1) Start by identifying your objectives. What do you hope to accomplish through your social media presence? Are you hoping to directly sell products and services? (Note: in-your-face sales tactics are rarely successful via social media.) Are you hoping to spread awareness amongst your market? Are you seeking to build stronger relationships with current clients? Or are you simply trying to drive traffic to your website? As you see, there are a variety of ways in which social media can be approached. Define your objectives before jumping in!

2) Look to build relationships and form community. Social media is a fantastic forum to strengthen existing relationships and to develop new ones. It is easy to plug yourself in to communities of people that share the same line of work, the same geographic location, or even the same hobbies as you. Start conversations, pursue relationships, and work to integrate yourself into various communities. You will find that these relationships often lead to productive collaboration and are well worth the time you invest.

3) Use Facebook and Twitter to share more about yourself, your interests, and your personal life. Whether it is sharing photos of your family or keeping your followers informed of your latest travels, social media platforms represent a great opportunity to “open up” and let your connections get to know you even better. This is an excellent way to build trust, as well—as it gives your audience a chance to see the “real” you. As you probably know, consumers prefer to do business with people that they trust—so take advantage of the opportunity!

4) Remember to stay true to your brand across all platforms. Whether it is Facebook, your blog, or even your latest TV appearance, it is always important to stay consistent with your brand. The ease and frequency with which you can communicate via social media makes it easy to stray off course, so discipline is important.

Social media is a powerful tool for personal branding. Thanks to platforms like Facebook and Twitter, today you have the ability to reach a massive audience in real-time and for virtually no cost. Thirty years ago, marketers would have stood in line for days and paid untold sums of money for this type of reach. The only question is… will you take advantage? And it all starts with a strategy—contact us today if you’d like to learn more!

A strong personal brand is essential in today’s business world because it differentiates you from the competition. For example, let’s say you are a CPA. Now, I’m sure you are great at what you do. But be honest—how many other CPAs are there who could offer the same services as you do, with the same level of quality? This is true of virtually every industry today—lawyers, dentists, financial advisors, real estate agents, and so on. Technological innovation and reduced barriers to entry have created an environment in which competition can spring up anywhere, and at any time.

So how can you build a dominant business, despite the massive surge in competition? As noted earlier, you must differentiate yourself. You must give prospects a reason to choose you, instead of all the others. The best and most effective way to do this is with a powerful personal brand that establishes you as a celebrity expert in your industry.

The primary aim of a personal branding campaign is to create a memorable image for yourself, and to establish yourself as a respected expert within your market.

We want you to become a celebrity. Now, before you laugh, understand that we are not talking about turning you in to the next Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. Those two are international celebrities—we want to turn you into a celebrity within your own market.

We want you to become not just a CPA, but the respected expert accountant in your town. When prospects in your market need your services, we want you to be the only name that comes to their mind.

How can you accomplish this? There are a variety of tactics, and we aren’t going to go too far in depth in this article. We have discussed these strategies elsewhere in blog entries and articles, so feel free to look around.

Essentially, the strategy we recommend for our clients is to create and leverage media exposure in order to boost credibility and create a celebrity image. That may mean writing and publishing a book. It may mean appearing on national TV networks, local affiliates, and being quoted in national magazines and newspapers. It may include the development of a powerful blogging presence. The options are nearly endless, and the best approach depends on the specifics of your business.

2012 could be your most successful year yet—but only if you find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition in your industry. A powerful personal brand offers the solution—contact us today to learn more!

To help you answer this question, and also to identify areas in need of improvement, answer the following questions below:

1) Does the essence of your brand come to mind whenever your audience hears your name, sees your logo, or meets you face-to-face? This is an easy question to answer—simply ask friends, family members, clients, and employees to write down the first three things they think of when they hear your name. Take a look at the results—do most of the traits identified relate to your brand?

2) Does your personal brand differentiate you from the competition in your market? A powerful brand effectively places you in a different category than the competition—in other words, there may be many tax accountants in your city, but you want to be known as THE premier go-to guy for tax accounting. Come up with a list of ten competitors and compare your branding materials—including website, business cards, blogs, books, speaking events, etc. Are you in a class of your own—or is it hard to identify any differences between you and the competition?

3) Does your brand justify higher prices by establishing additional value? The goal for most small business owners is to stop competing on price. In other words, to be able to charge higher prices and still bring in business. To do that, you must be find ways to add value to your products and services. Examples could include regularly publishing a newsletter, sending out holiday gifts, or even advertising a “24 hour response” policy for all phone calls from clients. The possibilities are endless. What do you do to add value to your services? Create a list—and if there is nothing substantial, get to work!

4)     Does your brand address the needs of your market? An effective personal brand appeals to its target customers—does yours? Take the time to ask several clients to list their biggest fears or worries as they relate to the services you offer. If you’re a retirement planner, these fears may include things like “uncertainty about the future,” “fear of a market crash,” or “fear of running out of money.” Your brand should address these fears by radiating stability, experience, and level-headedness. If you’re a tax accountant, the biggest issues facing your customers may be a sense of intimidation or a fear of overpaying taxes. Your brand should address these concerns by emphasizing your knowledge and experience. Poll your customers—and evaluate whether or not your brand addresses their concerns!

Your answers to these four questions will be instructive. If you are excelling in all four areas, chances are you’re currently enjoying the fruits of a strong personal brand. If you are lacking in several areas, you now have an action plan—let us know if you need any help along the way!

Today, we are going to focus on a fundamental concept: does your personal brand resonate with your customers?  When you get right down to it, a fancy logo and a great website don’t mean much if they don’t appeal to your market.  So by all means, continue to look for new and innovate ways to build your brand—but make sure that you always ask the question “will this appeal to my customers?”

Does your current brand appeal to your customers?  Take a moment and consider the following questions:

1) Is my personal brand consistent with the goods or services provided by my business? Now, this doesn’t mean that your personal brand should be focused only on business.  In fact, as you know if you’ve been reading my blog and articles, it’s important that your personal brand goes beyond just business and incorporates your personality as well.  However, you need to make sure that your personal brand remains consistent with your business.  For instance, as a retirement planner, you probably shouldn’t build a personal brand centered around reckless risk taking!  If you happen to love bungee jumping, that’s fine—but you’d better explain how it’s a calculated risk and that you balance your “hobby portfolio” with other less risky activities too!

2) Does my company brand make sense in the context of my market? There is a fine line to walk here—because on one hand, you don’t want your brand to look just like everyone else in your market.  On the other hand, your brand cannot be so far outside of the box that customers and prospects in your market don’t “get it.”  A good way to evaluate this is to compare your branding materials (i.e., logo, website, etc) to four or five competitors in your market.  If your materials are indistinguishable from the competition, your brand may need a facelift.  If your materials look like they came from an entirely different planet than the rest, you need to carefully consider whether you are too far outside the box.  All I’m saying is to “consider” whether you are too far outside the box or not.  There are definitely instances when doing the exact opposite of your competition works very well.  The whole idea is to stay conscious of it.

3) Does my personal brand and my corporate brand appeal to my customers? Is your brand attractive to your market?  If your market is retirees, they are going to be attracted to very different things than a market of teenagers.  Fundamentally, both your personal and your company brand need to appeal to customers—if they don’t, what’s the point?  Take a moment and write down five traits that your customers value highly.  Now consider your brand—does it touch on at least a couple of these traits?  If not, it may be time for a makeover!

The bottom line, when it comes to branding, is that great graphics, a strong personality, and technological innovation mean nothing if they don’t appeal to your customers.  Does your brand appeal to your market?  

1) Write a book. Yes, I realize that this sounds intimidating.  But it really isn’t—every business owner has a book in them just waiting to come out.  And once you have written the book, you are transformed from just another small business owner into an author—and it’s amazing how much credibility flows from that title!  If you are interested in writing a book, but don’t know where to begin or don’t think that you have the time, get in touch with me today! 

2) Start a blog and publish articles online. Writing a blog focused on topics relating to your industry is a great way to establish yourself as a credible expert.  Even if your audience doesn’t read everything you write, just by quickly skimming your blog, it will be clear that you have the ability to write authoritatively on subjects relating to your market.  Focus on providing value to your readers—offer actionable tips, advice, or break down recent developments that may impact your audience.

3) Give speeches and presentations. Yes, the thought of speaking in public can make many of us feel queasy.  But it is hard to match the instant boost in credibility that you receive the moment you begin speaking on topics relating to your market.  Giving a speech positions you as an expert in front of your audience—but the credibility boost can be leveraged even further than that.  You can post videos of yourself in action on your website and promote the fact that you are a frequent speaker on matters that impact your target customers.

4) Believe in yourself. Believe it or not, many business owners limit their own credibility by not taking themselves seriously.  But until you buy into the notion that you are a credible expert in your industry, you are not going to be able to sell anyone else on that idea.  So repeat the following: “I am great at what I do.  I have insights into my profession that my customers can benefit from.  I’m an expert!”

Establishing your credibility is a central component to any effective personal branding campaign.  By establishing yourself as an expert, you can expect to draw in more business, be able to charge higher rates, and have the opportunity to lock out the competition.  And it all starts with credibility.  The tips I have shared above will get you started in the right direction—for more information, contact me today!

1) A strong personal brand establishes you as the leading expert in your market. Your customers want to work with an expert—that’s simply human nature. Think about it for a moment—if you had to choose a new doctor, and cost wasn’t an issue, who would you choose? Chances are, you’d look for the most well-respected, expert doctor in your area. The same goes for an accountant or a wealth manager. Expertise matters, and a strong personal brand will establish YOU as the expert in your market. This position in your market will ensure that you have a steady stream of new business—and it guarantees that your customers will be willing to pay premium rates for your services.

2) A strong personal brand puts you on the forefront of the minds of consumers in your market. An effective personal brand is memorable. It sticks in the minds of your customers and prospects, and ensures that when they think about your industry, it will be your name that springs to mind. Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, and the late Steve Jobs are great examples of individuals with memorable personal brands—and it’s not just because they have been successful. There are plenty of businessmen and women who have been equally (or more) successful, but remain virtually anonymous. Why? Because Oprah, Trump, and Jobs created a personal brand that was truly memorable.

3) A strong personal brand enables you to make headlines and reinforce your position. As a respected expert within your industry, you have the ability to generate valuable publicity. Your expert status provides the credibility necessary to get you on the radio or appearing on local TV. And one you’ve built a powerful brand, this becomes a recurring cycle—each media appearance further reinforces your credibility and further separates you from the competition in your market.

4) A strong personal brand inspires trust—and helps you close the deal. Your personal brand allows prospects to feel like they know you—even if you’ve never met. They’re familiar with your personality and are well aware of your expert status. As a result, you don’t have to convince them to trust you—your brand has done that work already. This implicit trust makes it much easier to close the deal… and it widens the gap between you and your competitors.

Your personal brand can become an incredible marketing tool. It can establish you as the leading expert within your market—and will have your competition constantly playing catch-up. Contact me if you’d like to learn how to get started!

When I am working with a client to create a brand-building campaign, I suggest many different tactics.  These tactics include everything from social media to book publishing, from TV appearances to article writing campaigns.  One of the tactics that I always seem to get pushback on is the idea of public speaking—whether at seminars or other events.  Of course, it is perfectly understandable that many people don’t love the idea of public speaking.  In fact, just the phrase “public speaking” takes many of us back to speech class in high school or college—and for most of us, it’s not a positive memory.  But the truth is that speaking at a seminar or a conference is a uniquely powerful personal branding tool and should be seriously considered by anyone who is serious about building their brand.  Not convinced?  Below are three good reasons public speaking needs to be part of your branding campaign.

1) Public speaking brands you as an expert. Think about the last time you attended a seminar that featured a speaker.  Without even thinking about it, you granted the speaker “expert” status in your mind, didn’t you?  We naturally assume that someone qualified to address a large group on a specific topic knows what they are talking about—which is why making a speech is such a good idea.  When you speak on a topic, you become an expert in that subject. 

2) Public speaking dramatically increases your credibility. How much competition do you face in your market?  If you’re a dentist, how many other dentists are there in your city?  If you’re a CPA, how many other CPAs are there in your market?  The number is probably high.  Now, of those competitors, how many of them are sought-after speakers?  How many are considered a leading authority in their line of work?  By pursuing speaking opportunities, you differentiate yourself from the vast majority of your competition.

3) Public speaking is like networking on steroids. Do you ever attend networking events?  If so, you’re familiar with the routine—shake hands, swap cards, move on to the next person.  If you are lucky, you’ll leave a networking event with a handful of connections and maybe one real prospect.  Speaking, on the other hand, gives you a chance to tell your story and share your expertise with a large audience.  And in my experience, the members of the audience that are most interested in your services (in other words, the best prospects in the room), tend to seek you out afterwards and engage in conversation.  When you’re finished, you’ll often walk away with several great prospects eager to do business.  And, you’ll already have sold them on your qualifications just by showing up to speak!

Public speaking is an incredibly powerful way to brand yourself as an expert in your field.  It’s a great way to increase your credibility, and it can even be a direct source of new business.  What are you waiting for?  If you’d like more information, please get in touch with me today!

By Guest Bloggers Gregg Rollett and Brett Burky

Building the brand of ‘you’ online is something of an art. Maintaining the niche you carved out for yourself takes dedication and focus as you continue to grow within your respected discipline.  And of course, you want to develop and maintain a congruent brand in your offline world as much as your online world.

This includes things such as ensuring that your social profiles online are congruent with your offline material. It also can involve your business cards and even the clothes you wear, making sure they represent and portray you in a way that you want to be viewed.

But once you have your branding organized and you are out marketing from different media outlets, stages and platforms, how do you maintain the relationships of all of the people that you’ve met in your quest to build your brand?

Enter In Personalized SMS Text Message Marketing

If this is your first time hearing about using SMS marketing to build your brand then you will be pleasantly surprised to hear about the ways you can further engage with your audience.

According to Frost and Sullivan, the open rate for SMS messages is as high as 97%, considerably higher than through email marketing.

Another amazing reality is that, as a society, people have officially been inducted into the mobile era.  This represents an incredible opportunity to connect your audience with your brand. There has never been anything quite like this in the history of marketing and advertising.

Marketers from centuries ago couldn’t have imagined the direct contact that we now have access to.

But how can this benefit you in your own personal branding?

To put this into context, as someone who is trying to build their personal brand, a major goal is to get more people to attend events that you are offering, such as seminars, conferences, or webinars.

SMS marketing allows you to increase the amount of people attending these events you are holding. The ability to send out a text message an hour before your event can drastically increase the amount of people that will actually attend the webinar. That means more people seeing you and your message, and ultimately more exposure to your brand.

Text marketing is particularly powerful because many webinars happen at night, and events on the weekends.  This means that people may not be sitting in front of their computers just checking their email. However there is a high likelihood that they do have their phone on them.  This simple event strategy can easily increase your attendance by up to 312%.

Take that a step further and now you can personalize your text messages with your subscriber’s first name, last name, birthday and other fields to create a highly customized message to each subscriber.

For example,

“Hey Chris, thanks for signing up for our text alerts. Here’s a special gift for joining our exclusive list – link”

Since text messaging is so personal, treating it as such is critical to its success. Treating text messaging as another “marketing” channel can and will hurt you.  You need to treat your messages as personal texts from you, your company, mascot, or whomever. Blasting your contacts can quickly ruin a relationship.

Giving SMS text message marketing a try is a wonderful idea when you are trying to increase your engagement with your current customers, fans or colleagues-- and can be another effective touch point in your personal brand development.

This article was written by Brett Burky from Call Loop and Greg Rollett from the ProductPros. Call Loop is an easy, integrated, automated voice and text messaging system and the ProductPros helps authors, speakers, entrepreneurs and small business owners create more freedom in their business through direct marketing and leveraging information.  Learn more about SMS Marketing at http://callloop.com/ and about monetizing your information at http://productprosystems.com.

As you know if you have been paying attention to my blog entries and articles, storytelling is an essential aspect of personal branding.  The goal is to create a personal brand that resonates with your audience—and to do that, it is important that your brand tells a story.  A flat, one-dimensional brand doesn’t give an audience any reason to pay attention.  On the other hand, telling your story and letting your brand evolve will naturally generate interest in your personal brand—and by extension, your business.  So how do you tell that story?  Today, we have more effective storytelling tools than ever before… starting with Twitter.  Twitter is a great place to engage with your audience and keep them up to date on all of your latest adventures.  Twitter provides a fun, laid-back atmosphere—it is the perfect venue for building an interesting and dynamic brand.  If you haven’t created a Twitter profile yet, get started!  And if you are already on Twitter, here are some suggestions to help you tell your story:

1) Let your followers know what you are up to. If you follow me on Twitter (@NickNanton), you already know that I spend a good bit of time travelling, speaking, and producing various TV productions.  As a result, my followers recognize that I am truly immersed in the world of personal branding.  What do you spend time doing?  It doesn’t have to be exciting—just keep us all in the loop! 

2) Make it personal. Your Twitter profile should not be all business.  In fact, it is much easier for your audience to truly connect with you when they perceive you as a “real” person.  Tweet about your family, your hobbies, your opinions… don’t be afraid to open up a bit.  The more you share your life on Twitter, the better your audience will feel that they know you.  And the more they know you, the more likely they are to give you a call when they need your services!

3) Interact with your followers. Possibly the most overlooked concept when it comes to branding on Twitter is that interaction is critical.  Too many business owners treat Twitter like a bulletin board—they log on a couple of times each week, post something, and then leave.  But as you know from real life experience, it is hard to connect with someone who won’t interact with you.  Take the time to respond to your followers—your profile will become a much livelier and inviting place.  And when your audience is paying attention, you can tell your story much more effectively.

Personal branding is all about story telling.  Fortunately, Twitter provides the perfect platform for business owners looking to create an engaging personal brand.  Keep these tips in mind as you engage your audience— and you’ll find that telling your story comes naturally.  And don’t forget to connect with me on Twitter… I’m looking forward to hearing your story!

Recently I got an email from a regular reader of my articles.  She said that she loved the concepts and that she was ready to begin her own personal branding campaign… but that she had no idea how to start.  I shared some information with her, and today I am going to share it with you all.  Below are the first steps to take when it comes to building a strong personal brand:

First, figure out where you are going.  Who are your target customers?  The brand you seek to build must cater to these customers—as you can imagine, if you are targeting teenagers, your personal brand will be very different than if you are targeting retirees.

Once you have identified your target market, you can begin drawing up the brand you seek to create.  Some of this is already done for you, in the sense that your personality will be a big part of your brand.  You will want to choose traits or abilities to highlight, but you don’t want to make them up.  Effective branding requires you to be genuine—you can’t brand yourself successfully as something you are not.  What traits can set you apart from your competition in ways that appeal to your target market?

You’ve got your brand figured out, so now it is time to launch your campaign, right?  Wrong.  There’s an important step to be taken first, and it is a step that too many people miss.  It is essential that, before you launch your branding campaign, you test it on your audience.  Is your brand believable and appealing to your target market?  Do you come off as genuine?  Is your personal brand memorable?  You may not have the resources to test your brand on a focus group, but all of us have friends and family who will be happy to share their input!  Seek out as many opinions as you can find, and solicit their honest feedback.

Once you have determined that your brand will appeal to your market, it is time to start living it out.  It is not enough to simply create a website or launch a media campaign—if you are not reinforcing your brand on a regular basis, it is not going to grow.  So before you spend money launching a media campaign, take the time to make sure you are doing the little things right.  How are you answering your phone?  How are you dressing?  How are you conducting yourself in conversation?  What type of first impression are you making?  When you are confident that you are living your brand out each and every day, only then is it time to begin thinking about your campaign.

Personal branding is an enjoyable and profitable pursuit.  But for many people, getting started can be a challenge.  The tips we have covered today will get you started in the right direction—feel free to contact me for more information!

There’s a constant theme that I repeat whenever I’m talking to business owners about their branding efforts.  That theme is simple: it’s essential to brand yourself as an expert in your field.  I’ve written about this in books, given speeches about it, and referred to the concept often in this space.  Most people accept the idea without questioning it, because it’s logical and it sounds good.  But there is much more to it than that, and the benefits of branding yourself as an expert deserve discussion.  So today we are going to look at some of the benefits business owners can expect when they brand themselves as an expert in their field:

1) Experts draw customers in. Think about it—when you need services, whether it be from a dentist or from a landscaper, who do you look for?  You look for a respected professional who is truly great at what he (or she) does.  Expert status means that customers will look for you, while your competition is forced to pursue them.  (Yes, it’s true that some customers will be looking for the cheapest service provider they can find— not necessarily an expert.  But those aren’t the customers you want!)

2) Experts command higher rates. Take two CPAs, identical in every way, except for their branding.  One is a typical, ho-hum accountant.  The other is an exciting, dynamic expert in his field.  Which one do you think can charge higher prices?  Obviously the expert—because most customers are willing to pay more money to work with the best in the business.  Think about the last time you bought sports gear.  Were you willing to pay more for a brand like Nike or Reebok than you would have for a generic brand?  The same concept applies here. 

3) Experts build customer loyalty. We mentioned earlier that you shouldn’t go after customers looking for cheap service.  Why not?  Because as soon as they find a lower price somewhere else, they will dump you and move on.  When you brand yourself as an expert, customers choose you because of your qualifications and the quality of your service.  These are the types of customers with whom you can build a real relationship—and relationships are the key to inspiring loyalty. 

4) Experts can set trends. Let’s say you want to introduce a new business model to your market—for instance, a different fee structure for your wealth management firm.  It looks a bit different than what you’ve done before, and it’s different than what your competition offers.  If you’re a “no-name” business, chances are high that your innovation is ignored, because you don’t fit the description that your market is looking for.  As an expert, your market will assume you know what you are doing.  Expert status gives you the freedom to innovate without alienating your target customers.

More customers, more money, more loyalty, and more freedom.  Now do you see the value in branding yourself as an expert in your field?

Why should you care about social media?  It may be fun, it may be something your kids are into—but as a business owner, why should you care?  The short answer is simple—an effective social media presence will help you make more money.  Today I am going to tell you how it will make you money.

But first, I need to dispel a common myth which states that “social media is just another fad… it will be gone in five years.”

The truth is that social media is not a new invention.  It may be a new technological innovation, but it taps into an ancient human impulse.  Humans love to talk.  We love to see what our friends and family members are up to.  We love to connect.  And that is what social media is all about—connecting. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube may be new mediums, but they are simply the 21^st century tool for accomplishing an essential human function.

Social media is here to stay—and that is good news for business owners.  Here is why:

1) An effective social media presence can create brand awareness… at very little cost. Your social media presence allows you to connect with billions of potential customers across the globe.  It allows you the opportunity to reach your audience in an environment where they have mostly let their guard down.  We are so used to being bombarded by commercials on the radio and on TV that many of us subconsciously tune them out.  While social media is certainly going to see a dramatic increase in advertising over the next decade, as of now its advertising potential is largely untapped. 

2) An effective social media presence allows you to create community… centered around your business. Social media platforms, particularly Facebook, are great places to form common-interest groups.  Hobby enthusiasts, sports fans, Justin Bieber fans—it won’t take you more than a few moments to find these communities on Facebook.  As you can see, this presents a golden opportunity for, for instance, the owner of an R/C shop.  By either creating or joining a community focused on remote control vehicles, he or she can create a great place for enthusiasts to connect—all the while establishing himself as the natural choice for their next purchase.

3) An effective social media presence connects you to your customers. A business that is active on social media will often interact with customers or clients several times each week.  Whether it is “liking” something they posted on Facebook or them simply reading an informative Tweet you publish on Twitter, an active social media presence keeps you on the mind of your customers.  As a doctor, for example, you typically see your patients a couple of times per year.  But if you are active on social media, you can potentially interact with them hundreds of times in that same year—keeping your practice fresh on their minds.

So there you have it—if you are not yet active on social media, now you have three great reasons to engage this growing market.  However, we have barely scratched the surface… stay tuned for more in the weeks to come!

1) Differentiation—as an individual and as a business. A strong personal brand makes you unique within your marketplace.  In turn, your individuality sets your business apart from the competition.  There are thousands of financial planners, for instance, in this country—but a strong personal brand can help you stand out from the crowd.  Why should a potential client choose you instead of the competition?  A strong personal brand answers this question and dramatically increases your chances of picking up business from the competition.

2) Client retention. Forget picking up new business for a moment—a strong personal brand makes it easy to retain the clients you already have.  Think about the power of branding for a moment… how many people do you know that are incredibly loyal to a specific brand?  Whether it be Starbucks, Harley Davidson, Mercedes, Apple, or Rolex, strong brands inspire loyalty.  For a business owner, a strong personal brand can have the exact same effect.  Your strong personal brand inspires loyalty, and your customers enjoy being affiliated with you.  A strong personal brand will allow you to keep customers even when they could find better prices, service, or greater convenience elsewhere.

3) A strong brand makes business fun. Building a strong personal brand gives you the freedom to be yourself.  You don’t have to wear a suit every day (unless that’s part of your brand, of course!), you don’t have to carefully measure every word you say for fear of gaining unwanted attention, and you don’t have to pretend to be someone you aren’t.  Personal branding is all about expressing your individuality—and once you have built a strong brand, you get to stay true to yourself 24/7.

4) Stop competing on price. Once again, think about the power of branding in your daily life.  Pretend you are in a sports store looking at a generic red t-shirt.  How much are you willing to pay for it?  Now, stick a Nike logo on it.  How does that change what you’re willing to pay?  If you’re like most people, you are willing to pay a substantially higher percentage for a product made by a brand you love.  The same principle applies to your business.  Once you have created a strong personal brand, your customers are willing to pay more for your products—giving you the ability to charge higher prices than your competitors and still win the business.

So there you have it—a strong personal brand differentiates you in your marketplace.  It makes it easier to retain your clients.  It enables you to charge higher prices and still win business.  And because you are free to be yourself, it makes going to work every day enjoyable.  Keep branding—it is worth the effort!

It’s not success that makes an individual memorable. What else do Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, and Oprah Winfrey have in common? You guessed it—they have incredible personal brands. What do they know that the rest of us don’t? Below are several lessons we can learn from these giants in the world of personal branding:

1) Don’t be afraid to turn heads. Richard Branson, the founder of the massive Virgin brand, has made headlines for a variety of outlandish stunts over the years. From attempting to break the speed record for an Atlantic Ocean crossing to skydiving and bungee jumping, Richard Branson has found plenty of ways to grab headlines and receive massive amounts of free publicity over the years. Now, obviously bungee jumping isn’t for everyone—but the point is that attracting attention for yourself and your business is a great way to build your brand. Just remember to stay true to your brand.

2) Turn your name into an icon. Trump. Oprah. These names stand for something. You may never have millions of fans or your own TV show, but wouldn’t it be great if your name become synonymous with expertise in your field? Many professionals that I’ve spoken to are used to branding their company—but aren’t sure that they are comfortable branding themselves. In some circumstances that may be the right decision, but in general it is much easier for your market to connect with an individual than with a company. By establishing yourself as the dynamic face of your organization, you become a valuable marketing tool for your business.

3) Hard work and focus pays off. In the 1980s and the 1990s, Steve Jobs and his company, Apple, lost the operating system battle with Microsoft. While many people would have been discouraged and moved on, Steve Jobs believed in his vision. He reinvented himself and his company, and in the last decade Apple has become the dominant player in the consumer electronics market. Just recently, in fact, Apple was named the most powerful brand in the world by BrandZ (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385069,00.asp.) By staying committed to his vision, Steve Jobs was able to turn himself and his company into a global icon.

Most of us will never have as much money as Donald Trump, and we probably won’t have our own TV network, as Oprah does. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from their successes.

1) Straying from the core of your brand. This is probably the most common mistake made by business owners. We have talked often about the importance of consistency, so we are not going to go in depth here. Just remember that you cannot be an expert in every subject and you cannot please everyone, so don’t try. Focus on the core of your brand and keep driving those points home.

2) Failure to connect with your audience. If your brand does not resonate with your target market, there is little point to your efforts. First and foremost, it is critical that your brand appeals to your target customers. If you are targeting senior citizens, “hip and forward thinking” is not going to work for you. Similarly, you aren’t going to attract young professionals through an old-fashioned “classic” brand.

3) Failure to buy in. Building a strong personal brand requires time and effort—and if you are not committed, you are wasting your time. Branding cannot be something you think about twice per month, it needs to become a part of your daily life. Every sales pitch, every email you send, every time you address your staff you have an opportunity to reinforce your brand. If you aren’t reinforcing it, you are undermining it. So commit—or don’t waste your time.

4) Copying the competition. Whether it is subconscious or intentional, many business owners tend to shape their brand into a copy of the competition. And while it is a good idea to pay attention to the brands that are competing with yours in the marketplace, simply imitating your competitors is literally defeating the purpose of your branding efforts. Your brand is supposed to set you apart from the competition, not make you blend in. That doesn’t mean you can’t borrow a clever idea from another business—but make it your own, make it distinctive. A strong brand should distinguish you from others in your market.

5) Poor visual materials. Your logo and your company colors are the main visual representation of your business—besides your own image, of course. All of your branding efforts revolve around this visual identity. So don’t go too cheap here—it is important that you have a logo that you can be proud of. Invest in a session with a great photographer and ensure that you have at least one picture that makes you look great. Make sure your visual materials and your pictures truly reflect the spirit of your company and your brand.

Are you guilty of any of these common mistakes? If so, the good news is that you can fix it. But it won’t happen by itself, so get busy!

1) Share your interests. What are your hobbies? Are you a sports fan? What other interests do you have? These can all be very valuable components of your personal brand. Sports have a unique ability to create bonds between total strangers, so don’t hesitate to share your allegiances. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m an avid Florida Gators fan. Over the years, my public allegiance with the Gators has been a great conversation starter. And if you’re in to unique hobbies, those can be a great way to stand out in the minds of your prospects. So don’t hesitate to share!

2) Share your physical location. One cool way to use social media services is to let your followers know where you are. Twitter works well for this, as does Foursquare and the Facebook ‘Places’ functionality. Not only is it a great way to keep your audience connected to your life, but you’ll probably find that you have similar favorite restaurants to clients and prospects—another great way to connect.

3) Include your family. If you’re married or have kids, working your family into your brand can be a great way to connect with your audience. Share pictures or update your followers on the latest exploits of your children—it’s a great way to become more than just a one dimensional businessman or woman. And who doesn’t love to see a cute baby appear on their Facebook or Twitter feed every once in a while?

4) Share your opinions. If you’re in business, you understand the importance of keeping certain things personal. Politics is often a no-no, for instance—it simply doesn’t make sense to risk alienating customers. But that said, sharing thoughts and opinions that aren’t completely sanitized and bland is a great way to stick in the minds of your audience. It is always important to be sure that you are not going to offend anyone, but don’t be scared to express yourself. You are unique—don’t build a personal brand that is boring and bland.

Remember that a big part of branding is making yourself memorable. If nobody remembers you, you’re not going to pick up much new business. So search for ways to differentiate yourself and connect with your audience. Sharing personal interests such as sports allegiances, hobbies, and information about your family can be a great way to stand out from the crowd. So don’t be shy!

The conclusion reached by the end of the experiment is obvious, at least at first glance: if you make something fun, more people will do it. While this isn’t rocket science, I believe it is potentially very powerful. As a business person, take a moment to evaluate the culture of your company. Is it fun? Do employees enjoy coming to work? Let’s be honest—for most of us, the answer to that question is no. And the idea of transforming a workplace into a giant piano or an amusement park may sound like fun, but it’s not practical. But is there any way to transform your workplace into a more enjoyable environment? And don’t stop with your employees— what about your customers? Is it fun for them to do business with you? Below are some ideas for managers and business owners to consider:

1) Make it impossible for your clients to resist doing business with you. Every year, I take some of my clients to the Grammy’s. I’m also taking clients to The Kentucky Derby, Hollywood, and Bermuda. Why? Because we have business to do… but we might as well have some fun in the process!

2) Start an office bowling league. Or form a softball team. Or a weekly basketball game. The activity doesn’t really matter—the point is to find something, outside of work, that your employees and coworkers can enjoy together. You’ll find that the basketball game from the previous evening becomes a popular topic of conversation around the office. While it may not make the work itself more fun, it will gradually build camaraderie throughout the office—and that makes everything more fun.

3) Engage your employees’ minds. Many people “shut down” their mind as they walk in the office door each morning. And why wouldn’t they? A day spent following directions and performing scripted tasks just isn’t very stimulating. As a manager or a leader, look for opportunities to make your team think outside of the box. Whether it’s troubleshooting a problem or creating a new product to be sold, asking an employee to think is a great way to get them engaged in their workplace. And an engaged employee is a happier employee, every single time.

“Fun theory” states that if something is fun, people are more likely to do it. As a business owner or a leader, you want to keep your employees around and have the ability to attract new talent, right? Making your workplace a fun place to be is a huge step in the right direction.

Take real estate agents, for instance. Most real estate agents want to be known as trustworthy, well-connected, and as great communicators. While those are all desirable traits, building a brand on those qualities alone is about exciting as vanilla ice cream. A real estate agent who wants to truly stand out from the competition needs to spice things up a bit. This doesn’t have to be difficult—in fact, simply identifying a favorite sports team or a unique hobby can be enough. The point is to give potential clients something to connect with. Generic talking points simply don’t feel “real” – but a short conversation about the state of the National Football League or a discussion of the latest episode of Glee can create a bond quickly.

Of course, the most powerful branding occurs when your unique traits or skills give you a competitive advantage. In that case, your personal brand becomes more than a way for clients to get to know you—it actually provides a powerful incentive to choose you over the competition. What’s your competitive advantage? Why should a potential client choose you instead of someone else? Maybe you’re an accountant that also happens to be a flying enthusiast—and you use your small plane to fly across the state, meeting clients wherever they are. Or maybe you’re a real estate agent with previous experience in construction, or plumbing, or even banking—experience that can be invaluable when it comes to spotting potential problems for your clients. Not only will each of those traits help you stand out among the masses, but each of them offers your clients a specific reason to choose you—because you can help them in a way that no one else will.

Now here’s the important point you need to grasp: YOU have something that sets you apart from the rest of your field. Whether it’s an incredible ability to listen and empathize with others, an ability to focus relentlessly until the job is done, or even family connections that give you an advantage over others in your line of work, each of us has something that makes us unique. So take a couple of minutes to think about what sets you apart. And then, make sure that your branding strategy includes an emphasis on the traits that make you truly one of a kind.

The common objection when I suggest writing an E-book to a client or colleague is “I have no idea what to write about.” That’s just not the case! You definitely have an E-book in you. You’re an expert at whatever it is that you do—and you’ve accumulated plenty of wisdom and insight throughout your career so far. You’re not trying to write a bestseller here—in fact, your E-book probably wouldn’t interest 85% of the potential readers out there. But that’s not the point—the point is that writing an E-book based on your expertise makes you look like a true expert in your field. Your potential future clients will be very interested in your E-book—and that’s who you’re targeting.

I’ve had clients tell me that they’d love to write an E-book, but that it sounds like a huge undertaking and they don’t know where to begin. But in our high-tech world, creating an E-book is much easier than it used to be. There are plenty of websites and software programs that will help you from start to finish. If you want, there are sites that will publish and host your book for you, in exchange for a portion of the revenue. And yes, you will have to actually write it, but that task isn’t as difficult as it may seem either. For one thing, you don’t need to write hundreds of pages. Thirty pages can be just fine—as long as you’re communicating clear and helpful information to your target audience. If you’ve been blogging regularly, you probably have all of the content you need—it’s just a matter of adapting it to a new format.

Don’t get me wrong, producing a quality E-book will take work. But it’s not the insurmountable and expensive task that you may think it is. If you’re looking to separate yourself from the competition in your market, an E-book may be the perfect tool to take you to the next level. You are an expert in your field—now it’s time to make sure that customers, prospects, and colleagues in your field recognize your expertise.

1) Social media is more important than ever. Whether or not you’re a fan of Justin Bieber, the story of his rise to fame is an excellent example of the power of social media. Bieber’s chances of success certainly seemed bleak early in his childhood, as he was raised in low-income housing in Ontario, Canada—hardly an ideal situation to launch a career in the entertainment world. It was through YouTube that he was first discovered by talent scouts, and his rise to fame began. Twenty years ago, the Justin Bieber story could never have happened.

2) Whatever you stand for, don’t be bland. Lady Gaga showed up in an egg. Yes, an egg. Now, I can’t in good faith recommend that you show up at the office that way, but the point still stands: it’s better to stand for something, even if it’s outrageous, than to stand for nothing. What unique talents, opinions, or attributes do you have that can make you stand out?

3) It’s never too late. A couple of weeks before the Grammys, Christina Aguilera was nationally ridiculed for tripping over the lyrics of the national anthem before the Super Bowl. At the time, some “experts” predicted that the mistake would kill her career. Instead, Aguilera performed a stellar rendition of Aretha Franklin’s “Ain’t No Way” that quickly made everyone forget about her Super Bowl disaster. The lesson? When you get knocked down, get back up. Branding is an ongoing process—it’s never too late to fix a previous mistake.

4) Always be prepared. The most common reaction to Esperanza Spalding’s upset of Justin Bieber to win the Grammy for Best New Artist was “Who the heck is Esperanza Spalding??” Barely anyone, probably not even Ms. Spalding herself, gave her a chance to win. But she did, and was rapidly thrust into the spotlight. Will she seize the opportunity to establish herself as a household name? That remains to be seen—but the point is this: you never know when opportunity may arise. Be ready to make the most out of every branding opportunity that comes your way.

5) You can be a celebrity. Possibly the strangest revelation that comes with meeting celebrities face to face is the realization that they are regular people too. Lady Gaga may have a great persona, but how many thousands of similarly, or ever more talented women never make it in the business? Usher is certainly a talented performer, but there are plenty of non-celebrities that could give him a run for his money. Celebrities aren’t more talented than everyone else. But they do make a concerted effort to brand themselves in a way that makes them stand out from the crowd. You may not be the very best accountant, the most creative graphic artist, or the brightest lawyer in the world—but that doesn’t mean you can’t establish yourself as a “celebrity” in your world!

1) Start with eye contact and a strong handshake. You want to convey a message of confidence upon meeting someone for the first time. Deliberately make eye contact and give them a strong handshake. This sets the tone for your relationship and lends credibility to the brand you’re seeking to build.

2) Use their name often. People love to hear their own name. When you’ve just met someone, use their name often in conversation. This makes your conversation feel more personal and increases the chance that you have their undivided attention while speaking. In addition, it will make it easier for you to remember their name the next time you meet.

3) Avoid sarcasm and offbeat humor. You may have a great sense of humor, but until you get to know your new acquaintance better it’s wise to stay away from anything but the most generic type of humor. The last thing you want is for them to fail to pick up on your sarcasm, or for them to be offended by a joke you tell. You’ll have plenty of time to utilize your sense of humor as your relationship grows.

4) Dress appropriately. Your outfit plays a major role in forming the first impression that you make. You don’t have to spend hours agonizing over what to wear—just make sure that you dress appropriately for the situation. A casual Saturday morning meeting with a group of colleagues doesn’t call for the same level of dress as a weekday meeting with a potential business partner. In addition, if there are certain colors that you want associated with your personal brand, take that into consideration. Don’t over think your wardrobe—but do make sure it’s not going to contradict the brand you are trying to build.

5) Listen. Everybody appreciates a good listener. Not only is it an appealing characteristic, but listening carefully allows you to get a better feel for your partner in conversation. You’ll also find yourself picking up on things you would have missed had you been talking every chance you got.

The first impression you make goes a long way towards establishing your personal brand. The impression you create is determined by a variety of details, many of which we covered above. Like many other things in life, the key is in managing the details. Pay attention to your dress, your speaking patterns, and your use of eye contact. Creating a strong first impression not only paves the way for you to establish your personal brand, but it also starts any new relationship off on the right foot.

1. Inappropriate pictures and/or statements. This one is obvious, but it has to be covered. Social media sites make it easy to share an opinion or a picture—to the point where if you’re not careful, you’ll post something you shouldn’t have without even thinking about it. A compromising picture or an inappropriate remark can destroy your brand… and possibly your career. Be careful!

2. Inconsistency. Remember, you can’t be everything to everyone. Your brand needs to be centered on a few specific traits. Don’t over extend your brand. Focus on the core of your brand and reinforce it constantly.

3. Misunderstanding your audience. Who are you targeting? Facebook has a different audience than Twitter, which has a different audience than LinkedIn. Know who you are reaching in each space and tailor your message appropriately. For instance, your audience on LinkedIn is going to consist primarily of professionals while your Twitter followers will be a mix of friends, colleagues, family and others. Your contacts on LinkedIn probably don’t want to know what you had for dinner last night—your Twitter followers might. Know who you’re reaching!

4. Negativity. Excessive negativity will poison your personal brand. Nobody enjoys constant complaining—so be careful about saying anything negative. Not only is it a turnoff to most people, but complaining about your boss or your clients is a sure way to chase other employers or clients away.

5. Inward focus. Don’t make your social media presence all about you. What are you doing to help others? If you have a great experience with a certain retailer, share it with the world! If a friend makes a great post on Twitter, retweet it! Compliment others whenever the opportunity arises. In addition to being the right thing to do, demonstrating your selflessness makes you much more appealing to others.

6. Advertising. Nobody joins Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn because they need more sales pitches in their life. Be social. Get to know others. Display your personality. The relationships you build will be far more beneficial to your business or your career than any sales pitch will be—especially since most people will ignore a sales pitch without even thinking about it.

7. Not committing. You can’t build a strong personal brand through social media without putting in the time. Tweeting three times a week is simply not enough. You need to be active nearly every day—several times a day, if possible. There are lots of people out there—if you aren’t active, you’ll be lost in the crowd.

1) Focus on relationships. Twitter and Facebook are full of individuals and companies that are trying to establish their brand and sell their products by ramming them down their audience’s throat. It’s free marketing, the theory goes, so why not aggressively self-promote and sell? The problem with that line of thought is that most people don’t log on to Facebook or Twitter looking to be sold something. People use Facebook and Twitter to build relationships, both personal and professional. The key to establishing your brand on these sites is to build relationships. Spend more time replying to status updates and tweets than you do creating your own. When you see a friend or a connection asking a question, answer it. If you’re not connecting with your followers and your friends, you’re going to be lost in the crowd.

2) Don’t be boring. Most smart social media users are very, very careful about what they post. After all, a thoughtless post or tweet could have disastrous results. While this is certainly true, the unfortunate result is that many Twitter and Facebook profiles are completely devoid of originality, personality and substance. If you’re going to stand out, you need to be interesting and thought provoking. Post jokes, or commentary on pop culture, or predictions for upcoming NFL games. Tweet using only haiku form for a couple of days. Be creative. Find a way to express yourself and your personality—and before you know it, you’ll realize that followers and friends are looking forward to your next tweet or status update.

3) Break down the news. Twitter and Facebook are great sources of breaking news. As soon as anything of even minor importance happens, you can bet there will be thousands of posts announcing it and linking to news stories. Posting a link to a breaking news story will not help you stand out—but insightful analysis will. Let’s say you’re a stock broker and a new law was passed impacting the capital gains tax. Rather than simply providing a link to the story, add some instant analysis. Your tweet will stand out from the thousands of others, because you won’t simply be stating what happened, you’ll be telling your audience what it means to them.

Social media has exploded in popularity. The challenge for individuals and companies looking to build their brand is finding away to stand out from the millions of other users. Be creative, don’t hesitate to think outside the box, and keep these three strategies in mind as you build your social media presence.

1) Negativity. Regardless of the type of brand you are trying to build, negativity is poisonous. Potential clients don’t want to work with an individual that is overly negative, and companies don’t want to hire negative employees. Don’t get on Facebook and complain about a friend or a business that mistreated you. When you’re on the phone with a client, don’t spend time complaining—not even about the weather, the local sports team, or anything else. You want to appear positive and approachable. Negativity will kill your brand quickly—avoid it at all costs!

2) Lack of Focus. You can’t be everything to everyone. Your personal brand should be focused around a few key qualities—your engineering skills, your sense of humor, or your customer service skills, for instance. You can’t be a brilliant chef, political commentator, science expert, comedian and financial guru all at once—at least not in the world of branding! Overdoing it will dilute your brand, and you won’t stand for anything. Decide what qualities are most important, and focus your personal brand around them.

3) Dishonesty. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t claim to know more than you do. Don’t pass other people’s work off as your own. The real danger with dishonesty, from a branding standpoint, is that it will render you untrustworthy. If you’re known as the writer who plagiarizes, for instance, you’ll need to find a new career. If you’re known as a business that promises clients the world and then can’t deliver, you’re going to find it very hard to attract customers. When you’re branding, don’t embellish and don’t lie. Sooner or later, dishonesty will come back to haunt you in a very big way.

4) Impatience. Building a strong brand takes time. You can’t expect to have an incredible brand within a couple of months of work. Branding is about building a long-term perception of yourself and your company. Unfortunately, I’ve known many businesspeople and individuals who were very excited about branding—but dropped it after a couple of weeks. Building your brand is a long-term project that requires commitment and dedication. If you’re expecting instant payoffs, you’re going to be disappointed—and you’re probably going to quit.

5) Procrastination. One of the top reasons that personal branding is neglected is because you don’t have to do it. It’s not like paying taxes or filling up your gas tank. There is no required timeline, and the benefits can be hard to quantify. As a result, when you’re going through your to-do list, it’s easy to push branding off to the next day. Building your brand requires consistent work—whether it’s posting on Twitter or Facebook, writing on a blog, or sending out a newsletter. If you procrastinate, it’s simply not going to happen.

If you haven’t been paying attention to your personal brand, don’t panic. Technologies that make it easy to establish your personal brand are still relativity young—and many people have yet to take it seriously. You haven’t been left behind-- yet. In fact, you have the opportunity to be ahead of the curve and set yourself apart from many of your peers. But the time to act is now. A recent survey conducted by Kelly Services (http://tinyurl.com/38engr2) has indicated that a rising number of workforce members are recognizing the importance of personal branding. As Kelly Services General Manager Mike Webster put it, "Personal branding is taking on a new importance as more people take control of their careers and market themselves to a vast audience.” As you’ve heard many times now, one of the most powerful tools you have to project your personal brand is social media. Not surprisingly, the survey indicated that 52% of the workforce is at least “somewhat active” on social media. These numbers will only increase in the future as young men and women enter the workforce—the vast majority of them very active in social media.

Now, you may be wondering how exactly personal branding can help you in your career.
Remember that the central goal of personal branding is to position yourself as an expert in your field. If you’re an accountant, branding yourself as a highly qualified expert should have an obvious impact on your job prospects—whether you’re looking for a promotion, a new job, or new clients. If you are a restaurant manager, successfully branding yourself as an expert will increase your value to your current employer, will make you more desirable to other restaurants, and will make you appear more impressive both to your customers and your employees.

But there is much more to personal branding than just positioning yourself as an expert in your field. You also need to emphasize the unique qualities that make you who you are. Your friends and family know your personality—you need to make that personality shine through your branding efforts so that colleagues, employees, bosses and customers see it as well. You don’t want to be just an expert accountant—you want to be a young, bright, motivated accounting expert. Or an experienced, well connected accounting expert. Social media is a great platform for projecting your brand, but there are other great ways to do this as well. In fact, every time you communicate, you are impacting your brand. This includes face-to-face chats, email, and phone conversations. Think about the way that you communicate and what it says about you. Are you sending the messages you want to be sending?

Personal branding is as essential to your career as your resume. Each day, more and more members of the workforce are recognizing this and making it a priority. Don’t get left behind!

1) Commenting on other popular blogs in your niche. An effective blogger will spend MORE time commenting on other blogs than he or she does writing for his own blog. Unfortunately, most bloggers don’t seem to grasp this. Effective blogging is about creating conversation—and that takes initiative on the part of the blogger, or it won’t happen. In most cases, when you comment on a blog (be sure to leave a link back to your blog), the owner of the blog will take a look at your blog. If your content is interesting, there is a good chance he or she will leave a comment on one of your posts. So by commenting on popular blogs within your niche, you are opening the door for a popular blogger to leave you a comment—which will work wonders for your credibility. Even if you don’t get any comments in return, a comment on a highly regarded blog is likely to be seen by others in your niche—so you’re getting your voice out there. Just remember to stay “in character”—all comments should be written to communicate your personal brand.

2) Interviewing influential individuals. Interviewing important people in your field is a fantastic way to boost your credibility. While major celebrities are probably going to turn down your request, you’ll be surprised at how many “minor” celebrities (experts in their field) will happily oblige. Make sure you prepare good, thought provoking questions—and then post the interview on your blog. Not only will you get a rush of traffic due to the status of your interview subject, but you will position yourself as a knowledgeable and well-connected blogger in your industry. Check out the interviews I’ve done at http://www.celebritybrandingagency.com/1-on-1.

3) Guest blogging. Another fantastic way of broadcasting your personal brand is guest blogging. Contact several well known bloggers in your niche and ask to write a guest post. If you have a well written, interesting blog of your own they will often oblige. Take the opportunity to reach an audience that wouldn’t normally read your blog—and blow them away with a fantastic post. If you do a good job, you can expect many more subscribers to your blog… not to mention a substantial boost in credibility.

There are many great reasons to blog—and the opportunity to project your personal brand is among the best. The techniques discussed above will help you in these efforts. Just remember that everything you write should be calculated to reinforce your personal brand!

In the article called “Personal Branding: Protecting Your Brand”, I stressed the importance of being aware of your image – knowing how your brand is viewed by your customers or clients and others. Here, I decided to start at the beginning and think of five initial things that can be done to protect your brand online. Here are five steps that can be taken right away to help you monitor your brand:

1. Trademark it!

This may seem like a no-brainer to most businesspeople, but you’d be surprised how many businesses never take the time to take the legal route to protecting their brand. I would suggest making the investment in a trademark lawyer who can do a proper and thorough search. This can be relatively inexpensive if you think about all of the trouble that can show up down the road if you have to start from scratch because someone else has been using your name or a similar logo or slogan, etc.

2. Buy The Domain Names You Need

Now that you’re in the clear with a trademark search, marking out your space online is crucial. Your website will be one of your most valuable resources – the place where your brand will be on display for all to see. There are several inexpensive and reliable options for purchasing domain names (NameBargain.com, GoDaddy.com for example). Most people usually only think of the most obvious website address, but I suggest that you buy multiple versions of this website and have them all point back to your main web address. Also, think ahead. Do you have any future goals of branching out into other areas? Go ahead and buy domain names for those projects as well, just to lock them down. For about 10 dollars a year per domain name, it’s not a bad investment.

3. Social Media Platforms

Your website will be the hub of your business online, but don’t forget about all of the social media platforms that your business should actively participate in. (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) A great resource that I found recently is http://www.knowem.com, which allows you to search for a specific user name across hundreds of different social media sites. It then shows you if that user name is available on each site.

4. Monitor Your Brand

As I wrote before, being aware of your brand online is extremely important. This consists of knowing what your customers are saying about you - or if any publications or bloggers are reviewing your services or product, etc. One of the best ways to monitor your brand is by setting up Google alerts. If you have a Google account, you can set these up where you can get daily or weekly email notifications when your brand name (or your name, etc) shows up online. This is a great way to see where your brand is popping up online.

Since more and more consumers are finding and interacting with businesses through social media sites, I also suggest setting up an account with a third party social media manager like TweetDeck or HootSuite. Through these, you can post updates to several different social media sites at once as well as monitor what’s being said about your brand by Twitter and Facebook users and so on.

5. Be Social!

It’s not just enough to have a website, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Use them! You are the best representative of your brand. You know more about you that anyone, right? So, be sociable with people – if someone comments on a blog or article of yours, give them a thank you, or keep the conversation going.

Customers like to know the people they do business with. Be involved with your customers (or friends and followers.) Isn’t the best to have a” friend in the business?” So be “friendly” and you’ll be amazed how many people will seek you out when they need your services or product.

What caught my attention was the story behind the opening of the shop and how it relates to personal branding and branding companies. One of the owners, Don Smith, was looking online for some Christmas gifts for a colleague, and was surprised to find a huge niche market of hot sauce and salsa connoisseurs. After spending a good portion of his money on shipping, he thought that it would have been great to just go to a local store and purchase the products. When he looked for local stores, he saw that there were none.

So did Don just leave it at that? No. He spoke with some good friends, and after some calculating and deliberation, they decided to open up a shop of their own. The owners are also certainly aware that their odds of succeeding aren’t necessarily great, since according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about 650,000 businesses opened and another 575,000 closed each year from 2004 to 2008.

However, I think that they may actually have a good chance.

If their marketing and branding efforts are creative and efficient, they can tap into that niche market that Don found on the Internet. They have already taken the first (and sometimes most difficult) step – they found a market that was underserved in their community and have taken steps to fill that need.

Just like many small businesses, the competition may seem to be a hurdle that is too hard to jump. In this case, Sauce-a-holics will be competing against the large grocery chains like Publix, who offer a pretty good variety of these items, along with larger specialty stores like Total Wine, where they have a somewhat large selection of sauces and gift items that often accompany beer and wine stores.

So what do they need to do? They need to market themselves as being the go-to experts in all of Jacksonville. They have to give customers a reason to specifically go to their store to buy these items. The best reason? These guys know everything there is to know about salsa and hot sauce. Specifically, Stephen (a nephew of one of the owners tapped to run the store) can post a weekly blog about the latest trends in the business, new products, gift ideas, etc. Perhaps Stephen or Don can pitch a recurring segment on the local news to show ways to spice up everyday meals. Pretty soon, people will be saying “if you want sauce, go see Don.” Don’s personal brand as the Jacksonville’s sauce expert will help drive business, because why would you buy from someone who isn’t an expert? You get the idea.

Their name will also help tremendously in this. Just by hearing “Sauce-a-holics,” customers know exactly what they provide – sauces – and most importantly, passion for sauces. If sauce-a-holics can convey their passion for these items effectively, then they can hope to “create” passionate customers. And as well all know, passionate customers are the best kind! They are the lifeblood of your business.

So today’s personal branding lesson is? Find a market that is underserved, fill the need and brand yourself as the go-to expert and passionate advocate of that market – and open your doors to passionate and loyal customers.

With the exponential growth of the Internet over the last 2 decades, the use of online social networking, paying bills online, and the vast personal information available through social media sites has made the risk of identity theft an increasingly growing problem.

Our personal lives are quickly becoming a huge set of data points. Naturally, businesses, large and small, are no exception to this reality. There’s really only one sure-fire solution to protecting your personal information, your reputation and even your personal brand – control your information!

I know this sounds simple, but in reality, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking that what we say and do stays only with our “inner circle” of friends and business associates. This is simply not the case anymore. This kind of thinking can lead to major problems in your business (and personal life.) How many times have you heard of someone getting fired over Facebook pictures? Or an ill-advised “tweet?” How many businesses have had to “clean up” a mess after a leaked memo, or distance themselves from an employee or spokesperson’s statements? It happens more than you would think.

With our branding agency, when focusing on personal branding for our clients, one of the most important things we try to do is “protect the brand.” Sometimes a person’s personal brand is the most valuable asset that they possess. It’s what makes customers choose to do business with them as opposed to their competition.

In order to protect your personal brand, first and foremost, you must be aware of your image. How do your customers and potential customers view you and your business? What attracted them to you in the first place? If you have a successful personal branding strategy, then the answer is...your personality!

We have always said that “People Buy People.” But don’t forget the inevitable hidden truth to that – “People Return People.” Yeah, it sounds a little corny, but it’s true…as quickly as your personal brand can attract customers, it can also cause them to “return” your services and go with someone else. This can only happen if you betray the trust that your clients or customers have in you – whether it is your fault or not! Have a plan in place to defend yourself and your brand, if you find that someone has challenged it.

Defending your personal brand online is key to making sure that your clients are always getting the true representation of your brand in everything you do. Your choice of employees, the tone of your marketing campaigns, your social media activity and your public speaking or sales events – all should revolve around one thing – the lifeblood of you business: your personal brand.

Just by staying actively involved and being aware of how your brand is being perceived will keep you ten steps ahead of the competition. Make sure you know what your customer’s preferences are. Make sure you know immediately if they have complaints – and find a way to rectify them. Not only will you understand your customers better, but they will also respect you more, knowing that you have your head in the game.

Have a game plan. Be involved. Defend your personal brand when necessary and never stop proactively showcasing who you are and why you should be your client’s first choice.

How Writing Your Own Book Makes You the Center of Conversation

In “The Relationship Age,” it’s sometimes really difficult to be heard. Everyone else is texting and Facebooking, not to mention IM-ing and emailing, and sometimes it seems the longest you can get someone’s attention is for 140 characters or less.

Talking in Twitter-sized bites, however, doesn’t really help you get a lot of meaningful ideas across. For example, here’s how Honest Abe Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address would have gone if he had tried to Tweet it from an iPhone…

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the propositi

Never really was able to get even close to the point, was he? Hey, I even took out two commas, and I still couldn’t get to the end of “proposition.”

Lincoln wouldn’t have been the only one caught in mid-sentence. Here’s how far baseball great Lou Gehrig’s famous Yankee Stadium goodbye speech would have gotten through Twitter:

Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the

On the face of the what? The clock on the wall?

To be fair, let’s get away from the speeches – they always have way too much set-up anyway. Let’s try Tweeting the 23rd Psalm – that’s a little more direct:

The Lord is my shepherd – I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures – he leadeth me beside the still waters – he restore

Wow, that’s a letdown. We’re all set up to relax in the pasture and by the still waters…ready for the great, good thing that’s going to happen…and bam! We’re left bereft of restoration of whatever was going to be restored (in this case, your soul – kind of an important detail).

It’s kind of interesting to put the Twitter 140 character limit on all kinds of things – famous songs, poems, jokes, whatever – but I’m not doing this just to play a game. I’m also doing it to make a very important point: that is, today, in our constantly-communicating ADD society, it’s hard to really put your ideas out there in a meaningful way.

We see this in politics – the constant repetition of out-of-context sound bites that often trivialize a candidate’s viewpoint – and we see this in movies and TV shows, which keep being edited faster and faster in an attempt to retain a viewer’s interest. The pace of all of our social interaction keeps accelerating to faster and faster speeds that make it increasingly difficult to make anything stick beyond catch phrases and slick slogans.

So how do you have the kind of lengthy conversation you need to have in order to build your circle of influence and establish your name—to build a relationship with a potential client or customer? How do you communicate who you are and what you have to say in a way that has lasting impact and in a way that has a long marketing afterlife?

The answer lies in something basic that existed ‘way before’ our current electronic age – a book.

THE OLDEST FORM OF SOCIAL MEDIA

I quoted the Bible before – and that wasn’t a random choice. Books like the Bible were the original form of Social Media. Would Christianity have grown to the size it is today without having the Bible as a cornerstone of the religion – a book with all the religion’s philosophy contained in it that could easily be passed around? It would have been a lot more difficult, at the very least. And consider the fact that, in its time, the Bible was even interactive, as prophets and apostles of the time added on to it as events kept occurring.

Books have usually been the basis of any major movement – and that fact still holds true today. Major motivational speakers like Anthony Robbins and Jack Canfield depend on regular book releases to continue to grow their base. And superstars in sports, politics and entertainment make it a point to get a book out, even though it’s usually ghostwritten, to expand their ‘brand’ and put out their side of the story, without a reporter or interviewer beside them ready to instantly poke holes in it.

That’s why I say books are the oldest form of social media. Social media is anything that starts a conversation and builds a relationship – and for hundreds of years, books have prompted millions of hours of discussion, have created relationships between writer and reader, and still do. That’s why thousands of people participate in social book groups all around the world – there’s even this woman named Oprah who happens to have a very famous book club of her own, don’t know if you’ve heard of her…

At the same time, authors are also seen as unique and smart. It’s a hard, time-consuming task to finish a tome of your own – especially when most of us really don’t like to write. It just feels like leftover homework from English class in high school. That’s why most people would never think of attempting to write a book – and anyone who actually does finish one, let alone have it published, is instantly held in higher regard.

And that’s always a good thing.

HOW A BOOK BOLSTERS YOUR BRAND

Let’s return to what we talked about at the beginning of this chapter – how hard it is to impart your ideas to an audience when everyone is chattering away in tiny texts and status updates on their electronic gadgets.

A book is the ideal base for you to have the conversation you want to have with people. It gives you the opportunity to craft your message and have it delivered without any interruptions. When somebody reads your book, you get to go inside their head for hours and hours, so you can make your case in the most impactful way possible – and again, no one’s there to argue against you, except the reader. You’re no longer just a sound bite or a one-liner – you’re someone who has a fully realized vision of how something should work—you now have a “platform.” And again, that brings you instant respect.

Of course, the argument to all that is…who has time to read anymore? People don’t want to be bogged down with a book, they want to watch what they have recorded on their DVRs, play videogames or hang out on their favorite websites, however they like to spend their leisure time.

Well, this is the best part. It doesn’t matter if people read your book or not.

Some will, some won’t…but keep in mind that I said the book was the ideal base for your conversation with people. But it’s certainly not the be-all and end-all. As a matter of fact it’s really only the starting step to a whole world of marketing opportunities.

I always like to use Donald Trump as an example of a guy who knows what to do with a book. The Donald puts out a new book one, two, sometimes even three times a year. He certainly doesn’t need to for the money – no, he does it for his brand.

Think about it – when you see him on Larry King Live or The View or a late night talk show, it’s usually because he’s got a new book out. It gives the show a reason to book him, it gives him something new to talk about and it continually refreshes his brand. He will also then usually spin off other products from the book… a motivational CD, an online sales course, speaking engagements, etc.

His main business may be property development, but Donald Trump does the best at selling Donald Trump – and he uses his books as the platform to do it. If he just came on talk shows and discussed his latest condo project…well, let’s just say he’s sharp enough not to be dull.

THE POWER OF THE BOOK PLATFORM

Of course, there aren’t many Donald Trumps out there – and odds are you’re not going to get yourself booked on Larry King (at least not right away!) simply because you’re not that kind of media celebrity. Again, this is not a problem.

So how do you leverage a book that you’ve written and published?

There are literally thousands of ways to do it – to endlessly reuse, reformat and recycle the content you’ve created - but let’s break it down into three stages:

1) YOUR PRE-LAUNCH SEQUENCE

When a big movie is coming out, the studios want to make sure you and everybody else in the world knows about it. You want to treat your book the way a studio would treat the next “Transformers” sequel, and spread the word every way you can.

Begin by creating a website about the book before it comes out – offer a free portion of the book (a “sneak peek”) through an opt-in box that will allow you to capture leads. You can even feature a “countdown” to the publication date and time to generate more excitement. Create Tweets and Facebook posts about the preparations you’re doing for the book’s release – create an air of anticipation.

When the website is up, put out a press release announcing you’ve got a publishing deal, making sure you have links back to your website. Syndicate the press release and post it on all the social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Also consider doing a podcast by having a friend interview you about the book and put it up for download on iTunes.

2) PUBLICATION PUBLICITY

Once your book is published, you can now use it to your advantage to get your own media bookings. Again, a real author gets attention – and you should at least be able to ‘nab’ some local air time.

Send out copies of your book to local radio and TV stations, as well as print publications, and offer to be interviewed. Also put in a listing in Radio-TV Interview Report (find out more at RTIR.com) to make yourself available for national interviews. You can also mail copies to your top clients, send them out to get yourself booked for speaking engagements at business and civic events, and host a book signing event at a local book store.

Consider continuing to produce podcasts for distribution through iTunes with a theme of something like “Beyond the Book,” offering additional/updated information and conversation about topics you cover in the book.

Finally, remember to distribute blogs and articles online based on your book. You can use excerpts from your book for the articles and write about the experience of being a published author on your blog. Spin off as much content as you can to establish yourself as an authority in your field.

3) LENGTHENING THE AFTERLIFE

Now that you’re an author, it should become an important part of your professional profile. Make sure it’s added to your official bio and put the name of the book and a link to it in your email signature.

You can also break down a chapter and make it into an ongoing free special report, available on your website through an opt-in box. Definitely rework the material into speeches or seminar material for your personal or recorded appearances.

Your office should also reflect your author status. Put a framed copy of the cover of your book on the wall in your reception area or office – it’s easy to do through canvaspop.com. Also, leave copies of your book on the coffee table in your office with “Take Me” stickers on the front. You should also donate copies to the local libraries in your area. Make sure your contact information is contained in these copies – either put a business card in the book, or have your info stamped on the back page.

Those are just a few of the ways you can continue the conversation you start with a book. The book is the vehicle to get you in the door – for interviews, for speaking engagements, for online content and for every other kind of publicity opportunity you can work. And you work it as much as possible so that people will begin to hear your name in different venues – and always in an authoritative, knowledgeable context.

At our Celebrity Branding Agency®, we help our clients do all this and more – and we add another, very powerful step. We’ve created a foolproof way to make our authors’ books best-sellers in certain Amazon categories. We then honor them by getting them inducted into the National Academy of Best-Selling Authors™ - and send out another round of press releases noting their honor and best-selling status, which opens up more major marketing opportunities - still from the same book.

A book establishes you as an authority in your field. It gives you credibility and influence – and it also gives you the launching pad for an incredible marketing ride. The opportunity to have lengthy, persuasive conversations are rare in The Relationship Age – but a book allows you to have that opportunity and maximize it over and over to your advantage.

A book stands out. You stand out. And that’s the essential element to any marketing triumph.

As a small business owner or entrepreneur, the ability to find new ways to market yourself and develop your personal brand, can be the catalyst to unlimited success.

About 2 years ago, I became a proud grandfather! Other than the obvious joys that this brings into my life, I have also been reintroduced to one of America’s national treasures: Sesame Street. Yes, Sesame Street.

This American children's television series premiered on November 10, 1969 and is still a daily fixture in homes all across the country. Sesame Street is one of the longest running children's programs in television history. I can remember my girls watching this show when they were young, and now my granddaughter finds the show completely amusing!

Why am I writing about Sesame Street today? Because we can all learn a valuable lesson about personal branding from this quintessential American brand.

How has Sesame Street lasted so long? Two main reasons come to mind. First, their content - educating young children through a quickly paced fun format - is top notch and something that most parents welcome into their home. The producers of this show have created a formula that works – it educates effectively while successfully keeping the attention of the young ones. If you’ve ever tried to hold the attention of 3-year-old for more than 15 minutes, then you know why this is such a big deal!

The second reason that this brand has been able to enjoy incredible longevity is through its creative and unique characters. Much like Disney, Sesame Street has developed their brand through the use of fun and interesting personalities. In the seventies and eighties, it was hard to find anything involving Sesame Street that didn’t feature the loveable character Big Bird. From movies to lunchboxes, Big Bird was the superstar of children’s television.

Then something (or someone) interesting happened. Elmo.

In the last 15 years or so, Elmo, the little red 3½-year-old Muppet who often refers to himself in the third person, has become the new face of Sesame Street. Big Bird has not gone away – but he is no longer the focus. You would now be hard pressed to find any promotional materials or product line for Sesame Street that doesn’t have Elmo’s smiling face in the forefront. Elmo has starred in two full-length motion pictures and has appeared on The West Wing, Emeril Live and The View, among many others. He’s an international superstar!

There’s nothing wrong with Big Bird, of course. He is still one of the main characters on the show. But Elmo has clearly become the new focus of the show. The core purpose and theme of the show (and their brand) has not changed at all – it has merely shifted focus.

So what can we learn about personal branding from this change in focus?

Sesame Street is a business just like any of ours. Even when we think that we have developed the perfect personal brand, there may always be an opportunity to change the focus of that brand. I’m not advocating changing the things that have made your business brand a success, just finding a way to re-focus your brand to a new audience that will not alienate those who have come to trust and respect your brand the way it is.

Is your personal brand built on being wholesome? Traditional or cutting edge? Is your brand and reputation built on customer service? Reliability?

These things do not need to change (and shouldn’t for that matter.) These traits are ones that will be relevant to generation after generation. However, the next time you are thinking about how your personal brand can last for generations, think about what each generation finds the most appealing.

Try to think of ways you can re-focus your personal brand that appeals to the new generation – without sacrificing the traits that made your brand the success that it is!

Akira Mori, president and chief executive officer of Mori Trust Company, Limited, said, "Past success stories are generally not applicable to new situations. We must continually reinvent ourselves, responding to changing times with innovative new business models."

Nothing could ring truer in this New Economy where seemingly every attempt to draw on past success strategies is met with less than stellar performances. The reason for that result is that economic change, while appearing to be the same, is always based on a different set of circumstances than ever before; the flaw is to assume "a recession is a recession just like the last one" and that the results are the same each time. They are not.

Our current economic crisis is the modern-day economic equivalent of the "perfect storm" in which multiple disparate factors collide to create something different, something unexpected, something that doesn't react very well to the old traditional forms of economic stimulus.

The reason for the slow recovery of the economy is because we are not just seeing an economic crisis, we are seeing a fundamental shift in the nature of how business works; and the recovery, when it happens, will not come from the same old stimulus methods but instead will sprout from a more fundamental change of the very nature of business growth. For the economy to return to a healthy status and for business to resume the mode of successful commerce, the consumer must be listened to and catered to like never before. Today's consumers are no longer bound by the offerings of their neighborhood store. What the consumer wants may be thousands of miles away but must be deliverable tomorrow on the buyer's doorstep without the frustration or cost of time and travel.

Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981-2001, faced facts when he said, "The Internet is the Viagra of big business." Just like that, the guy who increased GE's market value from $14 billion to more than $410 billion—and was named "Manager of the Century" by Fortune in 1999—recognized that where he had taken GE in the past was no longer the route for the future.

The reality is, the Internet has changed the fundamental nature of competition and doing business. And although it has teased us for many years with its false promises and failed attempts at success, including its own industry meltdown and economic crash, that fall was just the foundation being laid for what has emerged in what now seems like the blink of an eye. New ways of building and delivering online products and services have emerged and, whether you know it or not, instantly your competition has increased exponentially. Your established competitors are now joined by new companies, fresh innovations and ideas, and ever-improving processes and products.

This is the real crisis that faces most businesses today, and unfortunately most haven't even realized it yet. Instead of trying to rapidly adapt, they are desperately clinging to old ways of running a business that won't work in the New Economy. And it isn't event the issue of bricks and mortar that was the center of cocktail discussions prior to the dot-com crash; it is a case of "best practices" for the industry or sector you are in.

For example, if you are in the haircut business, bricks and mortar will still prevail because you need to physically go to a location to get the service performed. But if there is any opportunity for you to do your business or service in the virtual world, the preference for most consumers will be towards that—unless they can somehow otherwise be enticed by an element of experience or entertainment.

When it comes to reaching consumers today, it's clear that you can't just go on doing "same old, same old" and hope for the best.

The wired world is a universe in constant flux. Bill Gates once called the new Internet era "an environment of constant change" and, more incisively, "punctuated chaos." As all financial players are digitally connected, any downturn or upturn in a major market creates overnight reverberations in other markets. The digital world is demanding that companies react to change, but the good news is that it includes the tools they can use to stay ahead of the curve. The key is connecting your business strategy with a streamlined response.

So how is business to survive? By understanding the fact that as business climates change, the methods of marketing for those businesses are also "upside down" and in need of change if success is what you are after. Where, normally, you would think global economies would mean larger markets, in reality, for small companies, entrepreneurs, and professionals, the opposite is true because they simply do not have the economic firepower to try and reach everyone or satisfy everybody. In fact, the media has become so fractured it is almost impossible to reach the masses.

Therefore, to be successful in the New Economy, you must think in terms of specialties or niches within broad markets where you can be a difference maker. In fact, the more narrow your focus, the more power you can yield within that niche; and based on this fact, your financial leverage can be multiplied.

A Change of Focus

Instead of the reliance on mass media, your focus needs to be on "targeted media." Businesses haven't stopped using traditional media to get the word out, and indeed, it's often an effective launch point for an ad campaign if you can control the cost and monitor your return on investment (ROI). Clearly, however, the gulf between traditional advertising and online advertising has widened over the past few years as audiences fragment and the Web grows to provide a new media approach.

Mass media of the last century offered a relatively simple structure, with large audiences congregated at a few outlets for a few kinds of programs. But the Internet provides seemingly infinite choices, and it appears difficult to capture the attention of an individual user when that person has split him or herself among a number of destinations for very brief periods of time. One of the biggest challenges for marketers is understanding this self-fragmentation and how to overcome it.

Reaching the individual who is your target customer first requires your understanding of who your target consumer is, and then your application of market segmentation, the process of pulling apart the entire market as a whole and separating it into manageable, disparate units based on demographics. The market segmentation process includes:

1. Determining the characteristics of your target market, then separating these segments in the market based on these characteristics.

2. Analyzing whether the market segments are large enough to support your product or service. If not, you must return to step one (or review its product to see if it's viable).

3. Once you’ve chosen a target market that has the size to produce your needed sales levels, you can develop your marketing strategy to target that specific market. Your focus is smaller, but you are reaching the specific buyers you want.

After creating this group of prospects, you must develop your market's buying metrics to learn how many prospects it takes to produce a sale, what your conversion ratio is, and how that affects your bottom line.

Shotgun vs. Specialists

So how does this apply to today's online realities? In the past, advertisers had only one choice—they took the shotgun approach, scattered themselves to every mass media outlet they could afford, and hoped a percentage of those people might pay attention. It was about trying to be all things to all people. It was spending money on local newspaper ads, cable television spots, etc., and hoping potential customers would catch a glimpse of them as they turned the page.

It's the equivalent of the long-ago era of the general practitioner whom everyone would go to no matter what his or her medical condition. Just as patients now go to specialists who can help them treat their specific injuries and illnesses, consumers have become selective about where they go to get their goods and services. Online it looks something like this: health conscious individuals who might have subscribed to a general magazine on health are now signing up for blogs, newsletters, podcasts, user groups, e-mail lists, membership sites, and more to address their exercise regimen, a preventative medicine program that suits their lifestyle, their specific heart condition, their type of diabetes, etc. More and more people are taking advantage of outlets with increasingly specialized information.

With so much out there floating around and vying for consumer attention, today's savvy marketers are likewise getting more specific in order to forge a competitive advantage. They're identifying who their potential customers are, cultivating these relationships, and in many cases even charging them for the privileges of membership. Let's say you have a dance studio in town that offers salsa lessons. In the past, you'd put a medium-size print ad in the local paper, maybe shoot a local TV commercial, and hope for the best. Now, you can create a sizzling, colorful Web site with step-by-step instructions and high-energy videos of those lessons that "students" can pay an online subscription fee to see. Seeing is believing. Even if folks never step into your studio for the real deal, you get them to subscribe to your service to learn how to dance from home.

It can work the same in the sports world. If you give golf lessons in real life, you have to hope people see those local classified ads, right? But if you give golf lessons online and charge a fee to help your students’ progress, you've taken the world in your hands without paying any attention to geographical boundaries. You can now teach at any level you want, whether that market exists in your locale or not! Someone might buy an issue of Car and Driver for five bucks, but fans who want to go behind the scenes and into the pits of NASCAR can probably find a better outlet, which they're willing to pay more for, to really get them into the action and on the inside of the sport they are ravenous fans of. The list of industries and examples goes on and on!

A lot of these opportunities lend themselves to a virtual delivery with cutting-edge technologies, but some of this ongoing flow of information extends to tangible media as well. There has been a resurgence, for example, of paper newsletters and, although still virtual, teleseminars as well, neither of which are considered new technology. Most of these models of selling information, or ideas, offer the basics for free up front, but if they want what you've got to offer, and you promise to go deeper, they'll be happy to pay for the privilege of regular updates and insider opportunities.

The key to setting the world (or at least your bank account and profit margins) on fire in this world of new media is niche-ing down your market to create value in the people you've niched into. By building your audience, you build your value, and that in turn increases your roster of consumers who will be willing to pay top dollar for the incredible things you offer. Remember—the power is all in the presentation to the right audience.

So, when thinking about growing your business during the current economic shift, think big; but then make sure you think small with regards to what niche you can ultimately serve to prosper the most. After you figure that out, if you take the time to determine the best format or combination of formats to deliver your products and services to your audience, you will find a formula that is wildly profitable!

It is often joked that the most common words heard in a lawyer’s office are “it depends.”

Being a lawyer, I do find this quite amusing. It’s very true. In law school, we were taught to always think about the different paths that clients can take to leverage the situation they may be in - and offer as many options as possible. It’s funny if you think about it, Lawyers are some of the only people in the world expected to understand how grey something looks and then present it as if it’s black and white. Chew on that!

Why do people hire lawyers in the first place? They need to know what their options are. More importantly, they are seeking their professional advice on which option to choose. It is no different when you apply this to businesses. Why do people seek out your services? They need problems solved.

As a branding agent, I often ask clients, “Do you have enough knowledge in your field to be able to say ‘it depends’ when a client or customer asks for your advice? More importantly, do you have enough knowledge to be able to inform that client which option is the best for them?” Here is an example:

A few months back, my wife needed to get new tires for her mountain bike. I would say that I know a few things about a few things, but mountain bike tires are not on that list! When I went to the store, I told the salesperson that we needed some new tires for the bike and asked what he recommended. His answer? “Well, it depends.” Slightly annoyed, I said, “Okay, depends on what?” The man started asking me where my wife usually rides the bike, what kind of surfaces were the most common for her to ride, how often she rides, etc. These are things that hadn’t even crossed my mind. I gave him as much information as I could, and he was able to show me 3 or 4 different brands, different price ranges, warranty options and so on.

The most valuable thing that he told me that day was “If I were you, I’d go with these,” pointing to a moderately priced set of tires. He then proceeded to tell me exactly why he would choose that brand of tire, at that price, etc. I had just found my go-to expert on mountain bike tires! I was impressed with his knowledge, but even more impressed that he had a solution for my problem. He had enough confidence in his knowledge of the products that he was comfortable telling me “it depends” and then offering his advice.

This trip to the store got me thinking about many of the clients of our branding agency. Many of our clients are experts in their field and are offering their expertise on their particular niche to those who don’t have the same amount of education and training, etc. Many of them have used personal branding to brand themselves as the go-to expert in their field.

As many of us get comfortable in our line of work, surrounding ourselves with people who have similar interests, and who work in the same industry – we sometimes forget that there are so many people out there that don’t know anything about the intricacies of what we do – even the things that we think are common knowledge. When people seek your advice, they are looking for you to cut through the clutter and solve whatever problem they may have.

As hard as we try, we can never know everything about everything. We need experts! From mountain bike experts and personal branding experts, to mortgage loan experts and business marketing experts - there are experts everywhere! There are those who spend their career perfecting a skill so others can go to them for solutions in that area.

Do you have the knowledge in your line of work to be able to say “It Depends” and do you have the confidence in that knowledge to provide the right solution?

I (Nick) was sitting in a sushi bar in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away from my hometown of Orlando, FL. Having found a table, I asked the waiter to assemble my usual selections which included one order of Maguro, one order of Yellowtail, and one Steamed Shrimp, Cucumber and Cream cheese roll with a drizzle of eel sauce (the Nick Roll, as my friends have come to call it), and then I began to do what I do most of the time when I’m alone - I took out my iPhone to occupy myself.

I checked emails, read and posted a few tweets, and checked my newsfeed on Facebook to see what my friends were up to. I also engaged in a newer activity, “checking in” via geotargeted apps and games like Loopt and Foursquare (If you don’t know what these are, you should! Just Google them!). This particular meal was during a period of time several months ago, before Foursquare had been brought to the iPhone, so I checked-in via Loopt. Much to my surprise, I noticed that a friend that I went to law school with and who also lives in Orlando, had also checked in on Loopt and was just a few miles away from me in Los Angeles. I immediately sent him a text to say ‘hi!’ and to tell him I was just a few miles away. This prompted us to try and coordinate a chance to meet; the meeting would be for the sake of novelty, if nothing else.

This occurrence prompted us to take stock of what many of us do to bide our time (check-in, tweet, post on Facebook), and how it was not only becoming second nature, but what that means for the way we are going to conduct business in the future. Based on these hyper-connected, entertaining, and informative ways of passing information from person to person, we are really leaving behind a trail of everything we’ve ever done, everywhere we’ve ever gone, every opinion we’ve ever had, and, thanks to some less than scrupulous folks who tend to overshare and take pictures with their phones, everything we’ve ever eaten. You might be wondering where this trend is headed and what it all means.

Well, in the context of “The New Economy”, this trail is essentially a “Personal Brand Map”. It’s a record of our thoughts, feelings, and experiences, all mapped out in chronological order, from which anyone in our networks (or increasingly, even someone who we haven’t allowed in our networks yet) can review and form an opinion about us.

In the New Economy, some might say that our Personal Brands are increasingly important. We’d go further, saying they’re all we’ve got left.

Think about it. The internet and technology have brought about the following changes:

• Removed the barriers of information flow, allowing us to find anything we want, anytime we want it.

• Made transparency a way of life, allowing the general public to piece together a story even if you aren’t telling it yourself - you can’t hide most things anymore even if you wanted to!

• Leveled the playing field by giving everyone on Earth an instant platform to publish anything you can think of, including thoughts, muses, obsessions, hobbies, photos, videos, business ideas, invitations to social events, collaborative efforts, and more.

We’ve seen this technology bring about the rise of the Personal Brand, while we have simultaneously witnessed the downfall of the institutions that we grew up believing in. This is a total game changer.

We’ve seen the banking industry fail us through credit crises and mortgage meltdowns. We’ve seen over-inflated real estate prices which are due, in large part, to the previous bottleneck on real-time information flow. In the past, we’d have to wait for all the data from real estate sales to drip down from title companies and city and county records in order to get a gauge on what was happening. Even worse, we might have to go to a physical location to view the records. Now you can find that all online, from anywhere in the world, with the click of a mouse. Simply revolutionary!

We’ve witnessed many a corporate meltdown due to lowered barriers to entry. For instance, it is now a very acceptable practice for any business person to schedule a meeting at a Panera Bread or Starbucks location. No formal office is needed, just a place to meet. We’ve also seen the increase in shared spaces replacing the more traditional executive suites and even some less traditional solutions like existing businesses renting out offices that aren’t being used to new businesses. We have seen increased international competition from countries like China and India, who are in a venerable race to bring their high-talent, low-cost human capital to America, with no plane tickets needed, using nothing but Skype and email. And, finally, we’ve witnessed those willing to compete and incur lower overhead in order to gain market share that previously would have seemed untouchable. This accumulation of corporate meltdowns has left many unemployed and without the pensions, retirements, or the security we always thought would be there.

This is a major shake up. In spite of the fact that many are calling it a “lost decade” (2000-2009), we instead look back and see a time of painful discovery and major shifts in the way information is shared, received, and processed. No longer do we look to journalists in last Friday’s newspaper to determine what movies we want to watch or what restaurants we should try out; rather, we look to social networks to see what our friends think and where they are right now.

There has been a shift of power. Power is now at our fingertips - in the hands of the many, not in the hands of the few.

So, how do all of these powerful cultural and economic shifts affect you? You, as an individual, have become your own brand, whether you like it or not. You can control your brand to your own advantage or you can let your personal brand be run by others who comment on what you are doing. In fact, whether you choose to document your life and your business or not, chances are someone around you is going to document it for you. You don’t have to post photos of yourself on Facebook or videos of yourself on YouTube for such photos and videos to end up there. You don’t have to post your thoughts on a particular concept or issue online, for them to end up on Twitter, as those around you are doing it for you whether you like it or not. So, the real choice you need to make (before someone does it for you), is to control your personal brand.

The good news is, if you learn how to effectively control your brand, you can also control your life in ways that were never before possible.

Think about it this way: in the past, if you were a superstar employee, you still got paid what your employer thought you were worth. Now, you can take your brand as a superstar employee to the internet, sharing your knowledge and building a following of people who are interested in your ideas and the projects you are working on. You can become an “internal evangelist” and a thought leader for your industry - all while working for someone else. This buzz about you in turn raises your profile and credibility, which then gives rise to the notion that no longer will you be an employee with limited options. You will now be a free agent operating no differently than the sports stars who are able to offer their skill(s) to the highest bidder.

This new ‘free agent’ marketplace is already occurring in limited scope through the use of social media sites like LinkedIn that are dedicated to connecting people for business, as well as through sites like Facebook that allow you to share text, video, audio, and even create custom apps to let people know what you do. Not to mention, we are just now in the early stages of internet platforms and tools to make those kinds of connections work to your advantage. The future will give rise to more of what one of our clients, Chuck Boyce, calls the “Independent Executive”. This label applies to someone who takes their knowledge from previous employment and sets out to create their own destiny, lifestyle, and income on their own terms. This philosophy takes personal branding to the next level, because it is not just important for the professional or the entrepreneur, but it is now very important for employees who are happy to work in someone else’s environment but who want to be recognized, both financially and emotionally, for their very real contributions.

In the past, an unhappy employee had limited choices:

• Do nothing but complain (with increasing disgruntlement)
• Quit and go look for a new job (which has no guarantee of being any different)
• Beg the boss for a change in circumstances (power, money, responsibility) without having any real say in the process

Now, in the new “Branded Economy”, you are all allowed to play the role you want in building your brand and building your value. If you don’t take control, you will risk becoming irrelevant and relegated to the position of a cog in someone else’s wheel. You will be at the mercy of a third party whose self-interest will always outweigh your own - just like the players in the sitcom The Office and the comic strip “Dilbert”.

Now that the game has changed, what will you do to control your own destiny? As we have gotten known for telling our clients, we’ll now tell you the same: You have the choice, to Brand or Die!

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
- Lao Tzu

I am willing to bet that almost every single one of you reading this article has read the above quote – or had it quoted to you – in the course of your life. You’re starting college and it’s rough – somebody tells you about that first step. You’re having trouble getting a new business off the ground – somebody tells you about the first step. Whenever you’re at the initial stage of anything – you hear about ‘that thousand miles’ and ‘that first step’.

And to be fair, you can’t argue with it – it’s true. That ‘thousand mile journey’ starts with that first step.

What people don’t discuss, however, is the 4634th step. Or the 5489th step. When you’re so far from the beginning that you’re in danger of forgetting where you’re going – and when you’re still so far from the end, you think you’ll never make it there.

When you’re in the middle of the grind – when it feels like the pay-off will never come – and when you may be so tired you don’t think there ever will be a pay-off – that’s when it can be incredibly difficult (maybe the most difficult) to take the next step.

I firmly believe that when you get to that tough slog where it just feels ‘like you’re grinding it out for no reason’, that’s actually when you’re in the middle of the real hard work that’s going to ultimately validate your efforts. This is when it’s most important to follow through on the process and systems you’ve set up – and not forget what got you as far as you already are. That’s when you need to power through with your process and get what you originally wanted with it.

But let’s not start with the 5489th step. Let’s take Lao Tzu’s advice and start with the first.

THE FIRST STEP AND WHY IT’S CRUCIAL

Someone who I recently learned of, and am enamored with, has become an inspiration to me and a whole lot of other people, …former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. He always had an interesting first step for his players at his ‘first talk’ of the season. It probably wasn’t so interesting for the seniors to hear the exact same ‘first talk’ they heard when they were freshman - but Wooden was a man who believed in the proper process, which is one big reason he was voted “Coach of the Century” by ESPN.

That first talk of the season was not about the goals for the team, who the captains would be, or any of the usual rally cries of a typical coach, nope, it was all about Wooden demonstrating, in meticulous detail, how the players should properly put on their socks and their shoes. Yes, he would actually show them how to do it. And yes, you usually don’t get that kind of instruction after you’re two or three years old – especially from one of the best college coaches of all time. Frankly, most coaches at any level above elementary school would think it was too trivial to deal with – and college boys should know how to dress themselves!

Wooden, however, knew that most good players ended up on the bench because they ended up with blisters from gameplay. And he knew most of those blisters could be prevented if players would simply take the time and put on their socks and shoes correctly.

Hence the lecture every year – even to the players who had already heard it!! It was a vital first step to Wooden’s process – and do you really argue with a guy who ended up with an over-80% win record? …who won ten national championships? …who is regarded as America’s ‘winningest’ coach? I certainly wouldn’t!

By building from that base, Wooden created teams that knew basketball inside and out. He gave them a process that enabled them to do their very best – and turned him into a legendary coach.

It’s what all of us need to do in our individual businesses. Your first steps, in any venture, should be about finding out what works, from the bottom up. ‘Fine-tuning’ will obviously come as you continue along the way, but if you nail down the process that works for you personally, it’s a template that can take you to where you want to go -- if you learn the basics, remember them and continue to implement them.

Some aspects of that process are generic – they’re essential to anyone trying to do what you’re doing. Others are personal – making use of your specific talents and what works best for you. Out of all of it, however, you build your own unique process by seeing what’s effective and what isn’t. Once you have it all put together, you drill that process into your brain at every given opportunity. And you never forget why you use the process you use – because it works …for you. Not for the guy down the street, or somebody two office doors down from yours… for YOU!!!!

And it has to be the process that’s going to serve you all the way down the line. I have to hand it to my four year-old son Brock’s T-ball coach, Coach Will, because he showed me this power principle in action and how it’s relevant at any age.

The kid that was playing pitcher (no, really, in T-ball they have one, they just don’t actually pitch!) in the game ran from the pitcher’s mound to run down another kid running to home plate – and pulled it off. He got the out. But the coach told the pitcher that’s not what he wanted to see. That’s not how the game is played. It’ll work out in T-ball, but that play won’t work when the kids get a little older, and a little faster. He said, “You might get an out this year with that play, but we’re not here to get outs, we’re here to learn how to play baseball.” Wow! Now that’s what I’m talking about! Coach Will wanted them to learn how to play the right way for the long run – now what worked just for now – so as they moved on, they could power through with the proper process.

With any first steps, you should be doing the same thing – finding out how whatever “game” you’re learning works, and how best to play it - whether it’s the game of life, the game of business, or a true game. The principle is the same.

THE FIRST STEP AND WHY IT’S OVERRATED

No, I’m not getting into an argument with myself, it’s true…first steps are absolutely crucial and also amazingly easy!

First of all, people are always incredibly encouraging when you start something new (unless they know you well enough to sense you’re heading for disaster). It’s exciting to them and they live vicariously through you trying something for the first time. Why? Because you have to do all the hard work and all they have to do is watch!

Seriously, how many quotes and advice do you see on beginning something, whether it’s a business or a relationship or just a workout regimen? Whereas, when you’re in the middle of something and whining about it – well, everybody’s in the middle of something and whining about it. And they’d rather listen to themselves whine than listen to you do it!

The first step also often means you’re not putting that much at stake. There’s not a lot invested in it emotionally, physically or financially yet. It’s basically setting a goal and beginning to figure out how you can achieve that goal.

Taking that first step usually means:

• You’re beginning something you want to get done.
• You haven’t faced serious opposition to your goal.
• You’ve psyched yourself up to get going – so you’re ‘pumped’ to see it through.
• Nobody expects a lot from you – because you’re just beginning to find out how it’s done.

In other words, sure, you’re nervous – but you’re okay to start that long ‘thousand mile’ journey, whatever it is. It’s not so bad. You’re choosing to do it. And nobody will be too hard on you about it.

The first step is also generally not that complicated. Remember what the first day of school or a class was like? It was the teacher telling you what you were going to be doing the rest of the semester or year and that’s about it. You didn’t have to worry, at that point, about having homework done or passing any tests. You were just there – trying to stay awake until the bell rang. Hey, even with Coach Wooden, all they had to do was figure out how to put on their socks and shoes the first time he talked to them! Most of us can handle that kind of pressure.

And one last thing about the first step not really being all that bad – you can totally ‘bail’ before the second step. Seriously, most things won’t have horrible consequences if you bail early (guys, this is not an excuse the day after that bachelor party, don’t even think about it!). Maybe you say to yourself, “Hey, I want to learn Mandarin Chinese (I use this example in honor of Lao Tzu).” You take that first step – maybe you get an introduction to a beginner’s Mandarin Chinese book – and then the bolt of lightning hits your brain….“Hey! This is hard! I’d rather spend the effort on __________ (fill in the blank with your next goal).”

What did you lose? …that $9.99 you spent on the book? …and those ten minutes it took you to realize it was hard enough for you to learn English? …let alone this.

Taking one step on the thousand mile journey and changing your mind? No big deal. Getting five hundred miles down the road and changing your mind? Enormous deal. That’s why you can’t…

DON’T JUST MUDDLE THROUGH THE MIDDLE

So let’s talk about being five hundred miles down that thousand mile road. That’s what I like to call the unsung hero of heroic struggles – the middle.

They say the closer you get to the summit, the harder it is to reach it. I’ve chosen to consciously disagree, and you can too with the right mindset – and I talked about this a little at the beginning of this chapter. When you’re so far along, you forgot why you started - but you’re not far enough to see where you’re going - it’s easy to feel like you’re stumbling around in the dark, going through the motions, and completely not getting anywhere.

And that’s where you have to power through with your process. That’s where you have to put your socks and shoes on correctly and keep doing what you’re doing, if you’ve proven to yourself that it works. You may need some adjustments – that’s normal, because the world is always changing – but in general, you have to ‘keep on keeping on’.

I’m speaking from personal experience on that point. For example, a big part of our business involves me speaking at different events all across the country. They are great because they usually generate a lot of interest in our business and we get to build a list of prospects who were interested enough to come out and hear me, and give us their contact information to stay in touch – so it’s almost always a good decision to accept invitations to speak at events. It’s something I’ve learned works for us and it’s definitely a big part of my process.

Well, I was invited to speak at what was billed as a major seminar event in California – and I was told there might be a lot of influential people there that would be interested in doing business, and many of them had very large fan bases (sounds good, but believe me, I’ve heard it before and the delivery of those elements is usually far less than what has been promised). So I thought about it. It was a big commitment (a week in California, away from my family in Orlando), and a big financial commitment (not that it was overly expensive for the trip, but because of my marketing budget at the time, I had to choose between this trip and a new marketing campaign I really wanted to launch).

The California trip, more and more, just felt like a big hassle to me, and an inconvenient one at that. I was ready to skip it, when I remembered that this kind of thing – speaking at places where I could widen my circle of influence and boost my network – was really a vital way that we grow our business. So, I agreed to it.

When I got there, I was amazed at the number of top-tier speakers and writers that were in attendance – it was a room of about 100 people who were all seven figure speakers and authors. I won’t drop names, but I would be willing to bet you’d know at least half of the people in the room. We’re talking about men and women who literally fill STADIUMS with rabid fans wanting to hear them speak, and others who had collectively sold over 100 MILLION books! It was insane! Don’t get me wrong, the seminar was hard work – sessions night and day – but out of that came lots of things, including an invitation to speak at another event which proved to be a huge windfall, and there are many other opportunities still being fleshed out, all because I didn’t forget my basic principles, even when I was reluctant, and I powered through with my process.

PROP-UP YOUR PROCESS WITH PRINCIPLES

When I was thinking about whether or not to accept that speaking engagement, I didn’t think about making important new contacts or generating more business. I concentrated on the expense, the work and the inconvenience. Obviously, big mistake on my part.
Fortunately, I got back on my thousand-mile road because I remembered that the process didn’t exist for its own sake – the process brought results!!!

And that’s what we all have to remember. We must continually perfect the process – and sticking to that process is more important than anything else…because the process gets us to the goal line.

When Coach Wooden gave his annual “socks and shoes speech,” some older players would start to feel insulted that he was still teaching the ins and outs of footwear. They didn’t want to listen to it all over again.

But consider this – do you think Coach Wooden really wanted to tell players how to put on their socks and shoes every single year?

Don’t you think maybe one season, he said to himself, “Maybe I don’t have to do this anymore. Maybe these college kids can figure this out for themselves.” I’m willing to wager he did – and that he also went back to doing it because he once again realized that this was his process, it worked and he should stick to it. …and because it was also important to his players’ process.

After the newness of whatever you’re in the middle of wears off, it’s tempting to forget all the building blocks that got you there. It’s easy to be distracted by turn-offs on the thousand mile road and take another route …that will take you somewhere you really don’t want to go.

Both behaviors are dangerous to your business. Sticking to your the principles that you used to develop your process helps you avoid them. Maybe you have a choice between a lunch with somebody you like but isn’t going to do much for your operation – and somebody else you don’t know that well but could do an awful lot for you. You’re better off seizing the second opportunity, even though you’ll have to invest some time and energy in getting to know this person and selling them on you and your business.

Making productive choices that will further your process means you’ll keep getting the results you want. And, hey, you can always have lunch with the other friend on a day when there isn’t a conflict.

When the pay-off isn’t necessarily in sight, you simply have to trust that what you’re doing will work – and that your process will, in fact, see you through to the other side.

I will leave you with some very wise words from Coach Wooden: “Don’t be too concerned with regard to things over which you have no control, because that will eventually have an adverse effect on things over which you have control.”

You have control over what you do and how you do it. You can’t control the outside factors. Even if you’ve made your process the most powerful it can be, it still won’t work every single time. But if you fixate on the things that could go against you, you’ll have a hard time achieving what you want to achieve.

Life is all about making the odds work in your favor – and having a process that will allow you to power through to the end of whatever road you’re on - means that chances are you’ll get what you’re after.

So pull on those socks and lace up those shoes the right way – so you can win the game!

I entered the huge chain bookstore, hoping my guilty expression wouldn’t give me away. Then I furtively disappeared between two large shelves of books in the back, making sure no store employees were looking at me.

I eyed the area around me one more time – no one in sight.

And then I pulled the brand new copy of my latest book out from under my jacket…headed to the nearest open cashier…smiled to myself as she scanned the book’s ISBN bar…and I paid $21.95 for a book. A book I already owned.

My name is Nick Nanton…and I am a reverse shoplifter.

Why am I committing a crime against myself? I’ll explain a little later…but first, I want to tell you that this may be one of the most controversial chapters in this book… And not because I’m moving around in bookstores in a clandestine manner.

It’s because I’m about to advocate something that I believe delivers one of the biggest ROIs of anything out there today. But it’s also something that many people regard as being as dead as the dodo.

What am I talking about?

Well, I’m talking about what you’re reading right this minute.

A book.

A book can be an amazing platform for your business – it’s got prestige, it’s got impact and, most importantly, you can market yourself and your business through it in a ‘whole bunch’ of different ways. Because, to be honest, it doesn’t do you any good to write a book and then just put it on your shelf next to that dusty dictionary. It only makes a huge difference when you use your book proactively to expand your circle of influence, build your reputation and impress current and prospective clients.

Look at the super-successful people who put out books on a regular basis – people like Donald Trump. He doesn’t need to write books to prove himself any more – he can make as much money doing a couple of speeches here and there. No, he – and mega-motivational stars like Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield – create books for the above reasons. It’s not about getting paid for the book – it’s about growing their brands.

Just look at what happens when “the Donald” writes a book. Suddenly you see him everywhere – Larry King, Fox News, even The View. It gives him a whole new set of talking points and a reason to put himself out there. He knows that the ROI on a book is unlimited – as long as you realize it’s not just a book, it’s a gigantic marketing tool. That’s why it’s something I advise all my clients to do.

I’m going to detail in this chapter just how you can make your book go to work for you in a variety of ways. First of all, let’s talk about the book itself.

MAKING YOUR BOOK HAPPEN

The first thing you should do is be realistic. You’re probably not creating a New York Times Bestseller here – that’s not even what you’re really after. You make money from having a book – not from book sales. This is meant as a marketing tool to sell yourself and your business. Put your book together with that in mind.

As with any marketing tool, you want your book to be an attention-getter. That starts with the title – finding a way to put the concept of the book in a short, ‘punchy’ and powerful statement that taps into something people want to know.

Simple is very important. Has there ever been a better title than “The Secret?” Well, there haven’t been many better-selling titles, anyway. At the same time, it’s a gutsy title – because without the multi-million ad campaign for the book, its generic title could have left it lost in the shuffle. Since you’re mostly going to be sharing this book with clients and prospects, and not trying to sell it to the general public to a great extent, you can get away with that kind of approach.

Of course, you’re thinking, the title is the easy part – what about the content? Well, that might be easier than you think as well. Do you give seminars or create instructional materials? Have you given speeches about your business? That’s content – content you had to think about and structure accordingly. By getting these materials transcribed, you could already have the bare bones of your book content.

What happens next depends on your available time and your level of confidence. Let’s start with time – most entrepreneurs and business people just don’t have enough hours in the day to run their businesses and their lives, let alone try to write a book. It’s time-consuming and requires a lot of thought. Many who try it simply give up and don’t finish.

Then there’s the confidence factor - you may be intimidated by the thought of even trying to write a book. Most people don’t even like to write a short blog – and then there are those wouldn’t be ‘caught dead’ even trying to put together the 140 characters or less that go into a “tweet.”

That’s why most business people will use a ghostwriter to get their book down on paper. You can find excellent ghostwriters on Elance.com (where they’ll bid for the chance to work on your book), or you can ask business associates if they’ve worked with someone they like and trust.

It’s easy to work with a ghostwriter – you either give them the kind of transcripts we talked about earlier or you can talk through the main points of the book with them. The important thing is to end up with something that you can feel good about. If you’re going to use a book as a marketing platform, you want to make sure it’s professional, informational, and represents you and your business in the best possible light.

THE THREE STAGES OF MARKETING YOUR BOOK

Once you have your book finished and published, it’s time to really go to work. You can maximize your marketing punch not only when your book is published, but also before and after. Again, authoring a book is impressive – so make the most of it!

1) MAKE PRE-LAUNCH A PRIORITY

You definitely want people to know your book is coming out in advance. Begin by creating a website about the book before it comes out – offer a free portion of the book (a “sneak peek”) through an ‘opt-in’ box that will allow you to capture leads. You can even feature a “countdown” to the publication date and time to generate more excitement.

When the website is up, put out a press release announcing you’ve got a publishing deal, making sure you have links back to your website. Syndicate the press release and post it on all the social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Also consider doing a podcast by having a friend interview you about the book and put it up for download on iTunes.

2) GENERATE PUBLICATION PUBLICITY

Once your book is published, you can now use it to your advantage to get booked just like Donald Trump does. You probably won’t make it to “Larry King Live,” but you have a ‘good shot’ at some local air time at the very least.

Next, send out copies of your book to local radio and TV stations, as well as print publications, and offer to be interviewed. Also put in a listing in Radio-TV Interview Report (find out more at RITR.com) to make yourself available for national interviews. You can also mail copies to your top clients, send them out to get yourself booked for speaking engagements at business and civic events, and host a book signing event at a local book store.

You can also continue to produce podcasts for distribution through iTunes with a theme of something like …“Beyond the Book,” offering additional/updated information and conversation about topics you cover in the book.

And remember my “reverse shoplifting” at the beginning of this chapter? Here’s why you should consider taking a copy of your book into a bookstore – and buying it there!
As long as your book has a legitimate ISBN number and is available from a major distributor, two things we always do for our clients’ books, the bookstore clerk will simply scan the book’s barcode, a price will come up and you can purchase it, even though the store never stocked it in the first place. Best of all, the bookstore’s computer system will register that somebody bought your book and that they’re now out of stock – meaning they just might order more copies of your book to sell on their own!

3) CREATE A LONG AFTERLIFE

Now that you’re an author, it should become an important part of your professional profile. Make sure it’s added to your official bio and possibly even put the name of the book in your email signature for a limited time.

You can also break down a chapter and make it into a free ‘special report’, available on your website through an ‘opt-in’ box. Other chapters can be turned into online articles that you can syndicate, or you can rework the material into speeches or seminar material for your personal or recorded appearances.

Your office should also reflect your author status. Put a framed copy of the cover of your book on the wall in your reception area or office – it’s easy to do through canvaspop.com. Also, leave copies of your book on the coffee table in your office with “Take Me” stickers on the front. You should also donate copies to the local libraries in your area. Make sure your contact information is contained in these copies – either put a business card in the book, or have your info stamped on the back page.

At our Celebrity Branding Agency®, we take this process through another, very powerful step. We’ve created a foolproof way to make our authors’ books best-sellers in certain Amazon categories. We then honor them by placing them in our National Academy of Best-Selling Authors™ - and send out another round of press releases noting their honor and best-selling status, which opens up a whole world of marketing opportunities for the same book.

They say print is dead, but, thanks to Kindle, iPad and other electronic devices, it’s not really. It’s just migrated to LCD screens. The fact is that nothing conveys authority and credibility more than having a published book with your name on it. Publishing a book and marketing it correctly puts you and your business up more than ‘a few notches’ against the competition – and isn’t that what it’s all about?

And, best of all….reverse shoplifting is NOT against the law!

“Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.” ~ Richard Bach

What really ignites our passion for our business?

What fires up our ambition and causes us to make crucial decisions about what career paths we want to follow - and what level of success we want to attain?

Well, in many, many cases, it’s people who initially inspire and motivate us in what we want to do with our lives – and how we want to do it.

People like Donald Trump. Richard Branson. Oprah Winfrey. These are people who dominate their particular arena with their personalities, people who completely own their success, people who cause others to approach them with multi-million or even multi-billion dollar deals, just because they know that having these superstars’ names attached to a project or company will almost guarantee success.

When you become aware of these kinds of people and you’re at just the right moment of your life, it’s like being hit by a lightning bolt. And you think, “Whoa! This person is the ultimate. I want to be exactly like them.”

For the first time, perhaps, you clearly see what you want your future to be – a future where, if you do what these super-successful people do, you end up with the same incredible opportunities and influence that they have.

And that’s where it can get a little dangerous.

While it’s awesome to be inspired by amazing achievers who have literally changed the face of the business world, there is a risk of becoming….well, too inspired.

To me, imitation is the highest form of flattery…and one of the biggest traps you can fall into.

THE SONG SHOULDN’T REMAIN THE SAME

There’s a difference between emulating someone you want to be like – and just plain imitating them. In the first instance, you take their best qualities and adapt them to who you are. In the second instance, you actually try to do everything exactly the way they do it – even though you can’t possibly do it as well as they do.

Because you are not them!

You see, there’s a reason Elvis impersonators don’t become known by their own names. Nobody wants them to be who they really are – no, their fans only want them to pretend to be Elvis. Of course, they could never actually be Elvis – they can only bring back great memories of The King of Rock N’ Roll.

Elvis may have inspired these musicians to begin with. And these musicians undoubtedly have to have some talent to pull off a credible Elvis impersonation. But because they only present themselves as a shadow of someone famous, rather than developing their own unique personality, they’re trapped. And if they ever want to become a singer that actually reflects their own personality, they usually have to start from scratch.

You can always enjoy an outright tribute act to a great performer. However, if they have the musical chops, they can bring back some awesome memories. But when you’re perceived as ripping off a beloved icon, that’s another story. And, since I am involved in the music business, I’d like to offer another musical example that illustrates just that scenario.

Anybody remember a rock band named “The Knack”? In 1979, their first album yielded a huge worldwide number one hit, “My Sharona,” which you still hear played today. It didn’t sound like anything else at the time – so you would think these guys had it made, right?

Wrong. The band itself ended up enraging rock fans and music critics at the time – because their first album cover art was a copy of the first Beatles’ album – down to the band’s haircuts. Now, if it had been some kind of clever ‘spin’ on the Beatles’ album cover, they probably could have gotten away with it – but instead, it was almost a replica of the real deal. This resulted in a huge backlash that doomed their next effort and turned them into a footnote in rock history.

The sad fact is, it doesn’t have to be that way. You can use the people who inspire you in a way that helps you succeed as an individual. Billy Joel has been a top act since 1973 – and there’s a good reason for his singular success. In a recent interview, he talked about how he used his inspirations growing up. “I’m a product of what I heard while I was growing up, said Joel. “I synthesize my take on Ray Charles or the Beatles. That’s where I’m coming from.”

Note that he never made a point of singing his musical idols’ songs. Or dressing up like them. Or duplicating their artwork. No, what he did was incorporate their techniques and their kind of showmanship into what he was doing – so he developed his own, strong personal identity that paid off for him. That’s how he became an authentic musical success.

And by doing so, he avoided being trapped by the shadows of the greats – and he also avoided a huge backlash by not ripping off those legends either. Nobody thinks of Billy Joel as being anyone other than Billy Joel. And yet, the man openly admits liberally borrowing from the musical influences of his youth. By developing his own sound, however, and staying true to himself, he created his own indelible stamp that still resonates after three decades in the music business.

THE DAN KENNEDY TRAP

What works in the music business works in any business. Because it’s still, ultimately, all about business. The best thing any business person can do is create their own strong, authentic personality that carries through their company’s image and PR. You can always make a few bucks by slavishly imitating those more successful than you – but you can never truly earn respect or huge profits unless you create and develop your own individual template for achievement.

One of my big inspirations in the business world is master marketer Dan Kennedy. That’s why I’m proud to be a business partner of his in Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club® (www.KennedysBarberClub.com - if you’re curious!) Now, if you know anything about Dan, you understand that he is a very unique personality. He drives professionally in about 100 harness races a year, purposely avoids and disparages slick-looking modern advertising, and is impossible to reach by phone. Yes, in the year 2010, the only way you can communicate with Dan Kennedy is… by fax.

In other words, he pretty much breaks every business rule there is in the world and makes it work for him - because he is very much his own person. And yes, I follow many of his precepts – but only in terms of what I want to project about myself, my business and my image. By absorbing his ideas through my own filter, I’m still Nick Nanton – and I don’t end up being seen as Dan Kennedy Jr.. Trust me – I have zero interest in trying harness racing!

Many of the business people that I work with and I meet through what we affectionately call “Planet Dan” (this is the network of businesspeople who attend Dan’s seminars, read his books and generally are fans of his teachings) - go through what I call “the 4 Stages of Kennedy”. I think this progression is incredibly similar to anyone else’s who suddenly stumbles upon a personality that they desperately want to mimic in their professional life.

Stage 1 is simply…”Dan Kennedy is insane!” When someone first sees Dan’s “No B.S.”, punch-to-the-head style of copywriting, looks over Dan’s rough, unpolished marketing materials and finds out that….wait, this guy only takes faxes???...., they immediately think Dan’s a psycho, I’m a psycho for promoting Dan and everybody in our Glazer-Kennedy marketing group is drinking something they shouldn’t be. But something lures them in…

….and then comes Stage 2…”Dan Kennedy is God!” The person suddenly understands how effective Dan’s approaches are, how he’s attracted all these followers with his incredible, instinctive marketing talents and how his methods can make money for any viable business. Their mind is completely blown and they have the burning fever of the recently-converted. And yes, now the convert seems like he’s ‘drinking the kool-aid’ too!

That fever takes a long while to cool down, because Stage 3 ends up being, “I will BE Dan Kennedy!” Instead of becoming an Elvis impersonator, the person decides to become a Dan Kennedy impersonator (one advantage is you don’t need a sequined jumpsuit to be the latter). So he begins modeling his entire modus operandi on Dan’s. Being only in touch by fax? Amazing idea! Telling people what to do and how to do it without pulling any punches? Outstanding! Hey, who knows where the best place is to learn harness racing?

And then brutal reality comes knocking on this guy’s door. He realizes Dan Kennedy can get away with a lot of his quirks because he’s been regarded as a marketing genius for decades; Dan’s earned his “street cred”, so he knows he can do as he ‘darn well’ pleases. Our Dan Kennedy newbie, on the other hand, is usually in the beginning steps of establishing himself and his business. He finds out he can’t afford to solely use a fax machine instead of a cell phone, nor does he really want to. He actually enjoys communicating with customers, prospects…and even friends, on a regular basis!

(Oh, and he stinks at harness racing.)

So, if he’s smart, he now progresses to Stage 4 - “I’m just going to LEARN everything I can from Dan Kennedy.” That means personally adapting and integrating Dan’s rules and techniques – but still remaining who you are.

Just as Billy Joel integrated the work of the greats who inspired him into his own authentic music, our new Dan Kennedy disciple has learned to likewise funnel the Dan Kennedy marketing magic through his own filter. And nobody looks down on him as if he’s just a pale copy of the real Dan Kennedy.

MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC

Obviously, Stage 4 is what you want to shoot for whenever an impressive person inspires you. But how do you avoid merely imitating the greats – when what you should be doing is integrating what they have to offer into your own persona?

First and foremost, you have to figure out who you are and what you want. You, your personality and your passions are the foundation for your growth and development, both as a human being and as a business person. “To thine own self be true,” goes the Shakespearean maxim and that still holds true 500 years later. I won’t be around in another 500 years, unless science has some really amazing breakthroughs, but I expect that thought to still be quoted then.

Second, break down what works for you and what doesn’t; where you need either a complete change of direction or where you just need to make adjustments to improve your results. To realize your ambitions, this is essential.

Finally, decide how to add needed value to who you are and what you do. This is where you should search for the proper coaches, mentors and role models who have already achieved what you want to achieve. Analyze how they made that magic happen – then see how their different methodologies apply to what you do, how you do it and the areas where you need to make adjustments.

The big lesson here? Never try to play someone else’s game. Instead, fit theirs into your own.

That’s how I help my clients achieve celebrity status in their fields. Obviously, they have to offer something different to stand out – and, to properly brand them, we employ proven strategies used by some of the most successful business people of all time. But we use those strategies to support and promote who our clients are, not to make them into something they’re not.

When you integrate instead of imitate, you eliminate a lot of self-imposed limitations and open up a world of possibilities. So don’t be an Elvis impersonator. It’s always better to be your own King…and that’s how you can ignite your business and transform your world, as well as the worlds of so many more people who you’ll now be able to help - because they see you as the real deal, not merely an impersonator.

Different from the fleeting Facebook “share” or Twitter “Tweet,” the new “Like” button leaves a lasting “Like” on the page. And for Facebook users who are logged in, they can actually see how many people like that page and pictures of any friends who like it. It’s really kind of cool.

Further exciting our branding agency is the ability to use Open Graph protocol with meta tags to enable users to establish lasting connections to your pages. What does this mean? This means that if your website falls under one of Facebook’s categories such as movies, sports teams, celebrities or restaurants, then your pages show up in more places on Facebook and you gain the ability to publish stories to connected users. Interesting…

So if you like the idea, how do you ad a “Like” button to your page. With a simple widget, of course. Gotta love how user-friendly Facebook likes to make things (pun intended). In addition to the “Like” button, Facebook developers have recently made several social plug-ins available and you can find them all here, but no doubt the one we will start seeing the most will be the “Like” button. To add the “Like” button to your site, all you have to do is grab the code, add to your site and voila – you have your own “Like” button.

The iframe code will look something like this (but with your URL):

< iframesrc="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fcelebritybrandingagency.com%2F&layout=standard&show_faces=true&width=450&action=like&colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:px"> < /iframe>

“Like” is the new branding strategy on the block, and now is the time to add it to your site. Social media is the game you want to be ahead of the curve on, so ride the wave my friends and let your readers “Like” your work.

I sent out about 18,000 direct mail pieces last month, and I re-learned a few lessons, just like I always do. Maybe I can save you a few dollars, and a few lessons by sharing some of the most important things I’ve learned over the years about direct mail. And most importantly, if you're not doing any direct mail, now is the time to start! Almost everyone else has backed off of it due to cost, and now you can swoop into people's mailboxes and take new customers!

Below is a list of 10 very important things you should pay attention to when sending out direct mail:

10. Differentiate Your Marketing Piece - if it looks like everything else, it'll get handled like everything else (put in the trash)

9. Your Mailing Should Have a Single Purpose - don't ask your reader to do too much, they simply won't. If you ask them to download a report, then go to a different website, then call your 800 number, then.... get the point? One thing. Really. One thing is all you should ask them to do.

8. Provide Several Ways for Prospects to Respond - Give them every conceivable way you can think of to reach you. Phone, email, fax, carrier pigeon-- whatever it takes! The worst thing that can happen is that your mailing piece gets your prospect all hot and bothered, but at the time they want to respond, they can't. For instance, what if they are reading your mailing piece but have to run out the door to a meeting. If you only give them a website, then they'll have to wait until they return (which will probably never happen). If you give them a phone number to call, they'll have the opportunity to call you while they're running out the door on their way to their next meeting. Seriously think this through, mailing is expensive, particularly with stamps costing almost 50 cents each, you don't want to blow any opportunity you get for someone to respond. (and YES many people have tested it and time and time again LIVE stamps outperforms metered mail or bulk mail. Buy crazy looking themed stamps, and put as many as you can to get to your postage amount. 2-4 stamps, crooked (seriously), makes it look like you really wanted this piece to get out to the person opening it.)

7. Measure the right metrics - ROI is all that matters. It doesn't matter what percentage of people respond, or how much the mailing cost you to send out. The only thing that matters is if you made money in the end or got new leads to work (whatever your goal from the piece is).

6. Test, Test, Test, Test.... - you get the picture. Simple things like how many people are in a photo, whether they are male or female, old or young can change the response of a piece. There is no magic answer, just test.

5. One Mailing is NOT Marketing - one mailing is a test. On average it will take you 7-9 times to get a prospect's attention. Don't mail the first piece, get no response and then give up. Whatever the response on your first piece, it will usually increase exponentially on each additional piece.

4. Include a "Call to Action" - You've got to tell people what to do when they read. Don't just tell them all about your products and services, you've got to give them written instruction on what to do next. For example: Call us today for a free consultation and a complimentary $50 gift card just for inquiring! Or something that tells them exactly what to do. If you don't tell your prospects what to do, they won't do anything and they'll move onto the next piece of mail in the pile.

3. Keep a Recognizable Element to All Marketing Pieces - if you're going to all the trouble to mail people multiple times, make it known that you're the same person or company that's been trying to reach them, and that you continue to try. If you send out 7 - 9 pieces that don't have a common element, you will not have as good of a chance at being recognized. Think about it, wouldn't it peak your interest if you saw the same logo, photo or slogan in your mail box 5 or 6 times in a short period of time?

2. Personalization - How many mailing pieces do you read that say "Dear Valued Prospect/Customer/Client." Right, none. Don't be lazy, don't be cheap, personalize as much as you can. You can certainly personalize letters, and now even graphic postcards are becoming easy to personalize. If you need a source for this, let me know. Also, I've been testing Personalized URL's or "purls" for short, that contain the prosect's name in the web address, for example: www.DOMAINHERE.com/John.Doe and then I send it to John Doe. The good news here, is with any proper Purl system, whether John Doe contacts you once he reaches your site or not, because he entered in his unique url, you get a record of his visit. So, even if he's shy and doesn't respond, you know he was interested enough to visit the site and then you can take a few more shots at him with follow up letters. This is a great strategy to pare down a list. Suppose you have a starting list of 2000 people. If 3% of the people come to the Purl page, that would be 60 people. It's a lot cheaper to pound away at 60 prospects that have indicated they are interested, than it is to keep mailing to 2000 people who you have no idea are interested or not.

1. Don't rely on one marketing Method - Direct mail is a great COMPONENT, not the single solution. The same can be said for Websites, SEO and Pay Per Click, Email, Ezines, Display Ads etc. Use multiple media and track their responses separately. If you want the easy way to do this, assign different 800 numbers to each piece of media (1 for the website, 1 for the postcard, 1 for the phone book ad, 1 for each magazine or newspaper ad that you place, etc) then check out my good friend The ROI Guy at www.YourROIguy.com - tell him I sent you. Richard will take care of you!

Feel free to let me know your thoughts as well as if you have any tips I might have left out by commenting below.

Peter quickly outgrew the 5,000 fan limit on Facebook (which has since been raised) and moved his group to an email list where he sends emails three times a day with the “queries” from the journalists in them. He then utilized Twitter, to build his list even more. Peter sends out short messages on Twitter, called “tweets,” that go out to all of his followers. It’s an instant way for him to get the journalists’ queries out to his subscribers.

At the time of writing this article Peter has more than 40,000 “followers” on Twitter and more than 60,000 people on his mailing list. And he monetizes the list by selling ad space on his emails that go out three times daily, five days a week. If you do the math, you can see how profitable this business is for him and he built the business all on the back of social media.

Another great example of a business using social media is Blendtec. Blendtec makes commercial-strength blenders for consumers and started a YouTube video series called, “Will it blend?” where it shows you the strength of its blenders by blending things that you would think would break most blenders. Of course, the blender makes light work of everything it shows, but it does show some impressive stuff. One of its bigger videos was when it blended an iPhone when it first came out and was hard to get. It reportedly had more than 100,000 views in less than a week, and has now gotten more than 3.3 million views! A blender! And, Blendtec reportedly increased its sales five-fold in that same week. Now, its a real competitor in the consumer space for blenders, all because of social media.

In a totally unique business model, KOGI BBQ in Los Angeles is a mobile restaurant with multiple trucks serving, get this, a fusion of Korean and Mexican food. If there aren’t enough strange statements in that first sentence to make you cross-eyed, then I give up! Well, in any event, people love the food. It was very popular outside of nightclubs and other hot spots, however, there are many challenges to running a restaurant on wheels, namely, it’s not in a fixed location! So, the owners use Twitter to let patrons know where they are located and to offer specials. Talk about an instant way to generate more business! If business is slow, they can just send out a Tweet to drive more people to them!

YouTube.com – A video sharing site now owned by Google, this site is nothing short of a behemoth. Not only does it let users upload video content, you can also post video responses to messages, create your own “channel,” browse and comment on other users’ videos, subscribe to learn when your favorite users add new videos and even embed videos you upload or find from others onto your own website. YouTube revolutionized how easy it is for anyone to add video to the Internet and share it with others. Recently, it was announced that YouTube users are uploading more than 20 hours of video per minute -- that’s a LOT of video! And, now that Google owns it, it has really ramped up its efforts to start analyzing what is said in videos and counting it as very relevant in the Search Engine Optimization (“SEO”) process, so it’s becoming more valuable every day.

Twitter.com – Twitter is the new kid in town. It’s known as a “micro-blog” that allows you to share “what you are doing now” in 140 characters or less. It sounds silly, but it’s actually very valuable and very addictive! On twitter you can “follow” people and other people can become your “followers.” The short, 140-character messages can be sent to your mobile phone, or you can view all of the messages of people you follow on your Twitter page. Many users share links to interesting things they find online, and then they get “retweeted” by others, which exposes the original message writer to the networks of others who retweet the message. This makes your presence viral and helps you gather more “followers.” It sounds like gibberish, I know, but go back and re-read this paragraph again and you’ll start to understand. Even better, go open an account – it’s free!

Digg.com – This is what is known as a “social bookmarking” site. As people searching the Internet find articles, news, videos or anything else of interest, they “Digg” it, which basically means they like it and “recommend” it to others. The more times an article, blog, etc is “Dugg,” the higher it climbs on Digg’s list and gets more and more exposure. Google and the other search engines give very high value to content on Digg because it has received a virtual “vote of confidence” from people viewing content online. While the mathematical formulas that the search engines use to rank content are getting better everyday, they still look to users to get the most accurate results to serve up to web surfers.

Why do the biggest companies in the world hire celebrities to endorse their products? Because People Buy People, and it’s much easier for a consumer to form a relationship with a living breathing person (in this case a celebrity endorser) than for a consumer to fall in love with the form or function of a particular product or service.

So, back to social media -- it is a platform that allows you to generate your own content that connects you with a whole new world of prospects who you can then take on the journey of knowing, liking, trusting you and ultimately doing some business with you.

As in any typical social setting, you can’t be “that guy/gal” who is known for being “a hard sell” or “pushy.” Think of the online social media outlets as huge cocktail parties. You wouldn’t walk into a cocktail party and start screaming, “Cheap Mortgages, right here! Come on over to the sofa and I’ll write up your paperwork, right here on the spot!” Would you?! If you would… well, let’s keep moving.

So the key is to join the conversation that people are already having and find a way to make yourself (and your products and services) relevant. Ultimately, what you want to do is join the conversation on the social networks and find ways to interact with people about things they are already interested in. I know this sounds like it will take forever, and now you have to worry about not saying the wrong thing, etc. I get it, but here’s the key to social media: you can form relationships with huge groups of people all at the same time. No one said you have to talk to each person on a social network individually. This is where the real power of online social networking comes in.

Back in the “old days” most things were bought on cash but if you didn’t have the cash to buy, retailers came up with a system called a lay-a-way plan. The retailer held the goods and you made payment to them. When you were done paying the full price you got your furniture, dishwasher or whatever. Christmas lay-a-way assured gifts for the kids.

Over the years, the plan morphed into giving you the furniture at the point of purchase and making payments. Then someone got the bright idea to charge interest and once that took off credit cards began. Soon, merchants were making more on their financing charges than the sale of goods (GE Capital) and the world of credit was born perhaps to all our chagrin.

History has a way of repeating itself and during this economic downturn the lay-a-way plan has made a comeback in various forms and from unusual sources. Who would have ever thought a Music Festival would be sold that way.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California offered a Lay-a-way plan this year for the first time in their ten year history. Customers had the option of buying their tickets over several months by putting 10% down and the balance over two additional months, with the final payment due prior to the event.

The payment plan was adopted because other festivals have had to cancel their events this year due to sluggish sales. The plan has been working. The organizer was quoted as saying, “without the lay-a-way option we wouldn’t have done so well”. Like any good idea it is also already being adopted at other festivals in Tennessee, New Jersey, and Arizona.

The NFL also now uses a similar payment plan for their season tickets. You start paying right after the season and get paid up before the new season begins.

We use a lay-a-way option in our own business. The Ultimate Celebrity Branding Experience™ payments are spread out over 12 months; franchise legal work and business consulting are all extended over at least 12 months instead of charging the full fee or requiring the total to be put on a credit card and the client getting killed by interest. We are convinced it has made a tremendous difference in everything we do and why our business is growing rapidly even in this economy.

We aren’t alone and several of our clients including Orthodontist, Donna Galante and Paul Cater (www.luvmysmile.com) have added monthly payment programs to their standard pricing. Clearly others should consider doing the same no matter what your business.

If you adopt a variation of the lay-a-way plan in your practice we encourage you not to add interest. All of us are very serious about our dislike of interest payments right now, and we all would love to avoid paying it when we can. You will make more sales by not charging interest and that alone will increase your bottom line.

By Jonathan Widran

Every summer, thousands of young men and women around the U.S. travel great distances and brave the odds in the hopes of becoming the next American Idol. The show, watched by over 30 million viewers a week, taps into our greatest collective fantasy that is truly the 2000s version of the American Dream: that ordinary people like us can outlast the competition and become stars.

You may not be able to sing like Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood, but no worries. Maybe you’re not hot enough to be America’s Next Top Model—so what? If you’re a doctor, lawyer, dentist, orthodontist, fitness guru, portrait photographer, real estate or financial whiz, corporate CEO or even a small businessperson and you’ve got the goods, you’re just one step away from being a business celebrity thanks to the new “Kings of Hollywood,” J.W. Dicks, Esq. and Nick Nanton, Esq.

Florida based attorneys by trade, Dicks and Nanton, principals in Dicks, Nanton & Glass Celebrity Branding Agency™, co-authors of the bestselling book Celebrity Branding YOU™ and co-producers of the TV enterprise America’s PremierExperts, are dedicated to developing the Celebrity Branding® potential of small business owners, professionals, authors, speakers, corporate CEOs and more.

Perfectly tapping into the distinctly 2000s era zeitgeist—maybe it all started with Season One of “Survivor” in 2000--that embraces the notion that regular Joes (or “Joe The Plumbers”) can become media icons, the charismatic duo creates, as Nanton puts it, “niche busters, not blockbusters.” They accomplish this by discovering what’s unique and fascinating about their many clients and prepping them to become celebrity experts in their niche.

Breaking fertile new ground in the realm of global minded business development, Dicks and Nanton meld the traditional outlets of print and television and the burgeoning world of online social media to create momentum, start a buzz and drive attention to their clients.

Celebrity Branding You™ may not be “Sunset Boulevard,” but in their world, everyone’s a potential Norma Desmond, ready for Mr. De Mille to give them their close up. The upshot, of course, being that the world will embrace you and forget all about your competition.

“We believe that people would rather do business with folks they know, like and have confidence in,” says Nanton. “They want to believe they’re dealing with the ‘best in the business.’ To convey that feeling to your potential customers, we Celebrity Brand You as the expert in your field, and once we’ve done this, we can leverage your Celebrity Expert Status to create product and service lines that you endorse to create additional income streams for your business.

“We’re taking the control of who becomes a celebrity out of Hollywood’s hands by bringing the town’s classic star-making machinery to people whose talents lie outside show biz,” Dicks adds. “The truth is, typical Americans today don’t want Hollywood shoving celebrities down their throat. They’re more discerning and want to determine for themselves who they want to hear from. Nick. and I find people that society needs to know about and we use a mixture of classic and cutting edge strategies to help them achieve credibility, status and visibility in their niche. In our book, we lay out the five stages of the Celebrity Branding® process: finding your niche, creating your brand, developing your Celebrity Expert Status, Rollout-Expanding Your Celebrity Branded Business and Selling Your Business and Creating ‘Legacy Dollars.’ Whether you run a single person business or a multi-million dollar operation, we offer you the opportunity to create a unique brand that cannot be duplicated.”

The first step in the branding process involves gaining credibility through mainstream media outlets. This past year, Dicks & Nanton took a group of diverse clients on a whirlwind tri-city tour. In Orlando, where many of today’s biggest stars got their starts, they were photographed professionally by Brook Pifer, the Rockstar Photographer® who is known for her work with various American Idols and Grammy Award winners. The groups’ next stop was Hollywood, where they shot segments for the Celebrity Lawyers’ TV show “America’s PremierExperts™”; the show airs at various times on different NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox affiliates around the U.S.

In conjunction with this show, these experts joined many others whose information and businesses are part of an extensive database on the corollary website associated with the show www.AmericasPremierExperts.com, which is which is quickly becoming a goto directory of experts for major media outlets as well as consumers seeking the input of those who possess expertise in a certain arena.

The last stop on the tour is New York, where they visit with national book publishers and radio and TV producers. In addition to forging the groundwork by which each client/expert will contribute one chapter to a new book, each client was interviewed by a nationally renowned journalist for a regional feature in USA Today and also for appearances in the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. Over the course of the 12 months, these clients edged closer to their dreams becoming reality—sound familiar? Who needs Simon Cowell when you’ve got Dicks and Nanton steering the boat?

The next step for these and other clients is taking their newfound regional and national exposure and growing celebrity status and applying it to the ever-growing network of hundreds of social media outlets that are becoming the springboard for celebrities of all types. From there, the Celebrity Lawyers target outlets related to the client’s particular business, profession or expertise to circulate press releases, newsletters, magazines, etc. and work individually to create personality driven websites. These sites, also known as CelebritySites™, help create a personal bond with the consumer, convert the visitors into prospects and ultimately make more money for the clients.

“The secret formula is taking the credits we help them get in mass media and inserting them into targeted media,” says Nanton, “which puts the business celebrity in front of consumers who are hungry for what they offer and turns them from ‘unwelcome pest’ to ‘welcome guest in the eyes of their prospects.’”

Dicks and Nanton each bring a unique set of personal and professional experiences to the Celebrity Branding® table. Dicks has spent his entire 35 year career building successful businesses for himself and his clients, bringing his golden touch to the marketing and sales of over $500 million of products and services. He is the senior partner of Dicks & Nanton P.A.: The Business Growth Lawyers™, representing clients in the growth of their business using franchises, area exclusive licensing, coaching, idea licensing, info-marketing, joint ventures, syndications and explosion marketing to accomplish their goals.

Dicks has worked with a diverse set of clients ranging from an Inc. 500 fastest growing company with sales over $250 Million, to public companies and down to a small start up that made fishing lures. In addition to coaching and consulting with clients nationwide, he is also a successful entrepreneur. He has built his own businesses, with annual sales over $35 Million, developed real estate in excess of $200 Million and both created, and sold intellectual property rights for multiple millions of dollars.

Known as “The Celebrity Lawyer” for his role in promoting, marketing and creating Celebrity Experts across such diversified fields as entertainment, health and fitness, law, medicine, personal development, finance, and real estate, Nanton represents many top Celebrity Experts and serves as the Producer of America’s PremierExperts™ television show. He also produces The Next Big Thing™ radio show, designed to recognize the top Celebrity Experts and bring their solutions to consumers and media outlets alike.

Nanton has been named “Best of the Bar” and has even been referred to as “One of Orlando’s Top 10 Young and Powerful.” Prior to becoming an attorney, he spent more than a decade immersed in the entertainment industry. As an award-winning songwriter and television producer, he has worked on projects and negotiated deals from large-scale events to reality television shows—involving celebrities from a wide array of genres including President George H.W. Bush, Bill Cosby, Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins, Legendary College Basketball Coach Bobby Knight and Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Famer Stan Lynch of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fame, among others.

Prior to founding the Dicks & Nanton companies, Nanton served as CEO of Cinemark Music Group LLC, a subsidiary of Cinemark USA, Inc., one of the largest motion picture exhibitors in North America with 3,288 screens in 33 States and internationally.

“The first step in the process of Celebrity Branding You™ is an initial consultation to learn about a potential client’s business, where they are currently, where they would like to be in the future, and to see if they’ve got what it takes” says Nanton. “We’ll give them enough of an overview that they’ll be able to see their business in a fresh light with new and exciting possibilities. With the leverage we provide them, they have the tools to reach so many more people. It’s very satisfying for JW and I to know that through our efforts, we are helping them make a difference in millions of consumers’ lives.”

Once I have set my goals for the year, I review action ideas that I’ve used in the past and that I know will work. In this month’s issue is a series of quick-action ideas that I think might help your business. I have listed 41. You may be able to use all of them, but you need only one to make a difference in what you’re doing. The action ideas are not in any particular order, so consider each of them the same. It may be the first or the last you find most helpful, but consider them all your business New Year Resolutions!

1. Add a ‘call to action’ in all your advertisements. Give people a specific reason to call you now; give them a toll-free number to do it with, and specifically tell them to “act now.”

2. Review your old customer records. Write a specific letter to each of them offering a special discount if they will do business with you today.

3. Get testimonials from your customers. Use them in all your promotions. Third-party testimonials are considered the most powerful form of advertising.

4. Establish your own referral network. Get a group of business people together that are non-competing and pledge referrals to each other. Meet once per month to thank each other and give ideas of the type of customers and clients you may be looking for. Commitment if the key for each participant.

5. Become the expert in your business. Write a book, report, article, newspaper column, or seminar about your topic and publish it yourself to get it circulating. When you circulate your best ideas, good things happen.

6. Develop at least one add-on or “up-sell” to your main product. Always offer the add-on every time the main product is offered. It should be low cost, and high profit. Start now and it will help you make up any recession fall-off in your business.

7. Make it more convenient for your customer to do business with you. Increase your hours, add a toll-free number, accept credit cards, etc.

8. Raise your prices. Don’t be afraid to raise your rates sometimes. As an alternative, consider raising your rates for new clients, but discounting them for your current customers.

9. Do a cost audit of your business. Consider alternatives to every vendor or supplier you have. For example, competitively price your long-distance carrier. Compare UPS to Federal Express. Eliminate waste. A dollar saved goes right to the bottom line profit.

10. Consider buying “shareware” computer programs. Before you buy name brands, just as in the case of prescription drugs, generic software is much cheaper and will often do an equal job.

11. Trade high interest rate credit cards for low interest rate cards. If you pay off your balance every month, get a no fee card.

12. Before adding a new employee, try a temporary. See if the increased work is short term. Outsourcing jobs is a growing trend for all businesses.

13. Become tax smart. Learn all of the business deductions and be creative in how you can reduce your taxes. Deductions save you the percentage of your tax bracket. Tax credits save you dollar for dollar.

14. Incorporate your business. If you are a sole proprietorship or partnership, liability protection is extremely important in this day of never-ending lawsuits.

15. Set up a monthly automatic investment. Don’t put off your long-range planning. Set aside 10% of everything you make for investing in your future. The investment could be for more marketing.

16. Arrange for a discount with your suppliers if you are able to pay on invoice. If you are having cash flow problems, reverse the procedure and ask for 90 days same as cash.

17. Buy your office supplies from major wholesalers. Use Office Depot, Price and Costco, and don’t let individual employees order their own supplies. Adopt a set list of products a new employee can have and exclude anything else.

18. Get a separate credit card for your business. All interest paid on that card can easily be determined as deductible.

19. Join the National Association for your business. Attend the national convention. This will keep you informed of the latest ideas in your industry. Also take advantage of discounts they arrange with vendors.

20. Buy a book on time management. Incorporate at least one time-saving idea into your daily life.

21. Consider bartering your services. Be liberal. The barter, even if worthless, may lead to a new client. You should also consider offering your services to non profits; it would be a way of meeting a new group of potential clients.

22. Raise your insurance deductible. There is a big premium difference between $250 and $1,000. Weigh the annual difference and consider self-insurance for the higher deductible.

23. Update your business plan with changes for the New Year. If you have never done one, now is a good time to organize your thoughts and plan your direction.

24. As long as you’re updating plans, review your specific marketing ideas and objectives for this year. Don’t just spend money on whatever comes along; plan your expenditures. Use only advertising that allows you to back your reason. If you don’t know your reason, you’re wasting money.

25. In 25 words or less, write out your Unique Selling Proposition. What is it that makes you better than your competitors? Make sure your customers know what it is.

26. Use free advertising by getting publicity. Do press release on newsworthy events. Create a scholarship for high school. Donate time and money to your local charity. In a nutshell, get involved and let people know it.

27. Consider joint ventures with other companies. You can piggy back on their business; be quick and ready to pay for referrals where payment is legally allowed.

28. Survey your customer or hire an outside company to do so. Find out what they really think. What they like and don’t like. Make changes which heed their advice.

29. Send thank-you notes for anything and everything done for you. Do it because it is the right thing to do, not just because it will help your business.

30. Do a profile on your customers. So that you can be a target market your advertising and promotions. Once you know your customers’ demographics, you can go after them more effectively and increase results from your marketing dollar.

31. Hire an outside person to be a test prospect. See how your customers are actually treated. Find out what your sales people are truly promising your customers. The outside company can quickly give you the inside on your company.

32. Focus on making your business profitable over and above what you take out as a salary. Remember, there is more to being in business than simply making payroll. Don’t just create a job for yourself.

33. Consider a home equity loan to expand your business. Refinance as rates fall this year and pay it back with a better business.

34. Step up your collection process. Use credit cards to get money faster.

35. Add shipping and handling charges to any order. Everyone has them, and it has become common place. If you are absolutely against them, make sure you promote the fact that you don’t charge for shipping and handling.

36. Make your life directly related to your business so that everything you do becomes deductible. Vacation on business and dine with business clients.

37. Maximize your retirement contributions. Get control of the investing of those dollars yourself. Don’t miss out on the time value of money and the enormous advantage of tax-free compounding.

38. Consider asset protection with everything you do. Incorporate your business and use estate planning strategies -- not just to save taxes, but to minimize the chance of losing everything in a lawsuit.

39. Keep immaculate business records. This will save your neck in government audits and lawsuits. Use internal memos to the file and confirm everything in writing. If it’s not worth writing, it’s not worth doing.

40. Update your life and health insurance cost. For an independent analysis and recommendation of the cheapest insurance use an insurance audit.

41. Develop Additional Profit Centers for YOUR Business.

If you studied the preceding list, I know that you will agree there were some powerful ideas contained in a few pages. I would hope that you would save the list to review again in the months ahead. I find that as I scan through a list of powerful ideas, others will formulate in my mind. Sometimes even better ideas because they are usually directly related to my business; and that process is, of course, what psychologists refer to as imaging, and it is a terrific way for individuals to brainstorm with themselves.

While editing my list for publication to you, it occurred to me (through imaging) that one of the best resolutions of all (#41) would be to add an additional profit center to your business no matter what that business is. After all, you already have overhead clicking away, so anything you do to “add-on” makes your profits grow exponentially. When you consider this strategy, keep an open mind and consider not only new profit centers related to your business, but that it may actually be an entirely new business. For instance, this year we took one of our companies’ core competencies website developments and spun it off into a separate company doing outside work. This new business-in-a-business added a new six-figure income stream with little added overhead.

First, it is a mistake to think about marketing as a cost. It isn’t a cost if you know your numbers and you know how much money in new business you should reap from your marketing. This number is your return on investment (ROI). The money you spend on marketing is, and should be, an investment -- not a cost.

Second, not all recessions are the same, so you can’t bet that waiting on the sidelines is a strategy that will even keep you in the game. Right now, you need to be making “real time” changes in your business that will let you take advantage of the opportunities you see -- and there will be opportunities. Maybe just the fact that your competition finds the market tough is the opportunity you need to take their spot in the marketplace.

Let’s look at six more major business mistakes that people are making right now in their business and how you can overcome them.

1. FAILING TO TEST YOUR IDEAS

Great ideas are frequently born around the kitchen table. Unfortunately, so are bad ones. The real question is: How do you know the difference?

My experience has been that everyone (including me), thinks their ideas are best. Frequently, however, we are surprised to discover that the idea didn’t work. If people like the Coca-Cola Company can make a major marketing blunder, dropping “old” Coke for “new” Coke -- or the entire American auto industry can market the wrong product at the wrong time, then all of us can make mistakes. The problem with business marketing mistakes is that they are expensive, as the tax payers are going to find out in the auto bailout.

Is there anything we can do in our own business? Absolutely! Test your ideas first. Test, you say? Test your ideas first? Yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. It is a little more work. It’s a little more time consuming. But guess what? It saves money, and it absolutely works.

Let’s say you have ten outside salesman. Each salesman calls on 20 people per day, and closes four sales. If you could change the presentation they make, and increase your sales by one sale per salesman, your sales would increase by 25%! The problem you face, however, is that a change could also result in lowering everyone’s production. Potentially this decision could be so big that it could actually put you out of business. The result of this predicament is failure to act.

Instead, test the new presentation. Take two of your best salesmen, and let them try the new presentation. Monitor the results. Does it work? If so, immediately change and adopt the new presentation throughout your organization. Use your best salesmen because if they can’t do it, then it is likely that the others can’t either.

Sales presentations aren’t the only things to test. Test your ads. Do they pull better in your local newspaper, or in other mediums, like local magazines? Which works better? Compare the costs per reader. Does the response rate improve if you add one additional color to the ad? If it helps, use it. If it doesn’t, now you know, and you also know how to save yourself some money.

Test your prices. This is one of the craziest things in business. Sometimes raising your price will actually improve sales. Okay, so you don’t believe me. Try it and see. Some things that wouldn’t sell for $19.00 sell better at $24.95, and sometimes even better at $149. Don’t ask me why exactly, but it has to do with the perception of value. Increasing the price doesn’t work all the time, just like decreasing the price doesn’t. The point is that you must test, and constantly re-test, to see which price works the best. The other point which is important to make on this particular topic is that once you have decided which price is correct, don’t let yourself be lulled into the thought that it should always stay the same price. At least once a year, re-test your prices to determine whether or not increasing or decreasing will have a better success rate than your current price.

It is far cheaper to test many ideas to find one that works

than it is to throw money at “hunches” you think are right.

2. RUNNING INSTITUTIONAL ADVERTISING INSTEAD OF DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING.

Ninety-five percent of all advertising you see is institutional advertising. For those of you who aren’t sure, institutional advertising is the type that tells you how wonderful and terrific the company is that is putting on the advertisement, but fails to tell you much about products. More importantly, while institutional advertising may create a feel good response on the part of the person it is directed to, it does not create a direct response that offers the ability for the customer to act.

The result is wasted advertising dollars, except in loose terms of brand identity. Small advertisers can’t afford to lose money this way. Unfortunately, small advertisers frequently copy the large advertisers. They also frequently copy their bad mistakes, and try to use institutional advertising. Again, the result winds up the same. The small advertiser develops an ad which may bring some feel good response on the part of its viewer, but does not bring the type of response which results in a sale. If you are a small advertiser, you simply cannot afford to make this kind of mistake.

Direct response advertising is different. Its entire purpose is to elicit a direct response from the viewer. This means that the intention of the ad is to get the viewer to act at that particular moment and make a call, send in money, go to a website, order a free report, or use some method of responding directly to the ad. The difference between direct response advertising and institutional advertising is that direct response advertising produces direct results. Direct response advertising doesn’t waste its time with superficial information about the company, and its motivation for success. Instead, it talks about the product, what it will do for its consumer, and why they should specifically purchase the product with all of its benefits now. Direct response advertising answers the questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how. Then, it ends with a call to action on the part of the reader.

For those of you who may be reading this, and remaining skeptical, all I ask you do is utilize direct response with testing (point number one). Take a certain amount of your advertising budget, and leave it with the same type of advertisements you have been running. Take the other half, and utilize direct response advertising. After a three month period (which is a good test marketing run), you tell me which works the best. Clearly, you will discover that direct response advertising far out-pulls the institutional advertising in terms of return on investments (ROI), and you will be well on your way to increased sales.

Use institutional advertising only when you become an institution.

In the meantime, make money with direct response.

3. FAILURE TO CONVEY YOUR UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION (USP)

Every person, product and company has a “Unique Selling Proposition.” Maybe you are the fastest in your business. Maybe you provide the best service in your business. It could be that your product is the least expensive available in the market. Whatever the reason, you have a unique selling proposition, or you should create a specific one, to separate yourself from your competitors.

Once you discover what your USP is, you should feature it in every advertisement you place. If you are open 24-hours a day and no one else in the industry is, then make certain you promote that as unique to your store. While your USP may not be attractive to everyone, it will be attractive to a certain segment of people, and those people will be your buyers.

Developing your USP is a must. It is the integral part which separates you from your competition. Without hammering it to the marketplace on a daily basis, you become one of the numbers in the crowd.

Federal Express utilized the USP of getting a letter to an individual guaranteed by the next morning in an industry that had no reliability to it. It created a USP, and with it, went on to become a multi-billion dollar company. Apple computers took a unique method of utilizing icons and pictures to create a new method of using computers, which simplified what had previously been a complex array of letters and numbers. Carving out this niche, the “MAC” became the second leading computer system in the industry, and the iPod and iPhone are blockbuster sellers.

How is your business unique? What is the one feature that you offer that no one else offers to their customers? Why should a customer pick your company over any of the other companies offering a similar product or service? Discover this answer, and use it in all of your advertising and marketing materials. Hammer it home constantly, over and over in public.

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is the reason your

one (USP) they won’t set you apart.

4. FORGETTING THE BACK-END SALE

Most companies spend a great deal of money getting their customer in the front door. Once they do, and the customer purchases a product, the owner feels he has accomplished his goal and objective of making a sale. The sad truth is these companies and owners do not realize that they have only begun the sale, instead of ending the sale. Too often these companies stop selling at this point. Having captured the customer and sale, they neglect the most profitable part of the business: The Back-End Sale.

While making a sale in the front-end is unquestionably important, the key everyone should realize is that what has really taken place is that a long-term customer has just been generated. What happens with this customer now separates the truly successful businesses from those which remain moderately successful.

What should you expect from the follow-up business? A simple rule of thumb is that 20% of the people you get in the first sale will become high-end product customers. That means that these individuals are pleased with your company’s performance and will be willing to purchase more products, and more expensive ones. Let me give you an example: Let’s say that you are selling a $19.95 product. This is sold to 1,000 people through a direct response advertisement, such as the one we discussed in point number two. Of the 1,000 people who purchase the initial $19.95 product, at least 200 (20%) of those individuals will be immediate candidates for a product priced higher (anywhere from $499 to $1,000). You will note from the initial sale, that the total gross of 1,000 people at $19.95 produced $19,950.00 worth of income. If you are then able to take the 200 people representing 20%, and convert them to $1,000 purchasers, you would then produce a gross of $200,000 on the next immediate sale. Obviously, forgetting the Back-End Sale is extremely expensive.

Another point that needs to be made is that this is only from the initial and second sale. Now that you have captured these people as potential long-term customers, they should be placed in your database and constantly contacted to buy additional products. Again, from this experience, clients will continue to purchase additional products, some on the lower end and some on the higher end. The point is, they must be captured in a database and constantly communicated with and offered additional products. This is also true of the other 80% who will buy again but perhaps not as frequently.

The result of the example above is important for another point regarding advertising and sales in general. Frequently, advertising will be written-off if it produces only a volume of sales which break even. In other words, if the advertising campaign costs $2,000, and it produces $2,000 worth of income (even on a net income basis), the campaign will be written off as a failure because it only broke even. However, what you must remember is that some of those customers you just obtained will buy again and again. What most businesses miss is the opportunity to measure this advertising campaign based on anything other than the initial sale. This is another huge mistake. Remember, the post-sale success should be more profitable than the initial sale’s success.

The single most profitable product you have
is your back-end sale.

5. FAILURE TO CAPTURE THE NAMES AND ADDRESSES OF YOUR CUSTOMERS.

The single most important asset that any company has is the database of names and addresses of its customer base. Nevertheless, at least 80% of companies never maintain a database of their customers. Think about it. You spend thousands and thousands of dollars getting people in the door, and once you have separated these key customers from all of the other thousands of people who totally disregard your advertisement, they are neglected for future advertising. Instead, you continue along with your institutional advertising, trying to get more and more new customers. Try something new, concentrate on your customer base as you capture it instead, and gear at least a growing portion of your advertising dollars solely to these individuals. They are proven successful buyers, and as long as you provide the quality and quantity of the products that attracted them in the first place, they will continue to buy from you for years to come.

Once you have become one of those few companies that successfully capture the names and addresses of their customers, go a step further to find out specific information about that customer. What type of product do they like? What services are they most interested in? Once you classify these customers, you can now target advertising based on sales of products which will be most attractive to those customers.

Let’s take a clothing store and use it as an example. If a clothing store kept a database on me, they would find that I frequent the casual area of the store, and prefer Tommy Bahama shirts. If the store uses this information in a database, they can now do pinpoint marketing. Every time they have a sale on Tommy Bahama shirts, who should they send a post card to? Which advertising do you think would be more successful — an institutional ad in the newspaper about the store, or a direct contact with 1,000 people who you know like to buy Tommy Bahama shirts? I think you get my point.

The lifetime value of a repeat customer is
a company’s biggest asset.

6. STICK WITH MARKETING CAMPAIGNS THAT WORK

Want to know one of the biggest marketing mistakes made by most every company? They stop doing what works. I know it sounds crazy, but it happens over and over again. The company may have had an ad which has run for years. It worked every time. A new employee comes in who wants to show some new pizzazz, and says, “What we need to do is change our image. We need to drop the old ad for this clearer, fresher look.” Do I have to tell you what happens? Friends, if something works, let it ride. Better still, let it roll. Your goal is to find the best ad by testing until you know it works. Once you know for sure, you do a “roll-out.” This means you take as much money as you can, and leverage this winner until it stops producing. As long as it keeps hitting your numbers, keep pounding it out.

If upon occasion you want to test a new ad, keep the old one running as a control, and test the new one. If the new one works better than the old one you can either use the new one and roll it out with all your marketing dollars, or use both as long as they keep working.

Never forget what works and always expand on success.

THE FINAL MISTAKE

NOT PUTTING INTO PRACTICE – THESE IDEAS

Now you have them. Use these Golden Nuggets and they will make you money. Remember, while I can tell you what I know, I can’t do it for you.

Once you learn a rule that works, don’t forget to apply it.

But, as always, when you see a lot of business ideas, and work with many types of people, the most obvious errors and mistakes that people can make also become glaringly obvious. The one I’m going to tell you about today is one that has been around forever, but you probably didn’t make the connection to how it applied to you.

Let me start with an example. We’ve all heard the sob story of a famous actor, musician, athlete, artist, etc., who has had blockbuster success, sold millions of something, and then ended up flat broke and can’t understand why. They often even go so far as to start suing those around them in hopes of uncovering some scandal and recouping some of their lost funds. Well, if it is scandal, then the victim is only partially to blame, but they still usually deserve some of the blame. If there is no scandal, then the victim is really only a victim of their own folly. They are most likely guilty of ThoughtSourcing.

What is ThoughtSourcing? It’s the function of outsourcing everything that crosses your path that requires some good old-fashioned thought; and possibly even some management of time and effort to execute on the decisions that you make based on that thought.

For example, what usually happens when the aforementioned artist/athlete/actor begins the ascent to stardom? As soon as they start making any money, they start changing everything they were doing. They stop practicing as hard, they stop handling their own business, and they start hiring people to handle every function that they don’t want to deal with. They start pushing off all business, financial and other important decisions, so that they can “just focus on the ______________” (insert the word music, game or art in the blank and you can complete the sentence for yourself).

Every rock star wants to just show up and play to thousands of screaming fans, get paid millions to do it, and then go back to crafting great songs.

Every artist wants to spend all of their time in the studio painting as inspiration hits them; and then for someone to run into the studio and offer them lots of money to take the artwork off their hands before someone else does.

Every athlete wants to focus on what it will feel like to win the big game.

The list goes on and on … and on. Then, at some point, the aforementioned “tortured soul” loses one or more sources of their income, along with those who were posing as their friends because they could latch on and party for free, and winds up in a catastrophic financial position, seemingly overnight. The problem? They were ThoughtSourcing.

What these people often fail to realize is that at some point things are going to change, and if the person who is most affected by the decisions made doesn’t stay actively involved in working to build a better, stronger, faster business on the back of their talent, then at some point the odds are that the well will run dry. It does take some thought and some strategy to stay at the top of your business, no matter if it’s an artistic or athletic endeavor, or a financial one.

I know, I know. But you’re not a ______________ (insert artist, athlete or rock star here). But most small business owners make the same mistakes. They build a successful business, “bootstrapping” their way to profitability and doing everything themselves. Then, when things start going great, they start hiring people or outsourcing most of their work. They start changing the formula that got them to profitability. Eventually, they start letting a little bit of customer service slide, they don’t keep their costs under control, and they realize how much “better” life would be if they had someone else running the operational portion of their business (because after all, operations are no fun anyway, right?), etc., etc., etc. And POOF! The tortured soul once again ends up stranded by themselves, and so broke that they can’t even afford their $10 mocha-choca-latte-grande-milkshake anymore.

I’m certainly not advocating that you do everything yourself and not to surround yourself with others who can help take some of the burden off of your back so you can be more productive at doing what you do best. No, I’m not saying that at all. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t let it get to the point where you aren’t the one in control and making well thought out decisions anymore, because you’ve gotten a bit lazy. Don’t be a victim of outsourcing your thought. Don’t be the next victim of ThoughtSourcing.

Take a few minutes to think about what you can do to take control of the important areas in your business that affect your bottom line; make sure you’re the one taking the time to think about how you want them to be handled, and then execute accordingly. Take the time to do this, and I’m confident that 2009 will be a breakout year for you.

It seemed like the sink was about two inches deep at its deepest point. No matter what we did, it was useless for everything you would want to use a sink for. And of course, as we looked at the sink problem, we decided that there was also a counter top problem. The counter top was the wrong color and was keeping us from having the “warm” kitchen that we really wanted. So we decided we were going to fix the sink problem and the counter top problem at the same time. And it just so happened, that the very moment when neither of us could take this problem anymore, was the Sunday before the party, and the small army of 80 people were set to arrive in T-6 days. Panic set in.

I can do a lot of things, but plumbing and granite installation would certainly not be within my skill set, so I had to find a solution -- QUICKLY. I can tell you that the only thing that calmed my boiling blood pressure was a few simple words from my good friend Brian. He said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got a friend in the business.”

So I called his friend first thing Monday morning and explained my dilemma. He laughed at my “compact” timeline, but with a little cajoling, I had him out at my house within an hour. He left with his head in his hands, but he agreed that he would do his best to help us solve our dilemma by Friday of that same week.

I use the story to illustrate the fact that when consumers have a point of pain, they go looking for a solution. And there is no greater solution than having or being referred to “a friend in the business.” These five simple words break down barriers that are normally in play when selecting a vendor, and ultimately lead the vendor to a point of less price resistance and less time closing the sale.

The ultimate goal should be to get your clients and prospects to feel like you are their friend in the business. The only way to do this is by constantly delivering quality solutions, on time, at the right price (notice I didn’t say the cheapest price) and by building a relationship. Without the second step, building the relationship, you’re not a “friend” in the business, you’re just another vendor and that isn’t nearly as valuable or profitable.

So how do you develop a relationship and become a friend in the business? You have to consistently keep in touch with your clients and prospects. Now, I know what you’re thinking -- “I can hardly keep up with my own friends and family, how do you expect me to keep up with hundreds or even thousands of clients and prospects?” The solution is through a systematic approach to keeping in touch. While there are many ways to do this, here are a few of my favorites that you can start using immediately:

1. Develop a “snail mail” newsletter: Most businesses think that this is too expensive, or takes too much time and effort. But I can tell you from first-hand experience that the direct business and the referral business we get from delivering our message to the mail boxes of our clients and prospects each and every month, far outweighs the time, the effort or the expense. Think about it this way: would you rather have to pick up the phone and call every client and prospect on your list and repeat yourself over and over again or would you rather write your message one time, as concisely as possible, and be able to illustrate it in pictures or diagrams, without interruptions? Exactly. The newsletter allows you to carry on a one-way conversation with your clients that will take far less time and yield greater results, as long as you deliver it on a consistent basis, and craft your message in a way that feels like you are letting your clients into your world; allowing them to get to know you as a “friend.” A newsletter doesn’t have to be complicated or overly long, it could even be as simple as a letter that you write, but the point is that it consistently allows you to build the relationship.

2. Send out an Ezine: While ezines (also known as e-mail newsletters) aren’t quite as effective as snail mail newsletters because they are often seen as an interruption and get deleted, or end up in the spam folder, they are still a great way to communicate with your audience. They are another point of contact with your clients that will allow you to tell your story and keep in touch. We send out an ezine that is very nice looking and it has pictures and graphics in it, and these are nice. But I will definitely say that my preference is for another type of ezine that we use. This second type is written like a personal email, with just text, that tells a short story about what’s happening in my life or business, and then allows me to relate it back to a business lesson that is valuable for my readers, along with an offer to contact me if I can be of any help. It’s modeled after a personal email and gets read as such, rather than lumped in the pile of emails that don’t need to be responded to, and therefore are first to get deleted. I find that the response from this type of ezine is much higher. There are many programs that will allow you to insert the name of your prospects into your emails so it looks personalized when it arrives in your prospects’ inboxes. My favorite, and the one we use is www.CelebrityBrandingCart.com

3. Develop Greeting Card Campaigns: We are always on the lookout for strategies that will allow us to stand out from the crowd, and not get us lumped in with every other business that is vying for our prospects’ attention. One of the ways we do this is by sending out greeting cards. As you might imagine, writing out thousands of greeting cards would be very time-consuming, if not impossible, to do in a timely fashion, so we use a very cool service that allows us to send greeting cards with any image we want on them, with a message that is personalized and written in our handwriting; but we only have to type the message once and it gets personalized and sent. They have digitized my handwriting and they insert the names we give them and then they print the cards one by one, stuff them in envelopes and then also use my handwriting font to print the address on the front of the envelope. They have thousands of designs and messages to choose from, or you can create your own. You can check out this service at www.CelebrityBrandingCards.com

There you have it: three simple ways that you can continue to establish rapport with your clients and prospects that will only take you a few hours each month. The key is to create a system that allows you to spend just a couple of hours creating one message that can be leveraged and personalized to keep in touch with your clients and prospects on a regular basis; so that you can spend your time delivering great quality products and services, on time, and continue to be a good “friend in the business.”

…Oh, yeah, and yes we did get our new sink and granite installed before the party. Everyone had a wonderful time, and as you can imagine, we now need a bigger house due to all of the presents Bowen got!

Business Vision came up today when I read a newspaper report about Michael Eisner buying Topps Co., the 60-year-old trading card company. Clearly, for years, this long-term successful company had continued to operate the way it had always operated and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. Now, Eisner walks in and looks at the company differently than the millions of other people who have seen it. Yes, he sees a trading card company, but what he also sees is a media company. In his view, the trading and sports card company had a different kind of business just waiting to be released from its confines. Using the new view, instead of just “Bazooka Joe” trading cards, how about a “Bazooka Joe” movie, followed by a “Bazooka Joe” web site, book, t-shirts and likely an entire amusement park or at least part of one (ala the Harry Potter Attraction going in at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida). [Note: These are my expansions of ideas based on his comments.] Note also that “Bazooka Joe” is only one of the hundreds of real and imaginary characters in the Topps Co. stable that give them a virtual library of talent and personalities from which to draw.

As always, let me now suggest that you bring this concept home and take a moment to step back and look at your own business, or even the business of someone else you like, and see what they aren’t doing that your vision of another profit center could add.

One more quick point from the Eisner announcement: his method of moving Topps into the position of a media company is web-based from the beginning. He envisions web movies, as well as many types of mobile entertainment. He sees new platforms to be generated, and is preparing to stake a beachhead now for the future in the long-term. To me this is more than Web 2.0, this is the next transformation from being tethered anywhere for sports, news or entertainment; and keeping this in mind in your own business will certainly have profitable overtones for your future.

An alternative route to growing a business is to build your idea upon a preexisting set of behavior events that the consumer is already engaged in, and innovate the experience in a way that is more satisfying.

Let me give you some examples:

Starbucks: Consumers already drank coffee when Starbucks came along. In fact, drinking coffee was part of our culture. What Starbucks did was step into the behavior of the consumer and altered the experience to be more satisfying. Instead of selling another coffee brand, they created an industry around the coffee and the experience. They not only sold coffee, they sold pastries and other items but more importantly, they sold the franchise that catapulted the company into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

The iPod: Nice gadget yes, but instead of selling another device, Apple sold a system: a new method of doing something consumers did already; finding, evaluating, selecting, listening, storing and of course playing music. Instead of just a single product, they created a sub-industry that encompassed all of the experiences of music interaction.

Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club™: Kennedy’s is our venture into building onto what the consumer is already doing -- getting a haircut. A small group of us joined “the club” to change the experience of getting a haircut from a perfunctory one, to a positive experience we actually looked forward to. The consumer client is going through the process anyway, so why not change the process so that it is now something relaxing, enjoyable and, hopefully, habit forming? It is no longer just getting a haircut -- it is a way of living.

What groups of existing behavior can you build upon to change the experience in such a way that it eliminates the issue of price and time?

Think about these everyday behaviors:
Exercise/workout
Eating
Grooming/brushing teeth
Paying bills
House chores
Dating
Commuting
Medical attention
Dental
Legal
Buying a house
Investing
Insurance
Medicine
Grocery shopping
Worship

...and many, many more. If you can discover alternatives to all patterns of behavior (including sub-patterns), that save time, or create a more enjoyable experience for the consumer,, the experience will lead to a new business system that offers immense opportunity.