You Don’t Know What You’re Missing

What is the risk involved in speaking with someone new? Not too much, unless you think they are going to try to sell you something. Suddenly the person appears as a  threat to your time, energy, and money.

How are people perceiving you? Are you missing out on a genuine opportunity because someone in the equation feels like they are about to be pitched to?
Take this quiz to find out how approachable you are.

• How many times are you willing to attend a networking event before you get business out of it?
• When you enter a networking event, do you immediately go toward the people you know, or toward strangers hoping they need your product or service?
• Do you spend most of the conversation time at networking events focusing on the other person, or do you tend to monopolize the conversation?
• Do you connect with people on Linked In and other social media sites and stay in touch with them over time?
• Do you ever bring guests with you to a networking event?
• Out of all the people you know from networking, what percentage of them would you say are friends?
• Do you ever get together with some of your networking friends outside of work hours?

The answers to these questions will be different for everyone but they should provide some insight into your motivation during networking events. Make that time about helping other people first, and you will find what you have been missing; valuable relationships with other business people. Earning trust, and new clients, takes time and patience.

Joanne Randall

724-603-LEAP

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Marketing Mojo Radio

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is a Contradiction in Terms

Every day when my teenage daughter gets home from school, I ask her,  “How was school?” She always says, “Good”. Then I ask “What did you do today?” And she says, “Nothing”. So then I ask if she has any homework and she says, “No”. Earlier today after the same series of questions and answers I said to her, “It makes me wonder if I should even be sending you to school. It’s never exciting, you never do anything, and you never have any homework”. Further confirming her belief that her mother is a complete nerd.
Now I am certain that not only is school more than good, it can be fun and eventful. I am also sure that she doesn’t do nothing all day. And when she has homework she usually gets it done during school or right after school.
But it made me wonder, what actually does happen at school every day? I mean, if she doesn’t tell me I can really only find out a little bit of information from her teachers. I am obviously interested in what my daughter does in school but unless she tells me what she does I really have no idea. Hmmm……
I think it is important that as business owners we share at least to some degree what we do all day long. It is important to business owners to be able to relate to each other, tell war stories so to speak. On another level I also think it is important we tell customers and potential clients as well. If they don’t know what we do and are capable of doing for our current customers how will they know what we can do for them?
Social media, Facebook in particular, is a great place to share success stories of your business. If you are in the habit of collecting testimonials from your customers, possibly on Linked In, then you should be sharing those on your business Facebook page as well. These types of posts lend credibility to you and your business. It’s okay to tell people what you have been doing all day. It isn’t boasting, it is building your reputation through marketing. Big difference.

If you don’t tell them what you are doing then you are  like the teenager who has a good day doing nothing with nothing to show for it.  And dude, that’s lame.

Joanne Randall

www.LeapYearMarketing.com

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

724-603-LEAP

What is the Big Deal About Social Media?

With all the items that fall under the umbrella of marketing I have found that people are most fascinated with social media. I think this is mainly because it is so popular in the mainstream and yet so simple it makes me wonder why no one came up with the idea sooner.

Jump on!

So why is social media so popular? My theory is that people crave relationships, friendships, and leadership. Deep down we all want to feel that we are needed and that we have value.

I believe that people spend time on social media to fill those gaps in their lives that are not being filled by people in their physical space. This is important because social media is the most effective way businesses can talk to people about solving their problems. If the business understands human nature and the psychology of purchasing habits, they can be extremely effective in growing their sales.

You may not care about someone posting that they are STILL waiting for their Maytag repair man to show up, but you should care that there are businesses out there not providing good customer service and customers react by posting it to the world.

How much time do you spend on Social Media each week for personal reasons? How about for your business? I would like to know.

Joanne Randall

Leap Year Marketing

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

724-603-5327

http://www.leapyearmarketing.com

 

Seasons

Happy New Year!

Do you ever feel like you need a fresh start? I know I do.  I love that feeling of setting goals and shedding bad habits in order to move forward.
Most people feel this way around New Year’s Eve. That is always a good time to reflect on successes and opportunities from the past year and learn from them.  This is what I would call an annual season. How long does that good feeling last beyond New Year’s Eve however? Ask anyone who has made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. I will admit that the 2 to 3 week period following New Year’s eve, I am pretty pumped to work toward new goals.
I have found that in addition to the New Year’s eve annual season, there are two other seasons in the year that produce the same effect. One is Spring, when Winter finally dies a slow and painful death and we all get outside and in the dirt. The other is Fall, when we are ready to send the kids back to school for a new year of learning and fun. These are the three seasons of fresh starts.
But what if you could regenerate that New Year’s resolution feeling more than three times a year?
I have good news. You can!
New Year’s is just an arbitrary day that really in itself has no meaning. We tell ourselves that that date means something. Think about it. January 1st is really no different than April 29th. So if we can create that resolution scenario for January 1st, guess what? We can do it for any day of our life. Every day is January 1st.  How awesome is that?!?
Start by asking yourself,”If today were New Year’s Eve, what resolutions would I make?” Then decide on one that is significant and go for it. Renew your resolution as often as you need to to keep moving toward the change you are looking for.

Happy New Year!

p.s. Another great way to keep pumped about achieving your goals is by working with a high quality Business Coach. I use a coach and it has made an incredible difference.  Feel free to contact my Coach, John.  www.truechoicecoaching.com or https://www.facebook.com/pages/True-Choice-Coaching/138535236162890. 

Joanne Randall

http://www.LeapYearMarketing.com

iTunes Marketing Mojo Radio

724-603-LEAP

joanne@leapyearmarketing.com

My Job is Killing Me!

Is stress making you not feel well?

As business owners we can sometimes be our own worst enemy. This usually happens because of some form of procrastination. Everyone has days when they don’t feel 100% and would just like to take a day off.  When this happens to you, ask yourself a couple of questions.

First take a look at your workload. If you are behind in your work and are looking at missing some deadlines, this may be the reason for not feeling well. This level of stress is what makes kids feel sick on test days at school. It isn’t fake. It is real. And it is caused by some level of being unprepared.
If you suspect that your work load is causing you to not feel well then take a look at the deadlines you have set. Are they real or are they artificial? Most importantly are they realistic? We all want to help our clients as quickly as possible, but it is unrealistic to drop everything immediately and finish a project that really doesn’t have to be done right away. Give your self some wiggle room. If you happen to finish the project early, then be confident in delivering more and better than you promised.
The other thing to ask yourself is, am I getting a little burnt out and should I just take a day off and rest? There is nothing wrong with this. It is important to recognize when our bodies are physically tired and need to rest. In addition, our brains can only work at full capacity for so long before they need some relief. Especially if you are in a field where you need to be creative for your job. If you find that this is the case for you, make sure that you are scheduling vacations out in advance.  It gives you something to look forward to. Also schedule personal days in the middle of the week from time to time and honor those days off. Do something you would not normally do. For example stay in your pajamas all day and read a book on the couch. For most business owners this would be such an indulgence that even discussing it makes us laugh out loud. But we deserve that time off and we need it.
So when you’re not feeling well check your work load and your vacation schedule. Take care of yourself so you can take care of your customers.

Joanne Randall

Leap Year Marketing

http://www.leapyearmarketing.com

Is it better to be a full service marketing firm or to service a niche market?

I would like to dispute the long-held belief that businesses should “find their niche”. I suppose that this theory does hold water when you are talking about selling a particular product, for example clothing. You could be a business that sells a full line of clothing to all types of people and therefore would need a broad marketing message, probably based on price rather than fashion. The alternative is to decide on a niche, for example children’s clothing, and market only to that niche. That message would be more about fashion and less sensitive to price.
I really do not believe that a marketing firm should market to a niche. My reasoning is that marketing is such a broad service that choosing a niche instantly eliminates prospects from your marketing funnel.  For example if I say I specialize in social media management, and never bother to explain that I am a full-service marketing firm, potential prospects will not even look at me if their needs are outside of the social media context. They will not even know that we have a graphic artist on staff, work with three different website developers, and have relationships with local printers to produce marketing materials. Branding and marketing cannot be pigeonholed into one or two small areas. Marketing covers everything from logo creation, to social media, to email marketing, to websites, to marketing materials, to feedback, and follow-up. As marketers we tell customers that consistency in their message is important. Are we offering a full range of products to help them achieve that goal? If not then we had better be prepared to tell our customers that we can’t provide them with particular services. And that is not very good business practice. Learn how to subcontract things that you don’t know how to do or do not want to do.  Offering a service to a client through a subcontractor keeps them from talking to other marketing companies. And that is good business practice.

Joanne