What is Branding (and how does it relate to me, as a Speaker)?

Branding is perhaps the most misunderstood term in all of business.

To me, Branding is simply the mental and emotional representation of, and response to, you and your company in the mind and heart of another.

Recently, I had the great fortune to work with James Burgen and Jon Ward. – (In case you don’t know these brilliant gentlemen – they are Donald Trump’s branders).

James and Jon say this, “If you have a business, you have a brand.”

Personally, I like to add a little something extra.

I say, “If you are a person, you have a brand!”

Your name means something to your market… to your audience.

Whether you are conscious to it or not, certain thoughts, feelings and images will come to mind whenever your name is seen or mentioned.

These thoughts, feelings and images may be positive, negative, or neutral.

Whatever they are… that’s your Brand!

… and its your Brand that drives people’s decision to buy from you (or NOT buy from you).

When people hear the word BRANDING … they often think of slogans, websites, logos, and colors.

Your brand is far more than this.

It is the Essence of who you are to your clients and potential clients!

It is what attracts (or repels) new business and increase repeat business.

There is tremendous profit in a strong brand – and conversely, severe loss in a badly managed brand.

The first step for you to fully leverage your Authentic Personal Brand is to uncover your Essence… your J.O.Y. I will be sharing this with you in tomorrow’s blog… Stay tuned!

Justin on August 25th, 2009 in Sure-Fire Strategy | No Comments »

What Do You Stand For?

“If you aren’t clear about what you stand for, nobody will stand with you.”

Clarity is power. One of the biggest reasons your workshop business may not be growing as fast as you want is that you have not developed a clear Core Message. Your Core Message is a succinct statement of what you believe and what you intend to affirm in the world through your workshop and seminar business.

A strong Core Message -one that “sticks to the ribs” of your specific audience-anchors all of your teachings, training, and marketing messages in the body and soul of your audience. This creates a bond between you and your audience… ensuring they attend your events over and over again!

A weak, poorly communicated, or non-existent Core Message causes all of your information to disappear quickly from the minds of your audience. This limits the sustainable impact of your trainings and creates a consistent struggle for you to fill your rooms.

So start to hone the underlying message that is at the root of your programs and products. This powerful message is to be ingrained in your audience at a cellular level.

Remember, the purpose of your Core Message it to connect and bond you with your specific audience. By sharing this powerful belief clearly and consistently with your clients, you’ll be better able to provoke positive movement in their lives. Without a powerful core message, you will have NO sustainable impact.

Justin on August 24th, 2009 in Sure-Fire Strategy | No Comments »

An Unread Email is Useless

In the last blog we covered two embarrassingly simple mistakes that can work against you in your email marketing efforts.

1) Your email doesn’t arrive in the inbox of your client.
2) You email doesn’t get opened.Cool. So let’s say you read our last Blog and you now know how to overcome those two big blunders. What comes next?

Getting your email read! (of course)

There’s are few things you can do to make certain your emails get read top to tail…

1. Write conversationally.

Get into the habit of writing casually and conversationally. Like you are writing to a close friend. Use contractions, and easy to understand slang, and AVOID complex language or words that are hard to spell or say! The average adult reader comprehends at a grade 7 level… so do them a favour, keep it simple and fun.

2. Write to the Individual.

For example, never address your emails as “Dear Friends” or “Hello Everyone!” There is only ever ONE PERSON reading your email – so write to that one person. Using singular language can be difficult because you know you are writing to many people. But the trick is to have the reader feel as though you are only writing to him or her. In addition to bulk greetings (see above) avoid phrases like, “Most of you” or “How many of you..” As soon as I see that, I know you are not talking to me!

To make it easy, pick one person in your database who you know well and write your email in a tone just to them. This will help the email feel intimate to everyone who receives it.

3. Make sure that the body of the email and the subject line are related.

Don’t use a jazzy subject line to get people to open the email, and then write about something unrelated in the email. Don’t you just hate that? People will feel like they have been tricked and they will delete your email and possibly unsubscribe. Ugh.

3. Test your formatting.

Different email providers will display your email in different ways. They each have a different width and allow different kinds of headers and images. Keep the length of each line in your email to a 60 character max. Before you send your email to your list, send a test email to several different email addresses at different email providers you can look at. We suggest setting up personal email accounts with Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, and Outlook.

4. Unless something is of direct interest, relevance and value to the individuals on your list, don’t send it!

Remember, any enterprise is only as valuable as its clients or customer base. With online marketing, this is your list. Whatever your product or service is, your list is your business! The way to keep a large and loyal list is to build trust that your communications are of value. (see Blog from Aug 19, 2009)

Try these four strategies and watch your readership skyrocket!

Callan on August 21st, 2009 in Sure-Fire Strategy | No Comments »

Dangerous Duo: 2 Embarrassingly Simple Email Marketing Mistakes

A couple days ago, we started looking at just how powerful email marketing can be for your business. It’s inexpensive, quick, and relatively easy compared to other forms of getting the word out.

Unfortunately, most workshop and seminar leaders make a few very common mistakes when trying to utilize email marketing. Here are 2 of the most common. (They’re no brainers – but many people over look them).

Mistake #1: Your emails don’t arrive into the inbox of your client

Yikes. All that effort and no one sees your email?

Solution: Use an email provider with a high deliverability rate like, ‘Aweber’ for example. Using a reliable provider allows you to be confident that the maximum amount of people will actually get your email. Use a provider with a low deliverability and guarantee your email ends up in the spam or junk folder, not the inbox.

Solution: You should also avoid spam trigger words in your subject lines or the body of the email (use Spam Avoidance Services). A good email provider will have this as part of their package. But for your information, common spam words are words like “money, sex, free, and give-away”. Use words like these, and your email will end up in your recipients spam folder.

Mistake #2: Your emails don’t get opened.

Again, all that effort to get to the inbox, and they don’t get opened? Yuck.

Solution: Make sure your ‘from’ field is a recognizable name, ideally your name, Any email you get from us will come from Justin and Callan. It will never come from our company name or our program name. The secret here is INTIMACY! Email was originally born so we could send and receive messages from our friends and family – not so we could communicate with cold, hard, corporations! Keep your ‘from line’ personal.

Solution: Another key factor to ensuring your email gets opened is the subject line. Never underestimate the importance of your subject lines! Your subject line must be enticing enough to compel your reader to action! (i.e. They must feel intrigued enough to open the email.)

Here are a few subject lines types that I have found effective:

1) Enrolling Questions

Trying asking a question in your subject line that you know your reader will respond to.

Example: “Do You Want to PACK Your Next Workshop With Ease?”

Example: “Do you make these Email Marketing mistakes?”

2) Incomplete Sentences:

Try a subject line that leaves something unfinished…

Example: “Are You Ready To…”

This subject line is mysterious and your client’s brain will want to find out how the sentence finishes – so they’ll open the email to see.

3) Curious Statement

Try making a statement that stirs curiosity. Example: “Callan is all jacked up…”

4) Numbered Sequence Subject lines

If someone’s asked for information from us, like the “11 part Email Marketing Mistake” Series, I make sure the subject line is exactly the same for each email in the series. The only thing that changes is the number.

Example: “Email Marketing Mistake #11
Example: “Email Marketing Mistake #10

Your client’s brain will see the number and say, “I asked for this,” which means your email is far more likely to get opened.

Get your emails to the INBOX and get them opened, and your clients are one step closer to enjoying all the ways you enrich their lives. Now all you have to do is get them read. Stay tuned – we’ll be talking about that one very soon!

Callan on August 20th, 2009 in Sure-Fire Strategy | No Comments »

One of the Biggest Secrets to Effective Email Marketing

Every email you send to a potential client or current client can be considered email marketing. But the only effective email marketing actually acts to enhance your relationship with your client.

Some common email marketing examples you might be familiar with are online newsletters, ezines, promotional announcements, e-courses, and informational auto-responders

Now, if you’re anything like me, every week you sort through tons of these kinds of emails. Some of them are really important to you and get opened and read right away. Some get deleted instantly without reading. And some get marked as SPAM and end up in your junk mail folder forever.

You know how this works for you… but in your business, how can YOU be certain YOUR CLIENTS not only open and read your emails, but actually look forward to them! How can you guarantee they won’t just file your emails as SPAM and toss them in the trash?

The answer? Only send emails that GIVE VALUE!

The folks getting your emails need to immediately and consistently perceive the value in your emails. Then, and only then, will they look forward to opening and reading them over time. If your email doesn’t deliver value, no one will read it. Nor should they!!! (And sooner rather than later, you’ll find yourself with one less person on your email list!)

To be clear, giving value means solving a specific, top of mind problem for your client. It means giving them something they not only asked for when they signed up for your list, but that will instantly help them improve their life. (By the way, sending out only promotional announcements and opportunities to buy your products and services does not count as giving value!)

I invite you to do a little experiment. Take a look at the newsletters and emails you open and enjoy reading every week. Compare them to the ones you delete and unsubscribe from.

I guarantee the emails YOU open are chalk full of value in one form or another. Maybe they offer you free and relevant tips. Maybe they offer you heart-warming stories that make you smile and give you a lift. Maybe they give you great advice and links to helpful resources, informative videos or instruction on a subject you are interested in learning more about.

The bottom line is, every single email you open and read was opened and read because you believed it would improve your life in one way or another.

Do this with your clients, and strengthen the trust so when you do want to offer an opportunity to purchase something from you – they’ll be thinking, “Wow! If I got all this other great stuff for free, I wonder what I’ll get if I pay for something.”

And that’s when you know you are doing it right.

Callan on August 19th, 2009 in Sure-Fire Strategy | No Comments »

The EASIEST Way to Market Your Business

Whether you send just one e-mail a month, one a week, or one a day to your list, email marketing is one of the easiest ways to let the folks on your list know what you are up to, and how they can benefit. Here are a few of the reasons you need to become an expert on leveraging this powerful marketing tool:

Low Cost: Email marketing is one of the lowest cost marketing vehicles around, especially compared to advertising, and its proven to be far more effective.

Unlimited Reach: You can reach thousands, even millions of people through the internet as you build your database. And you can reach out and touch people any where in the world – as long as they have a computer!

High Speed: You can contact your entire data base almost instantly once you decide what message you want them to hear.

Low Effort: You can stay ‘top of mind’ for thousands of clients by writing a very simple message in a short amount of time, for very little (if any) outgoing cost.

Rejection Free: Let’s face it – when you sell and market face to face, you risk the Ego blow of someone telling you they don’t want or like your stuff. Ugh. With email, if someone decides they don’t want to do business with your, they simply unsubscribe. And unless you take a look at every single person who drops off your list – you won’t have to face the awkward feeling of saying good-bye.

I’m sure you can see how powerful email can be. But do you know how to make sure you are using it properly?

Over the next few weeks, watch this blog! Callan and I will be sharing how to fully leverage email marketing – as well as how to AVOID some of the most common email marketing mistakes.

Justin on August 18th, 2009 in Sure-Fire Strategy | No Comments »