The following is a piece of what I discussed in the Online Visibility Challenge training.
There’s a perception that people share too much of themselves online. And while this may be true in some circles, I believe the opposite is true for entrepreneurs. Generally they don’t share enough of themselves.
When you don’t share anything of your personality, your style or the way you do business, your marketing becomes bland.
You blend into the woodwork. You sound like everyone else who provides the products or services you provide.
The whole point of marketing is to stand out. To give people a chance to get to know, like and trust you.
Yes, there are parts of who you are that will drive some people away, make them not want to do business with you. But those same quirks will make other people love you.
Let me tell you a story.
I knew a business consultant who also happened to be a psychic. Her psychic abilities were a big part of how she delivered her services to her clients. But she kept it to herself. She knew some people – a lot of people – would be turned off by it. Read More→
To make SlideShare work for your business you need to understand it is a unique platform for sharing presentations, videos, documents, and other business-related information with others. It is a little different than other sharing sites, however; it curates content around themes and hand-picks presentations that are featured on the homepage.
It’s also unique in the variety of business types that use it—everyone from industry leaders to educational organizations to nonprofits. Because it’s now owned by LinkedIn and the two are closely connected, it gets a lot of traffic from entrepreneurs and business professionals. This makes SlideShare a natural if that’s your ideal client.
How can you make SlideShare work for your business?
Think about the expertise in your business—and not just the expertise related to the product or service you sell. For example, you might have developed particularly successful marketing campaigns that can be used to create SlideShare content. Or perhaps you can take a common misconception about your industry and correct it.
A key benefit of creating popular SlideShare content is traffic to your website. A well-crafted presentation that offers more information with a link back to your website can send tons of new visitors to your site.
What’s the potential of SlideShare for your business? Use this graphic to find out.
Have you created something for SlideShare that you’re particularly proud of? Leave a link to it in the comments.
The Rule of Seven is an old marketing adage. It says that a prospect needs to see or hear your marketing message at least seven times before they take action and buy from you.
Now the number seven isn’t cast in stone. The truth of the Rule of Seven is you can’t just engage in a marketing activity and then be done. Marketing must be an on-going process in order for it to be successful.
So why do prospects need to hear your message so many times before taking action? If you are doing your marketing well, you are targeting the right people; your ideal customers. You have created powerful marketing materials that use language your target audience relates to. You speak to their major problems and how you can solve them.
Why don’t they jump to their feet and grab what you have to offer the first time they see your message?
1. Noise
In today’s world, people are being bombarded with messages constantly. It is truly difficult to get past all this noise and be heard.
The first few times someone sees your message its likely it won’t completely register with them. We all have marketing blinders we’ve built up over time – otherwise we’d be overwhelmed with the constant noise from businesses clamoring to be heard.
It’s no different with your prospects. They’re not sitting around waiting for you to show up. They’re busy living their lives and you may not even be a blip on their radar.
2. They don’t need you … yet
Even if you’ve closely targeted the right people, they may not need your product or service today. And if they only see your marketing message once, it’s not likely they’ll remember you tomorrow or next week or next year when they suddenly do need you. When it comes to marketing out of sight is definitely out of mind.
This is true even when your target audience is a business. When I was doing marketing research Read More→
When you are having a sales conversation with a potential customer it’s not unusual for them to have “objections” – questions about whether your product or service is right for them.
For many people who are new to the idea of selling, objections can seem like the end of the sales process. However, if you expect them and are prepared to respond, they can be an opportunity to move your prospect from a “maybe” to a “yes”.
Would you like your bio to go from flat and boring to enticing and exciting? Today I want to talk about your bio. Whether it’s your LinkedIn profile, the “About” section on your Facebook page, the “About” section on your website or maybe it’s the intro when you speak at the local group, if you’re in business you need a bio.
If you’re like a lot of entrepreneurs, writing your own bio is hard. I’m a professional writer and I hate writing my own bio. I’ve written dozens of profiles for other people but when I have to write my own I’d rather clean the toilet.
There are a couple reasons why this is. First, it’s really hard to be objective about yourself. The things that you find most interesting and most important about yourself are not necessarily what other people care about. And the things that you think are unimportant are probably the stuff that other people really find interesting.
The second reason it’s a difficult to write your own bio is we grew up being told don’t brag about yourself and then suddenly you’re having to do it in writing. As a result it feels icky and painful.
Instead, imagine you are going to your high school reunion and you run into a bunch of your old friends. When they ask you what you do, do you tell them the name of your company, a list of your qualifications and the products and services that you sell?
No. You come up with the story about how you got the idea to start your business or what made you take that leap from being employed being an entrepreneur. Or you tell some funny stories about some wacky clients you had or brag about amazing clients you have.
You don’t go into the technical details of your business; you want to tell a story that’s entertaining. And that’s what your bio should be; that’s what your About page should be.
Because all marketing is about getting people to know, like and trust you enough so that they can reach into their wallet and buy from you. However if you don’t ever give anything of yourself so that they can decide whether or not they know you, like you and trust you that’s never going to happen. So if you are ready to rewrite your About page or your bio, take a couple minutes and think of some of the stories that you tell about how or why you started your business.
If you use these stories as the basis for your new bio I think you’ll be happy with the results.
If you have a really great bio, or you know somebody who does, leave a comment and share link to the bio so we can take get inspired by some other great bios.
When you don’t share anything of your personality, your style or the way you do business, your marketing becomes bland. 
