The Online Prosperity Experience

The Fears and Anxieties of Your Target Market Have you ever wondered why a certain product or service isn’t doing so well in your business? Even though you’re sure that it’s exactly what your target market needs? It could be that you’re not marketing to their level – and the psychological findings of Abraham Maslow just might have what you need to nail it. Abraham Maslow was a pioneer psychologist who was a bit of a rebel. While most of his peers studied dysfunctional individuals and behaviours, Maslow did the opposite: he studied healthy, successful, and exemplary people to learn about their personalities and motivations. Why were these people doing well?What motivated them to achieve more?What was the progress of their development, growth and success? Maslow’s work resulted in a theory of human motivation, known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Represented by a pyramid, the hierarchy had five levels of human needs, from the most basic to the most evolved: Physiological,Safety,Love and Belonging, Esteem, andSelf-actualization. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs might be decades old, but there’s wisdom in it that you can apply to your marketing today. It’ll help you better understand your target market, and what they seek, so that you can create a message that really resonates. Think about the level of your target marketing in the Hierarchy of Needs right now. What needs are they working on fulfilling?Think about the anxieties, fears and concerns those unfulfilled needs create for them.How could you present your product or service as the best solution, both in terms of meeting a need and reducing stress? You’ll soon find yourself developing a marketing message that hits the target. You won’t be talking over anyone’s head or encouraging them towards something they don’t need or already have. You’ll be right where they are, talking to them at their level. Add Some Maslow to Your Marketing

How much time and effort do you put into boosting your brand’s credibility? When it comes to your marketing strategy, how much time and effort do you put into boosting your brand’s credibility? Whether you are a coach, consultant or small business owner, it’s essential to prove your worth to potential customers to build a following. If you work on improving the credibility of your brand, you’ll be able to generate more leads, boost conversions, and enhance engagement on your website and social media. When people are new to your business, they need something tangible that tells them you’re worth investing in as a business. It’s your duty to lead the way so that, when the time comes, they feel confident taking action and making a purchase. Brand credibility is one element you can’t afford to skimp out on. Without it, you’ll neglect a huge portion of your target market that wants to love your brand but simply feels they can’t trust it. Here are a few ways you can boost your brand’s credibility and see a peak in conversions. Did you know that the human personality is formed of five basic traits? According to the Big 5 theory, every human being’s personality is a blend of extraversion,openness,conscientiousness,neuroticism, andagreeableness. (For those who like acronyms, the Big 5 theory is referred to as OCEAN or CANOE.) And in a recent study in the International Journal of Marketing, your success in reaching customers via brand credibility in your content marketing depends on making sure you play up just two of these traits. You Don’t Have to Change Your Personality Your personality is mostly set in stone by this point. You’re either easily motivated or you aren’t.You’re either extraverted or you’re not.You’re neurotic or you’re not. There’s no point in convincing you to change your personality – not by a long shot. You choose what you want the world to see. But knowing what you know now, you might want to make some tweaks so that you can build more credibility into your business brand.

Why aren’t you doing this right now? I have a question for you: If you had to start everything over, today, what would you do differently? I have another question for you: Why aren’t you doing that now? I can probably guess the reason: it’s easier to work with what you have than to start your business over from scratch. There’d be so much work to do! You’d have to plan and make decisions and invest money and time… and you’ve already put in so much time and money already that the thought is almost unbearable. Everything you have now will all go to waste! Scrap everything you worked so hard to build? That’s crazy talk! And what if you did, and then you realised it was all a big mistake? That you made the wrong choice and should’ve stuck with what you had? Start your business over?! Forget that! That’s a reasonable line of thinking. It’s probably the line of thinking most would have – I’d probably think the same way. Mind you, if you really think about each of those reasons for not starting your business over, and if you get really honest with yourself, you can see that they’re all kind of bullshit reasons for not entertaining the idea. But I can understand how the thought of sticking with what you have now, even if it isn’t working that well, would probably seem like a far better idea than starting over. Indulge me, though. If you’re continually tinkering away at a business that isn’t working as it should, maybe it’s a good idea.If you have a long list of to-dos and changes you’ve always wanted to make, but never seem to get around to it, maybe this is the right choice.If you haven’t made a change in 5 years, maybe now is the time.If you’ve been wishing for months that you could just… well, start over, maybe this is day you do. You could take a month off – or two, or three. You could map out a new and improved version. You could ditch everything, and begin anew. The question is… would you?

When was the last time you gave your business a trim? As a coach, consultant or small business owner, you must strive to improve the quality of your product or service. The reason why most people don’t grow is because they do things the old way. They are not willing to learn about the new trends in town–they prefer doing things the old way. Whether you’re a coach, consultant or an established business owner, don’t get comfortable with the present level you are, in your business. Strive to make improvements from time to time, and you’ll see the way your business will grow. Without wasting much time, here are some quick tips to guide you on how to improve your business. There’s nothing quite like experiencing the magic of a hair stylist’s scissors. You’re taken through an entire transformation, going from ratty-looking to refreshed in less than an hour. There’s a whole new you in the mirror – one who looks at least 5 years younger. You walk out of the salon with a smile. You’ve got a bounce in your step. You feel confident about yourself – and it shows. That’s a pretty drastic rejuvenation if you think about it. Just a trim can change your entire mood, outlook, and the impression you project on the world. (How many therapists can claim that kind of success rate for each and every client session?) What if you could have that feeling about your business? The little things. The small corrections and quick updates and teeny changes we’ve been putting off because we don’t think they’re important in the grand scheme of things. They’re not detrimental. But taking care of these little details often make a big difference. They’re the regular trims we book with our stylist to take off half an inch. They’re the cufflinks we add to a suit to bring the whole look together. Prospective clients notice these small details. And when they see that you don’t pay attention to them, it can make them doubt your competence, your ability to take care of their business. After all, you’re not taking good care of your own.

When the money is under control other pieces of your business can fall into place. Getting my business finances organised improved my personal finances. When the money stress was off of my shoulders, I felt positive about my business, and it started to grow. It’s all connected. Coaching and Consulting is a funny kind of game. When business is going well, you can find yourself making more money than you ever have in your life, and the thrill is amazing. When things aren’t going as well … you might find yourself staring at an empty bank account, wondering where the hell all the money went while feeling rising panic in the pit of your stomach. If you’ve ever been in that situation (or are in it right now), you’re definitely not alone. Schools don’t teach effective money management, and they certainly don’t teach it to coaches, consultants and small business owners (arguably the people who need these skills most). It’s even worse if you’re in the 35-and-up age group – our parents never spoke of money or how to manage it properly, and if we learned anything from them, it was only thanks to keen observation skills… if we had them, and if we even bothered to pay attention to our parents. I mastered money management skills the hard way. Today, I’d like to share a bit of what I know to help put power back in your hands. I want you to get past, get through and forever avoid going broke on that feast-and-famine financial cycle coaches, consultants and small business owners are all too familiar with.

Some clients don’t want your help. They say they do. They come to you for advice and listen to your good suggestions on solving a problem they complain about. And then they do nothing. No matter how easy, fast, cheap or effective the solutions you propose might be, some people can’t be convinced to go for it. They’re comfortable with their problems. They’re used to their misery. Better the devil they know, after all. Change? Well now. That’s just crazy talk. It’s much easier for many people to stay stuck sighing about their issues and hesitating on change. “It’s just not the right time…I’m not sure if this would work…it sounds too risky right now… maybe I should just leave things as they are. It’s not so bad.” Your time, expertise and experience are precious. They’re worth sharing with those who are ready to put them to good use. Those who aren’t? Let ’em be. You aren’t being cruel. They’ll come to you… when they’re good and ready to change.

What’s the secret of successful Coaches, Consultants and Small businesses? That’s the wrong question to ask. While some coaches, consultants and small businesses enjoy a steady stream of paying clients, many more watch weeks slip by, with crickets chirping in their inbox. If you’re struggling to get hired by clients on a regular basis, you’d be better off looking for the secrets of less successful freelancers – and making sure any habits you share with them get taken care of, pronto. Listen to this podcast. It tells you some ways far too many coaches, consultants and small businesses shoot themselves in the foot. And if you’re having trouble getting paying clients, you may be making one of these mistakes without even realising it. Mistake 1: Using passive marketing as a crutchMistake 2: Not taking ownership of closing the saleMistake 3: Spending too much time “looking” for clients After you have a listen, you’ll then be able to make decisions and choose the next actions to get yourself moving in a better direction. Course correction is part of life, and it’s fairly easy to turn any – or all – of these issues around so that you can start enjoying the sight of more sales coming into your inbox. Of course, you do have to decide it’s time to start. Today would be a great day to begin, don’t you think?

You Can Win the Customer-Attention War When someone comes to a website – yours, mine, or anyone else’s, there’s a shockingly short window in which that visitor makes a decision to stick around or leave. Some sources put the range at three to five seconds, maximum. Some put it at even less – 1 to 2 seconds, tops. Attention spans have never been shorter than they are now. In this crazy war for attention, does your website even stand a chance of emerging victorious?Does it make visitors pause in their tracks, poke around for a while, and stay to learn more about you? It can… if you’re able to answer “yes” to 3 critical questions. Use this website 3-second test on your home page, and see how you score. Is It Instantly Clear What You Do?Is It Instantly Clear What You Offer?Is It Instantly Clear Why You’re Interesting? You don’t need to be a marketing expert to make a website that captures attention. Visitors don’t need to be dazzled by visual spectacles or impressed by feats of content-marketing superiority. But they do need is to know, within seconds, whether your website is right for them, offers what they want, and is the kind of place they’d enjoy spending time. Nail those, and the battle is yours.

Get your business the social proof it needs to earn more customers. It’s a question that confounds many new and young coaches, consultants, and even big, established businesses these days: “With all the competition and noise out there, how can I gain the attention of new, potential buyers? You have a great service.You’ve developed a stellar website.Even your social media looks sexy. But new clients these days are also looking for one more thing before making a commitment to spend money on you -- what other people are saying about you or your product. It’s no secret that online retailers and brands like Amazon are increasingly pushing reviews for the products on their site. People need to see that others also enjoy that product. It’s what we call social proof: the idea that buyers are influenced by the decisions and actions of others around them. Through my marketing agency, I find a lot of small business websites that aren’t leveraging the power of testimonials on their site, and that’s a missed opportunity for them. One of the first things I advise all my new clients on is gathering social proof to place on their web page. Here are some of the reasons why they’re so important on your site: Testimonials add credibility for the products and services you offer.People tend to trust online reviews when making purchases.Social proof earns better SEO: Adds more favourable language surrounding your brand online.When sourcing opinions from your client base, you show that you care about their experience with your brand, thus strengthening the relationship you have with your clients. So what do you do if you have NONE of those things, but still want customers to trust you?

Demonstrate an understanding of what buyers and customers experience. The words Marketing Psychology and the premise of empathy have become quite the buzzwords in business and marketing. Especially so since the advent of and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. There is widespread consensus that having empathy is a good thing and marketing psychology is evil. I am here to argue that, both are a must-have to connect with buyers and customers. A place to start for most coaches, consultants and small business owners is by having a common definition of empathy and marketing psychology. Empathy is at its most basic level, the ability for one to walk in another’s shoes. To experience their world from another’s point of view. Essentially, to have a deeper understanding of what another is experiencing. What Is Marketing Psychology? To put it simply, marketing psychology (or psychological marketing) is a method of using psychological techniques in your marketing efforts. Such an approach takes into account the irrational, unconscious decisions customers make to create a more nuanced and effective online campaign. It’s about finding patterns to make generalised assumptions, but it’s also about personalising customer experiences. Here are some of the most popular Marketing Psychology Best Practices we discuss: Loss Aversion: This theory says that most people prefer to avoid losing something instead of acquiring it.Scarcity and Urgency Theory: This theory suggests that people tend to place more value on things that are believed to be rare rather than easily accessible.Social Proof: Using social proof can help you increase trust in your products by having other customers validate the value of these products. So what’s the takeaway? Most importantly, marketing psychology is not a single tactic. There is a number of techniques you can use to elevate your online campaigns. You can still rely on traditional marketing tactics, but you should also adapt to the digital age by adopting marketing strategies deeply rooted in psychology.

We tend to take for granted that our customers know how to buy. We think they know who should be involved and why. We assume they know how to get approval, how to contract, how to issue an order. The reality is unless they are in a role where they are shopping frequently, they don’t know these things–yet we assume they do. Too often, our customers get derailed in their buying journey. They want to buy, they need to buy, but they don’t know how to navigate the process and the hurdles put up by their own organisations. We know the majority of buying journeys end with no decision made. We know this has little to do with selecting a vendor, but aligning the buying team and navigating the buying process. Customers need our help! If we are going to help them reach a decision, buy, and implement the solution, they need our help. Some things they probably don’t know: Who else should be involved in the buying process?What questions should they be asking? What do they need to do to get approval to move forward?How does this initiative support corporate strategic objectives?How do they actually buy? We create great value for our customers by helping them navigate the process. When they aren’t involved in the right people/organisations, when they aren’t considering the critical issues, when they don’t understand the detailed activities to make it happen–we create great value in helping them navigate the whole process. Buying is never easy. But we help our customers succeed, and we help ourselves when we help our customers navigate the entire buying process.

As coaches and consultants, we struggle with determining new ways we can add client value. We wrack our brains for breakthrough products and services or new content and resources to engage our clients. However, we are missing the one thing that we do that adds the most value, which is when we serve our clients simply as a sounding board. All senior executives have a ton on their plates and on their minds...and not a lot of people that they can talk to that do not have an agenda or expectations for them to be in perfect control at all times. But when we, as consultants, offer our thinking partnership to them, we provide a SAFE PLACE to help them sift through clutter and chaos to more quickly set to clarity in terms of both thoughts and desired action, so that results they seek can be accelerated and realised. When we act as an executive sounding board, we provide significant benefits When you own a business, it is inevitable that at some point you will experience crisis and disruption. The question to ask yourself is, should I pull back or lean in? Being afraid in uncertain times is normal, but fear doesn’t have to define your response. When seasons of crisis come, you can strategically pivot in the face of the unknown and lead with confidence, make solid decisions, and find a way through. Learning from other entrepreneurs and reflecting on my own experiences, I’ve discovered this four-step process for working through a crisis:

It’s easy to feel like we’re constantly going from one thing to the next. From our tasks at work, to our responsibilities and commitments at home. There are seemingly endless demands on our time and attention. We can only keep up the juggling act for so long. Soon, some areas of our lives will begin to suffer neglect in favour of other areas. But our lives are more than our work. They are more than our social lives outside of work. In fact, it’s helpful to see our lives as consisting of 10 interrelated domains: spiritual, intellectual, emotional, physical, relational, parental, social, vocational, avocational, and financial. All of these domains are connected. Each one affects all the others. For example, your physical condition impacts your work; your financial state will affect your social life. To get the life you want, you have to be touching all the domains. Only then will you have the balance you need. How many times this week have you been asked, “How are you?” and have responded with all too familiar, “Busy!” Whatever happened to the pat answer, “Fine?” Our culture has become ridiculously busy and, as a consequence, many of us suffer from what can be referred to as an addiction to busyness. We may FEEL time-poor and stressed out. But here’s the kicker. For many of us, we are not too busy simply because we feel societal pressure or need better time management. It is because we are addicted to being busy. Like all addicts, we are not crazy about the effects on our health, performance and well-being. But we like the “high” that being busy gives us. Let me share with you four reasons why this addiction, this “too busy addiction”, is so powerful and even better than crack.

Why Every Coach, consultant or Small Business Needs A Website. A business’s online presence, regardless of industry, can have a massive impact on its success. In this day and age, some coaches, consultants and small businesses still don’t realise that a majority of their customers will visit their website before making a purchase. Having a strong online presence, particularly a website, can be a make or break for generating more revenue. Yes, the quality of your website impacts results, but the purpose of this podcast is to stress the importance of making sure you have a website. I've helped numerous companies of varying sizes create their digital presence. In some cases, some coaches, consultants and small businesses are hesitant to get online because they feel they are not tech-savvy enough and don't understand how to manage a website. Other times, companies are concerned about the price. The good news is that there’s a solution out there that will work for you. If you still need convincing, here are the top reasons it’s important for your business to have a website:

How Do Your Customers Find You? How do you find stuff nowadays? Whether you’re looking for where to buy the best digital camera for under $500, or the best toaster for under $50, where do you look? I’m guessing that, if you’re like me, you’re searching online. According to Nielsen Media, 82% of consumers and small businesses use internet search engines to find out about local companies. Hardly surprising, in today’s digitally-connected world. How Can They Find You If You Don’t Have A Website? But the research goes on to say that a mere 44% of small businesses have a website. Most of the companies surveyed directed less than 10% of their marketing budget towards online activities – search engines, optimisation, blogs, email marketing and the like. Based upon the types of coaching, consulting or small business marketing inquiries we receive, there seems to be an endemic feeling that certain businesses don’t need a website. Just this morning, I had a conversation with a coach who was reliant on her business Facebook page as the only online property for customer interaction. I asked her why she didn’t feel it was necessary for the business to have its own website. She explained that since all her customers were on Facebook, it made more sense to have a Facebook presence than a web presence. Without going down the road of inquiring why she thought one thing cancelled out the other, I asked her what would happen if Facebook changed their minds? Supposing Facebook started charging every time someone views your business page or mandated that businesses spend a minimum amount on Facebook ads in order to have a page at all, for example? The answer was, predictably, silence. A Multi-Platform Online Presence Is Essential Putting all your eggs in anyone’s basket is a dangerous thing. Putting the future of your business in the hands of Facebook is tantamount to commercial suicide. Whether it’s failing to block fake ads designed to manipulate opinion, or just changing the way users see branded content, Facebook’s already shown its colours on more than one occasion. But I’m not singling out Facebook. The very fact that this coach has decided her entire target audience is on Facebook just shows how poor her marketing strategy is. I don’t care what you’re selling, your customers are not all in one place.

Time To Outsource Your Marketing? One of the benefits of the new, tech-driven business environment is that today’s coaches, consultants or small businesses don’t have to have all the traditional infrastructure in-house. You can outsource pretty much every part of your business – accounting, HR, project management, sales – and, of course, marketing. Outsourcing isn’t a new idea at all. The difference today is that it works for any size business. Many people assume that outsourcing business processes such as marketing are only for medium to large-scale organisations: Not so. The same reasons that big companies outsource apply just as well to small businesses. Even a one-person business. But outsourcing your business marketing isn’t just something you should, kinda, maybe, vaguely consider. I think it’s a lot more important than that. How much more important? Well, how about if I lay it out like this: Unless you’re a marketing professional, marketing your coaching, consulting or small business on your own is going to end in failure. There, I said it. If You Don’t Outsource Your Marketing, Your Business WILL fail. Unless you’re a marketing professional, the chances that your coaching, consulting or small business will succeed without professional marketing help is small at best. Sorry, but it’s true. Over the past decade, we’ve helped more than 450 small businesses with their marketing. I’d say at least 90% of the business owners we’ve worked with would agree that, after working with us, they realise they actually didn’t have a clue about what they needed to do. Too many business owners think they know what’s required. But they can’t see things clearly because they’re too engrossed in the mechanics of business. Outsourcing your marketing gives you access to top-drawer experience, experience, and advice. But you’re the boss – you’re in control. You’re still driving the initiatives, it’s just that someone else is behind the wheel.

Can the industry that you are in, be replicated by your customers? Could your customers do what you do cheaper, better, faster? Every now and again, it’s important to take a look at technologies and systems that are appearing in your commercial environment – as well as in other commercial environments – to see whether your business value proposition still makes sense. No coach, consultant or small business owner is immune to discovering that their – once-lucrative – offering is no longer relevant. If your business occupies a space that could conceivably be embraced by your current customer base, then why should they continue to buy from you? This change in B2B buying models demands a similar change in how coaches, consultants and small business owners operate. The ROI of the longstanding model of talking to customers continues to diminish. A modern B2B environment requires a more collaborative approach, one that sees customers as partners along the sales journey. It requires building trust, an intense focus on customer needs, and articulating value and solutions quickly and regularly. For coaches, consultants and small business owners who are trained in traditional models of in-person sales, adding technology to navigate the sales process may be viewed with suspicion. Tools may be seen as a potential for displacement or ushering in a new sales landscape where these professionals are replaced, or their skills are deemed irrelevant. However, the future of sales builds on the past. It merges intuition and experience with data, analytics, and innovation to create a new, prosperous, B2B sales cycle. Here are a few tips to help you get started.

Times are hard. No one’s saying otherwise. Sure, the global economy is in a bad way and may get worse before it gets better. We all know people who’ve been laid off or businesses that have gone under. One of my clients, who is a bankruptcy lawyer, has a four-month waiting list. If your business is still around, however, bad sales are at the moment, then you are to be congratulated. It’s pretty brutal out there. But don’t let the media talk you into thinking that it’s all doom and gloom. People are still buying things. Businesses are still selling things. Maybe not as much and to not as many, But commerce is still rolling on. I truly believe that the majority of businesses that will fail by the end of the current economic turmoil are ones that are still using outdated methodologies in terms of strategy, marketing, sales and customer service. Business methodologies rooted in commercial environments that haven’t been seen in more than thirty years. It’s a kind of “Digital Darwinism” – the coaches, consultants and small businesses most adaptable to change have a greater chance of survival. What I’m saying to you is that, tough as it may seem, now really is the time to stop procrastinating and implement a sales funnel – and take the best advantage when the sun comes out again. I’m not saying it will be easy. I’m certainly not saying it’s a guarantee of survival. But if you’re looking to load the dice in your favour, I can’t think of a better use of time, money, and resources right now.

The biggest challenge in marketing is not budget, nor is it the reach-to-frequency rate. It’s the words we use, and how we go about using them. Words matter. In fact, they matter tremendously. The blog article you wrote yesterday. The product/service description on your website. That online ad you placed on Google. People don’t read marketing copy in the same way that they used to. Email, web pages and pop-TV type soundbites have reduced all of our attention spans. Instead, people scan your text to decide whether your message is actually worth reading. You’ve got a few seconds of their attention, so make it count. Take websites as an example. Your site’s homepage is not the place to explain why you decided to open a business, what your passion is or the employment history of your management team. Don’t laugh – I’ve seen all of these, and much worse. However, I’m not saying such information isn’t important to help customers make a buying decision. That sort of stuff is invaluable in helping develop a feeling of affinity and trust with your business. They have their place in the hierarchical scheme of things, it’s just that place isn’t on your homepage. Simplifying Messaging Is Hard I think the reason more coaches, consultants and small businesses aren’t simplifying their marketing presentations is that simple is hard. It seems to be far easier for organisations to hide behind fluff, rhetoric, and jargon than tell it like it is. And that’s a shame. Because customers are no longer tolerant of having to wade through reams of doublespeak. They know it no longer has to be that way. They’re fed up with being patronised, especially when customer-focused brands don’t make them feel small. They judge their buying experience with you using the same yardstick as they do for the world’s biggest brands. There seems to be a level of self-inflicted ignorance in many of our coaches, consultants and small business marketing materials. The common sentiment is that “we know better” or “we know what they really want”. In many cases we do, but in this area, I’d ask you to consider the reality that you don’t. The path is set before you. Are you going to bow to the common language of your customers, or beat them senseless with your meaningless jargon?

Is your website little more than a glorified sales brochure? Even worse, are you using pretty much the same text on your website features that you already have in your printed materials? If your company has a website because you would like to generate sales leads from it, then there are a number of factors to consider. Firstly, few coaches, consultants and small business owners can reasonably expect to compete in today’s business world without exploiting internet-based marketing tools.Secondly, unless the site appeals directly to your target prospects, you run the risk of them visiting your website and not realising how your business offering relates to them. When coaches, consultants and small business owners are aiming to generate more leads from their websites, they need to think not just about how to capture audience attention. Attention isn’t the goal – that just gets you in the same boat as everyone in your industry. The goal is the successful delivery of the message you’re trying to convey. Attention without a message is just noise. You need to consider how to structure the words, pictures (and increasingly, video) on the site in a way that makes sales prospects want to find out more about the product or service on offer. In short, what’s required is a smart and well-considered lead generation strategy that includes the creation of valuable offers and experiences that fit naturally into the context of what your target market is already doing online. By optimising their experience on your site, you’re making the most of the time site visitors are giving you, to increase the likelihood of website leads that, ultimately, lead to sales.

Marketing Is So Much More Than Pretty Pictures During the course of my work, I speak with coaches, consultants and business owners pretty much every single day. With very few exceptions, most of them confuse ‘Marketing’ with ‘Promotion’, or ‘Ads’, or ‘Public Relations. The danger, moving forward, is that the historic role of marketing – as a key component of an organisation’s strategic execution – will disappear forever. We’ll be left with Martech-driven, cookie-cutter campaigns producing ever lower returns – and where marketing will get the blame. Marketing brings the customer's voice to the table. Not only is this important for future product and sales strategy. It (should) include insights and recommendations on real-world, tangible metrics like Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Acquisition Cost. Real marketing is first about having a deep and fundamental understanding of your customer. After that, it’s coming up with a strategy designed to help your business increase sales in the market you’re in. The sexy bells and whistles are, of course, an essential part of the route to success. But they’re not where you should begin – and they’re certainly not the most significant part. It’s no wonder so many businesses come to us complaining about how their marketing isn’t working. Most coaches, consultants and small business owners haven’t a clue about the internal workings of the business where they work. They just want to post (yet) another pretty picture on Instagram. That’s not marketing.

Understanding how the human mind works and how to attract and hold the attention of your audience will enable you to create content that out-performs the competition and pleases your users at the same time. You can empower them to get access to the information they need quickly and easily and ultimately complete their tasks with as little wasted time as possible. Now let’s take a look at some specific techniques that use knowledge of how the mind works in order to grab people’s attention and hold it long enough to deliver your message: In this Google-focused age, it can be hard to understand what content will help a business become successful. If you run, market or write for a coach, consultant or small business, this challenge can be even more frustrating and feel insurmountable. Fortunately, it can be simple to write or create solid, trustworthy content that your audience can appreciate and search engines will be more likely to trust. Avoiding the following mistakes is a great way to begin improving your content writing, whether you are a business owner, a marketer or a content writer. Keyword StuffingWriting FluffUsing Unoriginal Phrases After these issues are taken care of, you or whoever is responsible for writing for your company’s content can start focusing on creating original content that is SEO-friendly and audience-friendly. Understanding that every podcast, website page, article and blog post that you put on the internet is important to your business and customers in numerous ways can help you re-frame your thinking about content marketing and writing for the web.

Being boring doesn’t make you more credible. Even if you have a great product or service that provides value for your customers, a little pizzazz can keep customers engaged. This makes them Hear your message,Make an impact,Remember you,and are excited enough to want to take action. Our customers now have information overload, which has caused them to decrease their attention spans. If you keep your message relevant and always take into account your audience’s interests, tolerance level and time, adding pizzazz to your presentation can have nothing but upside for your bottom line.

YOU DON’T WANT MORE TRAFFIC. You might think you do, but you don’t. SEO firms will promise it to you. Marketing agencies will show you gorgeous looking case studies: “We increased traffic by 1,115%!” You will read blog post after blog post after blog post promising that if you just do X, Y and Z from their top 10 list, your traffic will explode like a majestic firework made out of money – all your business problems will be solved. And after all that brainwashing, it might even say so in your own messy handwriting, printed in your book of marketing goals for 2014 – “Improve website traffic”. When it comes to most things in life, I’ll take quality over quantity any day. That includes business prospects. For most coaches, consultants and small businesses today, the website should be a pillar in their marketing strategy and a primary sales channel. In the day and age of inbound marketing – creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product – heavy web traffic that includes a high number of unique visitors to your website might look good, but if those visits aren’t from quality leads – people who might actually buy what you’re selling – it’s nothing more than traffic for traffic’s sake. To get quality leads, you have to know exactly who your ideal client is. By developing buyer personas for ideal clients, you can better attract quality leads. You don’t want more traffic. Scratch it out. You want better-targeted traffic, not more traffic.Sometimes, earning better quality traffic (and more money) means reducing the amount of incoming traffic by being exclusive to your market.To capture that targeted traffic, you need to know who that market is. That means building personas – and then building a brand around them.There are other, better success metrics to focus on: Leads, sales, cost per lead, return purchases, sentiment analysis and so on. Don’t get distracted by traffic’s big shiny disco ball. You don’t want more traffic. In fact, sometimes you might want less. You can wind up with a lot of nice-looking numbers and spend countless hours of admin time trying to vet leads. Traffic on its own is worthless. It’s the things traffic is supposed to do for you that make it valuable: leads, sales, brand advocates. These are what you actually want more of. The fallacy here is that more traffic will definitely lead to more of those things. You get more of those things when you increase your targeted traffic.

If I were to ask you your value proposition – the thing that makes you different from everyone else and the reason people should choose you over a competitor, what might you say? “We offer the very best in customer service.”“We offer a superior quality than our competitors.”“We get to know our customers’ business.” Blah, blah, blah. These tired messages have been rehashed so many times that they are meaningless to readers. They’ve got no personality, no proof, nothing “sticky”. They’re so ubiquitous they might as well be placeholder copy in website templates. "What is Lorem Ipsum?" It’s like eating cardboard – dry, tasteless, unpalatable. That’s not to say your USP isn’t relevant, or your claims aren’t true. It’s just that you have to present them in a more compelling and believable way. Before resorting to these boring platitudes, ask: “WHY?” Why are you their best option?Why does your business do what it does?Why are you different from your competitors? “HOW?” How does your claim to be customer-focused actually play out in real life?What special processes do you use to assure quality or service?How will what you’re telling them actually change their experience positively?How is your business set up to serve your customers better?How do you put your money where your mouth is? Your copy should present you in such a way that it’s blindingly apparent what your value proposition is, even without bashing the reader over the head with a run-of-the-mill statement like “We are the best in the business.” Give them something to grab on to. Your USP should be implicit in every other bit of copy you have. To be clear: This is not about dancing around your USP with a bunch of flowery text. It’s about cutting the fluff and getting to the core with demonstrable proof. Instead of saying “customers are the heart of our business”, share the details that irrefutably prove that claim. Your tone, voice and personality should all show customers that they’re the centre of your attention. Instead of saying “we have high-quality products”, you ought to describe the differentiating factors that obliterate any doubt in the customer’s mind. If you want to make more compelling claims, ask the questions your customers are going to ask – and don’t settle for lazy, tired clichés.

Commanding appropriate fees speaks to the value placed on your work. But in order for others to value your work, the process starts with you. It begins by establishing credibility and trust prior to ever placing anything on the market. By building credibility first you are then able to sell value. Frequently, it is the lack of self-confidence that is called into question. Review past accomplishments and list them. If you are active on social media, review the nice comments received. What is the common thread for all of these?Focus on the commonality to build talking points for your clientele. Marketing pieces may be created around these as well. This becomes your grassroots branding program at its best. Setting a fee for services also requires research. You will need to decide if you wish to be at the top of the scale, midway, or at the bottom. There is an emotional tie in all of this. Imagine yourself at a department store first drooling over the expensive designer section and then timidly walking over to the reduced pricing section. Where you would like your services to appear – designer or reduced? The way in which to build credibility, that produces referrals and testimonials, is to charge a fee that is fair to all (including yourself) and deliver on and possibly beyond the expectations of your clientele. As long as you produce highly credible information, outstanding customer care, and exceed expectations, you will produce a clientele that sees value in your work. The best news is you will have developed a returning and referring clientele that pays, stays and refers.

When it comes to boosting your online business, choosing the right combination of digital marketing tactics spells the difference between success and failure. There are many options from which you can choose, and you only have so many resources you can dedicate to this marketing effort. You can get a custom website designed for your business, hire SEO services to increase your presence, or utilise social media platforms to reach a bigger audience. Whatever your choice, content marketing is king, so you must create valuable content on a consistent basis if you want to succeed. Using copywriting skills for your content is another way to ensure that your business is achieving the results you want. To get started with the process, it’s helpful to know exactly what copywriting is and why it’s important. Today, we’ll share our top 10 copywriting tips to get your content efforts up to scratch.

Content is the Key to Connective Marketing. Your content should first and foremost be useful to your audience. It should entertain, inform, and intrigue, helping to build a real connection. Remember that the work doesn’t end when you hit the “post” button, it only just begins. The point of your content should be to start a conversation.To get more calls,to increase website traffic,to bring people in the door so they can face-to-face with you or your employees. It’s all relationship-building. It should also be consistent – there are so many competing factors for our attention, and our attention spans are even shorter than they used to be. One of the worst things you can do as a coach consultant or small business owner is “radio silence”, even just for a few days. So, what happens when you know you need to create some content, but you sit there, racking your brain, striving to come up with something you haven’t thought of before while staring at a blank screen? Writer’s block can hit us all if we let it…but I have good news – there are ways to avoid this entirely! End the paralysis! If you follow this advice, you’ll never again panic when you have to create a video, write an article, blog post, or web page. Here's How to Beat Writer’s Block Before it Even Begins

Storytelling marketing is using narrative to communicate a message to an audience. The message should make the viewer feel something that drives them to take action. It is considered an art form requiring creativity, insight, practice and skill. It is not an overnight practice or a simple tactic to use in your marketing strategy. It’s an ongoing process that develops your brand and makes you stick out from the crowd by connecting your audience to your brand on a deeper level. But first, why is storytelling important? Think about an intriguing author, someone who writes stories that captivate you all the time. They’ve mastered storytelling to get you hooked. This is what you want to aim for in your storytelling marketing; the same hooking reaction with your audience. Build your brand through storytelling marketing. But first, why is storytelling important? Connecting with other people is one of the highest forms of human beings’ communication. And good storytelling is the key to it. If you’re telling a story and another person is engaged in it, you two are in sync with each other. Storytelling is the trigger of communication, and that’s why it’s so powerful. Storytelling evokes a certain psychological response from people, driving them to engage with your brand. This engagement is the key to successful marketing on social media. In this podcast, we will explain how to grow your business’s brand by using storytelling marketing on each of the popular platforms.

Ways To Really Engage Your Brand’s Followers On Social Media At the end of the day, your REAL goal as a coach, consultant or small business owner, is to help your clients. You want to spend as much time as possible changing lives and solving people’s problems. You don’t want to waste countless hours each week trying to navigate the complex world of online marketing… And you certainly don’t want to spend another minute on the phone having to beg people to hire your services. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Truly Engaging Your Social Media Followers Many business owners find our new world of social media marketing and brand building to be completely confusing. After all, their success in these mediums depends on knowing who is following them, what those people are interested in reading about, and then delivering those things on a regular basis. Marketing via social media is as much about showing your audience the human side of your brand as it is about espousing the quality and benefits of your product or service. And while the latter is very important and is often done well by coaches, consultants and business owners, showing the human side of the brand is usually more of a challenge. So why is true engagement on social media important to a brand’s success?Why is it important to a brand’s reputation?How can you master engagement on social media? Here are a few tips for those who find themselves spinning their wheels when it comes to this new-fangled social media thing.

Are you actively working on your personal development? What techniques do you use? Many people shy away from the idea of personal development. Strangely enough, the idea of becoming a better person and being happier is seen as some silly activity. But, in reality, we all want this, and we resist it because we shy away from personal responsibility. Also, the idea of actually facing all our internal junk kind of scares us, and we would rather not. No matter what type of person you are, you will clearly benefit from working on yourself. If you are a coach, consultant or entrepreneur, in particular, you really need to devote time to bettering yourself, because if you want to be successful in your endeavour, you will likely need to make some changes to your belief system as well as how you think and act. If you look at the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, it is clear that personal development was a huge part of their life. Coincidence? I think not.

Take a step back from your marketing strategy for a minute and think deeply about your customers. What are their interests?What do they love and hate about managing their business and lives?How do they help create or maintain their online presence, balance or relationships?What aspects of it could they care less about? It’s likely that every customer you engage with has a primary business or life that’s not focused on coaching, consulting or the service you provide. Some might understand how to make a website, meditate or workout and might even be extraordinarily tech-savvy, patient or fit, but their main focus is still their own business or life. For instance, a lot of my clients are coaches. They don’t care about how a website is made, what technology is used, or where it’s hosted. Instead, they care about the utility of their website. It solves business needs like showcasing their courses and hours of operation, representing their brand, and serving as the landing zone for their social media marketing and paid advertising efforts. They just want it to work well and look great. You’re an awesome coach or consultant; now it’s time to leverage your knowledge and reputation to land more business. You can level up by marketing your expertise through education.

The goal for every coach, consultant and small business owner is to get more clients and customers, generate more revenue, and grow their online business. I assume that is also a goal that you want to achieve for your business. That’s probably why you’re here. But how can you achieve that goal? What is it that you should do in order to scale and grow your online business?What you need – above all else – is an actionable Customer's buyers journey that actually works and is proven to get great results.You need a good and detailed-action plan with the right steps that should be taken to get you from point A (where you are right now) to point B (where you want to be).You need to have a powerful system that you can use and that will guarantee success. Far too often, coaches, consultants and small business owners think that consumer buying is randomised. That certain products appeal to certain customers and that a purchase either happens or it doesn’t. They approach product and service marketing in the same way, based on trial and error. What if there were a distinctive set of steps that most consumers went through before deciding whether to make a purchase or not?What if there was a scientific method for determining what goes into the buying process that could make marketing to a target audience more than a shot in the dark? The good news? It does exist. The actual purchase is just one step. In fact, there are six stages to the consumer buying process, and as a marketer, you can market to them effectively. Let's dig in...

The goal for every coach, consultant and small business owner is to get more clients and customers, generate more revenue, and grow their online business. I assume that is also a goal that you want to achieve for your business. That’s probably why you’re here. But how can you achieve that goal? What is it that you should do in order to scale and grow your online business? What you need – above all else – is an actionable content marketing strategy that actually works and is proven to get great results. You need a good and detailed-content plan with the right steps that should be taken to get you from point A (where you are right now) to point B (where you want to be). You need to have a powerful system that you can use and that will guarantee success. One of the key activities of any content marketing strategy is to create content. You need to produce fresh and relevant posts, articles, videos, and more on a regular basis. It’s important to do so to bring more traffic to your site, to get more subscribers, and to win customers. Creating a large amount of good quality content can be very challenging. You have to stay on top of the latest trends and carry out substantial research.You also have to structure your content well and leverage it to support SEO. Creating content is not easy; you can run out of ideas or just get burnt out. Not to worry, there’s a simple way to solve your content creation woes, and that is to repurpose content. Repurposing content is where you reuse content that already exists on your site or on other platforms. You can opt to repost content that you published on one platform to another. For example, if you created a video for your social media, you can add it as a post on your blog. You can also convert one content format into another. We’ll go into further detail on ways you can do this. It’s important to start planning to repurpose content. Doing so will enable you to take a few pieces of content that you can use several times over. Let’s look at some ideas on how you can repurpose content that will help you get customers.

Best practices can be helpful, but they are just a starting point. We have to adjust them to fit our specific situation. Thousands of blogs, books, articles, video’s, and podcasts talk about “best practices.” They cover every topic imaginable. Every nuance of marketing, sales, customer experience, business, dating (oops) talk about best practices. As consumers of information about how to improve, we devour best practices. The thought is, “If I know what’s best practice, and apply it in my organisation, we will be doing the very best things we can and should see huge performance improvements.” The problem with best practices is that they are only “best” in a specific context. That is, what is best for others, may not be the best for us for a whole number of reasons. The organisations may have very different strategies and goals. The products and services offered may be very different and target different types of customers. The customers may be very different. In reality, best practices, at best, can be only very general. Nothing can ever address our specific situation or the context of what we face right now. Even best practices within our own companies have limitations because they cannot address every context/situation we face. So should we abandon best practices?

Dear Coach, Consultant and Service Business Owner, I know that growing your own business is tough. Cold calling potential clients and having them hang up in your face…Sending out hundreds of emails without getting so much as a ‘thanks for reaching out…Wasting thousands of dollars on ad spend without generating qualified leads… Sometimes it can feel like NO ONE wants to buy what you’re selling. And when you rely on your business to pay the rent and put food on the table… It can put an enormous strain on your emotions. You’re terrified of having to give up on your dreams… And return to a ‘safe’ 9-5 job with your tail tucked between your legs. If you can’t bring in new clients That's why you need to build a sales process. Management consultant W. Edwards Deming once said, “If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Deming’s statement rings especially true in the chaotic world of sales. In a single workday, the average coach, consultant or sales rep can make up to 60+ cold calls a day, in addition to being responsible for following up with dozens of prospects in the sales pipeline. Without a sales process, trying to build a business that's profitable and enjoyable would feel like throwing mud at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. A well-defined and repeatable sales process will ensure you and your sales team have a clear road map for turning potential leads into customers quickly and efficiently. To help you get started building your own sales process, we’ve collected a lineup of some of the best resources on what a sales process is,why it’s important and how to build one. We’ll also share free downloadable resources and templates to help you run your sales process efficiently. Let’s dive in!

Virtual meetings are here to stay. The technology for holding virtual meetings has been around for a long time. If you compare the last 18 months to the previous decade, the increase is phenomenal. The pandemic triggered an instant shift to remote working. Overnight, businesses all over the world were compelled to switch to something many had been resisting for years; working from home. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes when running virtual meetings and what you can do to avoid them. Which one of these happened in your last Zoom/Meet/Teams meeting? The speaker asked a question, and the echo of crickets was deafening.You kept yourself muted on audio and video while multitasking because everyone else is doing it. The meeting ended and you’re not sure why you wasted 58 minutes of your life. All of the above.None of the above. The speaker’s Wi-Fi went down, and the meeting promptly ended. There’s not much you can do for the person who ran the meeting, but you can make sure that never happens to you. And, let’s be honest, at least one of those things has happened to all of us over the past 20 months. Here are the 5 biggest mistakes when running virtual meetings and what you can do to avoid them.

Seth Godin is a world-class author and marketing expert. His blog is one of the few that I read every day when it arrives at my inbox. His ideas are worth paying attention to and offer enough inspiration to be profoundly valuable. He frequently blogs about building a tribe, a group of people who support what you do and who are invested in your success – they are part of your personal team. “This is great, we all know that,” you may say, “But how do I devote the time and attention – among the myriad things that take my attention every day – to building that tribe? Shouldn’t people just fall in love with my product? Isn’t that enough?” No, it’s not enough. Even if your product is absolutely superior in every way, another suitor for your customer’s attention is always in the wings. Even the legendary Odysseus had to fight off Penelope’s 108 suitors after his absence. And if Odysseus was forgotten, it is a guarantee that you will be as well. What have I learned from Seth Godin’s blog posts which, like Twitter, are so short and concise yet full of such deep insight? I went through my favourite blog posts from Seth over the last 12 months and chose those which I felt were gems in this respect.

People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral is the holy grail of advertising – Mark Zuckerberg Referral marketing is known to be one of the best and most trusted marketing approaches applied by both small and large businesses globally. This type of marketing aims at encouraging and increasing the number of new clients through word of mouth referrals. And is usually done by offering incentives, rewards and encouraging customers to recommend the business’ products and services to other people. But we’re not talking just about referral marketing in this podcast. Today we will take a look at why having a referral program is important. Having a program in place helps your customers recommend your products or service with ease. Identifying ways, channels, and incentives will help you achieve the success you need. It’s not about once you build it, they will come. It’s about having that foundation and the tools to help bridge gaps.

There is an economic theory that says this: Our capitalist system relies on the ability to continue to expand. We can no longer expand without wars or unethical trade agreements with underprivileged societies. Therefore, we will fail. Those who subscribe to this theory point out that we on planet earth live in a “closed system.” They believe there are only so many resources. And, as our population grows, this means that the increasing population will have less and less. This economic idea has some truth to it. We do, indeed, live on a planet with limited resources. As a nation, we can no longer expand our borders across the continent - we ran out of continent a while back. As children, we heard about the “boom times.” Men with adventurous spirits were told, “Go West, young man!” Those with fortitude and brains could make a fortune. They could pan for gold or farm cheap land. However, these opportunities are done, right? Prices for limited resources will now spiral upwards until no one can afford necessities. And, global warming will kill us all. From virtual museum tours to five-star curbside pickup of a steak and lobster dinner, some tremendously innovative ideas emerged out of the pandemic of 2020. With the help of application development, normal in-person business operations quickly pivoted during March 2020 to combat the tremendous loss they were facing as the world shut down in response to the pandemic. While some companies are moving into the “New Normal,” or “Next Normal” as some prefer, just as many companies are hoping to return to their pre-pandemic status quo. However, the reality is that our world is forever changed. The pre-pandemic world is not where we are heading, and I’m aware that scares many in all walks of life and all generations. Yet it shouldn’t! The post-pandemic new normal is whatever we make it, and the innovative apps and more that have emerged can and will aid in business growth if you continue to apply them.

Whatever your business model, you’ll always need one very important thing – a steady flow of new clients and customers. That is really the most important thing for scaling and growing your online business. The more clients you get, the more successful your online business will be. Without clients, you have no business. There are a lot of ways to build a business online, but most of them involve one ‘hard-to-get’ thing. Clients. A steady flow of new clients and customers is the key to a successful and profitable online business. Unfortunately, getting more clients is one of the most stressful and anxiety-inducing struggles every business owner has to go through. So the first thing that you need to do is to get new clients and customers, you need to attract them to your business. You need to get them interested in your products and services. But first, do you know who your ideal client is?Do you know their desired outcome?Can your product or service satisfy their needs? The first step of a successful marketing strategy is identifying who your ideal client is. Don’t make the mistake of marketing to everyone; it’s one of the most common mistakes coaches, consultants and small business owners make when marketing their products and services. They don’t realise that – everyone is not their customer. To have a successful online business, you must target the right people.

“Psst. Hey, kid. Wanna be at the top of the Google rankings? Gimme $1000. I'll get ya there.” The Snake Oil SEO “gurus” who sell this type of product intentionally keep one thing from their would-be customers... If your website is at the top of the Google search pages, but doesn't provide useful information to your potential customers, it is useless. If your potential clients click on your site and don't get immediately drawn in by your knowledge about your products and the problems they solve, they'll hit the “back” button quicker than you can say “SEO is dead.” An SEO services company has to do better than that. SEO is an important part of marketing your business. If you want people to find your website, you have to ensure that they can find your website when they’re using Google and their other favourite search engines. However, what you have to realise is that search engine optimisation has changed a lot over the years. Gone are the days when stuffing your content full of the same keywords over and over was actually a successful method of optimising your site for search engines. Honestly, SEO is now easier than it has ever been. However, before you can be truly successful at it, you’re going to need to forget everything that you think you know about SEO. Sticking to the same bogus forms of search engine optimisation is only going to harm your site and isn’t going to allow you to get ahead.

What Does Google Maps Say About You? Google maps is an incredibly powerful tool. It is one of the premier online promotions a business can use to be competitive. Web advertising for coaches, consultants and small businesses should include this vital tool. And, it enhances our lives in other ways as well. Only 25 years ago, the ability to walk the streets of Melbourne, block by block, and view the buildings as they exist nearly in the present while sitting on a computer several thousand miles away would have seemed impossible. Never has the human race had such an accurate idea of where we were in relationship to one another? Compare this ability with the maps available to explorers 200 years ago, and we can appreciate how far we’ve come. Business listings on Google Maps are becoming more advanced, allowing consumers to quickly get the information they need and make informed purchasing decisions. Follow the tips in this podcast to get your business showing at the top of Google Maps, and you’ll get to experience the increased visibility, engagement, and revenue that comes along with it!

Digital marketing has exploded over the last decade, and there are now dozens of ways to reach out to customers. However, there is still one technique that rises above the others. Believe it or not, email marketing still has the best ROI, even beating out social media marketing. Why email marketing? It is probably because people tend to pay more attention to their email. You can scroll through a newsfeed aimlessly, but email needs more direct attention since it can contain important information. Catching your target audience when they are paying attention is the key to successful marketing. I'm a big fan of subscribing to others' email lists. It gives me an opportunity to watch my own actions as a "consumer" of information. Which emails do I open? Which do I auto-delete? Worse, which cause me to unsubscribe? Of course, that is easier said than done. You want to evade spam filters and give customers something useful, all while managing your own successful company. Let’s face it, you don’t have the time to manage personalised email marketing campaigns for each customer, which is where managed email sequencing comes into play. Building a strong email sequence is the foundation that will lead to strong sales leads in the future.

It is much better to be mediocre when trying something new than to continue to rely on one's older perfections. Reach out, learn and embrace the new. Whether as an individual or as a coach, consultant or business owner, let your light shine in previously unexplored space. The internet and social networks are a vastly expanding space right now. We will all either expand into it or be eclipsed by it – the choice is ours. Feast or famine is defined as a situation in which something is always either extremely abundant or in extremely short supply. In this case, that something is sales leads. Do you often have times when your team is so busy that you can barely manage it all? Are they followed by times when your team is frantically making calls in the hopes of drumming up new business? If you answered yes, you are a victim of feast or famine. Admitting it is the first step. Now, let’s focus on how you can get off this seemingly never-ending treadmill and position your sales team to always have a steady flow of leads coming in the door.

As coaches, consultants and entrepreneurs, especially those trying to make a name for themselves in their industry, it’s important to understand the dangers of hustle culture and know when it’s consuming your life—your dreams are not the problem, the way hustle culture tells us to achieve them is. So, let’s talk about the dangers of hustling and how you can avoid hustle culture and burnout while still working hard to reach your dreams. No, You Don’t Need to Sleep 4 Hours a Day and Take Cold Showers to Have A Business That's Profitable And Enjoyable Yes, you can lead a normal, happy life and still build a successful company. Here's how.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in business for years, systems (and updating them) are crucial to help your business run smoothly. Some entrepreneurs avoid system building because they feel like it’s too challenging, time-consuming or confusing. However, there are many benefits to building strong systems for your business. Are you ready to systemise your business for success too? It’s wise to regularly assess your systems to see what’s working well, what needs improvement, and what still needs to be implemented. It doesn’t matter where you are on your business journey, the thing that needs to be constant are your systems and processes. Don’t avoid system building because you think it may be too time-consuming or confusing.

Personal branding plays a crucial role in your success. Whether you’re aware of it or not, everyone has a personal brand or image that affects the way others see and think about you. That’s why your personal brand and image are so important in determining if you’re successful in life. What Is Personal Branding? Let me start with the personal branding definition first — a brand is basically a promise. When you have a brand, it’s a promise that you make and are known for keeping to the person who you are asking or trying to influence. Human beings decide emotionally and justify logically. If you have a good personal brand, people are willing to pay you more for your product or service and argue less. What Does It Mean When You Brand Yourself? Branding yourself means developing your professional identity to align with your values. A personal brand statement always begins with your values. If you want to truly be a thought leader and an authority in your field you have to stand for something. Quality? Excellence? Responsiveness? Teamwork? Innovation? Leadership? Then you build a tremendous personal brand by starting with the principle of integrity. There’s no better reputation you can have other than for people to say that when they do business with you, you always fulfill your promises. The answer for success is to do what you’ve been hired to do and do it. Now, this expands into every area of your interactions with others. Here’s the rule: “Everything counts. Everything that you do either creates and builds your brand or weakens and destroys your brand.” The “people buy from people” adage is so ubiquitous in business that we don’t even know who actually uttered these famous words. So let’s put it down to Einstein, since the genius has so many other sayings attributed to him. But the truth is that no matter who said them, these words hit on a fundamental truth. And that’s why successful founders have personal brands

When it comes to branding, consistency is key. And by being consistent, your product or service becomes known to your customer and then, from there, you can develop loyalty and trust. Here are some top strategies for the creation of a consistent brand for standing the test of time: Branding refers to the deliberate actions you take to influence people’s perception of your product or service—so they will choose your brand time and again. Essentially, it is the way your product or service lives in the hearts and minds of your customers. While it may seem like a simple idea to comprehend, branding is an ever-elusive, hotly debated topic that is not easy to define. Why? Because, as we mentioned above, branding is emotive, and subjective and not something that can necessarily be measured or quantified. In order to fully conceptualise branding, let’s go back a step and understand what a brand is to quote author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin, “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another”. Meaning, branding is everything you do to actively influence those decisions. Think about it, when consumers need to make a choice, how will they make their decisions? Whatever motivates them, branding is what shapes the perception of your business in their minds and ultimately what converts new customers into loyal buyers. Here are some top strategies for the creation of a consistent brand for standing the test of time:

The goal for every coach, consultant and small business owner is to get more clients and customers, generate more revenue, and grow their online business.. I assume that is also a goal that you want to achieve for your business. That’s probably why you’re here. But how can you achieve that goal? What is it that you should do in order to scale and grow your online business? What you need – above all else –. is an actionable digital marketing strategy that actually works and is proven to get great results. You need a good and detailed-action plan with the right steps that should be taken to get you from point A (where you are right now) to point B (where you want to be). You need to have a powerful system that you can use and that will guarantee success. It’s past the time to use better marketing and sales practices that engage buyers on their terms instead of converting them into our sales funnel, which is what we should have been doing all along. Listen to today's podcast and discover why Lead Gen Is No Longer a Strategy