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Alyson Stanfield: Are You an Artist Who’s Being too Frugal?

alyson

This is a guest post by Alyson Stanfield, from artbizblog.com. I’ve been following her for years, and she always has great things to say. Here we go:

“I’ll just come right out and say it: I am tired of watching artists and arts organizations live on leftover scraps.

In my 23 years of working with fine art, I have witnessed repeatedly how frugal the arts are. Not to the patrons with the big bank accounts, but to the artists, without whom their passionate interest would not exist.

Frugal isn’t bad by itself. In fact, frugal can be good. But frugal becomes detrimental when it feeds the idea that we are not worthy of more.

Read More

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What Cool Thing Can YOU Teach at Your Local SBA?

teach-sba

Having thought of myself as a renegade artist for so long, I never thought I’d be teaching anything – much less the subject of business or marketing – at any government agency.

So it was a real surprise when a friend of mine who is the course director at our local Honolulu Small Business Administration, called me and asked me if I’d like to 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.

So you can see the various possibilities, here’s what I proposed:

  • 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?

They wanted the internet marketing one.

That was a surprise, but I didn’t mind.

Then I had to think, “who is my audience? Who will be coming, and how do I prepare my class for that group?”

Who’s the best niche to market your class to?

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.

What will teaching at the SBA get you?

If you offer a course at the SBA, you won’t even believe what that will get you. They have hundreds of members 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 opt-in box on it with an attractive offer for people to go sign up on your list.

What do you know?

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!

What to do next

I suggest that you 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 a five steps class together:

  • 5 Steps to creating a domain name, 5 Steps to building a website,
  • 5 Steps to writing compelling copy,
  • 5 Steps to selling on Ebay,
  • 5 Steps to marketing online,
  • 5 Steps to marketing offline

…. or whatever your skills, knowledge or expertise is in.

Give your class a compelling name, propose it and then teach it.

Offer something that has to do with whatever you know how to do, and whatever you would 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 will start calling you and asking for  services. So in addition to what you do online, you’ll also have a good local clientele.
Why would you want a local clientele?

Because you want to connect with and stay in touch with your local 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, consider teaching at your local SBA.

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

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

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Conquer These 3 Crucial Mistakes for More Effective Marketing

3-mistakes

Do you make these critical marketing mistakes?

If you don’t understand and resolve these three mistakes, your marketing will never be fully effective.

Whether you are a health practitioner or car salesman, a rank beginner or a seasoned executive, the powerful principles and easy steps I show you apply across the board.

I invite you to listen to the AUDIO of this eye-opener seminar I held, and discover for yourself these Three Crucial Marketing Mistakes so you can flip them over and  make your marketing easier and more fruitful.

Click on the Daring Dreamers Radio logo to the left to listen to this unique seminar.  You can download it for future reference, and you can get some really nice FREE goodies at the end of the recording!

Here are links to some of the resources I mentioned on the call: HOSTMONSTER.COM: hosting with unlimited sites, and way more;
ELANCE.COM;
SAMANTHA HARTLEY at Enlightened Marketing for branding; AUDIOACROBAT: for recording, podcasts, videos, videocasts, and publishing on iTunes; and
ALEX MANDOSSIAN‘s report on repurposing your products.
Look for VAs (Virtual Assistants) here.

 

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Does Your Brand Miscommunicate What Your Biz Is About?

samantha

Guest 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 filled with puzzling images and then 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.”

What example would YOU 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.

Positioning

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.

What’s your brand promise?

  • 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.

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.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

© Samantha Hartley 2009 EnlightenedMarketing.com

 

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Samantha Hartley, Branding Expert: Hints & Tips for Your Biz

samantha

I’m delighted to bring you dynamic entrepreneur, Samantha Hartley, who is an expert at helping business owners recognize and create their business brand identity.

If you have a business, this is important – and even more so if you have no brand identity, you’ll really want to listen to this week’s show.

What, exactly, IS branding?

Why do you need to be so conscious of it, and careful in its creation?

Most of us think of branding being your business card, how your brochures and other promotional materials look, your office, your websites, your Facebook pages and Twitter feed – even how you answer the phone!

Your brand identity is more!

Your Brand identity is at the root of all the things I listed above. Once you have created a brand identity that is aligned with your values, talents, gifts and the value you bring to the marketplace, it expresses

  • who you (or your business) are,
  • what you do for your clients, and
  • is your representative even when you’re not there to speak.

IDareYouRadio.comI invite you to click on the link or the logo to listen in to our powerful conversation where Samantha shares lots of hints and tips about branding, what it is and how you can up the oomph of your own.

Her tips will help you consolidate your thoughts and ideas about getting your brand created in a way that concisely and clearly communicates the value of your business.

Take her great brand assessment (free) at her site to see where your understanding of your business and its value and how you express it stands–you’ll get back a 5 to 11 page report according to the answers you give on the assessment. I took it, and learned a lot!

MORE: Take Your Biz to the Next Level!

I interviewed Samantha again for more info on branding, 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?

IDareYouRadio.comClick on the I Dare You Radio logo to the left, or Listen to this important information 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!

Pamela Bruner, Millionaire Energy Coach: 5 Steps to SuccessClick on the Daring Dreamers Radio logo to the left, or LISTEN HERE

 

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Membership Sites: Beware of the Hazards of Free Trials

trial

You’ve probably seen many membership sites and one-month ‘free’ trial on websites. They’re a great idea – but I invite you to please be careful.

Some one-month ‘free’ trials don’t have end-of-trial notifications, and if you’ve forgotten you signed up, it can be a big surprise to get their charge on your card at the end of the trial time.

Here’s what I’ve learned to do:

I’m really choosy now as to what I sign up for! If I do decide to do the trial, I write on a sticky note the site name, my info (username and password), and the date I signed up for the trial membership.

If I have doubts as to whether I’m going to stay, I make a reminder to check with myself by a certain date so I can unsubscribe if I want to before I get charged.

If I know I’m going to stay, I add the site to my list of monthly payments that I make so it won’t be a surprise when my card gets charged.

Another thing.

If it’s a site where you could possibly enter all kinds of info and data, you may not want to put time and data into it so you don’t want to leave when the time the trial month is up.

Just wait! You’ve lived without the site until now–it’s OK to live without it until you make a final decision. Don’t put your data and info on it yet until you’re sure.

I’m talking about shopping cart sites, autoresponder sites, affiliate sites, web 2.0 sites–they know darn well if you start populating all the info fields with your data you’re not likely to leave.

Do your research first.

Avoid entering your email address or any of your personal info before you see if it’s the one you feel best about sticking with on a permanent basis.

If it’s a site where you get a lot for your money, and you feel good about the people who run it, and the integrity and quality of what you get, then don’t hesitate!

p.s. THE RIGHT SIGN: Maybe you’ve seen this video already, but I think it’s lovely. (And it’s a great example of what happens when you have the right marketing message!)

 

Marketing, Women, Your Business Success, , , , , , , ,

How to Write Thousands Without Feeling Nervous

write

It’s an amazing thing to have thousands of people read your emails weekly.

It used to frighten me at first, because my mailing list grew so fast, and I had never written to more than one person at a time before. I was so afraid I’d put people off.

But as I went along, I got more and more comfortable, because I shifted from, “Oh no, what if I blow it, what will they think about what I say,” and a whole slew of other fears. I was afraid of what you, the people on my list, thought of me, my work and what I had to say.

How do you sit down and write thousands of people?

People ask me all the time:

  • Isn’t it hard?
  • How do you keep from feeling overwhelmed?
  • How do you know what to write?

I was speaking about this the other day with a friend who also has a large mailing list. We were laughing about how hard it was at first to write these newsletters until we started thinking about it differently.

I told her how I think about my readers and carry them all around with me wherever I go, and she laughed and said, yeah, I do that, too.

Do you care? Really care?

After a couple months of writing my list, I realized how much I really do care about my readers, and how passionate I am about what I do and believe in, and about wanting you to have the very best of anything I can create or make available to you.

I started seeing that, if I didn’t believe in myself
or my work, my readers certainly wouldn’t!

So I asked myself this: if I was Jack Canfield or Oprah or one of those “out-there” people who are so passionate about what they do, what would I write and say?

What results would I want my readers to have?

How could I write about it all so my readers would really get what I was saying and get the Goods from my products and services?

Ahhhh, relief!

As soon as I started writing from that frame of mind, I felt such relief, because I understood that you wouldn’t have signed up for the newsletter if you weren’t attracted to *something* about what you see on my sites.

And I saw that the ones who unsubscribe are not criticizing or mad, they’re just not interested anymore, or feel overwhelmed, and my stuff is low on their priority lists. It’s OK. I stopped taking it personally, and started to get really excited about writing every week about what is important to me with people to who appreciate and get great benefits from it, too.

Cruising…

I take about an hour every day to cruise online, looking for things that tweak my oh-this-is-cool buttons. Stuff from TED.com, funny stuff, stuff from folks who have great programs or ingenious or innovative energy therapies or consciousness-raising ideas and solutions.

And I take the best of those and share them with you. It used to feel like work, long ago. But now it’s fun and I look forward to writing you, because I’m passionate about what I do.

The results I see people get from using the info I share is well worth the time it takes, and I get tremendous pleasure from carrying you around in my heart!

Are you just starting up?

So if you are writing or starting up a newsletter and you don’t know where to begin, start with what you love, what you are passionate about.

Tell your readers a little story like I just did–doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out thing–and let them know who YOU are. We all crave connection, so give it to us who read you–don’t just tell us you have this or that to sell, week after week, because then it feels like all we are to you is a possible income source.

We want to know about you, what you think, and how your heart feels. Write from there, and your aligned readers will love you and your products and services. Anyone else will unsubscribe, and that’s OK!

red-heart-loveWrite from your heart!

Share yourself and your best offers!

Show us that you really understand and care about your readers!

We will then feel that, and respond accordingly.

Goodies

p.s. Make sure you check out the EFT Grab Bags–the first one is only a buck! Highly concentrated, intensely powerful audios and ebooks in each Bag. When you start with #1 and move through each one, you get exactly what you need at each stage to get you to the next step.

p.p.s. Thanks so much for all your wonderful comments about my audios and article on InspireMeToday.com! It was such a honor to be invited to be one of their Luminaries! Here it is if you missed it–just put my name in the search box.

Marketing, Wealth-Being, Women, Your Business Success, , , , , , , , , ,

“ME? Do Podcasts?” Top Ten Things You Need to KNow

podcaster

I didn’t think I’d ever be interested in podcasting. This is what went through my mind: “Ugh! Too much work over what I’m doing already, I don’t have time, I don’t know how, who’d want to listen to me anyway, bandwidth, where to host – ugh.”

But then I asked myself, if I were truly as committed to serving the lifting of our vibrational field as I thought I was, what more could I do to assist? And guess what I heard my inner voice say? You’re right – podcasting. Otherwise known as Internet Radio.

How does it help me serve?

Ever heard of a little thing called iTunes? How many people go there every day to find music, interviews, messages and other audible material to enjoy and get inspiration? Literally millions.

Did you know you can get your podcast served up by iTunes – for no charge? Nots to mention the other freebie or low-cost podcast directories.

So imagine you have an important message.

You’re a coach, or a preacher, or a healer, or a business leader, or an inspirational speaker. You know as well as I do the value of being able to get in front of people. Why would you deprive yourself of this one incredible way to get the word out – your word?

What you need to know if you want to do podcasting

  1. How to create and launch your show
  2. How being a talk show host can be a great platform for you and your business
  3. What type of format is best for you
  4. How long your show should be
  5. How to record, post and edit your show with ease
  6. The easiest way to create content for your show that will keep your listeners coming back for more
  7. How to get the guest of your dreams
  8. The fastest, easiest and simplest way to attract and build a worldwide audience
  9. When you should do a free vs. paid internet radio show or podcast
  10. How to make a profit from your show even when you’re first beginning

So imagine yourself able to speak with the people you love and respect, from whom you have gotten inspiration and motivation. Who are they? Start making lists now!

And who do you want to reach with your message? Write it down!

And what are some topics you like to expound upon? Write them down!

Now, you’ve already started on your podcast journey – what’s stopping you from going full-tilt?

Go for it!

Imagine yourself five years from now having NOT gone for it – how does that feel? Ugh!, right? You don’t need that! Start living and expanding your most outrageous, fun, daring and beautiful Dream right now!

Why? Because when you do, you inspire the rest of us to keep going. You give us permission, simply by being who you are at your core best, to do the same. We want you! We want your gift – stop hiding it in the closet! All it’s doing there is gathering dust and moths! It’ll die in there! Bring it out and give it life!

You never know how you affect people.

Everywhere you go, even if you don’t say one word to anyone, you affect others. Just by how you walk, dress, eat, speak, move, drive, interact. You could inspire some shy person today to stand tall just by holding your head high as you walk into the grocery store.

Imagine how it would be if your podcasts got out to not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of hungry listeners who crave your words and message!

aloha –
Angela

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