you know, how they do become empowered to, you know, they can create change in their life.

Annemarie: It’s like an ah-ha moment.

Donna: Mmhmm

Annemarie: Okay, yes, I am also part of the equation, so..

Donna: Mmhmm, yeah, damn!

Annemarie: Exactly! We’ve got no one else to blame but ourselves. So, say we’ve got ourselves into a situation where we recognize then that perhaps we should’ve done something prior – what are some of the ways that you suggest to people that if they do find themselves in a situation where conflict has arisen, what’s the best way to address it then?

Donna: Well firstly when you’re actually frustrated about something or you’re angry about something. There’s a form of communication that I teach my clients which is called a confrontive I message. And some people when they hear that, hear “confrontation” and again it’s a bit like “Conflict, woah!”

However the actual definition of confrontation is meeting face to face. That is the actual definition of it. And just quickly the confrontive I message is basically three parts. It’s about how you feel, that’s the first part. The second part is about the situation. And the third part is the tangible impact on you. And when you express that to somebody that’s when the dialog can begin.

So until somebody knows what’s going on for you how can they address it? Basically it is your problem, until you express it to somebody else.

Annemarie: Yeah

Donna: And then you can begin to hopefully work together to come up with the best possible outcome for you both. You know, it gives them an opportunity to then express how they feel about that, what’s going on for them. And basically the journey begins.

Annemarie: Okay, I love those three steps. So, do you want to run through a bit of a scenario?

Actually on last week’s show we spoke to Erika Forbes and she deals with coupleprenuers. Now I think this would be such a great way for husbands and wives who work together that this would be a great way to bring something up, but in a way that’s not going to continue to cause conflict. That could certainly encroach upon into their personal lives. So you’re talking about something that how you make the situation makes you feel. Is that how you would start off the conversation

Donna: Absolutely, and basically, when you’re what I call, formulating your I message, your confrontive I message, it begins to get you in touch with you.

• So what is actually going on for me, what am I feeling? And that is about, as I said, getting to know you, again.
• And then it’s about working out – well what is the real situation here that I am unhappy about? So what is that?
• And then the third part, as I said, is the tangible effect.
• And if you can’t come up with a tangible effect (i.e. time, energy, it’s an emotional strain) you’ll find it involves collision. Which is another area all together.

So hence, you know the couple that maybe worked together, they’re working long hours, she maybe really wanting to entertain more but they’re caught up at the office. You know, it could be as simple as, you know “honey, I’m feeling really frustrated, and quite sad actually that we’re working back so late these days. I’m not getting to entertain, we’re not getting to catch up socially with, you know, our friends. And, you know, I just feel I’m losing touch with them because of that.”

Yeah, that’s the impact, she feels like she’s losing touch. And until, you know, she expresses this to him, he may be unaware of the situation.

Also at the same time though, it’s not blaming him for the thing, the office, maybe he is more driven, or maybe it’s something they do need to do, and he’s happy to do it, he’s not as interested in the social side of it, but when he hears how, what’s going on for her. How she’s feeling about it. How it’s impacting on her and what she would like. Well then that gives her the grandest possibility of her needs being met. And him wanting to meet those needs at the same time if he’s able to. You know, so it opens up that dialog.

Annemarie: And as you said, normally what people would tend to do in the heat of the moment, would be to burst out with something like: “You know you’re just – you’re not doing your end of the bargain, and you’re not letting me do this and …..“ And rather this is really just flipping it on it’s head. And so, as you said, allowing that person to really to get in touch with how they’re feeling, how it’s impacting them.

And therefore in a far better way of approaching it, and I would say, if that were me, if someone came to me and approach me in that way, it really would have me say, “I don’t want to have you feeling that way. Let’s come to an arrangement, let’s work this out. Let’s talk, what can we do?” So again, it really does empower the person who’s speaking, but also can empower the other person to say, “Let’s work together to find out a solution that works for both of us.”

Donna: Absolutely, and what it’s also doing, it’s taking out that “It’s your– it’s because of you” or “when you do this” and naturally anybody on the other end of that is going to come back with quite a defensive, aggressive, and sometimes angry response. Which, where does that get us? It doesn’t get us anywhere.

Annemarie: No…

Donna: And certainly in my own life, and with the clients that I’ve introduced this too, it’s a gem. Trust me, it’s a gem.

Annemarie: Well you really do take control of that situation, but it’s done in a way where it doesn’t suddenly turn into a huge argument. Because then no one’s point of view, no one’s feelings are getting heard and you end up leaving that whole situation far worse than what you felt when going in. Because it’s just building up.

Donna: Exactly

Annemarie: So when we’re talking about boundaries and not sticking to our boundaries – how do they then create or contribute to conflict?

Donna: Well it’s interesting because it all – well the underlying premise of it all, is about our needs. And when there is conflict it means that someone’s need aren’t getting met. And often someone’s need aren’t getting met because they’ve had poor boundary function and they’ve said yes, when they really wanted to say no. And that’s, I suppose, the journey for that person to understand why they do say yes when they really want to say no.

Why are you saying yes to your friend when you’re really under the pump and yes you are really busy. When you may prefer –  maybe really underneath be wanting to say no. So…

Annemarie: If she’s listening to this show I don’t think she’ll be asking me again. That’s for sure

(both laughing)

Annemarie: I think for some of our listeners, we don’t want to hurt he other person’s feelings by saying no. We want to be liked. However we need to step up to that and ensure that our needs are getting met by sticking to our boundaries and saying, “Hey, you know what, in my case, I am really busy. I would love to help you however at this time I’ve got so much on my plate. I’m not going to be able to support you in this. I’m sorry.”

Donna: Perfect

Annemarie: So it doesn’t fester up.

Donna: Exactly,

Annemarie: Yeah

Donna: And unfortunately either in our upbringings our needs weren’t met as children so we don’t even know that we’ve got needs or what they are. Sometimes in relationships, you know, we tend – we often and especially as mothers, put children’s needs and our husbands needs before our own. And hence we start to lose ourselves.

So one of the ways to someone, you know, I didn’t even know I had needs. So how do I work out what my needs are? Well I certainly know what I don’t want. And if I know what I don’t want, then I can flip that around to well what do I want?

Annemarie: Yeah, yeah.

Donna: So that’s starting to tap into: well what do I want? What do I need?

Annemarie: If we don’t say anything; if we keep it bottled up inside, how on earth is the other person ever going to know? Then you’re going to get to the point where you just explode. The last straw that broke the camel’s back, you know that saying, and then all of a sudden there’s the conflict, there’s the anger.

Donna: Yeah

Annemarie: Or I’m leaving my job, you know, I’ve had enough and the boss is basically unaware. It’s hitting him from a six. It’s come out of left field for him because you know. You’ve been there for five years and you’ve not expressed anything.

Donna: Exactly, and I think if you put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Then you can really feel if all of a sudden someone says to you, “Well I’m unhappy here” and all of a sudden they explode. “Well hang on a minute, I really wish you would’ve approached me earlier. And so that we could talk about this and established some boundary rules and some guidelines to help you overcome that.” So sometimes, just by putting yourself in their shoes can certainly help.

Annemarie: I’m getting so many notes already Donna, this is fantastic. So I want to find out a little bit more about the skills that you believe we need to create a win-win solution. So stay on the line as we catch up with Meredith Elliot Powell, our sales expert to find out how we can convert prospect into customers.

(Jazzy, upbeat interlude music. Then fades out)

Annemarie: So welcome to the show Meredith

Meredith: Well thank you Annemarie, I’m very happy to be here.

Annemarie: So what lessons are we going to learn today?

Meredith: Well today we’re going to focus on rule number 31, and that is to learn to love accountability

(laughing)

Annemarie: And I think we all need to do that.

Meredith: That’s great because accountability seems to be one of those words that especially as salespeople, especially as entrepreneurs and business owners that we tend to shy away from. You know, I always joke that a sales person, when anybody starts talking to you about goals, about prospect relationships, about management, about tracking your progress, and measuring results it starts to sounds little bit like Charlie Brown’s teacher. All we hear is “Wha-wha wha micromanagement wha-wha-wha”

(Laughing)

Annemarie: Exactly.

Meredith: But if you truly want to master sales and build trust and value and economy, then you’ve just got to love and embrace and get excited about accountability. And I believe accountability is misunderstood and misused as a term. Because it’s often used – thought of, as a way we catch people doing something wrong. Rather than being used as a way to help people do more things right.

Annemarie: So we really do need to re-frame our mindset around that so that we’re not looking at it as a negative, but really a positive and a supporting aspect of our business and when it comes to sales.

Meredith: Exactly, I mean the reason, truly the reason that you establish a goal, track your behaviors, measure your results is to learn. To learn from what you’re doing well and to understand what you’re not doing well, so that you can change those behaviors to do better. You know, accountability is really that time that you take a breather and you say, “Gosh, I’ve worked so hard this last month. Let me look at the actual results I’ve gotten.”

And it’s a time to reflect and say, “Okay, let me think about this past month. What have I done that’s got the results I want, or what haven’t I done. Or what have I done that hasn’t really led to the results I wanted.” So that you can be on this continuous improvement program. So that you get to a point where you work smarter, instead of harder. And again, accountability is not what about you didn’t do. It’s about figuring out how to do what you do, better.

Annemarie: And I think too, for a lot of people, that when you don’t track and measure review, you often forget to celebrate the small successes, and not just the small successes, but the successes because we’re moving so quickly from one project to another. This is a great way to say, “hey, this is working really well, I’ve got to do more of that.” And we miss that, don’t we Meredith, when we’re not tracking and we’re not keeping ourselves accountable.

Meredith: Absolutely, you know, accountability is the time where you sort of get your head up, outside of your business. And you got a chance to reflect and say, “Wow I’d completely forgotten all the success that I had.” Because I do think as entrepreneurs and as business owners, we tend to sometimes focus on what we don’t get done, or what doesn’t get accomplished. Because we all move at a hundred miles an hour. And it’s important to take that breather. But you know, Annemarie, here’s the other important piece of accountability. I just love this story, I always joke that I’m a recovering banker

(both laughing)

Meredith: But for years I was a banker, and just like in many financial institutions we introduced sales. And we did all the traditional things. We bought a customer relationship management system. And we tracked, and we measured our associates and dismal results. But I had this wonderful manager that reported to me, and in his branch he had a teller. Who was just embracing the process of sales. She did all the behaviors she was suppose to do, and she called people and she entered all her information. But she just got no bottom line results.

He brought her into his office one Friday afternoon. And he said, “Tina, thank you, you’ve done an amazing job at doing everything that we’ve asked you to do. But I’m worried you’re just not getting results.” And she was just  bursts into tears. And he said, being a man, that scared him to death.

(both laughing)

Meredith: And he said, “Let’s go make a few calls together.” And by the time he listened to her make her second call, he knew what her problem was, and he said, “why don’t you listen to me?” And she listened to him, and you know, the end of the story is she ended up being the exceptional teller of the year for our region. It never would’ve happened without accountability.

What I say to so many of my clients, and especially with entrepreneurs, we’re so isolated. And if you don’t track and measure, if you don’t have something on a piece of paper or on a spreadsheet, that you can turn around, and you can ask a business coach, or just ask a friend who’s more successful than you are, “Look, this is what I’m doing. And I’m not getting the results I want. What do you think?”

Somebody else can give you that little sliver of advice. That can just put you over the edge because I think there is nothing more frustrating than working yourself to death and not getting the results that you want.

Annemarie: Absolutely. And you know it may just be one small little thing. One small little change that when you integrate, all of a sudden everything just falls into place. And you’re rockin’ ‘n’ rollin’ and you know, you’re converting your prospects into clients. But you’re never going to know that unless you’re tracking and monitoring and reaching out, as you said to people, who are really doing well in those sorts of things and can become mentors and supporters for you in that area. So very important.

And you know that I often get scared when I listen to people, particularly entrepreneurs and business people. Say, “well you know what, I don’t really set goals.”

Meredith: Yes

Annemarie: “I really love the flexibility and creativity element of my business.” Absolutely, I think that’s really very important. But if you’re setting these parameters inparticularly with what you’re talking about today: accountability – that is going to allow you to be even more creative, with more time to be flexible and creative. Because of the fact that all the other things you’re doing work. They work for you and you know they work because you can track, monitor, and tweek it to adjust and assure the right results.

Meredith: Absolutely. I love what you said about often it’s one small thing. It is so often one little thing. Just a tiny thing. You got 90% of it right. But again, I mean I got to know the work that you do and the clients and nothing is more frustrating than when someone comes to me and tells me the story of what they’re doing wrong, but I’ve got no way at looking at the history of what they’ve done.

And the reason that’s frustrating to me is, it doesn’t mean I can’t help them because I can, but we’re going to have to start now. Tracking it so I can get a look at it, verses if you learn to love accountability. And that is where my paradigm is on accountability. I don’t look at it as a way to see what I’m not doing. That’s a discipline issue. What I look at it as, “Now I’ve got something on paper and I can show other people what I’m doing so that I can get the help that I need to move my business to another level. And accountability is important to your point whether you’re successful or whether you’re not because we always can get a piece of advice from someone who can help us go to another level.

Annemarie: Absolutely. Very important. You know, even from a personal level, I know when I have that accountability there. I have an accountability partner. It’s amazing the amount of work that you can get done, the results that you can generate, once you just implement that process. Everything falls into line, because as you know in that back of your mind you have this accountability and I think as entrepreneurs we need to get interested, we need to be curious about what’s happening, how can we track and measure that? I think something that’s just vital to be able to implement. I love that rule, just love it!

Meredith: Well, what I love to hear coming out of you is why I call this rule, learn to love accountability. Because the more that we talk about it, you can hear the passion coming up in both of our voices. And yeah, it’s just one of those words that as often as we cringe about it. You know, “ew, accountability” where it is a word where really we need to view differently because there is gold in that information.

Annemarie: Yeah

Meredith: I mean there is true discovery about your business. That if you’ll just track and measure it, boy, it’s almost like get a little motor that gets behind your business. And when you start tracking and measuring and discovering about things, that motor gets gas, or gets turned on, and you just go that much faster and that much farther.

Annemarie: Absolutely. Fantastic, so rule number 31, learn to love accountability. And I love the way that you open that paragraph. “I love accountability.”

(both laughing)

Meredith: That’s right, that’s right.

Annemarie: Which is just so true, which is why you’re successful in what you do. And of course you can get a copy of Meredith’s book, “42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers” All you need to do is go to motionfirstnow.com. That’s motionfirstnow.com.

I think as I’ve said again and again, and I’ll say it again, this is a book that every entrepreneur needs to have on their bookshelf because it’s a way of selling authentically. And I love that. It’s none of that hard pushy, you know those sales people. Actually my husband and I were at a car sales yard just the other day because we were having a look at things, and I went into that with my arms folded and you know I thought, “you just try and come up to me” I was thinking about your book and a lot of the rules that we talked about. And I thought I should really bring a copy of your book and say, “Hey, before you even talk to me, you need to read this book.

(both laughing)

Annemarie: And change your sales approach because oh I tell you what, some people just really don’t know what they don’t know.”

Meredith: Absolutely, absolutely. You know, Annemarie, one thing I want to add is, you know, as we were sitting here talking about it, and you mentioned, you know, my success, and I know that you’re quite successful. The thing that you’ve got to feel in your business is the reason I want people to read the book is because yes, I am successful, my business has gone gang busters this year, but what I’m doing is not rocket science. And what I’m doing is literally something that every entrepreneur can do. And I want everybody to be successful.

Annemarie: Meredith, as always it’s been such a pleasure to have you on the show. You really are very inspirational. I love all the rules that you have in your book. And I’m lucky because I’ve got a copy of that. So again, for everyone the website to go to is motionfirstnow.com and grab a copy of “42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers.” Thanks again Meredith, it’s been great to catch up.

Meredith: Thank you Annemarie.

(Jazzy, upbeat musical interlude then fades out)

Annemarie: And welcome back, this is Annemarie Cross. And I’m speaking with Donna Smith about how to resolve and avoid situations of conflict. We really do need to stand up and say you know what, by not putting – or letting the other person know about these boundaries and this is not okay with me. These are skills that we really need to develop.

So do you have any advice on how to do that? For someone – because I know people who’ve often always said yes, and they want to be the person that helps and provides and supports and does all that. For them this can be a real challenge. So what skills do you think they need to continue to build, to allow them to have that win-win situation or get a win-win solution.

Donna: Well, one of the methods that we do use is actually called Method Three within my program. And the first part of that when working with a conflict situation is to define the needs of both parties. So again, it comes back to these needs. And what you find, if you put others’ needs before your own, then you’re not living your life. And you become very resentful and you’re not content and you’re not really happy so that’s the cracks of this. So the first step of Method Three is to define needs. Definitely comes back to needs: what are my needs?

Annemarie: Yeah. Yeah.

Donna: That’s the bottom line: what are my needs? With the boundaries, it’s also understanding as you alerted to, why am I saying yes to her? Do I want her to like me? You know, will it make it, sort of, she’ll owe me the next time? Sometimes too, Annemarie, it’s because we’re caught on the hop. You know, those situations where you know, it’s put in a certain way and I haven’t had time to think about it. Again, it’s languaging, just to say, “Oh look, I’ll check my diary and get back to you.” Rather than just saying, “Yes,” to a haze at that point in time. So Method Three, the first step is very much to define needs of the conflict.

Annemarie: So you would identify what your needs were and then you identify, what the other person’s needs ar. It’s trying to find a solution that delivers as much as possible for both parties. Both parties are having their needs met.

Donna: Absolutely, so it doesn’t become a win-lose situation. The word compromise comes into it. And sometimes when people hear compromise they think, “Oh, I’m going to have to give up something.” or “I’m gonna lose something” But it’s actually very different to that. When you work through the six steps of Method Three. Because you discuss it, or maybe you’re sort of going, “Oh I can give up a little bit here” and the other goes, “Oh well I can give up a little bit of that.” So that you both come to, or the group collectively, come to that solution. So the second part is actually to brainstorm the solutions.

Annemarie: Okay

Donna: You know, just absolutely brainstorm the solutions of the situation. And then evaluate them is the third part. And then eventually, you choose a solution. Between the two of you, between the group, you actually choose a solution and you begin to implement it. But the last part is, at a later date, whatever that is, collectively, is to check the result. Because that solution, it may be great and it might work perfectly, or again, there still might be some unmet needs. You know, that haven’t been quite fulfilled. But if you can start at the beginning, and it’s really important to spend time on the first steps so that everyone’s needs are out there.

Annemarie: Yeah

Donna: No one’s pretending. Nobody’s – and you know, part of the process, and part of learning these skills is being your real authentic self. It’s being the real deal. You know? It’s not saying –

Annemarie: Absolutely, you know, I do work with people using DISC. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but the S in DISC stands for steadfastness. People who are a High Factor S very much like to work in an environment with a steady pace. Once thing they don’t like is conflict.  In fact, they would rather agree to disagree than to say, “No, well I don’t like that.” But if you continue to do that you’re not getting needs met. You’re not really being fair to the other person or the other people if you don’t tell them about it. You really do need to stand up and say, “You know what, this is really where I’m coming from, this is what I really need. And these are my boundaries.” It’s only fair to all parties.

Donna: Absolutely. And you’ll find – and I’m sure you’ve been in situations where somebody’s saying yes to something, or – and you know it’s not what they really want. It’s not the answer they’re really wanting to give.

Annemarie: Yeah

Donna: People can smell it when someone’s not staying authentic. You know? To your point, it’s not a benefit to anybody.

Annemarie: And it leads you right back to the very beginning again. You haven’t put the boundaries in place.

I love those steps so: define the needs of each of the parties, brainstorm the solution, evaluate, choose a solution, implement, and check the result later down the track to make sure that you are getting the win-win outcome. And I so agree with what you said, you know. When you’re looking at any relationship, win or a lose, really, down the track, both parties lose.

Donna: Exact – spot on.

Annemarie: You might think at the time, “Oh, I won this one. Fantastic” But I tell you what, if you’re working with a partner in business, it’s a lose-lose because down the track, something is going to happen that it’s going to bite you back. You know that old saying, it’s going to come back and bite you.

Donna: Absolutely

Annemarie: So I love those steps. So for someone who can see they need extra support in this area, how can they get in contact with you?

Donna: My website is www.ownyourownpower.com.au If you just want to get a bit more of a feeling for me, I do write a blog which you can click on through my website. And… yeah, that’s me.

Annemarie: Fabulous, that’s great. Thank you so much again Donna for coming on the show

Donna: Thanks Annemarie. It’s been a pleasure.

Annemarie: You’ve been listening to the Ambitious Entrepreneur. If you’re struggling to get more clients and charge what you’re worth, get our free 7 step audio theories on how to get noticed, hired, and paid what you’re worth at bit.ly/chargeyourworth

(Upbeat Jazzy exit music)

Struggling to increase engagement and exposure on Twitter?

You’ve spent hours creating your article and naturally want to get as much exposure as you can for your literary masterpiece.

Sharing it with your social network, specifically through Twitter, is probably something you’re doing already.

After all, Twitter is the information network so why not share it with your followers?

So you send your tweet, sit back, and wait.

And wait…

What happened? Why hasn’t anyone retweeted you?

According to a Sysomos study (involving the examination of 1.2 billion tweets over a two month period) you only have a short time span of 3 hours for your Tweet to be effective.

Source: Sysomos

In fact 92.4% of retweets happen in the first hour, which drops to 1.63% in the second hour, and down to 0.94% in the third hour.

If your tweet isn’t retweeted within the first hour, you can assume that it won’t be.

So how can you make your tweets stand out from the dozens of tweets being sent each second so that followers read, reply and/or retweet it?

Here are some tips to help you increase engagement with your community while continue to gain exposure for your article.

Twitter Strategy 1: Make your tweets thought provoking, informative and newsworthy

As mentioned earlier Twitter is the information network with well over a thousand tweets being sent every minute. For your tweet to have any chance of being shared, it has to be informative, newsworthy and relevant to your audience.

Dull, boring and irrelevant – just won’t cut it. Tweeting ‘Here’s my latest article’ is hardly going to spark interest and engagement.

Make it interesting and compelling so that readers not only click through to your article, but also feel inspired to share it with their followers.

Twitter Strategy 2: Repurpose Your Tweets

Not all of your followers are going to see your tweet when you initially send it. Retweeting your article at different times throughout the day (or across several days/months) is another way to reach a fresh audience.

Guy Kawasaki schedules the same tweet 4 times, 8 hours apart in order to capture more views from his followers who are located across different time zones. Other Twitter gurus use this strategy as well, with the same tweet spread over several weeks or months.

I’ve tried this strategy myself, with great success. Every so often I’ll tweet about one of my older articles, which allows me to share it with my most recent followers who haven’t had the opportunity to read it yet.

The snapshot below shows my article: Are you developing (or destroying) your online reputation and relationships, which I’ve tweeted every-so-often over several months. Each time it generated new views and retweets.

A word of caution; don’t be tempted to schedule your tweets too close together. You don’t want to turn off your followers by being repetitive.

I’ve only just learned about another tool – Buffer, which claims that users saw a 200% increase in clickthroughs to their links, after two weeks of ‘buffering’ their tweets.

Twitter Strategy 3: Ask a question and encourage opinions

Asking for opinions is a great way to engage with your followers.

I often do this when I’m doing some research for an article and want to find out what other people are doing. It’s also a great way to generate interest in your upcoming article.

As I was putting together this article I wanted to see what other people were doing to leverage and repurpose their material on Twitter. So I asked my followers.

As you can see, I received some interesting responses.

I even asked my Facebook friends, who added their thoughts to the conversation as well.

 Twitter Strategy 4: Add a call to action

Social Media Scientist – Dan Zarella discovered some interesting results and writes about it in his article 5 scientifically proven ways to get more retweets.

According to Dan’s findings, the phrase:

• Please ReTweet generated 51% retweets
• Please RT generated 39% retweets
• And neither call to actions still resulted in a 12% of people retweeting

Source: Dan Zarella

Use this call to action sparingly though as asking people to retweet each of your articles (especially if you update your blog weekly) could become repetitive and turn off some of your followers. Consider joining a Triberr group instead.

 Twitter Strategy 5: Shorten your tweets to 120-130 characters

Shorten the length of your tweets to make it easier for your followers to retweet it.

If people are required to abbreviate and rewrite your tweet so that they can fit in their twitter handles, they probably won’t bother. And, it may just lose your brand voice if they make drastic changes to fit it into 140 characters.

 Twitter Strategy 6: Use different hashtags

A great way to reach an audience that may not be following you directly is by using hashtags. [This # symbol].

By placing a hashtag in front of a keyword will allow your tweet to be found when people are searching for that specific keyword.

Some of my favorite keywords that are relevant to my target market is #smallbusiness, #smallbiz, #branding, so I will regularly include one (or more) of those keywords in my tweet.

To find out which hashtags (keywords) are most popular, use these two resources:

• www.hashtags.org and
• www.tweetreach.com

So there are six ways you can leverage Twitter to gain exposure for your article.

Remember though, one of the best ways to get your tweets to capture the attention of your audience so they feel compelled to share it with their community, is to make it interesting, inspiring and relevant.

What about you? Do you retweet your tweets? How often? What results have you seen? I’d love to hear from you in the comment box below.

Stay inspired!