Archive for the ‘making mistakes’ Category

Affirmations Sell More Then Possibilities

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

With all the information available online, the Internet has changed the way consumers make purchases. Nothing new there, but because of this, business owners and entrepreneurs have had to change the way they market their products and services.

Customers have direct access to press releases, product reviews and your website which is filled with your marketing copy. They have access to this all before they even leave their home or office to make a purchase (and in many cases they may be making the purchase right there in their home or office.)

Market From A Position of Strength

Thursday, June 19th, 2008
I was reading (re-reading, actually) a great book over the weekend: Soar With Your Strengths. It’s all about how our teachers, our bosses and we ourselves are often so focused on improving weaknesses and changing natural tendencies that we neglect to focus on what makes us great, unique and powerful: our strengths.
“The goal,” the book says, “is to manage weaknesses so that the strengths can be freed to develop and become so powerful they make the weaknesses irrelevant.” By focusing on real strengths, people, their teams and their businesses will excel in ways never before imagined. By focusing on weaknesses, you will constantly be trying to explain away, make excuses and be something you really aren’t.

The same can be said for your marketing efforts. All too often, I see so much time and effort spent on trying to be something you aren’t. Why focus on what your business does just OK or a niche that you really don’t own? Focus on what works, on what makes you powerful and, ultimately, on the true value you offer your potential clients.

And speaking of strengths in marketing, I hope you consider your website to be a strength, an asset. But what are you doing beyond your website? Read my most recent post below, Beyond Your Website, to learn what you should be doing to build on the strength of your website.

Marketing is an imperfect science at best.

Saturday, April 12th, 2008
I get calls, e-mails and face-to-face questions about all aspects of marketing all the time. The most common one may be this: “What is the best way to market my business? [Blank] or [blank]? The blanks represent a certain kind of marketing vehicle. So someone will ask if I think postcards are better than an e-newsletter, or a press release gets more mileage than a print ad.

There is no one answer to this question. A local drycleaning business has a different market, and therefore different marketing needs, than an online gift company. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who views marketing as a one-size-fits-all kind of thing has it all wrong. And I promise you their results will speak for themselves.

No matter what expert you hire, no matter what kind of expert you may be on your own, this is a very subjective thing. For sure, there is much we can do to ensure we’re going in the right direction toward our sales goals, but at the end of the day, marketing is not neat and it’s not a science.

Making mistakes is a good thing

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Show me the person who makes no mistakes and I will show you someone who is, well….not alive!

Who among us hasn’t made mistakes? I make ‘em daily, big and small. One of my goals is to take everything I do wrong, or too much or not enough less seriously in a personal way and more seriously in an educational way.

Mistakes…we all make ‘em but who among us actually deals with them?

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

Really insightful and honest article on FastCompany.com by Keith Ferrazzi. I believe in this “get over it” mentality as well. Get support, reach out to your friends and trusted ones, be the person they reach out to when they have a crisis, too. Don’t harp on what happened — do something about it.

Here it is in its entirety with a link back at the end:

Mistakes Were Made. Now Recover. by Keith Ferrazzi

Rebounding from a career crisis.