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. ;)