I’m going to be totally honest with you guys. I love anyone who follows the Edward Tufte school of thought that PowerPoint is dumbing us down. Peggy Klaus didn’t reveal her allegiances until the very last chapter, but I’ll forgive her, since I enjoyed the rest of her book so much.

Peggy’s book, Brag! The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It, should be required reading for designers, even though it’s not specifically targeted at us. Designers are notorious for despising self-promotion – I can list on one hand the designers I know who actually enjoy it. But here’s the thing: If we don’t promote ourselves, who’s going to do it? Peggy points out the obvious but increasingly important point that the workplace is no longer “safe.” Loyalty to a company in exchange for job security is going the way of the dinosaur. (Some would argue that it already has gone.) So we can’t just assume that the work we do is going to be enough to keep us employed or help us find our next job (or client).

The book is divided into sections: bragging myths; the “Take 12” self-evaluation; business bragging (including the infamous elevator speech and handling performance reviews); “techno-bragging”; converting job interviews into job offers; leveraging networking when you don’t have a “real” job; using your personal history to give yourself and your company credibility; “brag nags” (key communication techniques); and “12 Tooting Tips”.

One of the first things Peggy teaches her readers to do is to create “brag bites.” These are little snippets about you that stick – they are “authentic, compelling, and delivered in a conversational way.” For example, one of mine might be a favorite story that my mother likes to tell.

One Saturday morning when I was about 10, I took a card table, a piece of posterboard, and my little brother out to the front of our house, and sat down on our front steps. We were out there for a few hours, so finally, my mom came out to find out what we were doing (and why my brother was running after the occasional car that came down our street). She thought we were selling lemonade, but discovered that I was actually selling my handmade jewelry.

This little story is memorable, short, and shows off some great personality traits (creativity, determination, and enterprising spirit). But if I were to tell you that story in the context of conversation, say, over dinner, it’s unlikely you’d sit there and think, “Wow, this Erin chick is really full of herself!” And therein lies the secret. It’s all about presenting yourself in a way that lets people draw those great conclusions about you on their own, rather than you having to shout it from the rooftops yourself. (Because, really, that’s just annoying for everyone.)

Some of the most useful chapters in the book cover what Peggy calls “techno-bragging” and the workplace. With more and more people working off-site, or simply dealing with the deluge of emails and voicemails they get buried under every day, it can be hard to stay on your boss’s radar. Just “making the numbers” isn’t good enough. I found this one particularly relevant as a designer, because I think we often believe that the quality of our work shows off exactly how awesome we are. But the truth is, it doesn’t. We’re not always in jobs (or working with clients) where we get to do our most creative work. And even when we are, it is still sometimes a struggle to explain how our excellent design work brings value to our company (or client). So we have to make sure people know who we are, what we’re doing, and why it’s important to them. There are some great examples of how people have used technology to their advantage, keeping them on the radar of bosses and higher-ups (including one story about a guy who needed to not only make himself visible, but had to figure out how to deal with an attention-hogging coworker), as well as how to ace a performance review.

By far, my favorite thing comes at the very end of the book. Peggy tells the story of going to a conference she was invited to speak at, and receiving a nametag that listed her as “Peggy Klaus, Communications Expert.” She panicked at the sight of “expert” attached to her name, saying she felt like she couldn’t possibly be an expert, despite the fact that she was invited to speak at this conference! (She actually tried to scrape the word “expert” off her nametag with a butter knife. She only got as far as the T.) On some level, we all suffer from the Imposter Complex, regardless of how much we actually do know and have accomplished.

So go forth, BoDo readers, and find a copy of this book. (And read it. Don’t go using it to prop up your coffee table or filling in your bookshelf.)

Erin Harris | Visual Communication Designer
erinmharris.com | BoDo Author | Erin Reviews

Well, better late than never. We’re having a heck of a snow storm today and the phone and email have been ringing off the hook. Shhhh … Don’t tell Cat I’m late with my post, though. She’ll have my head.

Alas, I digress. On with some tips about tips.

You’re probably pretty good at what you do. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be in business very long. Along the way, you’ve likely picked up quite a bit of knowledge about your field, had some ups and downs, a few horror stories and [hopefully] many success stories.

Here’s an idea. Share your knowledge and wisdom. Consider putting together some special reports that teach your clients and prospects something, how to avoid common mistakes or get better results. I’ve written about this often, but I’m going to give you some additional ideas in this post.

Using education as a marketing tool is a great way for service professionals to position themselves as experts. So, where do you start? Glad you asked. Begin by grabbing a legal pad and pencil. Then simply jot down potential topic ideas. “How to …,” “10 tips for better …,” “How to avoid the top 5 mistakes in …” You get the idea. These don’t need to be perfect (ergo the pencil). Cross out or erase the losers and whittle your list down to what you believe are some winners … that you can follow through on.

Tips sheets are pretty easy as starters. Odds are, you’ve come across the same problems over and over in working with your clients. Bingo! You’ve got a tip. Start off by stating the problem. Maybe several of your clients have a hard time communicating their project goals. How about writing a tip sheet like, “5 tips for writing a killer project brief.” Short, sweet and to the point.

Next, simply write down what you ask your clients. What questions always come up? Maybe it’s “Establish your project goals,” “Defining your audience.” “Determine your schedule,” “Create your specifications,” and “Determine a workable budget.” Once you have your topics, toss in an example or two. Follow that up with how this helps move the project along on target. Voila! You’ve got a tip sheet. How easy was that?

After you’ve got several tips sheets put together, you can use them as the basis to draft a special report. Ooooo! “Special Report.” Sounds like it has a lot of authority, doesn’t it. Well, it should if you did your homework.

Okay … so now you’ve got tips and maybe a report or two. What do you do with them? Here’s a few ideas:

Use them as leave-behinds after a meeting. This goes for prospects and clients alike.

Send out a postcard promo and offer a tip sheet or report as a freebie. Simply put a line in there that says something like, “Call today to receive our special report, “How to use graphic design to win thousands in new business.” Next thing you know, prospects are calling you and a dialogue begins.

Offer them as complimentary downloads on your site. Ideally, have a vehicle in place to gather names and email addresses. A database function is ideal for this, but it can simply be a matter of having them email you to receive the material.

Submit them as articles to relevant sites. Be sure to include a link to your site. This will help build some additional link popularity.

Give them to your network of associates for them to distribute to their clients and prospects as a free gift or leave-behind.

When your making cold/warm calls, before you hang up ask them if you can send them a copy. Nine times out of ten, they’ll say, “Sure.”

Here’s a nifty idea to generate some additional revenue. Contact a reasonably large company that supplies something to your target audience. Get with the Marketing Director or Sales Director. Ask if they would like copies of your report to use as a free gift for their customers. Maybe dupe a CD or DVD with your report and sell it to the company for a fee. You get some dough and they get a great gift to give out. Quality information that can really help their customers is better than a pen, notepad or a mug any day of the week.

And there you have it.

Okay … maybe you aren’t exactly a Hemmingway. If that’s the case, consider hiring a ghost writer to either write the stuff for you or edit what you write. You might even be able to trade services. If you don’t know any writers, call or email me. We’ll talk.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt

If you’ve followed the news, you know the economy here in the US is slowing down. The housing market is tanked, foreclosures are skyrocketing and the credit belt is tightening. As a matter of fact, I just read that foreclosures were up a whopping 79% in 2007 over 2006. Yikes! Plus this is an election year and that usually means companies cut back on marketing until they see who will be hanging out in the Oval Office for the next four years.

So, what does this mean to you and your business? It means a couple of things. First, if you haven’t been aggressively marketing your practice, you’re already behind the eight ball. Second, you’d better start educating your clients about what to do to help insure their success in a slow economy.

Research has shown, over and over, that the successful companies are the ones who maintain, or better increase, their marketing activities during slow times. Typically, one of the first things to be cut during a slump is marketing. So, while the competition is cutting back and losing market presence, the ones who step things up are the ones who increase their visibility. Plus, because of this increased visibility, they’re poised to be in a much better position when things start to recover. Often, they can overtake a top gun who cut their budget. This goes for both your clients and your practice.

But, for many indy designers, marketing dollars are already hard to come by. So, it’s time to used brains instead of bucks and savvy instead of spending.

Here’s a few ideas to help get you through the tough times.

1. Build your list
It’s always best to build your own list, rather than renting one. When you build your own, you do the research and learn a lot more about your prospects’ companies than just a name, addresses and maybe a phone number. When you know about your prospects, it’s easier to tailor your message to address common problems and challenges.

2. Use your list
This is a no-brainer, but if you don’t use your list, all that time building it was a waste. It’s always nice to mail out a snazzy 4-color piece or a slick promo package like the ones that grace the pages of HOW Magazine’s Self Promotion Annual. But, if times are slow, consider a well-written letter of introduction along with your business card. You can do the jazzy thing later when the wampum’s flowing in.

Be sure to follow up by phone. This is the critical area where lots of folks fail. Without follow up plan, even the cost of some paper and stamps are often squandered.

Another tactic is burning CDs with your promo instead of having it printed. It’s a bit more expensive than a simple letter, but, since you can create them on demand, it’s less than a printed piece.

3. Focus on industries less effected by a slow down
Think about what people are always going to need when things are slow. For instance, if you now focus on construction and housing, you might start promoting to the healthcare market. People are always going to need medical care.

4. Expand your horizons
If it’s looking like your local area may not be able to sustain you during a sluggish period, it’s time to start thinking about expanding regionally or even nationally.

Back in the day, I used to fly hither and yon for meetings, press checks and such. Now, via the Internet, I can work with remote client as easy as if they’re next door. Sometimes, it’s even easier.

5. Get some press
If you’re getting slow, consider using this time to put together your press kit. Send it out to your local media and also trade magazines within your niche.

Look for things that you can put a newsy spin on and write a release. Have you joined a committee for some community or nonprofit project? Offering any new services? Maybe you just completed a project that would make a good case study for an industry publication.

6. Get back in touch with former clients
Pick up the phone and renew some old connections. Maybe get together for lunch or just coffee. Learn what they’ve been up to. Find ways to keep in touch. How about an e-newsletter or occasionally emailing them some useful links to articles, sites and such? Become a resource.

7. Dialing for dollars
If you’re slow, you can do a few things – Play some mindless Solitaire, watch Oprah or pick up the phone. Cold/warm calling is a numbers game, but it’s still one of the quickest ways to nab some new business.

8. Get active
Join and get active in some community groups and/or business organizations. Get on a committee or two. Or, better yet, chair them. This will increase your visibility and get your name around. Working on committees also lets others see how you work.

9. Suggest project ideas to your clients
If you’re on top of your clients’ businesses, and you should be, find ideas that will help them out. Perhaps they have a new product or service that could use a brochure or news release. Maybe their site is stale and needs a lift.

10. Upsell at every opportunity
So, you’ve got a gig. Great. Maybe it’s a brochure for a new product. Could they also use an ad? Perhaps you’re doing a menu. Your client might also need table tents to feature the new entrees.

For instance, one of my clients called me in for some marketing consulting. We hashed some things around and I suggested news release about a particularly successful joint venture. I wrote the release. Upgrade number one. The release was picked up by a trade publication. It was my client’s first press mention. They were pleased as punch and it generated some inquiries from new prospects.

On the heels of that success, I suggested they do a press kit and shoot it off to their [small] media list. Upgrade number two. We sent out the kit to the six editors on their list. That resulted in two feature stories and one invitation for my client to submit a feature. Guess who writes that? Upgrade number three.

The feature stories resulted in several new inquires and customers. The new customers included companies in Asia – an entirely new market for them.

When you’re upselling, though, it’s important to keep in mind sound ethics. Don’t try to sell them something that they don’t need and won’t help them. You might get the gig but lose the client when it fails.

So, at the end of the day, or better, at the beginning, think of ways to maximize your marketing efforts without breaking the bank. Zig when your competition zags. Get visible. When the economic turnaround happens, you’ll be positioned to reel in the big fish.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt

Research has shown that the typical client/designer relationship lasts two - three years. Usually, when a relationship goes South, the communication stops. That’s understandable. Sometimes there are bad feelings over something that happened during a project and such. But, often, it’s a matter of contacts changing. People move on, get promoted, you get busy with other things and the communication fades.

Word to the wise – strive to keep the lines of communication open. With the holidays coming up, this is a great time of year to rekindle an old relationship. Consider dropping a contact a holiday card. Or, pick up the phone to say “hello.”

Let me give you a couple of examples.

There’s this guy who was my boss in the previous incarnation about 20 some odd years ago. We had become pretty good friends during the time I worked for him. When I left that position for greener pastures, we kept in touch. A phone call here. A lunch there.

After a while, he left the company to set out on his own. When he needed some design work, he called me. As luck would have it, he was something of a broker. His clients became my clients.

Several years later, he closed up shop to take a job offer that he simply couldn’t refuse. Guess what? That company became a client. This scenario repeated itself several more times over the years. Simply keeping in touch resulted in thousands of dollars in billings over time.

Here’s another example. I had a local client for whom I did a boat load of work a while back. After a few years, things changed. My key contact was promoted to a position that didn’t get involved with design. Another contact, the Marketing Director, left the company. The President launched a new branding directive and a new Marketing Director came on board. Although I had been doing much of their branding-related work, she elected to team up with her own people. That’s not all that unusual.

The work dried up, but I kept in touch here and there.

After not hearing a peep out of these folks for quite a while, I get a phone call. One of the company divisions had a trade show coming up and they needed help creating a center panel for a display. To make a very long story short, that one panel turned into designing 15 full displays. Cha ching! Not too shabby.

Then came an email a couple of weeks after I finished the displays. “Could I come in for a meeting?” Sure thing. During that meeting, I learned that the relationship with the Marketing Director’s “people” had soured. The client needed a fresh look for their enterprise-wide branding. They wanted me to redesign their web site … and every marketing material the company had in its arsenal – brochures, PowerPoints and more. This client is a 100 million dollar+ company. Son of cha ching!
The thing is, this was a result of not giving up and not burning any bridges.

So, your job-at-hand is to go through your past contacts and dig up some folks you’ve not heard from in a while. Then, pick up (or better, custom design) some holiday cards and shoot ‘em out. Or, pick up the phone and give them a call. Take them out for a holiday lunch.

This is a perfect time of year for rekindling relationships. You might just find those couple of cards, phone calls or lunches are the best gift you can give to your practice.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt

Postcards are a handy and often inexpensive way to get your name out there and stay in touch. You can use them for a variety of things such as a first contact vehicle, announcing a move or a new service. Some folks like to use them as a leave behind or a follow up after a meeting.

When I was working under the Tortorella Design moniker, I used a postcard campaign as an introduction to prospects that I wanted to add to the ‘ole client roster. Mine were oversized – 8.5″ x 5.5″ and printed full color on one side and black & white on the reverse side. The campaign consists of four postcards. I traded services with a local printer who I’ve worked with for several years. A barter deal like this might be just the ticket for you, too.

All I was trying to do with the postcards was to gain some name recognition. To accomplish that, I played off the fact that folks are always screwing up my surname. So, with tongue in cheek, I got together with my main writer guy and we came up with the copy. By the way, I also traded services with him. Gotta love it! If you’d like to see the series, just click here and you’ll be whisked away to the group on my site.

I gathered my prospect contact info and mailed out one card each week for four weeks. I timed the mailing so they’ll receive them midweek. Mondays and Fridays are bad, since folks are getting over the weekend or looking forward to it. During the fifth week I made follow up phone calls and asked for an appointment to see if there’s a good fit.

The trick here is to first pre-qualify the prospects as best you can. You’ll do more qualifying when you follow up. Next, keep the mailing small for this type of campaign. I did these in groups of 20 - 25. I’ve learned that’s about the most I could handle at a time for the follow up calls. For this type of campaign, it’s important to remember that if you don’t follow up you’re potentially wasting your time and money. So, work toward keeping it manageable.

This technique worked pretty well for me. I also asked folks if I can add them to my contact list for e-mailed news releases and little ditties I send out periodically like links to articles, useful sites I find, etc.

For more info about the pleasures of postcarding, visit the Postcard Queen, Martha Retallick’s site, Postcard Marketing Secrets. Martha offers up a boat load of resources and information to help get you on your way.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt

Up until a couple of years ago I considered myself a graphic designer and marketing consultant. As such, I left the copywriting to the copywriters. Sure, I’d whip up a couple of lines of prose here and there, but the main stuff always went out to a bona fided writer. But, writing is an important activity for designers. You’ll be writing proposals, business letters and memos, instructions for vendors and, hopefully, press releases, articles, along with other promotional stuff.

It wasn’t until I was drafted to write the main content for Creative Latitude that I discovered I had a certain flair for the written word. Well … okay … the keystroked work. What was even more surprising was that I enjoyed it and it was pretty easy for me.

Writing has become a core tool in my business marketing toolbox. I write articles that get posted on various sites. Those drive traffic to my site and then I get a requests for proposals coming into my inbox. As a marketing tool, I highly recommend your start writing stuff.

But maybe you were a C- English student, can’t tell a conjunctive adverb from a coordinate adjective and, pardon me, but your modifier’s dangling. The idea of writing is right up there with having a root canal done by Dr. DeSade without any anesthetic.

Well, you could always take the coward’s route and hire a ghostwriter. Lot’s of folks do and there’s really no shame in doing so. A ghostwriter is somebody you pay you put your thoughts and ideas into tangible, written and usually intelligible form. They get the dough and you get your byline on the finished piece. Or, you can suck it up and get to writing your own stuff. If you take things methodically, it’s not all that tough.

If you’re shaky about stringing together a 1500 word ditty, consider starting off small. Tip Sheets are a great start. These are typically a single page of how-tos topics with a descriptive sentence or two. If you’re even remotely good at what you do, these should be easy as pie.

It’s important to remember that things you take for granted about your work and profession aren’t necessarily at the top of your prospects’ minds. You do these tasks day in and day out. Your prospects don’t, so it’s often new information for them.

When writing a Tip Sheet, think along the lines of, “10 Ways to …” or “The Top Hot Tips for …” Then make up your list and simply write a couple of lines or a paragraph about each item. How hard is that? Odds are, you can whip out one of these in less than an hour.

Maybe you start out with “10 Ways,” but can only come up with eight. No big deal. Just change the headline. The point is to get something into written form. You’re not going for a Noble Prize in Literature. You’re simply conveying your expertise.

Next comes that 1500 word monster. No sweat, Hemmingway. All you need to do is take a few related Tip Sheets and put them together. Add in a wee bit ‘o editing and you’re got yourself and article.

Take a couple of articles, put them together and now you’ve got a “report.” Ooooo! String together several reports and you’ve got the makings of a book. Holy smokes! You went from being writing-challenged to a budding author in just a few steps. Boy, you’re good!

I believe in taking a conversational approach to writing and adding in a little humor. I think it makes things more entertaining, digestible and memorable. But that’s just me. The point is, find your own voice. Be yourself in your writing. Renowned adman, David Ogilvy, once wrote, “Never use jargon words like, reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally. They are the hallmarks of a pretentious ass.”

But most of all, make it fun. It you can do that, you’ll soon find the writer lurking within waiting to see the light of day.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt

If you’re like many creatives out there, at one point or another, you’ve probably thought something along these lines – “Gee, my work is a lot better than Joe Blow, Inc., yet it seems they’re always packed up with projects and I’m dying over here.”

The truth be told, simply having a lot of talent isn’t enough to keep a business afloat. You might be the best designer to come along in years, but if nobody knows about you the phone’s not going to ring. Odds are, what separates your business from one like Joe Blow, Inc. is thought-out marketing.

It’s important to note that marketing isn’t sales. Lots of folks seem to get them confused. Marketing is about warming relationships up for the sales effort. It’s about communicating your story, your value, what makes you different and how you can fill the needs of your clients. Sales is about getting with the prospect and closing the deal. That’s the short version, anyway.

Here are a few tips to get your marketing plan moving.

1. Do a SWOT Analysis
Sounding a bit technical? Nah. A SWOT Analysis is nothing more than writing down your strengths - what you’re good at, what assets you have and such. Next comes your weakness - stuff you stink at, lack of dough, lousy local economy, etc. “O” is for opportunities - things that you can use to your advantage like a new service offering, partnering with other complementary services, a new market niche, etc. Finally, what are the things that threaten your business? This might be Joe Blow, Inc. pumping up their marketing efforts, undercapitalization, etc.

Putting some time into preparing a rigorously honest SWOT Analysis can help give you a crystal clear picture of where you’re at and what needs to be done.

2. Set realistic goals and write them down
Without a goal or set of goals, you can’t gauge your business and you’ll most likely find yourself floundering, getting nowhere fast. Where do you want to be? How much money would you like to earn? How many new clients and how much revenue must you generate to get there?

The trick with goals is making them realistic. Setting a goal to make a million bucks next month probably isn’t going to happen. Gaining three new clients next month just might. By setting small, reachable goals, you’ll feel like you’re making progress. That’s often enough to get you fired up to do more. Each small goal leads to larger ones. The next thing you know, you’re business is solid and growing.

It’s important to write your goals down. It helps to focus them. I also recommend taping them to your monitor or wall – someplace where you can see them all the time. It will help to keep you on track.

3. Create plans for action
Just setting goals isn’t worth a hill of beans if you don’t make plans to reach them. Take your first goal and break it up into those steps needed to attain it.

For instance, let’s take the example above of gaining three new clients next month. To reach that goal, first you’ll need to identify qualified prospects. Where will you find them? Maybe the phone book, a chamber membership list, hitting the reference books at the library and searching on the web. How will you qualify them? Do they buy the kind of stuff you’re selling? Can they pay for it? Qualifying your prospects is important. It will save you lots of time by avoiding chasing after ones that aren’t a good fit for your business.

Next, what methods will you use to promote you practice to them? What’s your follow up method and so forth.

4. Be consistent
This is often one of the biggest problem areas. What typically happens is you do a few marketing activities, you get busy and then you stop marketing. When the work’s all done, you’re scrambling again to find more gigs. You may have heard this referred to as “feast or famine syndrome.”

The most important time to aggressively market your practice is when you’re the busiest. It helps to insure you stay busy. That means devoting a certain amount of time each day, or at least each week, to marketing and promoting your practice.

For instance, each morning go through a few business forums and make some helpful posts. Or maybe set aside an hour to make some phone calls or emails to check in with a few existing clients and prospects you’ve been wooing. Sure, it might be tough to get started, but after a while it becomes a habit.

It’s a good idea to translate your planning onto a marketing calendar. I set mine up so it alerts me when I need to do something. You can find lots of calendar and contact manager options out there. Leave nothing to chance. Odds are you’ll forget. After you put your planning together, move it to the calendar noting daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual activities.

5. Create multiple points of contact
Marketing is sort of synergistic. Several tasks work together to create an effect that’s greater than the sum individual parts. Sending out a bunch of postcards once isn’t as effective as sending the postcards, making follow up calls, whipping up some press releases for relevant media and joining (and getting involved in) a trade organization that matches your target market.

6. Specialize
Yeah, yeah … I know. Specialization freaks you out because you don’t want to be pigeonholed and lose potential gigs. Guess what? Too late. Your clients have already put you in a little box stamped, “Print designer,” “Web guy,” or “Package designer” Why not use that to your advantage?

You simply can’t be all things to all people, nor should you try. It’s better to be a master at one or two things than utterly mediocre at several. Beyond that, telling a client you can do everything is likely to put up a red flag in their mind. “How the heck can they do all that and be good at it?”

7. Define what business you’re really in
You might think of yourself as a graphic designer, but is that what you’re really selling? Odds are what you’re really selling is a solution to a problem – a way for your client to enter a new market, generate more inquiries, etc. Design is the way that solution is expressed. Maybe you do web programming. Are you selling code? Or are you selling a better way for your client and their customers to hook up via the net?

The point here is to think about what value you bring to the table. What’s your offer? Defining and clearly communicating that message will help to separate you from the pack.

8. Be descriptive about what you do
When somebody asks you what you do, what’s your answer? “I’m a graphic designer,” is typical. You can do better and help to differentiate yourself from every other designer out there.

The thing is, prospects want to know what’s in it for them. I usually say something like, “I help businesses and communicate better with their audience.” Whoever I’m talking to will usually responds with, “Really? So, how do you do that?” Bingo! I’m in. Now I can engage the person in a conversation about the value of our graphic design and marketing services.

9. Do a survey
This is an easy way to keep in touch with your current and past clients and maybe generate some testimonials to boot. Whip up some multiple choice questions about their views on your business.

I try to add in a bit of humor and I also include an instant lottery ticket in with the survey. I’ve had a couple of clients win some dough which is always good for the relationship. Clients either fax them back or mail them in the self-addressed, stamped envelope I provide.

Survey results can be used as marketing ammo in the form of testimonials. Be sure to call the client first to ask if you can use the their comments. You can usually pick up a few more during that conversation.

Results can also be used to give credence to your services. Things like, “9 out of 10 Odell Advertising / Marketing, Inc. clients believe working with them is more fun than going to the dentist.” You get the idea.

10. Become a resource for your clients
Becoming a resource means keeping a lookout for things that will help your clients and prospects do their job better and/or make them look good to their boss. Come across an online article about best practices in one of your client’s industries? Shoot them off a link. Perhaps you read an article that would be helpful. Tear it out of the magazine and mail it to them. Maybe one of your clients could benefit from the product or service another one of your clients offers. Hook them up.

In the end, marketing is all about having a well-thought out plan and being consistent with your message and implementation. Your marketing doesn’t need to dig deep into your pockets, but it does require creatively, savvy and a solid way to differentiate you from everybody else out there. It also requires you to be utterly honest with yourself in where you’re at and where you can realistically be in a few months and a few years.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt

Wouldn’t it be great if you could get in front of several prospects at once and tell your story? Speaking engagements let you do just that. Granted, public speaking is ahead of death on the “stressful things to do” list, but starting small and working up might be just right for you.

Who wants to listen to you, you ask? There are a lot of places to start you off on your oratory adventures. Business groups like Rotary, Kiwanis, Chambers of Commerce, schools, colleges and universities all look for speakers. Some pay, others don’t. It can be an additional source of revenue, but you’re not in this for the money. You’re in it to reach your prospects and position yourself as an expert.

Toastmasters is a good place to start honing your speaking skills in front of a sympathetic audience. If you’re not familiar with Toastmasters, it’s a club where folks practice their public speaking skills and get feedback and advice on giving talks. You can find information and a local club at www.toastmasters.org. There might even be some prospects in the audience.

Universities are a good next step. Students tend to make eager audiences and instructors do the happy dance when they find a pro who’s willing to share their experience with a class.

After getting your feet wet, try Rotary. Most clubs are always looking for speakers for their meetings. Rotary members are usually business leaders and community movers and shakers. You can find out more about the organization at www.rotary.org.

When you prepare your presentation, focus on your specialty. You can build the presentation with a few case studies, a bit of humor and some professional quality visuals to punctuate various points. But, it’s important that the content of your presentation isn’t a blatant ad for you. It should provide solid, useful information.

Here’s another spot for tip sheets. Use them as hand outs at your talks. For that matter, putting a few tip sheets together can form the foundation of your presentation. If you use Powerpoint, print it out as handouts. Either way, be sure to include your contact info on each page.

It’s important to rehearse your presentation until you it know inside out. With rehearsal comes confidence. When you know your topic well, it’s easy to talk about it and feel confident that you’re sharing valuable information and insights. Information that your audience probably doesn’t know. Try rehearsing in front of a friend or significant other. They tend to not throw tomatoes. After a bit of practice you’ll be ready to take your show on the road. A mirror and tape recorder can do the trick in a pinch.

First cousins to speaking engagements are giving seminars and workshops. These can be free events or you can charge a fee, creating yet another source of revenue. Seminars can be very lucrative if you’ve got a hot topic.

They can also be a huge pain and big money loser if not handled correctly. Promoting it costs money. A location, if you need one, costs money. If you have lunch or even coffee and snacks, that costs money. So, you’ll want some sort of sign up or R.S.V.P. method in place to ensure you have enough attendees to pay for everything and maybe make some coin on the event.

As with speaking engagements, carefully prepare your venue, handouts and visuals. Your seminar or workshop can be held in a meeting room at a hotel or other facility. If you have an office with enough space, it’s wise to begin on your own turf.

Presenting seminars and workshops is an industry in itself and really too broad a topic to detail within this post. An excellent source of information is Marketing and Promoting Your Own Seminars and Workshops, by Fred Gleeck - $14.95, Fast Forward Press.

If presenting a seminar or workshop freaks you out, consider teaching a course at your local adult continuing education facility. You’ll get many of the same benefits of speaking engagements, seminars and workshops, plus you get paid. Maybe teach a class on marketing, branding or advertising and promotion for the small business. You get the idea.

Until the next
Marketing Minute
all the best,
nt