Blogs

System #1: Customer engagement

System #2: Customer Relationship Management

What is a system?

It all starts with the BRAND

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

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.

• 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

1. Who you are - let the recipient of the statement know your identity, your name
2. What you do - the core service or opportunity you provide
3. Who you do it for - your target audience and/or ideal client you work with
4. 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..

Positive

Level

Evident

Appropriate

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

1. Get yourself to a quiet place
2. Imagine that it is now the end of 2011 and you are reflecting back on your accomplishments for the year
3. Write down a list -- brainstorm freely at first
4. Now highlight the top 3-5 things you really want to focus on for the year
5. 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.

Having a well thought out personal brand strategy is the fastest and best way to promote yourself in any career.

There are, however, 3 key mistakes many professionals make with their brand that keep them from advancing further in their career.

Personal Brand Mistake #1 - Failure to think like an entrepreneur at work. These days it's now more important than ever to recognize that things aren't like they used to be. Whether you work for someone else or not, do not make the mistake of having an employee mindset - you are self-employed.

What to do instead - To boost your perceived value at work so that you are top choice for the best job opportunities, it's time you start thinking like a business owner. Be an independent thinker, offer creative solutions, and always think a couple of steps ahead, strategically positioning yourself for the next action in case (B) happens instead of (A). Get noticed for your ability to be a results-driver who is adaptable to change, because change is happening faster and bigger these days.

Personal Brand Mistake #2 - Failure to track your own accomplishments and articulate them well. You can not rely on your manager to understand the work you do, or to know when recognition is warranted.

What to do instead - Keep track of accomplishments, praise reports, and great results you have achieved with and for your business partners. When the time comes to sit down for that next performance review, be ready to list out how well you have contributed to the company's overall goals. And if that performance review somehow does not get scheduled? Make an appointment yourself to meet with the manager and share your accomplishments, in a way that boosts their confidence in your work as an achiever. This record will also be great for your portfolio when it's time to move on.

Personal Brand Mistake #3 - Failure to connect with people who can be champions for your success. It's great to spend time with your colleagues at work - after all, we spend a large part of the week there. But many people mistake this group as their group of supporters.

What to do instead - Make sure you are connecting with people of influence outside of your normal circle. Tap into knowledge and experience that will help you broaden your thinking. Share solutions and creative ideas when you meet with mentors - formally or informally. They might just be your champion behind the scenes when you need it most.

I would like to invite you to claim FREE Instant Access to my Beginner's Guide to a Successful Career Brand when you visit http://bepromotable.com. You'll get a set of 3 great articles, along with a Promotability Quiz. Are you promotable?

From Tanya Smith, The Expert Brand Coach and The CareerPreneur Success Circle.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tanya_M._Smith

Hello Superwomen,

I'm sharing the free audio from my recent teleclass, Your Career Marketing style, at http://thepromotablebrand.com/. You can download the handout there too.

You are invited to listen in at no cost to get great tips on five ways to professionally market your brand & to find out more about the upcoming 6 week program for designing an attractive personal brand that will powerfully enhance & sustain your career and/or solo side business.

It's called The Promotable Brand: How to Get Clear, Get Known, and Get Paid in Your Career or Solo Side Business.

You will say, after participating, that the rewards of this 6 week program are to have:

• A greater sense of security knowing you have confidence in your ability to promote yourself and your services;
• Enhanced professional skills that carry over on-the-job and in your side business;
• Greater recognition from your clients as well as your work colleagues - where it counts;
• Higher level of trust in your purpose and faith in case the unexpected happens;
• A more attractive professional brand when you compete for positions you choose
• Success on your own personal terms and based on what's important to you
  

Early bird for the program - The Promotable Brand: How to Get Clear, Get Known, and Get Paid in Your Career or Solo Side Business ends tomorrow at midnight, so check it out soon and save big...seriously. I'm also throwing in my recent 12-CD telesummit as a gift for people who act quickly: http://thepromotablebrand.com.

As always - to your success,

Tanya Smith, Your Career Strategy Partner
BePromotable.com

Don’t know?

I’m going to share 3 mindsets to avoid.

Imagine.... You EMPOWERED to finally live your best life ever!

Dear friend,

My family and I just experienced the most frightening crisis of our life. Our oldest daughter on Life Support. We almost lost her not once but
twice. How did we persevere, remain focused and resist the temptation
to succumb to fear? We are now experiencing victory and an amazing
surge of EMPOWERMENT! She is off life support, was moved from ICU and is regaining strength daily. The Doctor's gave us another report, however, we held on to the report of our God! It wasn't easy but it was possible.

We tapped into possibility. We tapped into Empowerment through our union with Him. We stepped boldly with courage and confidence that it was DONE!

You can experience the same empowerment , courage and confidence to stay focused because you have learned life skills, become faith-full and are mastering your mindset!
This is the only way you will send out the energy to create an
atmosphere for God's miraculous intervention in your life and the lives
of others.

Feel like you're working hard but getting nowhere?
Are you frustrated by the day to day tasks of managing your personal and business life?
Want to play a bigger game but can't due to a lack of confidence and/or entertaining your limiting beliefs? Or maybe you don't know what's holding you back.

"Give me 40 minutes and I'll share keys to maximizing your
EMPOWERMENT and realizing mindset breakthroughs so you can finally live life on your terms while increasing your client/customer base and revenue."

Join me for The Women's Empowerment and Mindset Breakthrough Teleseminar series

This week's Topic: 4 Surefire ways to Blast through your fears to COURAGE, CONFIDENCE and Maximum EMPOWERMENT!

When: Bi-Weekly The next call is July 8
Time: 11:00 AM PST, 2:00 PM EST
Cost: Free

These teleseminars will sell for a minimum of $147
Get your free access today!