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Archive for Marketing – Page 2

The #1 Reason that Keeps Speakers from Getting Paid to Speak

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

So you have this burning desire to be a speaker, right? So much so that you jump at the chance to speak regardless of if you are getting paid or not…am I speaking to you?

I understand because I would go speak for free just to be able to speak because I love inspiring, encouraging and adding value to people until I realized the one big reason that I wasn’t getting padi to speak…

I wasn’t asking.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? If you don’t ask, then why would anyone pay you?

Sometimes we make business complicated when all we really need to do is just ask. The biggest reason that most speakers don’t ask to get paid is that they are afraid. If you have a great message and deliver great content, then you are entitled to be compensated.

If just one person takes one idea and it changes their life, what is that worth? No one could even come close to putting a price tag on that kind of information, so if you want to get paid to speak, learn to ask. It really is that simple.

5 Profit Producing Rules of Business I Wish I’d Learned Earlier

By Tim Davis · Comments (2)

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Regardless of your business, there are some standard rules, that when applied correctly, produce amazing results, loyal customers and piles of profits. Some of these rules may come easy, while others you may need to work for some time to completely master, but when I look back over my business career, I wish I had someone shake me hard enough to get these through my thick skull.

The #1 Rule: Be willing to walk away. You really don’t “need” every deal. Have the confidence to walk away from customers and deals that just don’t feel right or fit your business plan.
If you have to drag them in, you have to drag them through. Customers that want to dictate terms and tell you how to run your business are neither profitable, nor do they send referrals (and if they do send you a referral, they are just like them) Don’t spend time trying to sell someone. Give them the features and benefits and let them make a choice.
Confidence is everything. Without confidence, there is not a plan, checklist, or strategy in the world that will work. When it comes to gaining confidence the rules is – “Do whatever it takes to build your confidence”
Get momentum FAST. My business coach, friend and mentor, John Maxwell calls this the BIG MO. It can be hard to get and even harder to keep. Momentum can change the outcome of a ball game and can change your business, so do whatever you can to get momentum FAST!
Become a master marketer. You can be the best at your business, but being the best does not mean you will create customers or profits. Make sure you learn all you can about marketing, because the best marketer will outperform the best in your business everyday and twice on Sunday’s.

5 Steps to Take if You Want to Become a Paid Speaker

By Tim Davis · Comments (2)

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Several time per week I will get an email asking me how I got into the speaking business and how anyone can become a paid speaker. The short story is that I literally fell into the speaking business by accident. At the time I was introduced to the speaking industry, I had no idea how much I would enjoy being a speaker.

Knowing what I know today, I wish I had been introduced to the speaking business years ago, because I absolutely love being a speaker! Recently I wrote a post about a dear friend, Denai Vaughn who tragically passed away unexpected in a traffic accident. Here life was cut short, but she was passionately pursuing her speaking career, so I would suggest that if you really want to become a paid speaker, get started now. Don’t wait, life is too short.

That being said, let me offer 5 P’s that you need to consider to get started as a speaker

Positioning. Simply put, if you want to be a speaker you need to position yourself as a speaker. People need to know what you do, so start letting them know that you are a speaker.
Platform. A platform is simply what you are know for. Do you speak about Leadership, Sales, Marketing? Who is your target audience? Right now I am booking speaking opportunities for my new children’s book, Squiggly’s Race to the Ark. While I am currently speaking to children, I am developing a platform of business principles I learned from writing a children’s book that I will eventually be promoting to the business community.
Packaging. Your marketing materials, including your website should package you as a speaker. I talk about packaging in my book, Personal Branding Mastery.
Products. Having your own products such as audio programs and even your own book will accelerate your speaking career.
Promotion. 20% of speaking is the actual speaking. 80% of your time and energy needs to be devoted to marketing your speaking business.

I believe that, regardless of your business, speaking is one of those skills that is necessary to master in order to build influence and bring in more customers. If you work on the 5 P’s, you will find that can actually get paid very well to speak to large audiences. If you have the heart of a teacher and a burning desire to impact people’s lives, then speaking could be the career you have been looking for!

If you would like for me to write more post about becoming a paid speaker, leave a comment below. If you have a question, I will answer that as well. The more comments, the more post

The Top 15 Ways to Build Your Email List

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

Email marketing can be profitable for any business, no matter what kind of product or service you offer. It is significantly cheaper than other advertising methods and, if done right, helps build loyalty and trust with customers. As a result, you generate more sales and more profits!

The foundation for successful email marketing is a targeted, permission-based email list. Marketers call contact lists their ‘goldmine’ because it can generate much of their sales revenue. If you’ve built up a list of opt-in subscribers that are qualified and interested in what you have to offer, then you’ve completed the first step and are on your way. Now it’s time to ‘mine’ for gold!

Below you’ll find several list-building and retention ideas that will help you get the best results from all your email marketing activities:

Provide useful, relevant content. Your visitors will not give you their email addresses just because they can subscribe to your newsletter free of charge. You have to provide unique and valuable information that will be of interest or use to them.
Add a subscription form to every page on your website. Make sure it stands out so it is easy to find. If it doesn’t look cluttered, you may want to include more than one on some pages. For instance, if your opt-in form always appears in the top-left corner of your site, you may want to add one at the end of your most popular articles.
Add subscription forms to your social media pages. Make sure that you don’t waste this valuable source of revenue opportunities. Integrate your sign-up forms with Facebook and more!
Make it easy for readers to sign up. The more information you request, the fewer people will opt-in. In most cases, a name and an email address should suffice. If it’s not necessary, don’t include it here. You can always survey them once they’re customers! We do recommend that you provide a link to your Privacy Policy however.
Publish a Privacy Policy. Let your readers know that they can be confident you will not share their information with others. The easiest way to do this is to set up a Privacy Policy web page and provide the link to it below your opt-in form. (Note: If you don’t have one, put the words ‘privacy policy generator’ into a search engine and you should be able to find a suitable form to use.)
Provide samples of your newsletters and Ezines. This lets potential subscribers review your materials before they sign up to determine if it’s something they’d be interested in.
Archive past newsletters and articles. An online library of past newsletters and articles is both appealing and useful to visitors and builds your credibility as an authority. In addition, if your articles are written with good SEO techniques in mind, they can increase traffic to your website through enhanced search engine positioning.
Give gifts subscribers can actually use. Offer an opt-in bonus for joining your subscriber list! Write an ebook or provide a PDF business report, or even hire a programmer to create downloadable or web-based software. But don’t limit yourself to offering gifts to opt-ins. Give them out when your readers fill out a survey, provide a testimonial, success story, or a great product idea. Let them know when they can expect the next gift offer. Everyone likes to get something for free! And if you pass out ‘goodies’ throughout the year, your subscribers will feel truly appreciated − and that’s good for business!
Ask your subscribers to pass it on. Word of mouth is a powerful viral technique that works great with email marketing. If your subscribers find your content interesting, amusing or informative, they’ll probably share it with their friends. This can be a great source of new customers, so make sure to remind them to ‘pass it on’.
Let others reprint your newsletter as long as the content is not modified. If you’re happy to share your content with the universe, then why not! Many webmasters and newsletter publishers are actively looking for high-quality content and, if they reprint your newsletter, you’ll get new subscribers, and more traffic and links pointing to your site.
Include a ‘Sign Up’ button in your newsletter. If you’re using plain text instead of HTML, be sure to provide a text link to your subscription page. You may feel that this is not required because the subscriber is already on your list, but remember that readers will forward your newsletters to others, or reprint them online. Make it easy for them to subscribe!
Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page has one goal − to acquire opt-ins and build your list. Think of it as a mini-sales letter to go along with your subscription or opt-in gift. It should feature a strong headline and a couple of powerful benefits that should make subscribers salivate to sign up! Once created, use a service such as WordTracker to find hundreds of targeted keywords, and promote your offer using pay-per-click advertising from Google, MSN and Yahoo. Now that should make a splash!
Include testimonials on your squeeze page. This is crucial. Put one or two strong testimonials from satisfied customers on your squeeze page. This can be in any format, but you may find that multimedia (audio or video) is more ‘believable’ and inspires more people to action. To further enhance believability, get permission to use actual customer names, locations and/or urls (Don’t use ‘Bob K, FL’). Add a note inviting others to participate. After all, it’s free publicity!
Blog religiously. Blogging is a great way to communicate with prospects and potential customers, and creates a nice synergy with your email marketing. Be sure to include your newsletter sign-up form on each page of your blog. You can start a free blog at Blogger or WordPress.
Post on other blogs. Post thoughtful comments and information on similar blogs with a link to your squeeze or opt-in pages. Also comment on others’ blogs through trackbacks. In most cases, your comments will be posted on their blogs with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers, and get your brand out there!

I use Get Response for my email list. You can find out more about them by clicking on any of the links in this blog post. Those links are my affiliate links, so that means that should you sign up for Get Response, I may receive a commission.

Try This Bold Marketing Move to Build Credibility for Your Brand

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Building your personal brand takes time. People need to know about you, like you and ultimately trust you before they will do business with you; however there are some outrageously bold moves that you can make to help your brand appear more credible.

One of my favorite is to have banner stands. I posted a picture of a banner stand we had created my new children’s book – Squiggly’s Race to the Ark.

Creating this type of banner is very easy. We purchased ours from a local Fast Signs office. Most franchises like Fast Signs will even have graphic designers that will help you create the actual banner.

Having a banner for your business, especially if you are a solo-prenuer, coach, speaker or service based professional will make your personal brand more credible in several ways. Here are 5 ways a banner stand will build your brand.

It gives you credibility. Anytime you have professional graphics, your credibility increases. Over 70% of the population are “visuals” meaning that they believe more of what they actually see.
It attracts a crowd. Well designed banners will attract a crowd because people want to see what it is all about and what business owner doesn’t want more people coming to them?
It gets people talking. 99% of the people reading this post will agree that this is a good idea, yet do nothing about it. For those few brave souls willing to step outside the boat, people will begin to talk and getting people to talk about you and your business is a good thing!
It adds influence to your personal brand. Having a large banner adds to your influence because while most people would love to have one, few will get one. When you do something that most people want to do, you build more influence.
It builds your confidence. Anytime I work with my coaching clients I emphasize the importance of confidence. Having your own banner, audio CD or even your own book is just as much about building confidence as it is about marketing.

If you are just launching your brand, give this strategy a shot and I promise you will be amazed at how fast this increases your credibility, influence and business!

7 Pearls of Wisdom I Have Learned About MLM’s

By Tim Davis · Comments (2)

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

I have been wanting to write a post about MLM’s (multi-level marketing) aka direct selling for some time so here it is…

I have people ask me about MLM’s quite often and so I wanted to share with you what I know about them, what I think about them and what will make you successful should you decide to get involved as a distributor for one of them.

First off, I believe that the direct selling model is a very viable business model when it is set up correctly. Some of the biggest names in business recommend direct selling as well. Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki both endorse the MLM model of business and with their track record I would say that their endorsement carries a lot of weight.

Over the years I have been involved with a couple of different MLM companies. In fact I am a distributor for two right now, Send Out Cards and Talkfusion. (Those are direct links to my distributor pages so if you decide you want to join them read this entire post first.)

I find both of these companies products very valuable in growing my other businesses so they are a natural fit for me. I use Send Out Cards in all of my businesses as well as my personal contacts and I use Talkfusion to stay in contact with prospects and customers for my coaching and speaking businesses as well. I would basically be using these products whether they were direct selling models or not, but enough about that, let’s get to the heart of the matter and why I wrote this post. Because I get asked about MLM a lot, I wanted to share with you my thoughts in case you were considering any MLM organization.

That actually leads me into the 7 truths that YOU need to know about MLM’s and if it is right for you.

It is a business. Don’t get fooled that working 5 hours a week or throwing house parties will make you a gazillionaire, because it won’t. This industry is a golden opportunity for people who understand it is a business and that starting a business takes time, energy and money. Everyone who owns any type of business will tell you that it is hard work, but working hard now means you may not have to work hard later. Starting a business requires a plan and that is always just a little more than circles on a dry erase board.
You need to have drive to succeed. Everyone wants to be successful, but not everyone has the inner desire to succeed long term. There is a BIG difference between getting motivated at an event and staying motivated when you hit a sales slump. Every top performer I know has a slump from time to time, but the one’s who are driven can pull themselves out.
You need to have a plan, just like any other business. Every successful business has a plan. A set of goals that are measured and tracked on a regular basis. Your plan has to be more than calling a few friends and relatives. That could be a start, but your plan better have a larger reach if you are going to succeed.
You need to master marketing if you plan to succeed. 80% of any successful business is marketing. It is okay if you don’t know anything about marketing when you start, but it is deadly if you don’t invest a huge amount of time studying how to become a master marketer and at the same time build a powerful personal brand. Get my free e-book on personal branding mastery here!
You need to learn to deal with rejection. People will say no. People will join and not work. People will quit. It is all part of growing a business, so you must get used to it and fast. If rejection send you into your room to pull the covers over your head, then you may want to consider another source of income.
You need to be able to motivate yourself and lead others. This industry is part product sales and a large part recruiting other distributors. If you don’t get up motivated everyday, then you may find yourself on the outside looking in. And when you are successful at finding others to join, then you will have to lead the vast majority of them. You brought them in, so in the majority of cases you will need to lead them through.
You need to be passionate about the product or service. Like I said before, I jumped into several companies blinded by the income opportunity and not at all passionate about the product. If you want to sell, then you better bring passion and enthusiasm to the table. They are contagious and everyone I know that has a successful MLM has both of these qualities turned on full blast. You better believe in the product or service to the point you are “shouting from the rooftops about how great it is”. I have found that people who are successful in sales have a BIG MOUTH and that is easy when you love what you do.

Like I said earlier, I think the direct-selling industry is a great business model. Over the years it has taken a beating and in some cases a bad rap, but the model still stands. If you feel like you can get after it and make a difference for others and yourself, then go for it, but like I tell all of my coaching clients…

“You can’t be half pregnant, get all in or get all out”

But here is the kicker…These pearls of wisdom apply to other business models as well…just a thought.

Don’t Forget These 3 Personal Branding Secrets of Top Performers

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Marketing is the most valuable part of any business, because without marketing no business comes in. That is why I am so passionate about helping you build your marketing and your personal brand.

But if you look beyond the pictures, logos and other visuals, you will find three big branding secrets of top performers. These are part of what I call the intangible pieces to success. Some people naturally bring these intangibles to the table, while other must practice to perfect them.

Unfortunately these secrets don’t get talked about too often, but I will tell you that beyond anything, these 3 keys are found in every top performer I have coached.

Here are the 3 secrets you don’t want to forget when you develop your personal brand.

They exude confidence. Top performers may not always feel confident, but they exude confidence. Customers want to know that the person who is helping them is confident they can get the job done.
They think opportunity. Top performers are always creating opportunity by intently listening to the conversation. They ask great questions and present opportunities as they hear key points from their customers.
They get momentum fast. As my friend, mentor and coach John Maxwell calls it, the Big MO. Getting off to a fast start is critical for anyone in business. Do whatever you need to get momentum on your side fast and then do whatever you need to keep it on your side. Don’t get caught in over-thinking, just get momentum going.

Just recently I did all three of these to help launch my new children’s book, Squiggly’s Race to the Ark. I had a Christian School approach me about reading Squiggly to their k-5 graders, but the problem was that I didn’t have the actual book back from the printers…Uh OH! But rather than duck, I stepped up and agreed to read the book using a power point. From there, I asked a simple question…

“Do you ever do fundraising?” The school said yes and from there I offered to let them use Squiggly as a fundraising project. Again, creating opportunity and getting momentum going fast.

What are you doing right now that you can get momentum swung in your direction?

Caution! Don’t Overlook This Marketing Strategy for Accelerating Your Success

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

It is very easy to get distracted today. There are 101 experts, guru’s and online strategies that will tell you exactly how to get new customers, but which one do you choose?

I am getting ready to launch my new children’s book, Squiggly’s Race to the Ark. Last night I had a conversation with another author who wanted to know what I was doing to launch Squiggly and what she could do to get her book launched.

What I shared with her is the most overlooked marketing strategy today…Connections!

This strategy works for any business, any product and any service anywhere.

There are lots of ways to launch your marketing campaign such as

Blogs
Facebook ads
Fan Pages
Email List
Social Media
Tele-seminars
Direct mail

And the list goes on, but so many people still overlook the power of connections. Whenever I am launching a business, product or service I start by thinking about connections. Who do I know, that either

Can help me reach my target market or
Know the person who can help me reach my target market

Connections are the fastest way to accelerate your success but it takes energy and hard work. You have to reach out to people. Go and meet them by networking. Take them to lunch and build a relationship. Add value to them first and you will find that the rewards from connections are amazing!

You could take days, months or years to build your business or you could invest in people and accelerate your success today!

Here is a Fast Start Connections plan that you can use right away…

Make a list of 25 people who you currently know and have a relationship with
Call each person on the list and ask if you can take them to lunch. If they don’t live in the same city, ask if you can schedule a time to talk with them about your business
Share with them what you are doing, how you need help and always ask how you can help them
Send them a hand written thank you card regardless of the outcome.

Here are two bonus strategies for making connections

Research conferences and networking events that cater to your niche
Don’t be a cheapskate, invest in attending the right events

If you really want to accelerate your success, invest in people and they will in turn invest in you!

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3 Warning Signs Your Business is in Trouble

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Small business owners, Solopreneurs, and professional service providers such as coaches, speakers, loan officers, real estate agents etc often get stuck in their business. There are so many “shiny new objects” that we can feel overwhelmed by what we should do and when we should do it.

At times I feel the same way. Like you, I can get involved in way too many project that cause me to lose sight of the main goal. When I am speaking to business owners, I know their business is in trouble based on these three warning signs:

They don’t have a clear vision of what they want their business to be
They are caught up in “busy” task and not “productive” task
They can’t clearly explain the main goal they must accomplish everyday

But there is some really GOOD NEWS on how they can fix these problems FAST! It all starts with asking the right questions. The 3 questions I ask myself are listed below. Give it a shot because you may just get the clarity that you are looking for!

“We will get better answers, when we ask better questions” – Tony Robbins

What do you want?
How bad do you want it?
What do you need to invest in to make it happen?

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What does it take? I ask you in this video…watch it here…

By Tim Davis · Comments (0)

Monday, June 27th, 2011

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Archive for Marketing – Page 2

The #1 Reason that Keeps Speakers from Getting Paid to Speak

5 Profit Producing Rules of Business I Wish I’d Learned Earlier

5 Steps to Take if You Want to Become a Paid Speaker

Try This Bold Marketing Move to Build Credibility for Your Brand

7 Pearls of Wisdom I Have Learned About MLM’s

Don’t Forget These 3 Personal Branding Secrets of Top Performers

Caution! Don’t Overlook This Marketing Strategy for Accelerating Your Success

3 Warning Signs Your Business is in Trouble

What does it take? I ask you in this video…watch it here…

The Ultimate CRM for Business

Get Your FREE e-book – Personal Branding Mastery!

FREE WEBINAR

Build Your Email List Fast!

Archive for Marketing – Page 2

Let’s Connect!

The Ultimate CRM for Business

Get Your FREE e-book – Personal Branding Mastery!

FREE WEBINAR

Build Your Email List Fast!