Having been a renegade artist (me? attitude?) for so long, I never thought I’d be teaching anything – much less the subject of business marketing – at any government agency.

So it was a real surprise when a friend who is the course director at our local Honolulu Small Business Administration called me and suggested I give some classes there.

I thought, why the heck not? There are people who really could use what I know! So I put together four possible classes they might want to run.

Just so you can see the various possibilities, here’s what I sent them:

• How to Reduce or Eliminate Stress
• How to Give Successful Teleclasses
• Play with Your Money for More Money to Play With
• Internet Marketing Made Easy: Are You Missing These 8 Essential Elements of Marketing?

I really thought they would go for the money one, but when they got back to me they wanted the internet marketing one.

Now, here’s the deal. In your local SBA, I can almost guarantee you there will be at least one person who knows that women comprise 52+% of today’s business owners.

Women are the hot market to target. Women are sick and tired of the push marketing model, and are naturals for pull, or attractor, marketing, AND not only know how to do it, but have had a major presence in the bazaars and marketplaces of the world for hundreds of years.

If you go down to your local SBA and offer a course, you won’t even believe what that will get you.

They have hundreds of people who are in biz who read the monthly press release that goes out announcing the classes.

That exposure alone can increase your readership considerably if you give a website address that has an optin box on it with an attractive offer for people to go sign up on your list.

Do you know something most people do not? Do you have a skill or talent you can share?

The credibility from having taught just one class there would be all you’d need to catapult you into a whole new sphere of influence!

I suggest that if you haven’t thought of it before, go down to your local SBA, if you have one, or a town near you, and see what’s up. If they have classes you can register for, take one and get to know the admin people, and make friends.

Then call them and mention that you have something they can use – and if they take it, you’re in!

All you need to do is put five steps (to creating a domain name, to building a website, to writing compelling copy, to selling on Ebay, to marketing online, to marketing offline – or whatever your skills, knowledge or expertise is in) together, give it a compelling name and teach it.

Offer something that has to do with whatever you know how to do and feel comfortable showing a complete newbie how to do it.

Once you teach there for a few months, your name will get around as the one to go to for whatever you’re known as the expert at. People wiyourll start calling you and asking for  services. So in addition to what you do online, you’ll also have a good local clientele.

Why do you want a local clientele? Because you want to connect with and stay in touch with your loacl community; you don’t want your face in front of your computer screen all day anymore; and because it ain’t good for your bod to be sitting all day long.

If you like to share info, then do consider seeing if you can teach at your local SBA.

I guarantee you that you know more about your subject than the “normal” person out there – and that makes you, to them, an expert! Try it!

Doing local classes strengthens your internet marketing expertise by improving your communication skills and self-confidence. You go!

aloha -
Angela

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© Angela Treat Lyon 2011 • Feel free to use this information or
article in its entirety as long as you include all contact information.
Lyon at IDareYouRadio.com • Thank you!

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IS THIS YOU?

• I’m not getting paid what I’m worth
• My clients drive me crazy, or:
• I don’t get enough clients
• Why can’t I get ones I like and who do what it takes?
• I can never explain what I do so people get it right away
• I feel like everyone else does what I do–how do I stand out?

THE ANTI-BRAND
No matter whether you have *tried* to create a brand for yourself or not, you are experiencing the effects of having one: but it’s what I call the anti-brand…people are describing you in the way *they* see you–in a way which is not necessarily great, because you haven’t guided them to see you in a way in which you want to be remembered.

How DO you want people to remember you?

As that woman who does that weird energy stuff? That carpenter guy? That blogging guy? Or the go-to gal for women who are transitioning from empty-nester to energy practitioner? Or the guy who makes it easy to create and market info-products online?

WHAT MAKES YOU STAND OUT?
If you think having a brand identity allows people to find you in the chaos will help you sail through economic down-times more easily, you’re right. It will, because those who need you and can afford you will find you and make use of your services.

I’ve been speaking a lot this past couple of weeks with my friend, Samantha Hartley, the branding expert I met last year and whose course I took. (More HERE)

She’s about to start delivering the improved version of that same course next week. I wanted to find out if it was something you would be interested in. (EnlightenedMarketing.com–but don’t go there yet!).

She’s the one who helped me get clear on:

• what to do and when,
• with whom
• and why…
• so I could stand out in the vast crowd of marketers onlne
• in order to make sure I attract the right clients specifically for me, so they will be happy to do what they need to do in order to get the results they want,
• and who will pay me happily and enthusiastically
• and refer other people to me.

Sound like something you want for your own business? Read on.

I got Samantha to write an article that illustrates the value of creating a brand so you can show up in the marketplace. There are more and more people entering the business domain, so you need to be able to differentiate yourself in order for people to find you. Read it HERE.

TAKE YOUR BIZ TO THE NEXT LEVEL
I also interviewed Samantha so I could get more info on branding for you, in case you’re at the point where you’re ready to take your business to the next level. I call it: Can People Find You Amidst the Marketplace Chaos? Click on the I Dare You Radio logo to the left, or Listen to this important information HERE.

What’s really cool is that just for listening, you can get a FREE brand assessment (worth $500!) and a FREE Business Success Maps guide from me (worth a fortune if you use it and update it!). You’ll get the link to both on the interview *only.* Plus you also get a couple more goodies I won’t mention here….

We also created a shorter (12 min.) audio for you about the Branding Action Roadmap Course, which you can hear here (hear hear!): Are You Invisble in the Marketplace? The Branding Action Group will Save Your Pretty Butt! Click on the I Dare You Radio logo to the left, or LISTEN HERE

You’ll discover what you get when you enroll in this amazing course, and she gives you–because you are a part of the Daring Dreamers Community–all the goodies you get with the entire package, plus a one-on-one with her, three bonuses, a huge discount…and 4 *extra* really great bonuses no one else gets just because you’re a part of the Daring Dreamers community! As well as a wee surprise giftie, just because….

OK, HERE‘s Samantha’s article.

by Samantha Hartley, Enlightened Marketing Expert

I once had a client, Greg, who came to me for assistance with his marketing.

He’d invested a fortune in his company but wasn’t attracting enough paying clients.

He was scraping by, waiting for the momentum to kick in.

And it wasn’t kicking.

Greg hadn’t been frugal about his marketing materials. They were developed by professional designers and copywriters and were polished and fashionable.  There was only one problem: they didn’t communicate his brand.

Who do you work with? How do you help them? What do you do for them that no one else can do as well?  Why should anyone choose you instead of the alternatives?

That’s what your prospective clients want to know.  When people meet you or see your website, they’re asking, “How should I think about you? Where do you fit in the filing cabinet of my mind?”

Like Greg, many entrepreneurs who come to me for help with their marketing are actually struggling with an identity problem: they don’t have a clear one.

A brand is the unique identity of your business.  Your brand identity includes:

• Who your intended audience is
• What makes you the right choice for them
• Why they should believe your claims

In Greg’s case, he could have ditched the expensive brochures no one reads, and the confusing web site with puzzling images and just shared from his heart:

“I work with small business owners who are tired of hiring candidates who present well but don’t perform.  I help them to identify the profile of the ideal candidate and the best way to select them.  As a result, they hire the right one the first time, save money on training and make money by having a productive employee from the get-go.  My system doesn’t rely on self-reporting, so profiles are more accurate, as seen by our 92% retention rate.”

Now is that the example YOU would give of a brand identity?  More often people think of the Nike swoosh logo or Starbucks’ green mermaid.  But those aren’t brands – they’re logos.  You may think of Big Mac hamburgers, Crocs holey shoes and iPod players.  But those aren’t brands – they’re products.

Even for entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, brands need to be positioned, which means defining who they’re for and why they’re the best choice for them.  In the example above, we have an intended audience (small business owners) and a differentiator (very accurate profiles); this is the beginning of brand building.  In addition, you should articulate a brand promise (money saved on training and made on productivity) that lays out what to expect from an experience of your brand.

Volvo promises its cars are the safest. Ben & Jerry’s brand promises innovative ice cream flavors and social responsibility.  FedEx promises your stuff will be delivered overnight.  I promise you can increase sales without selling out.  What’s your brand promise?

Unenlightened marketers skip this step entirely and doom themselves to commodity status.  Do you want to be just another entry in the Chamber of Commerce directory?  Of course not!  You want to be the Starbucks of your profession.

Starbucks proved the power of branding by transforming a measly pennies-per-cup beverage into an experience its audience would pay scads of money for.  They expanded the coffee playing field from simply aroma and flavor to include atmosphere, skilled service (not from wait staff, but “baristas”), fair trade and more benefits than my poor little truck stop coffee counter had ever heard of.  How can you transform your own commodity into a brand?  (Hint: differentiated value)

The irony here is that almost every business has a brand identity of some kind, just not necessarily the one they want.  I’ve heard people refer to “the expensive place,” or “that weird guy who does something health-related.”  They’ve called brands “cars for old people,” or “the ones made in sweat shops.”  Our task is to brand ourselves, consciously, with an identity, and work to make it at least as prominent in the minds of our audience as the other impressions they receive.

If you don’t do it, someone else will do it for you, and you might not like the results.

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© Samantha Hartley 2009, EnlightenedMarketing.com

GO HERE (12 min audio) and HERE (26 min audio) TO FIND OUT about Samantha’s upcoming Branding Action Group Course!