7 simple ways to make your business stand out

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7 Simple Ways To Make Your Business Stand Out from www.maggieanderson.com [email protected] 4043148709

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A marketing guide for experts who want to spend more time doing what they are truly good at and less time on marketing!

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Page 1: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

7 Simple Ways To Make Your

Business Stand Out

from    

 

www.maggieanderson.com  [email protected]  404-­‐314-­‐8709  

Page 2: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

Welcome! Building your own enterprise is one of the most exciting things you can do with your life. It is a constant experience of discovering new resources to grow the business, as well as growing yourself and your own capabilities! Thanks for downloading this short eBook and letting me be a resource for you. I hope you will find what you are about to read useful, and it jumpstarts the climb to a new level for your business or professional practice. I have no illusions that everything will be helpful – as a business owner you’ve developed your own marketing savvy along the way. But if you walk away with one or two things that change your target market’s perception, that will be worth taking the time out not to just read, but implement the ideas here. If you hunger for more, look at my book, Do You Stand Out Enough? designed for professionals, consultants, coaches and business owners like yourself – it’s the marketing kit for experts who want to spend more time doing what they are truly good at and less on marketing. Some of the tips use technology to be your “unpaid publicist” while others build the personal presence and connections you need to be successful. All of them work together to create the kind of powerful visibility that has people saying “I see you all over…” The first time I heard that I was sitting in my beautiful home office absorbed in work. I’d barely looked up much less assessed how visible I had become! Now I hear it more and more and that provides great motivation to continue to work on visibility. So here is my advice to you: Schedule a week to put these seven simple tips into action and then schedule a day on your calendar in 6 – 9 months to stop and notice what has changed, and how much more visible you have become. Above all, start now. Visibility takes time to develop. It requires consistent action over many months. Get started!

Change  the  perception,  and  everything  changes…    

Page 3: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

1. BRAND YOU. Early in my career I had a supervisor who wore a hat all the time. She had a dramatic flair and her hats were a way to express it in our drab office. I thought it odd, but many years later I remember her vividly --and not a single other person from that organization! Expressing your passions and interests authentically and consistently will make you positively memorable. Many executives, coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs shy away from a personal brand, not wanting to be “packaged.” I’m not Laundry soap, or McDonald’s after all! they say. True enough, but having a memorable story or style will help you become memorable to prospects you want to remember you. The story goes that Steve Jobs ordered black long-sleeve t-shirts for his entire staff at one point. After those creative techies at Apple rejected the idea of a “uniform” Jobs ended up with boxes of shirts which he wore from then on. The collarless black t-shirt became an accidental piece of the Steve Jobs “signature” look you see in so many photos of him. You can build your brand more intentionally. Choose jewelry, objects, a logo design, colors, words and phrases– that differentiate you from others and authentically communicate something unique that people will associate and remember about you. It may be your enthusiasm for the company softball team, the children’s toy drive you support every year, your flair for gourmet food, your passion for endangered polar bears, or your love for the color blue –experiment until you find something that resonates with you and with others around you. Then weave it into places where it organically fits and gently grow your presence and your own unique brand. A strong brand is:

• authentic, • easily recognizable, • meets a need, • connects with others on an emotional level, • and is repeated consistently.

Page 4: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

2. INVEST IN A TERRIFIC PHOTO There are ways to do this without spending loads of money, but it is worth spending some. For Social Media, a PR Kit, blog template or other communications, you will need at least two close-ups of yourself:

• A high quality business-like headshot, head & shoulders only. You want a look that says: “I know something you don’t and you are fortunate that I am going to share it with you.” You want to look approachable, but powerful; warm but not cute. In the best shots I’ve seen, the head may be turned at an interesting angle, but isn’t tilted; the subject looks directly at the camera, happy & confident, but is not smiling too broadly.

• An outdoor or business environment shot. This one is more dynamic – it should look like a reporter caught you on your way to an important meeting in your field and, as a thought-leader you were sought out to share your expertise on their question.

Technically, your headshot needs to: • Have even lighting without dramatic shadows or dappled sunlight.

• Put the focus on you -- your jewelry, choice of clothing, hairstyle, and

background need to be simple, carefully chosen and not distracting. Solid colors that flatter you work best.

• Be selected from a variety of shots. Take several jacket/shirt/tie/low-key jewelry combinations to the photo session and try each pose in your different combinations.

A publisher, journalist or meeting organizer who doesn’t know you will use this photo to take a quick measure before they decide to book you as a speaker, publish your article, interview you as an expert, or publish your book. Take the time and spend the money to assure your photo immediately presents the vibrant, powerful image you want them to have of you. Here are some options to explore for good quality at a reasonable cost:

• Popular commercial photography studios like Glamour Shots use fabulous lighting to get a great shot. They can do your hair and makeup and you can try several outfits

• http://date.lookbetteronline.com/ is for on-line dating portraits, but it’s only $150!

• Professional organizations and business clubs often bring in a professional photographer and offer sittings to members at a very reasonable rate to update their headshots. Watch for an announcement and take advantage of it!

Page 5: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

3. CREATE A GRAVATAR As you grow your personal brand you will have many opportunities to be more visible. You will comment on Facebook or other people’s blog posts. You may be featured on a panel of speakers, deliver a presentationto your professional group or be published in the company newsletter. Each time, your image will appear alongside the content. Some experts advise to use one photo that is consistent across all media, one that captures the essence of how you want to be seen. Some professionals prefer to use two photos, one more formal, and one more personable and dynamic. The latter is the one to use to create your Gravatar – an image that will be picked up in any social media where you comment or post.Having the same image every time gives a consistency that strengthens your brand. Go to http://www.gravatar.com/ and follow the instructions to create a gravatar that will automatically provide your consistent image over all media.

Page 6: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

4. USE AN EMAIL SIGNATURE … and promote yourself every time you send an email. If you are like most business people you send hundreds of emails every week, and you should not waste this opportunity to reinforce your brand and remind your customers, vendors, prospects, family, friends and colleagues what you do and keep yourself top of mind. Your email signature should include:

• Your logo

• Your name and title

o A word of caution – in your signature, only use letters for degrees or certifications that are easily recognizable to your target market i.e. PhD or MD. Other designations should be spelled out or reserved for your bio where you can give more detail.

• A tagline that succinctly describes what you do and for whom

• Preferred contact information. If it is hard to get you on your

cell, don’t include it.

• URL for your Website and/or Blog

• Links to social media like LinkedIn, Twitter or a Facebook Business page to make it easy for others to connect and follow you.

Page 7: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

5. POLISH A POWERFUL SOUNDBITE INTRODUCTION Professionals like you almost always cite “word of mouth” as their primary source of new business. People who know you, or meet you, are your best sources of referrals, but only if they understand quickly and clearly whom they should refer to you. A “soundbite introduction” is so brief and understandable that even if someone has only a few moments with you, they will leave with a clear picture of who you work with and what you can do for them. Work on the wording for yours, get it down to a maximum of 60 seconds, then practice in front of your built-in Web cam 10 or 20 times. Try it out on a few friends and see if they get it, and polish it some more. Soon you will be marketing yourself with an enviable confidence -- in just 60 seconds! When someone asks what you do, do you describe your products or services? The features and benefits of your business only make sense when a buyer can connect them with a genuine need, pain or problem they have. You can help a prospect see your value if you first help them connect with their pain. When you tell them how you resolve their pain, they now have a reason to learn more about your products and services. Here’s an exercise you can do to connect their pain with your intro. Step 1: Begin by listing the features and benefits of your products and services in a 3-column grid. Step 2: Next to each feature or benefit, write down what happens to a prospect when they experience the opposite of that feature or benefit. Step 3: Write down the painful symptom your prospect experiences when the "opposite" is a business reality – how does that lack show up in their business and how does it make them feel? With that information in mind, you are ready to begin crafting your introduction.

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HOW TO CRAFT YOUR SOUNDBITE INTRODUCTION

Products Features/Benefits Opposite Experience Pain Your Prospect Experiences

Page 9: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

6. SHOW UP ON THE INTERNET – BE GOOGLABLE! Business/Social networking is not a passing trend -- it is increasingly a tool as essential as a business card for connecting with new prospects, resources or allies. Why? Because internet search engines pick up your listing and make you “googlable.” I am on Linked-In and since it is the largest business networking site, you should be too. http://ma.anderson.name/linkedin. Please link with me, and let me know you found me through my free report. Facebook pages and Twitter are increasingly used by large and small companies to capture search engine traffic and point them to a product, service or Website. Once you have 30 people “like” your Facebook Page you can create a domain name that matches your branding just as I did at: http://www.facebook.com/MarketingForExperts. Create your own business page at www.facebook.com. Create a Twitter account at www.twitter.com and follow me @DoYouStandOut. There are many other excellent options for Social Media depending on your goals – post video at YouTube and Vimeo. Upload photos to Flickr or Photobucket. Post articles to Digg or Delicious. All of these are great ways to achieve more visibility on the Internet and direct people to your Website, blog or primary social media profile. Make it a goal to be on at least one more site by the end of this week, invite others to join your network, join the discussion and participate!

Page 10: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

7. MAKE IT EASY FOR OTHERS TO FORWARD, RE-BLOG OR RE-TWEET

Meeting people who will refer business to you is just as valuable as meeting prospects who may eventually buy from you. Those star ratings help many people decide which products to buy – when someone refers you it’s like they are giving you 5 stars! As you think about your target market, give equal attention to your referral network -- the group of colleagues, friends and family who will gladly mention you to an associate if they know what to say. First -- constantly feed to your referral network the words they can use to talk about your product and services. You can do this via Email, a Facebook business page, Linked-In or other social networking sites, or a blog. Next -- give readers and browsers some handy tools to make it easy to send out your message to their network. If you have a blog or newsletter, make sure it always has a reblog, retweet and email capability so colleagues can easily pass it on. AddThis is a great widget that provides links to your readers/viewers so they can Re-tweet your messages, email, or post on Facebook or one of their favorite publishing sites. Go to www.addthis.com to get a toolbar of links that can easily be posted on your site. Make it simple for someone to pass you on to a potential client!

Page 11: 7 Simple Ways to Make Your Business Stand Out

8. GET MORE HELP!

Marketing has completely changed over the last few years as the Internet has become more accessible and more used by businesses large and small every day. You now have access to an amazing array of powerful resources to put to work making your business grow, or for your own career development. Most of them are free or very low cost. In the history of commerce, there have never been more opportunities to make yourself visible to your most lucrative prospects. These tips are just a start. If you want to know more, take a look at the Marketing Kit for Experts Do You Stand Out Enough? It’s a simple, step-by-step approach to attracting your ideal clients to you by refining your niche and communicating it more clearly. Go here to find out more.

With best wishes for your brand! Maggie

EMAIL: [email protected] WEB: www.maggieanderson.com PHONE OR TEXT: 404-314-8709