Biz Chicks Rule

What do you sell? A service? A product? An idea? Whatever your market is, you have a brand that accompanies it and that is what you sell to potential customers. Branding is akin to namedropping, or an idea that people get when they hear about your product or service. When you say soft drinks, what do you think of? What about ketchup, detergent, books, or restaurants? What comes to mind immediately when you think of those things? If you thought about Heinz, Tide, The Bible or Red Robin, you’ve bought into (one) of the ideas of branding. In branding, you want customers to think of you, your product or service, and give them reasons to prompt them to call you for it. Hence, Your Brand Specialized.

The brand that you establish for your business has to possess a spark and delivery when marketing to customers. In other words, your brand has to match your delivery. If you promise and deliver top-notch service, you strengthen your brand, your business name and your business reputation. What is your business brand and how do you effectively deliver?

Avoid catchy phrases and don’t confuse slogans with branding. The two are opposite and are only forms of marketing that lead into branding. To form a solid branding connection, look at other successful businesses and mimic the thing that they do well. If it works for them, they’re on to something.

Check out these blogs for more information on branding:

Brandcurve by Susan Gunelius

Branding Blog

Brand Identity Guru

_______________________________________
Copyright 2008 - Bridget Wright

Biz Chicks Rule

[Image Source: sxc.hu]

It’s Monday morning everywhere (just about) and women small business owners, online marketers and female power executives are gearing up to have a phenomenal Monday. They’ve lined up their call resources, targeted which area of town they’re going to cover and have decided that they’re going to finally approach that business they’ve been wanting to cold call for a month.

But, is today a good idea to do it?

Why not market on Mondays?

A couple of reasons come to mind initially as to why it wouldn’t be a good idea to market your business on Monday mornings. Here they are, listed in no particular order:

• Decision makers are playing catch-up on Monday morning. They are returning telephone calls, putting out (proverbial) business fires and making other important decisions. They may not have the time or careful attention to give to you or your product or service and clearly decide whether or not to do business with you. Nothing personal, they’re just very busy.
• You haven’t “wooed” them yet. It’s Monday morning and you’re asking for something like the other half-a-gajillion people in their life. And, you haven’t even established a connection with them. Instead of starting off on a Monday asking for something, send them something. Have some pastries delivered to their office, or better yet, take them by yourself. Briefly introduce yourself, leave a card, the pastries and tell them you’ll call them at a later date. The donuts - $2.00/dozen. The lasting impression - priceless.
• Budget Reports/Financials aren’t in yet. Meaning, they perhaps don’t know if they have enough money to spend. Think it’s far-fetched? Not so. Years ago when I used to manage a small staffing branch with Olsten Staffing Services, we used to produce financials every Monday morning showing us our financial health for the week. That information would provide us with what we needed to a.) market to more companies b.) give out more bonus and incentive checks to the staff or c.) wait until the next Monday to do anything financially-related.

Assess what type of conditions may apply to the companies that you approach before embarking on any Monday marketing calls. Make sure your timing is right, the environment is optimal and that people want to see you coming. You want to create lasting and healthy business relationships.

What other reasons can you think of that would warrant you NOT marketing on Mondays? Can your reasons apply to any type of business?
_______________________________________________
Copyright 2008 - Bridget Wright

Biz Chicks Rule

I was at a PTO Board Meeting this morning, and something interesting was brought up at the meeting that I think would benefit the business women here at Biz Chicks Rule. As business women, part of our job is marketing (of course), and often having to market to people and companies that you just prefer to not deal with. It’s just part of the business of being in business. We often have to deal with people that we would prefer not to.

Anyway, the interesting topic that came up was how we should approach local businesses in the community about educating them on things that the schools are doing, asking them to donate different things to the school, etc., etc. One of the ladies who is a small business owner talked about not “apologizing” for approaching the business, asking for (something). She said that we should be firm, direct but pleasant and simply “ask for the sale.” Don’t apologize, don’t sweat it and don’t (in some cases) take no for an answer.

Do you ever apologize when you market your business? Do you sing-song “I’m sorry” when marketing your wares? How do you approach businesses and ask for the sale?

________________________________________________

Copyright 2008 - Bridget Wright

Biz Chicks Rule

The finger-popping tune from the 80s was Janet Jackson asking the question that often in business, we have to wonder too. As we conduct business day-to-day, we tend to do business with those that we know, those that have sent some business our way, those whose business models we like and mimic and even those business folks who we don’t quite like but have to admit that they have a killer-awesome thing going. Gathering or clustering together in groups in the business world is essentially known as networking, although you will see it interpeted in many different ways. But, when I’m doing business with someone, I want to know what it is that I can get out of the deal. Selfish? No, that’s just how business works.

Read more

The other day while I was working happily along, I got an email from an online company who wanted to engage my writing services. They liked my profile, my past consulting client work and my references. They wanted to hire me to do some writing work, and told me that they found me through LinkedIn. WOW.

I had heard that LinkedIn was good for business, good for networking, but had not directly experienced the effects of it. Unlike many of you perhaps “veteran” online marketers, I’ve only been actively online with my business for about two years. I’m still learning A LOT about social networking, HTML, etc. But a powerful tool like LinkedIn has proven to be invaluable. I mean, just imagine someone finding you via an online contact source and wanting to engage your services based solely on what they read. Cool.

LinkedIn is a powerful resource tool that the members can use to connect and stay abreast of marketplace trends, corporate news and changes and even find college classmates or former co-workers. A lot of us (bloggers) here at b5 are on LinkedIn and frequently help each other out by giving recommendations to each other. It has really been good for me, to say the least. The client and I are still in negotiations about the terms of the contract, but it does look promising and rewarding. I’ll keep you posted.

Sign up to try LinkedIn and see if it can work for you and your business. If nothing else, you’ll make new business contact friends, establish yourself and stay on top of the business world “happenings.” You will never know until you try.

Oh, by the way, my LinkedIn profile is: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgetwright

What’s yours?

© Content by Bridget Wright - 2008

www.bizchicksrule.com

[Image Source: sxc.hu]
Have you ever happily been driving along only to be beeped and buzzed by your cell phone? You thought, “Oh, I just got a message from someone!” You excitedly (or at least I do) fish your cell phone out of your bag deftly with one hand while keeping the car steady with the other hand. You avoid a couple of pedestrian’s, a few near misses and voila! You have found your cell phone. Now, what was the message?

“Refer a friend a win one month tanning free.” Courtesy of World Gym.

Welcome to the world of Mobile Marketing.
Read more

Operating a small business can be challenging for the budget-conscious business owner. The one thing that they want to be sure of and guard againstis over-spending in their marketing efforts, yet getting the maximum results from their marketing tactics.

Women who operate small businesses, especially brick-and-mortar businesses are especially challenged with effective marketing because of the limited resources available to female business owners. Having a marketing plan with ample wiggle room can help her achieve increased sales and repeat business. Read more

Are you a telecommuter? Meaning, do you work from home, representing a company? There are many telecommuters who work from home each day and never think about networking or marketing to others. After all, they’re employees of another company, so what’s there to market, right?

Wrong.

Telecommuters can benefit tremendously from the aspect of networking. Finding and networking with others in your industry can prove to be valuable to you for a number of reasons:

Your connections can also be your back up. If something comes up in your personal life that prohibits you from completing an assignment, you can call on your new “networking friends” to ask for their help in a pinch.

Your connections can also be a gateway to other lucrative jobs. Everyone who telecommutes isn’t happy. Perhaps you’re one of them. Ask around and see what else lies above yonder mountain.

Your connections give you a much needed distraction, when appropriate. Stop and chat online for a few minutes. Exchange photos. Have water cooler talk. It’s called down time.

Your connections can help answer any questions on computer problems, how-to’s or whatever else there is relative to your job. I know, I know, you know all there is to know about what you do. But just stop and think for a moment that maybe there’s that one thing you don’t know. Ask. It never hurts…to…just…ask.

Do you telecommute in your job? Have you found it to be a challenge for you? What about networking - - is that something you’ve ever considered in your telecommuting lifestyle? Do share.

Kristina Hill of Eastonsweb Multimedia Blog offer these five ways on marketing your business, recession proof. These are some sound, low investment ways for businesses to market their messages without spending a fortune. For any business to market effectively, the one thing that they should keep in mind is that it is not necessary to spend a fortune to advertise their message. No matter what the economy is doing or how limited your budget may, your business can still profit from marketing, just as if it is a large corporation.

Here is Kristina’s list, with my own comments and thoughts about them:

Launch an e-newsletter
Very easy to do and quite affordable. There are numerous software templates available online and offline. To get the most out of this marketing effort, develop a distribution schedule and invite guest writers to contribute to the newsletter.

Sponsor a Community Event
This works wonderfully for things like shows or seminars. Make sure whatever type of event you plan, that it has mass appeal to the widest selection of potential customers available. In other words, don’t offer Senior Citizen products or activities to the young families crowd and vice-versa.

Jumpstart your public relations activities
Start this by placing your ads in the community section of the newspaper, doing press releases and attending functions by other community business owners.

Start (or continue) advertising
Rates are pretty comparable for advertising both online and offline. The trick is finding the advertising that is suitable for your business and more importantly, your budget.

Keep your eye on the goal – your customers
This is the most important element of your business. Realizing that your customer is key is the most important step in developing your service business. In a post I made at Slacker Manager, my story on Rodney shows us just how he keeps his customers happy.

What do you do to effectively market your business? How do you keep this expense low for your business?

Alright, I know. Blogging may not be a **wow** marketing strategy for some of you. But, for those who are starting new businesses, or are new to the idea of blogging, starting a blog writing about your business may be the ideal marketing strategy you need to get things started.

Although there are tons of information available on the internet about blogging, what I’d like to submit to you is how blogging can be a source of referrals for your business, whether you are blogging on your own business or you are a corporate blogger.

Instead of regurgitating information that is all over the ‘net, I will highlight some fine resources that focus on blogging and the business of it:

Liz and Laura over at Business and Blogging get it right consistently when they blog about how your business can benefit from the blogging lifestyle. My favorite all-time post from there is the series they did on a challenge to come up with a business that could not benefit from blogging. Very interesting read and comments that followed. Check it out. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

Then there is the uber-blogger, Darren Rowse, whose ProBlogger site give you the nuts and bolts of starting and monetizing your business blog. Good, solid foundation for newbies and seasoned professionals.

One other blog that I subscribe to that I have found most useful is Daily Blog Tips that gives just that…tips. Highly useful information if you are a daily blogger who wants serious tips and ways to make your blog stand out.

Now, armed with these wonderful resources, what do you do with it? I’ll tell you what I do with my blogging. Read more