If you’re a fisherman, a can-of-worms is a beautiful thing. It’s your bait for catching fish. The more plump and juicy worms you have, the better your fishing expedition will be. Of course if the fish you want to catch only eat mayflies, worms no matter how juicy, are the wrong bait.

In marketing, the right offer is just as important as having the right food for the fish you want to catch when you go fishing. If what you are offering is not a fit in the pond where you are fishing, you may be in the wrong pond or you may have the wrong bait.

In nature it’s very obvious how the ecosystem works. For every plant and animal there is a companion food source. One organism feeds on another. Many plants and animals are very picky. There is only one thing they can and will eat. This is also true of some customers.

Take another look at that can-of-worms.

It might appear as a wriggling, disgusting, dangerous, and unpleasant source of pain. It’s not attractive and I wish it would just disappear. But knowing that it can also symbolize having the right message, to attract the customers I am looking for, I can turn that negative into a positive.

If you’re phobic about worms it may be harder for you to get over your fear and repulsion. This could also be true when you think about marketing. The visual and visceral reaction you experience when you think about worms and marketing is real. However your thoughts about worms and marketing may not be true.

I’ve been trained to help you reframe your negative thoughts about marketing. Sometimes we confuse thoughts with facts. Thoughts are changeable. They are influenced by our feelings. The difference between a thought and the fact can be huge.

If you’re hungry and you know you can catch fish and feed your family with that can-of-worms, you are far more likely to use it to your advantage.

What are you treating like a nasty can-of-worms in your business? If you’d like to reframe your approach to marketing, or get over your aversion to it, I’ll introduce you to a step-by-step program that gets results and gets you clients.

 

I attended a presentation by Kurt Shaver’s at the Bay Area Consultants Network. His topic: ” Get LinkedIn to Sales”.

That’s Kurt to your left. Why is he smiling? He knows the secrets of making LinkedIn work to find customers. Below are a few things I learned from Kurt.

Improve Your Profile

He gave great tips on how to make it easier for people to find you on LinkedIn, the first step if they are going to hire you.

• Use a great photo – a headshot that fills the space, is flattering, and that shows you as the professional you are
• Use keywords to describe yourself and what you do (that’s what people are searching on)
• You can reorder the sections of your profile by dragging and dropping
• Make sure your summary is keyword  rich and describes your accomplishments
• Ask for recommendations

Making changes to Your Profile

I spent about a half an hour and made some significantI changes to my profile .

I  moved sections around and I added a video clip to my profile.I have more updates planned.

See the results on my LinkedIn Profile

Want More Sales?

Kurt teaches how to get more clients using LinkedIn. Find out more here. He has a series of online workshops coming up in August. I give him two thumbs up.

Watch this short clip (49 sec) of Kurt to get a sample of his high energy and high impact training style.

 

Music videos and more specifically, MTV created a new kind of information delivery. Style became more important than content. Watch a few music videos and you will see that ultra-quick cuts from one image to another blur your ability to digest what you see. This style spread to other forms of media. It seems to have became a mantra. I see as an ode to shortened attention spans. This constantly changing imagery might work well as entertainment, but it falls short when applied to building relationships and building your brand.

Twitter, a micro-blog format that uses a container of 140 characters is brilliant. Tweets are teasers. They usually point the reader to the locations of more detailed content. Those who are interested, follow the link. You can’t tell everything in 140 characters, but you can get me interested. Tweets are great at starting a conversation.

Apply the Twitter model to your conversations in network settings. when meeting someone new focus your attention on gathering information and getting them interested in you so you can follow up with an in depth conversation. Try this approach at your next networking meeting.

Become a detective

Ask questions. Listen more than you speak. Here is what I expect you will notice:

• People will be more relaxed talking with you.
• They will enjoy the conversation.
• They will feel special.
• You will learn more about the people you meet that you did when you buried them with information about you.
• You will more easily identify people you want to know better and which ones are not a fit for you
• You’ll be more relaxed
• You’ll have a higher purpose for your conversations
• You’ll have a good reason to follow up with the people you meet

Less is More

If you have trouble relating to the Twitter model of networking, maybe you can relate to the live of legendary Scheherazade. She was able to postpone her imminent execution by entertaining the Sultan with her tales told over 1001 nights.

Keep yourself a little mysterious and people will want to find out your secrets.Reveal them over time to keep them interested, and coming back for more.

 

My associate, Peter Ivory and I did a presentation at a Meetup Group. We demonstrated what you can do to improve your video projects and make them more professional and watchable.

This video is about 14 minutes and I captured it using a Sony Handycam HDR CX110 camera on a tripod. The audio is from the built in microphone on the camcorder. I did not supplement the lighting, this is what was in the room. As you will hear from Peter, having good lighting is important and had we adding some lighting the quality of the video would be vastly improved.

I edited the movie using iMovie ’11, When I was done with the editing, I uploaded the movie to YouTube where I have my own channel, completelycreative.

You will get great tips for your video productions. I encourage you to watch and learn.

 

YouTube has surpassed Google as the most frequently used search engine online. More than 200 Billion views per day.

Are you on YouTube? If not, what is keeping you from taking advantage of this free and powerful medium? Could it be that you don’t know how to create a video? Maybe you aren’t sure how to publish your movie. Keep reading. I will tell you how you can get yourself into the pictures.

I spent Tuesday in a professional video studio with my video partners. We set up and recorded several business owners. They presented quick tips, testimonials, and we even did a two person interview, and a promotional movie. We experimented with lighting and using a green screen as well as sets. The production team included a professional videographer, sound engineer and myself, as a combination of talent and a coach and director of each segment.

I took some behind the scenes still photos and as I was about to post them to the cast and crew, I remembered I could also create a short movie using Flixtime. Flixtime is an online service that comes in a free and a pro version. I made a sixty second short movie and uploaded it to YouTube. It struck me I could share this resource with you and I made a 10 minute move that goes through the steps to create a Flixtime video. I made this movie with Snapz Pro X, an application that allows me to capture still screen shots from my computer or it can follow along as I demonstrate what I am doing on my computer.

With Flixtimte, you can upload still photos, movie clips, music and titles. The site has a rich set of features, including sound clips, titles and movie templates. Even if you have a face made for radio, by using tools like Flixtime and Snapz Pro, you can put yourself onto YouTube with how to videos in a short time.

Think about what you want to share with your audience through video storytelling. You really ought to be in pictures, now more than ever, if you want to reach your audience.

 

I love pizza. The crunch of the crust, the smell as it bakes. It is fitting that my love of this yeasty treat is leading to a new venture with the new year. A brand new collaboration is about to take shape at Mary’s Pizza Shack in Sonoma. I am collaborating with Cindy Pinkston, Marketing Simply Done to host Sonoma-Webify.

We take inspiration from Mary Fazzio,the founder of Mary’s Pizza Shack. She too was an entrepreneur. She is the mother of one of the most successful restaurant groups around. And she started with a little shack of a takeout spot just a few feet from where we will be launching an entrepreneurial meetup group in the backroom of Mary’s Pizza Shack restaurant in the heart of Sonoma Valley.

Sonoma-Webify is a meetup group. We plan to meet on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month and follow the words of wisdom created by Patrick Schwerdtfeger in “Webify Your Business: Internet Marketing Secrets for the Self-Employed“.

Tying this together with the place where we will meet, is my connection to the author of the book mentioned above. I met Patrick about two years ago. I was a member of the program committe for BACN. I invited him to speak at the Bay Area Consultants Network and he agreed. He was so well received, we invited him back last year.

Patrick recently sent of the manuscript for the second edition of his book to his new publisher, Wiley. While it goes through the publishing process, we are working on a video project together with my partner in cinema, Peter Ivory.

I meet all three people mentioned here through connections, networking, and meetups.

Meeting the people you need to move your business forward can be as simple as showing up, consistently, being open to opportunities, and it can take place over a slice of pizza.

 

I am documenting the steps for setting up a recording studio in my office. The intention is to give you a how-to guide. You’ll have the information you need to evaluate whether or not you want to replicate these steps yourself. If you do, you will be able to efficiently record yourself in your own office. Or you may decide to focus on creating content and decide to hire talent to do the recording and editing portion of your video marketing.

I’ll tell you what you need: about the tools, hardware and software, the environment, time and money required to create your own recording studio. I’ll even go into expected learning curves for each aspect of doing it yourself.

Why Video?

The value of video in telling your stories and connecting with your audience is huge. YouTube gets more than 200 Billion views daily. I want to help you take your first steps into using video as part of your marketing toolkit.

My recommendations plus the advice and guidance of my partner, a professional videographer,will help inform your decision about how to put your video on the web and beyond. We will outline what you need to know and how to begin. We will include what we have learned so that you can avoid common mistakes and produce video that communicates well to your selected audience. Our goal is to help you evaluate whether or not it makes sense for you to do it yourself, what part of it you can do yourself and when it makes sense to hire professionals to assist you.

We’ll tell you what it costs, the tools we recommend, the time it takes and how you can benefit from video marketing.

Who can benefit most from video?

Speakers, trainers, consultants, people who have a story to tell, those who want to educate, those who want to entertain, those who have an idea to they want to share, or those who are seeking support for a cause.

Resources for storytelling

National Storytelling Network  http://www.storynet.org/

Tim Sheppard’s Storytelling Resources for Storytellers http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/

Storytelling Websites  http://www.courses.unt.edu/efiga/STORYTELLING/StorytellingWebsites.htm

Milbre Burch, Storytelling as an Artform  http://www.kindcrone.com/article_2.html

If you have a favorite resource related to storytelling, tell us about it.

“Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.”

 

I recommend asking for testimonials.

I coach my clients in what to ask so they can hear for themselves just how valuable they are to their clients. Yet, when I suggest they ask for testimonials, 99% of the time the first reaction I get is “I know I should do it but…”. What comes easy to each of us may not be easy for others. Getting into the habit of getting acknowledgment for the impact we have on the lives and businesses of those with whom we work requires focus, willingness to receive praise, being vulnerable, and the possibility of being rejected.

I created a checklist of questions to ask to help frame the request for positive testimonials. The protocol is to connect with satisfied clients. Request 10 minutes of their time. Let them know you are planning to interview them and you are going to ask them to approximately 10 questions.

These questions are designed to help you and your clients quantify the results of working with you. Here are the questions:

Quantify Your Results

1. What did it look like when we started working together?
2. How does your business look now?
3. What is the best thing you experienced working with me?
4. What have your clients noticed that is different as we began working together?
5. What were your profits before we started working together?
6. What are your profits now?
7. What was your turnover at the start of our contract (instead of turnover substitute the appropriate business challenge of that company or client)?
8. What is turnover like now?
9. Who do you know who might benefit from working with me?
10. This one is most important — Would you be willing to contact them on my behalf?

You may also choose to take a status or temperature reading of their business as it exists today. Here are questions that can help you get a clear picture of their business:

• What is your income now?
• What is the average value of a client?
• What is the average value of a transaction?
• What is the lifetime value of a client?
• If you broke it down, what are they worth to you:
• Per week
• Per month
• Per year
• How many active clients do you have now?
• How many are inactive?
• How many clients can you handle? per day? per week? per month?
• Describe the gap to between what you have and what you can do.
• Describe the gap between what you have now and what you want in your life and business?
• What do you think is getting in the way of your having what you want?
• What are you committed to doing or changing to get what you want?
• By when?

The Power of Stories

Here is a better way to capture the value of your services through the eyes your clients. Ask them for stories that tell about changes you initiated for them. Document at least a three stories and be sure to include metrics (increases in profit, the savings of time, money, or the reduction of losses, staff, profit) that were used to document progress. And, if you can, record the testimonials in audio and or video format. Then post the clips on your website, on YouTube, your blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, so others can see and hear about you straight from the lips of those who you have helped.

Treasure those stories and incorporate them into your message. Leverage word of mouth stories. Use them  to your advantage and grow your business.

 

Small actions can move mountains

I was working in my backyard this weekend. We are in the process of transforming our yard into an outdoor room. The process has many component parts. The first step, as in most projects, is defining the project and what it will look like when it is complete. In this case, the vision and goal are the same. Both my husband and I decided that we wanted to do more entertaining out of doors. Our existing backyard configuration did not encourage mixing and mingling. The traffic flow was a bit awkward. We wanted to improve the feel of the yard.

We had several conversations about what we wanted. We each had ideas about how we wanted the space to feel when we were finished with the remodeling project. Our ideas were similar but not identical. We negotiated, collaborated and came up with a list of must haves, nice to haves and a budget. We outlined a schedule and put it into an action plan.

Action Plans keep you on target and on task

In my consulting practice, I use action plans to accomplish what might otherwise seem impossible. Action plans are brilliant for managing progress, identifying the discrete steps that when strung together equal a project. Action plans, like recipes, show what, when and who is responsible for doing each step, in the right order. They show how long each task is likely to take and what is needed to be successful. By breaking big projects into their individual component parts, it is easy to track progress and to realistically assign resources for each step. Action plans show the beginning, middle and end of each task. You can measure your progress against your action plan.

Action Plans don’t have to take much time to yield measurable results. In fact, by taking the step of creating an action plan, I have often saved time by seeing clearly what resources I have, what is missing, and what I can delegate. Action plans help me plan my day. The important stuff gets done when it must be done.

Planning for Change

If you have ever shifted your attention in a new direction, attempted to lose weight and keep it off, or get yourself in a regular exercise program, you know that real success comes when you plan beyond the goal. What will it look like once you have what you want, how will you keep the change instead of reverting to your old patterns.

In this case, my husband drew up plans for the yard, He is an architect, but I’m not, so to be sure we both were seeing the ultimate outcome in the same way, I needed some visual aides. I supplied the step-by-step action plan. I asked questions and documented his answers.

The project gets underway

Our biggest investment was time. Then came materials., and after that, labor. This was to be a do-it-yourself project. We didn’t have any pressing issues influencing when the work would start or end, so it was easy to fit it in as we had available time in our schedules. Most of the work required the muscle and mind of Garry. I contributed some of my time and muscle as I could. When it came to carrying wheel barrows loaded with crushed gravel and cement, I just didn’t have the upper body strength to do the work. But I could lift and load the wheel barrows with dirt for the new planters.

Our yard is sloped. We had put up the deck to create a flat platform. Some of the deck had already been replaced. We decided to take out half of the decking and build up the ground where the deck had been to meet the same level as the remaining deck. We plan to install a fire pit to encourage lingering out of doors on summer and fall evenings.

I pounded nails to put in the deck and I wanted very much to be part of the deconstruction process. Garry showed me how to use a small pry bar and hammer to pop up the heads of the nails in the boards. Once the nails were loosened, I could come back in with a larger, longer pry bar and easily remove the nail from the boards. By using the right tools and leverage, I could do the same work as my manly, well muscled husband. And so, this post came to mind.

Are you using the right tools to leverage your business?

Just as I learned that the right tools in construction make a big difference, I know that the right tools in marketing yield exponentially big results. When I went with the grain of the wood when loosening the nails, the job was almost effortless. When I pressed the pry bar against the bulk of the board, again, it was easy to remove the nails. When I tried to use my muscles instead of leveraging my strength with the hammer and pry bar, I didn’t accomplish what I wanted and the more I strained only caused the nails to dig in and I became frustrated.

Working smarter allowed me to get what I wanted, to loosen and remove the nails in the shortest amount of time. Small actions produced big results. Using the right tools I multiplied the power of my well-toned bisects, abs and legs to get the job done.

I’ve applied this principle to other big projects, like learning to drive, getting a master’s degree, exercising regularly (19 years and counting of 5-6 days a week working out), and to eating a healthy mix of foods (one small change at a time).

The grain of sand approach

Pick one area of your business where you want to see a change. Write up what it will look like when the change is complete. Now pretend you want to explain to a five year old how to get from where you are now to the result you want. No fancy words, not fancy concepts, just plan, easy to understand language. You are going to write up each step, just like in a recipe. Don’t leave anything out. Put your list aside for 24 hours and then, read through it and see if anything is missing. Rinse and repeat until you have a map of what to do, headed up by why you want to do it. Your vision is what will keep you doing the steps/tasks until you get where  you want to be, even when you don’t feel like it.

The moral of the story…by taking small, leveraged actions, you can move the biggest mountain. Use the right tools in the right way and you can get what you want with ease. I can show you how to leverage your marketing muscle to get more clients now. When you’re ready to get a different result from what you have now, send me an email at success at creative1.com and tell me what you want, why you want it and what is keeping you from having it. I’ll pick one lucky entrepreneur for a complimentary business building strategy session in August. It could be you.