Archive for December, 2008
Twitter in Plain English
Posted by: | CommentsThanks to Don H. Morris of the New Coach Connection list for pointing me to this goodie. Twitter in Plain English is a must watch video for any service professional who is thinking about how to get more exposure. Twitter may be your answer and this video by Lee LeFever is explains it so even my granddaughter would get it. No wait, she is nine so she probably gets it somehow intuitively. Kids do seem born with technological understanding now.
For those of us older than my granddaughter, there is Common Craft. Twitter in Plain English is only one of many videos created by Common Craft. I am pretty excited about them as a new resource because these videos not only cover subjects we need to learn as entrepreneurs in the internet age, they are well done. Cruise through their collection after you watch the Twitter video and learn more about RSS, blogs, podcasts and even electing a President.
World's Tallest Snowman is a Woman
Posted by: | CommentsThose that know me well know I am from Maine and that I love the state dearly although I have not lived there for almost 20 years. This website shows you one of the the things I love about the state. It’s a spirit, creativity and sense of fun paired with hard work that is rare. The town of Bethel, Maine for the sake of publicity for their town built a giant snowman in 1999 that became the world’s record for snowmen. Then they sat back to see who would break the record. No one did. Last winter they had record breaking snowfall and decided that was the incentive to break their own record. You gotta love those Mainiacs!
Thus was the beginning of Olympia, the world’s largest SnowWoman. Standing 122 feet tall and weighing an estimated 13 million pounds, she was the labor of love of an entire community. She was adorned with hat, scarf, necklace and 30 foot spruce trees for arms. You really need to see the pictures and check out the eyelashes. The builders had a nice sense of humor.
What I love about this story is how it shows the work ethic of the true Mainer – I don’t know too many places where people would be willing to stand inside a giant structure in order to shovel and pack snow. Hard work for sure. Another piece of this story that I love is that it is an example of someone thinking way outside the box and it working. The project was the brainchild of the local Chamber of Commerce and Olympia became a tourist attraction for the month’s of her life. The building process and the size of the project received press attention from all over the world and the Bethel area and its Chamber of Commerce benefited greatly. As you are doing your own business planning, take a cue from those crafty Mainiacs and take a calculated step out of the box.
Freebies for the Holidays
Posted by: | CommentsThere is a Holiday Giveaway going on over at Consistent Paying Clients that you may want to look into. You’ll find over a dozen gifts there designed to help you improve your life or improve your business. Tammy Landau is the originator of this Giveaway meant to be in the spirit of the holidays. You’ll see one of my special reports as one of the freebies you can receive – if you haven’t read “How to Think Like an Entrepreneur, you’ll want to get it.
There are items in the Holiday Giveaway about growing your list, organizing your office, understanding blogsites, and exploring your relationship with money. There are even items on living fearlessly, getting a 60 second boost and using antioxidants. A real fun mix of gifts. So celebrate with us and download your items today. Don’t delay, when the holidays end, the gifts disappear!
New Rules of Marketing
Posted by: | CommentsThe New Rules of Marketing was a session I attended at the ICF conference in Montreal last month. The presenter was Jan Marie Dore of Toronto who calls herself the Women Entrepreneurs Success Coach. She led a content laden discussion. Jan was correct in telling her audience that the world of marketing has changed. The old way was to be a generalist for the masses, to push your message out there and to deliver sales promotions. Today these strategies backfire.
Today’s marketing world is one of content, information and education. Successful marketers now must brand themselves as thought leaders. This means that you must niche and engage in two way conversations. The new marketing is attraction based marketing which requires you to educate and entertain those who have chosen to be in relationship with you.
So here are the rules as presented by Jan Marie -
1. You content is your most valuable asset.
2. You create your brand as a thought leader through the wise use of your content.
3. You launch your thought leadership campaign using the internet.
4. You leverage new media channels to take your story to market.
If this sounds overwhelming to you, it is helpful to remember that this is done strategically. When you create content, you use it in many ways. For example, you write an article then create a podcast of yourself reading the article. Later you turn this same content into a teleclass which you record and then use as a free gift for subscribers. Perhaps you hire a business coach to help you navigate through new media that you have not used before.
This ICF session was booked as a wisdom circle which meant that a large part of the session was audience discussion and the ideas were definately flowing. This was the first time I truly experienced the international flavor of the ICF. I was in a group of eight coaches for discussion and was the only US coach in the group. That was enlightening to say the least and one of the joys of the new rules of marketing is that technology brings us all together in one community.
Here’s your coaching question for today - What do you need to do to bring the new rules of marketing into your business? Please post your answers/comments here.
Intro to Shopping Cart Success
Posted by: | CommentsIntroduction to Shopping Cart Success is a call that you might want to hear if you are new to using shopping carts or autoresponders in your coaching business. More experienced coaches may get some new pointers as well. In my role as National Education Director for Practice Pay Solutions, I am interviewing Sharon Broughton tomorrow on the strategic uses of shopping carts for business development. Sharon is a talented Virtual Assistant who has been in business since 2002 and works with high level internet marketers as their technical/affiliate manager.
We will be covering selling products online, teleseminar registrations, sending ezines, discounts, list building, delivery of ebooks and more. If you attend the call you will get a trial shopping cart account for 30 days for $1. There is a lot of info packed into this call so don’t miss it if you need help in these areas. You can register for the call by clicking here and then going to support/business development. Be sure to scroll way down the page as this call is near the bottom.
