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I am such an impatient person. I can admit it right out of the gate, but one thing I've learned after a number of business "beat-downs" is that planning is priceless.One of the steps often forgotten in the excitement of creating a new business that you're going to market is the planning phase. But this is particularly important when you're creating your sales and marketing strategy.
You have got to spend some time mapping out how your content, products and services, and marketing are all going to work together to build a profitable online business.
To help you out, I'm going to share a few key steps - all of which I'll be talking about in my brand new coaching program that launches in a few weeks - Spicy Hot Systems That Sell (SPICY = simple, profitable, impactful, convenient, and getting your buyers to YES!):
Step One: Develop high quality offerings. Starting off on the right foot with your customer service approach is very important for the livelihood of your online business. Quality products, from the very first freebie to your largest ticket item, will help you gradually build a positive reputation for yourself. Any future dealings you have where you can do repeat business with your customer should leave them feeling as if they were treated as well if not better than the first time around.
Step Two: Create your product line. A sales funnel is a series of incrementally more valuable, and perhaps more expensive, products or services to offer your customers. However, people are going to enter your funnel at various stages. Some may begin by taking advantage of your free offer while some may jump right in and buy a product or service. Create a plan for each type of customer. Set the stage for the next level of products you have available. Figure out which ones might be of interest to your clients, or which ones could be useful. Help them to see just how they can be helpful and how to implement them effectively into their present business or organization.
Step Three: Maintain the Communication. In addition to creating a line of high quality products and services, you’ll also want to establish consistent communication with your prospects and customers. Accomplish this by continuing the flow of valuable information in the form of blog posts, email messages and perhaps a newsletter.
Maintaining the flow of valuable information makes it easier for your customers to confidently pass your information on to others. You could soon find yourself starting the process all over again with new referrals, or other people you have found on your own who have become customers.
Planning is the key to online business success. Create your sales funnel plan, marketing plan and content plan and work to integrate the three into a seamless and efficient system. Consistency is the key, and by using the same plan over and over again with each new person, your online business will grow. And everyone will be receiving the same great quality products and services you have to offer.
Now that's SPICY!
System #1: Customer engagement
Brand support system number one is about the way in which you engage your customers. This is the process by which you create a path of attraction to your business. It's the way that you make it easy for prospects to meet you, to love what you do, to test drive your services. This might look like your current opt-in strategy. Or it may even be the type of events you host that attract people to your business.Creating an easy path for prospects to engage is critical to building your pool of interested buyers. As a system, this path should be outlined in such a way that you can powerfully reflect your brand with ease. The goal is to create a connection between you as a solution provider and the potential client, or prospect.
What is evident when you view an entrepreneur’s website is whether or not there is an easy way to determine your next step. Successful entrepreneurs are clear in the single action they would like for a viewer to take when visiting their website the first time. But unfortunately too many business owners fail to streamline the instruction for their prospect. There is no opt-in form. There is nothing “sticky" about the page that keeps a person there, so viewers leave after only visiting a few seconds.
One example of a way to engage customers that capitalizes on the way they first interacted with you is to create a social media landing page. This blog post by visibility guru Nancy Marmalejo tells you how to do this: http://vivavisibilityblog.com/social-networking-landing-page/.
There are other ways to engage your customer or prospect. One of the most widely used ways is to develop a strong opt in form. A blog post by marketing diva Ali Brown shares great insight into how to make this work for you: http://www.alibrown.com/blog/?p=722.
The key to customer engagement is to entice prospective buyers within the first few seconds so they can receive your valuable information.
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About the Author: Tanya Smith is a creative business strategist specializing in showing coaches, consultants and freelancers how to spend more time making money with simple, yet profitable marketing systems. Her company Be Promotable provides clients with fresh actionable strategies and virtual resources to promote their small businesses as power players in their market. Claim your instant access to a free 10 part ecourse, 10 Ways To Grow Your List at: www.bepromotable.com.
System #2: Customer Relationship Management
The customer relationship management system refers to the way you take care of your current customers. It may be the way that you process their intake into doing new business with you. It's about how you provide here and service once your clients have already paid or invested in your services. Ultimately the goal is for prospects to become clients and eventually to become raving fans for your business. This happens when you treat current clients or fans very well.How do you deliver on the promises that you make in your brand. Does it require a lot of manual labor? Can you automate delivery of your services? Can you set up systems with the click of a button that will accept payment and deliver on the promise? If you're conducting a coaching group is there self-service function word new clients can go and access their profiles, pay an invoice, create a support case? This is all part of delivering on your brand promises.
When you have easy tools and systems in place it's much easier for your clients to rave about your services and to refer others to them as well. A great service experience can immediately expand your level of influence and authority.
I am a huge fan of Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM). CRMs were like a dream come true because I was tired of manually tracking loose pieces of paper, sticky notes, e-mails that flooded my inbox from people I worked with. A solid CRM can manage projects, automate your billing, and make it easy for you to find essential correspondence between you and the customer. Examples of great CRMs to research for your business include BaseCamp, Salesforce, Capsule CRM, and WorkEtc.
Another part of the relationship management, however, involves your approach to follow-up. Send Out Cards is a simple but highly distinctive way to show your clients you care. I purchased an account with the company years ago but did not realize the power of the program until I used it to mail personalized postcards to members of a course I was teaching online. It really made an impact with my clients to receive a special thank you from the right at their doorstep.
Trust me, in this age of Internet marketing a postcard or greeting card will help you stand out from the crowd. It will also help to solidify the emotional connection with your customer, which has the potential to generate more sales. Besides, sales are really about creating a personal experience for the buyer.
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You may, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:
About the Author: Tanya Smith is a creative business strategist specializing in showing coaches, consultants and freelancers how to spend more time making money with simple, yet profitable marketing systems. Her company Be Promotable provides clients with fresh actionable strategies and virtual resources to promote their small businesses as power players in their market. Claim your instant access to a free 10 part ecourse, 10 Ways To Grow Your List at: www.bepromotable.com.
Every solo business owner has a set of processes or systems that either promote their business very well or contribute to the business’ demise. There are really 3 essential systems that any successful business owner needs in place in order to automate the things they repetitively do over and over again, while adequately supporting the brand. These systems form the structure of success because they are the ways in which you continuously reinvigorate your business for expansion and growth.What is a system?
For purposes of this article, we’re going to define a system as follows: a set of integrated, interdependent processes that can be replicated over and over again to produce similar results.This article is designed to explain the 3 critical brand support systems for real breakthrough in your business. These essential systems are key to ensuring your success and creating a structure on which your brand can thrive.
It all starts with the BRAND
Before we cover these systems, let’s talk about brand first. As a solopreneur in the “entrepreneurial renaissance” age – a coin termed by business coach, Marcia Bench, you will have to compete against many people who claim expertise in the same field as you. Regardless of their level of experience or visibility, the sheer numbers require that you carve out a way to stand apart from the crowd. Your brand must be distinctive, powerful and recognizable.The brand is the foundation of any effective marketing strategy. It is how people perceive you. The brand is YOU in a single owner business. If your brand is weak, the systems I will describe below will not operate to support your business. An analogy would be like building a new house, installing a beautiful kitchen, hardwood floors, and hiring a dynamic salesman to greet buyers at the door when the house has no walls yet.
The support systems we will talk about in this article will allow you to deliver great service, they will engage your customer base, and they will automate your delivery but only when you have taken the necessary steps to first put in place your brand strategy.
This means getting clear about what you do, the market you serve, and how you provide the service. Brand support is most connected to the latter – the “how”.
We will spend time outlining the 3 systems over the next group of articles in this series.
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You may, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:
About the Author: Tanya Smith is a creative business strategist specializing in showing coaches, consultants and freelancers how to spend more time making money with simple, yet profitable marketing systems. Her company Be Promotable provides clients with fresh actionable strategies and virtual resources to promote their small businesses as power players in their market. Claim your instant access to a free 10 part ecourse, 10 Ways To Grow Your List at: www.bepromotable.com.
Sticky notes are not the best way to keep track of a prospect you need to call. There is a better way - thankfully. It's called a CRM.
A CRM is a sales and marketing term for "customer relationship management". It's a system to keep track of important information about your clients, customers, sales prospects and a way to centralize your business communications and resources.
I love technology. You may already know that from some of the resources I share. But I really didn't discover the power of a CRM until I started realizing that I had too much paperwork floating around with my client's notes, names of people I needed to follow up with, and even keeping track of any missing payments to my client accounts.
So here are some benefits of using a CRM:
- Organizes your business records
- Creates a safeguard of all your key contacts
- Automates your appointments
- Helps you develop a "pipeline", which is the path you work each client or prospect through to work with you
- Gives you an easier way to pay attention to your customers
- Makes it easy for people to pay you
Need a few ideas on CRMs to try?
I'm developing a video kit to help you use the simple, slick system I use, but for now here are some recommendations you can look into: www.CapsuleCRM.com, www.HighRiseHQ.com, www.BigContacts.com, www.SalesForce.com.
Try one and let me know what you think in the comments below!
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About the Author: Tanya Smith is a creative business strategist specializing in showing coaches, consultants and freelancers how to spend more time making money with simple, yet profitable marketing systems. Her company Be Promotable provides clients with fresh actionable strategies and virtual resources to promote their businesses as power players in their market. Claim your instant access to a free 10 part ecourse, 10 Ways To Grow Your List at: www.bepromotable.com.
I had a dream last night. In the dream I invested in some type of postal supplies shop - you know, like the ones you see on every corner now? This guy from an office next door kept coming in to say he was there to help me. Seemed like a nice enough man. At first, he offered to lay a customized floor tile that looked like a stamp for me in front of the counter. He described how it would have my initials, my favorite colors, and it would really light up the place. I was convinced and I said, "sure, that would be nice". Then after he put it in and I realized it wasn't just one tile, it was half the floor. Cha-ching.
Next, he came in and offered to change the locks on my door. I said, "yes, that's probably a good idea". And of course, he upgraded the entire door. Cha-ching...again. After a series of these offers, I realized I'd drawn up quite a bill. That's when I finally sat down to look at the total costs of my initial investment, the add-ons, and the history of success the shop had before me. Guess what? The previous owner sold it because she hadn't made a profit.
It was a pretty dismal outlook. I had the same dream at least once more the same night. It was like I had to go through it all over again, even knowing what the end would be. Then I woke up.
I realized that this was a pretty accurate picture of some decisions I've made before as a business owner. Not researching the so-called investment first, saying yes to everything that looks short-term shiny, looking at the total profit/loss picture only after I've spent all the money...
Notice I didn't say anything about "adding value" or "profit generating" decisions? What investments are you making in yourself and in your business that will add long-term value and generate profit? Got the wake up call yet?
WANT TO RE-POST THIS ARTICLE ON YOUR BLOG OR USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE, E-NEWSLETTER OR WEB SITE? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:
About the Author: Tanya Smith of Be Promotable is a premier personal branding & marketing coach. Her creative genius has unlocked the potential of many women solopreneurs, helping them to reinvent themselves as power players in their startup business. Claim your free instant access to a free video download, 5 Secrets to Developing Your Unique Brand Proposition at: www.bepromotable.com.
I often hear the question, "how do I develop a personal brand statement?" and my answer stays the same most of the time. A strong personal brand statement can be one of the best tools you can have and certainly one of the most critical ones for your branding and marketing toolkit, whether you are a business owner, or a professional working for someone else.There are certain components that are variable and others that are pretty foundational in developing your personal brand statement (P.B.S.). Some of the factors that may be variable are:
- When and how you will use it - e.g. interview for a job? networking situation? speech?
- Who you're talking to - e.g. language needs to meet the needs of the audience; the message is the same, but the approach should be adaptable
- Who you are - let the recipient of the statement know your identity, your name
- What you do - the core service or opportunity you provide
- Who you do it for - your target audience and/or ideal client you work with
- How you do it - your style, your unique approach, what distinguishes you
Let me give you an example of how this might work -
"Hi, I'm Tanya Smith of Be Promotable, the No Guesswork Branding & Marketing Resource for women solopreneurs. We show our clients practical, step-by-step online marketing strategies to confidently promote their business and get them noticed."
Now you try it. Add your own P.B.S. with the 4 parts in the comments and I'll share feedback...come on, you can do it!
About the Author: Tanya Smith of Be Promotable is a premier personal branding & marketing coach. Her creative genius has unlocked the potential of many women solopreneurs, helping them to reinvent themselves as power players in their startup business. Claim your free instant access to a free video and audio download, 5 Secrets to Successfully Starting a Solo Business While Working Full Time at: www.bepromotable.com.
Solo professionals are like big businesses when it comes to the need for a solid marketing strategy. The distinctive thing about solopreneurs, however, is that you get to be the head decision maker for every part of the business. That means it is all the more important to take your strategies from complex to simple whenever possible.
Now is a great time to develop your branding and marketing plan. While you definitely need to consider mapping out a strategy that is more comprehensive to cover you for at least the next twelve months, here are four simple questions you can answer in order to set a basic foundation for promoting your distinctive brand and services you provide:
How will I generate leads?
This is one of the most critical steps to developing a solid branding and marketing strategy. Assuming you have already identified who your ideal clients are, you must now figure out where to find them. Immerse yourself in studying your target market - find out what they read, where they frequent, and what they buy - and put yourself in front of them.
How will prospects get to do a "taste test" with me?
Before a potential client will buy BIG from you, they will want to know what your services are like. Depending on the business you're in, you will need to decide what is most effective and most practical to give away. For example, you might offer a free strategy session, or a free audio, or even an e-book. What can you offer that will be of interest and take little effort or investment on your part?
How will I direct them from one point to the next?
Now that your prospect has had a taste of what you do and they want more, make it simple for them to know what is next. This involves some thinking on your part of what your marketing funnel looks like. Whenever you engage a client in your product or service, be prepared to promote the next thing and make it easy. At the end of your teleseminar, share the next program or info product. This is the time where you can extend even greater value to your new customer - at the point that you have already made good on your initial promise!
How will I follow up?
The client engagement process usually follows a certain path - suspect --> prospect --> client --> advocate/evangelist. In order to move people through these stages, you need some idea of how to continuously follow up and stay in touch. Whether this looks like a series of autoresponder emails, a regular ezine, postcards, etc. consider how you will stay in front of your leads. The key is to add value to their inbox, not being pesky.
I now invite you to claim instant access to a free video and audio download, 5 Secrets to Successfully
Starting a Solo Business While Working Full Time at: http://www.bepromotable.com to learn even more about great solo professional business branding tips. - Tanya Smith, The Solo Business Brand Coach at Be Promotable.
This post was originally published on Tanya Smith's blog. Click here to see the original post.
Goal setting always gets to be pretty popular this time of year. You hear a lot of techniques about how to do it and one of the most common ways is the SMART technique. I'm not writing about that here, because it's so overused now, I don't think you'll care.
No matter what you use, the new year always kicks us off with a great start, right? But then somehow you lose interest. There is this cycle that we seem to get into and it goes a little something like this:
- Day 1: Whoo hoo, yeah, I'm on it this time. I'm going to [your goal here] -->
- Day 3: This is great. I can't believe how this is changing [enter positive results] for me! I will definitely keep this up. -- >
- Day 5: You know what, I'm just going to take a little bitty break...I'll come back to it, I promise! -- >
- Day 10: What was that thing I was trying to do again?
- Day 20: Start over again or drop it completely..
You see, when you are setting a goal, it's important to identify the most clear picture possible of what you want. And doing this early in the process is one of the best ways to I learned this training in NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) when I studied with a celebrated master pracititioner, Susan Stageman, for over a year.
Yes, it took me that long to really get it and start applying the techniques . I can be kind of hard-headed, as my mom used to say. There were so many good ones, but the one that has stuck with me forever is called creating a "well-formed outcome" (WFO).
This is a very powerful way to set long-term and short-term goals so that they STICK...and really, that's what we set them for in the first place.
So I'm going to share with you my criteria for remembering the WFO in 5 simple steps. Maybe this will keep your goal setting from being so boring. ;). I call it the PLEAS approach (as in, can I have another goal, "pleas"):
Positive
State the goal in positive terms. Describe the present situation and compare it with the desired future goal. Make sure you can see yourself having obtained the goal.Level
Line up the goal with your values and beliefs. For me this means lining up what I've asked for, or stated, to be sure it is in the will of what God has for my life. I pray and ask for spiritual guidance around the goal. You may line it up however you see fit. It's important that your goals are a good fit with what's important to you.Evident
Describe the goal using "sensory" terms. What will let you know that you have attained that desired state? This is a critical piece - think in terms of what you will hear, see, and feel when you have success.Appropriate
Consider if the goal is right for you in all areas of your life. Is there something that may hold you back? Is this goal right for you right now, in this place where you are?Self-initiated & Maintained
Self-initiated and maintained. Your goal must be something that you can initiate and maintain. It must not be something dependent on other people. Make sure that your goal reflects things that you can directly affect.
If your goal, or outcome is set each time with these criteria in mind, you will have crystal-clear vision that you can hang on to and it will get you past those tough times when you're ready to let go. OR it will bring you back to what you wanted in the first place...SUCCESS!
Share one of your clear outcomes in the comments below.
About the Author: Tanya Smith of Be Promotable is the "no guesswork" personal branding & marketing coach. Her creative genius has unlocked the potential of many women solopreneurs, helping them to reinvent themselves as power players in their startup business. Claim your free instant access to a free multimedia downloads including 10 Branding Mistakes Made by Solopreneurs and 5 Secrets to Successfully Starting a Solo Business While Working Full Time at: www.bepromotable.com
Every year, my kids and I create a vision board to capture goal highlights for the year using posters, magazine clippings, crayons, glitter, glue sticks -- you name it, it's on the floor on 12/31. We have the music going, candles lit, and complete focus on what we're doing. Here is our process laid out in 5 steps for you. I hope you then enjoy the short video version of my board that was designed using Animoto.com. Head over to Life Vision Boards and get another take on the "how to". They use Animoto as well and you certainly can too - it's a free tool for creating video using images and music. Use theirs or add your own.
5 Steps To Creating Your Vision Board
- Get yourself to a quiet place
- Imagine that it is now the end of 2011 and you are reflecting back on your accomplishments for the year
- Write down a list -- brainstorm freely at first
- Now highlight the top 3-5 things you really want to focus on for the year
- Cut, draw, and paste images that represent your goals onto a poster board (you can even make a miniature version on an index card to carry with you)
That's it! Now set a date to get the board finished. ;)
Okay, yes the title may tell you I know a little something about martial arts...but no, I don't. Only as much as the last Karate Kid movie
(which is one of my kids' favorites) and the line from Kung Fu Panda
which says that Kung Fu stands for "excellence of self".
I was thinking about that today after having watched the main character, a Panda named Po, one of 50 jillion times. I think personal brand work is like working out your Kung Fu - it truly stands for mining
and understanding how to portray your self excellence.
I thought I'd share how you can strategically do some kung fu kicks with identifying your personal brand strategy below. One approach is using the SWOT analysis.
SWOT Analysis is a well-known method of identifying your Strengths and Weaknesses, while also examining the Opportunities and Threats you face. All four areas can help you clarify your personal brand and your
distinctive and unique value.
Often carrying out an analysis using the SWOT framework will be enough to reveal changes that need to be made in your plan.
Try to work through the following questions and think about what insights you have from this focused work:
Strengths -
- What do you do well?
- What can you do better than anyone else?
- What comes naturally for you?
Weaknesses -
- What could be improved?
- What might you do poorly?
- What comes with more difficulty for you?
Opportunities -
- In what areas do you see possibilities?
- What resources or circumstances can you leverage?
- What trends might you use to your advantage?
Threats -
- What obstacles are in your way?
- Who is your competition and what are they doing well?
- Are you financially challenged?
- What else do you find yourself up against?
About the Author: Tanya Smith, Career & Personal Brand Coach, offers women professionals, with dual roles in a corporate career & solo side business, access to cutting-edge strategies to help them thrive
and promote themselves as experts in a progressively competitive work and
marketplace. Claim your free instant access to two fill-in-the-blank brand templates and a special report, The Beginner’s Guide to A Successful Career
Brand at: http://www.bepromotable.com.
I have really begun to mentally process how the discipline of marketing a business and many of the principles that come with it are just as critical for personal success.
There is great value in developing a personal brand marketing strategy that helps you stand out, and that makes you more credible in the eyes of your select audience. Unfortunately, it is way too easy to ignore because of competing priorities for our time.
Here is a short list of though provoking questions and action plans for you relevant to your personal marketing strategy:
- Do you have a personal brand marketing plan or do you personally market yourself unintentionally?
- If you have a brand marketing plan, does it include specific promotional activities and are these tied to events?
- Have you taken the time to identify a target customer, or employer? What desired characteristics have you named?
- Does your personal brand strategy identify ways to sell to and maintain your current clients while attracting new ones?
- What are the demographics of your key prospects? What makes you distinctly different, or unique as compared to your competitors?
- What is your personal brand marketing budget? How will you distribute these funds?
About the Author: Expert-ize your personal brand. As a Personal Brand & Marketing Coach, Tanya Smith offers female professionals with dual career & entrepreneurial roles access to cutting-edge strategies to help them thrive and promote themselves as experts in a progressively competitive work and marketplace. Claim
your free instant access to a special report at: http://www.bepromotable.com.
How to develop an online brand is arguably the hot topic for many of today's professionals. Not only is it critical for many, if not all, businesses these days to have on online presence, it is also fast becoming the way that career professionals promote their value to either retain a job, advance to higher levels, or transition to another career.
This article will cover 7 frequently asked questions about online brand presence for career professionals. Unlike most other articles and media that refer to social networking and online visibility, this message will address people who are still in a workplace setting and the relevance of getting engaged in the online wave of the future.
FAQs About Online Brand for Career Professionals:
This article will cover 7 frequently asked questions about online brand presence for career professionals. Unlike most other articles and media that refer to social networking and online visibility, this message will address people who are still in a workplace setting and the relevance of getting engaged in the online wave of the future.
FAQs About Online Brand for Career Professionals:
- Why do I need an online brand presence when I work for someone else? Competing in today's workforce has been quite a different environment these days. Employers are looking more meticulously and for skilled workers, if they're looking at all. Instead of distributing unnecessary salary dollars to have a recruiter travel to job fairs and collect a pay check all day, thousands of dollars can be saved when recruiting is sourced right from the computer. An article on InternetNews.com by Stuart J. Johnson followed a survey that indicated more than 70% of HR professionals and recruiters rejected job candidates due to what they found online about them. And I suspect that if employers cannot find you at all, they can see your competitor who has a tremendous online profile, and therefore an automatic advantage over you for the position.
- How do I get started in creating an online brand presence, especially when I don't have these skills? There are lots and lots of social media experts and online tutorials. Once you have identified your personal brand strategy (perhaps with the help of a career coach specializing in this area), you can better determine what learning needs you have and find the resources to fill these needs.
- Everyone has a blog and they're telling me I need one too. What if I'm not really a great writer? Part of your branding strategy should be to determine your communication style. Perhaps, instead of written material, your blog may incorporate audio or something else that suits your preference.
- I don't know what to talk about. What if I don't have anything to say? We all know the old saying about opinions...everyone has one! What is a topic that you know very well, are passionate about, and would love to talk about with other people? Is it a topic that could open doors for someone, or make others feel like they have a strong emotional reaction to? Talk about your area of expertise - only you can share it the way you can.
- My time is already so stretched. How do I fit in the work to really be visible online? This is another key area of your personal branding strategy - mapping out your time and intended frequency online can be one of the best habits to create right at the start. You actually can devote just 15-20 minutes per day once you have established the ground work. You might also consider outsourcing to a virtual assistant specializing in social media communications.
- How do I get people to go see my online resources - e.g. CV/resume, website, blog? You can learn to use any of several different models. What works best for me is using tools like Twitter and Facebook to redirect viewers to links that have my content.
- I'm afraid about privacy online. If I put myself out there, I'll be making myself a target for identity theft, right? Great question. I recommend spending time learning how to protect your data online and offline. Just because you don't have an online presence you have deliberately created yet, does not mean someone can't already access your personal information. The federal government actually has a site with some great tools and tips to protect your identity online: onguardonline.gov/">http://www.onguardonline.gov/. This may be a good place to start.
About the Author: Tanya Smith of Be Promotable helps ambitious professional women share their brand brilliance through a powerful online brand presence. To get instant access to her free special report on how to surefire steps to be promotable stop by and visit http://www.bepromotable.com.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The latest form of identity theft doesn't depend on stealing your Social Security number. Now thieves are targeting your kid's number long before the little one even has a bank account.
Hundreds of online businesses are using computers to find dormant Social Security numbers — usually those assigned to children who don't use them — then selling those numbers under another name to help people establish phony credit and run up huge debts they will never pay off.
Authorities say the scheme could pose a new threat to the nation's credit system. Because the numbers exist in a legal gray area, federal investigators have not figured out a way to prosecute the people involved.
"If people are obtaining enough credit by fraud, we're back to another financial collapse," said Linda Marshall, an assistant U.S. attorney in Kansas City. "We tend to talk about it as the next wave."
The sellers get around the law by not referring to Social Security numbers. Instead, just as someone might pay for an escort service instead of a prostitute, they refer to CPNs — for credit profile, credit protection or credit privacy numbers.
Julia Jensen, an FBI agent in Kansas City, discovered the scheme while investigating a mortgage-fraud case. She has given presentations to lenders across the Kansas City area to show them how easy it is to create a false credit score using these numbers.
"The back door is wide open," she said. "We're trying to get lenders to understand the risks."
It's not clear how widespread the fraud is, mostly because the scheme is difficult to detect and practiced by fly-by-night businesses.
But the deception is emerging as millions of Americans watch their credit scores sink to new lows. Figures from April show that 25.5 percent of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. They will have trouble getting credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.
The scheme works like this:
Online companies use computers and publicly available information to find random Social Security numbers. The numbers are run through public databases to determine whether anyone is using them to obtain credit. If not, they are offered for sale for a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
Because the numbers often come from young children who have no money of their own, they carry no spending history and offer a chance to open a new, unblemished line of credit. People who buy the numbers can then quickly build their credit rating in a process called "piggybacking," which involves linking to someone else's credit file.
Many of the business selling the numbers promise to raise customers' credit scores to 700 or 800 within six months.
If they default on their payments, and the credit is withdrawn, the same people can simply buy another number and start the process again, causing a steep spiral of debt that could conceivably go on for years before creditors discover the fraud.
Jensen compared the businesses that sell the numbers to drug dealers.
"There's good stuff and bad stuff," she said. "Bad stuff is a dead person's Social Security number. High-quality is buying a number the service has checked to make sure no one else is using it."
Credit bureaus can quickly identify applications that use numbers taken from dead people by consulting the Social Security Administration's death index.
Social Security numbers follow a logical pattern that includes a person's age and where he or she lived when the number was issued. Because the system is somewhat predictable, sellers can make educated guesses and find unused numbers using trial and error.
A "clean" CPN is a number that has been validated as an active Social Security number and is not on file with the credit bureaus. The most likely source of such numbers are children and longtime prison inmates, experts said.
Robert Damosi, an analyst with Javelin Strategy & Research, said the crime can come back to hurt children when they get older and seek credit for the first time, only to discover their Social Security number has been used by someone else.
"Those are the numbers criminals want. They can use them several years without being detected," Damosi said. "There are not enough services that look at protecting the Social Security numbers or credit history of minors."
Since the mortgage meltdown of 2008, banks have tightened lending policies, but many credit decisions are still based solely on credit scores provided by FICO Inc. and the three major credit unions: Experian, TransUnion and Equifax.
Federal investigators say many businesses do not realize that a growing number of those credit scores are based on fraudulent information.
"Lenders don't understand that when they pay money to go through a service, they may be receiving false information," Jensen said. "They think when they order the information from credit bureaus, it must be true."
Without special scrutiny, credit profiles created with the scheme are not immediately distinguishable from other newly created, legitimate files.
Investigators say the businesses clearly know they are selling Social Security numbers, but it's difficult to prove. The sellers use complex disclaimers that disavow illegal activity and warn customers against using their numbers in place of Social Security numbers.
The businesses also instruct customers to provide false information when using the number to apply for credit. Customers are told to use their real name and date of birth, but to avoid listing any addresses or phone numbers they've used in the past. They're also told to avoid any other information that connects the new, clean credit profile with the old, damaged one.
Craig Watts, a spokesman for credit reporting agency FICO Inc., said FICO has tools available for businesses to protect themselves from this type of fraud, but they are not cheap. And many lenders are slow to adopt FICO's new formulas, which are updated every few years.
Some companies that sell the numbers have lavish, high-tech websites. Others run no-frills ads on sites like Craigslist.
Jim Buckmaster, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based Craigslist, recently told the AP in an e-mail that there were "fewer than 200" classifieds on his site that used the word "CPN."
Within an hour of that e-mail exchange, dozens of the ads in cities such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York had been pulled from the site. Many were reposted the next day.
An AP reporter called several of the sites, but got only recordings asking callers to leave a message with contact information.
Experts say the fraud will be difficult to stop because it's so easily concealed and targets such vulnerable people. Other than checking with the credit bureaus to see if there is a credit file associated with your child's Social Security number, spokesmen at FICO, the Social Security Administration and the FTC said there are no specific tools for safeguarding the number.
"This is an invisible crime, with invisible victims who don't have enough support out there to help them," said Linda Foley of the ID Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
Personal brand marketing is a solid career management technique. When you are doing the work to clearly identify your personal brand - or theoverall collection of perceptions that you want others to have aboutyou - it may not be as simple as jotting down a few notes on a memo pad.
Developing a personal brand strategy that describes the irresistible, brilliantyou can take some work, but once you have it, you can apply the piecesto everything you communicate - e.g. resume, interview remarks, onlinemedia, etc.
Below, I will share with you some of the components I used in developing my own brand marketing statement.
Here are the first five concepts to focus on with a brief definition ofeach, and an example taken from my own personal brand library:
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