In my Fast Track Marketing System I divide marketing into seven very specific modules:1. The Game of Marketing2. The Mindset of Marketing3. Marketing Messages (Your Value Proposition)4. Marketing and Selling Conversations5. Written Marketing Materials6. Marketing Strategies7. Marketing Action PlansAll of these have their particular challenges. But in my experience in working with thousands of Independent Professionals, it’s #7 that seems to be the hardest for most people.After all, most of the other 6 modules are all about preparation to market yourself.You learn the basics of the game of marketing, you work on your marketing mindset, you develop marketing messages, conversations, and written marketing materials, and ultimately choose the marketing strategies to get the word out.And then the rubber hits the road. You have to actually get out there and connect with potential clients through networking, speaking, an eZine, social media, emails, etc.For most, the bottom falls out of their marketing at this point. It simply goes nowhere, or more specifically it goes into the infamous “Random Zone” where things are done haphazardly and inconsistently.If people have worked to develop the whole foundation of their marketing first, know who their target market is, have put together a web site and have practiced their marketing and selling conversations, they are going to have more success.But even the well-prepared struggle with implementation.Why is putting action plans into action so hard? Here are three of the most common ones. Are they familiar to you?1. As soon as you start reaching out, you face possible rejection. What if your message, your talk, your emails fall on deaf ears? What if your potential clients could care less? What if they outright rejected your promotional efforts?We conjure painful mental images in our mind that stop us cold.For this one we need to work again on our mindset, on our thinking, realizing that if we reach out and people aren’t interested, that it’s not personal. They don’t hate us; either they are simply not good prospects right now or our message doesn’t have the impact it could.So reach out to new prospects and keep improving your messages.2. It takes way more time and effort than you ever thought it would. We think of marketing as a few promotional things we do here and there. This should be easy, we think. But it’s not.Time to do a reality check. Any marketing activity takes time, effort and commitment to make it work. Marketing is a bit of an art and nothing works perfectly on the first draft.You need to make detailed and realistic plans based on strategies that others have used successfully in the past. If you just make it up as you go along, your chances of success are very slim.3. It’s never good enough and although you might even know what you’re doing, you put off your marketing launches until everything is perfect… but it never is.What underlies this are beliefs about perfection, not being good enough and being judged by others. It’s not so much rejection you fear, but disapproval. What will others think of you?Well, if your marketing campaign isn’t relevant to those you are targeting, it’s not a big deal. They’ll just ignore it. They won’t think much about it at all. But for the ones that are looking for what you offer, they’ll not only be interested, they’ll respond.Your prospects are not looking for perfection from you; they’re looking for assistance and value. If you’ve got that, perfection is virtually irrelevant.I’ve done a whole lot of marketing action plans that were rejected by most people, took me a long time to implement, and were far from perfect. And most of them have made me hundreds of thousands of dollars!Marketing success is about know-how, value, commitment, and persistence. Everything else is just a distraction.The Fearless Marketer Bottom Line: There could be a lot of other things stopping you from following through with your marketing plan as well. The question is, where are you going to focus – on your fears and worries about rejection, time, and perfection – or are you going to focus on the value and difference you make and give your marketing plans a real chance?
How to Boost Your Google Places Business Account
Succeeding in business is synonymous with learning how to publicize yourself properly. You need to make your potential customers aware of your products and services to ensure that they recognize them as valid solutions to their everyday problems.The problem that many businesses face is that they don’t understand how to do this with the things that technology has made available to them. Most businesses are just starting to understand the importance of things like social media marketing and search engine optimization.The problem is that businesses that are just now investing in these practices are already miles behind businesses that invested in them from the first day they were available. That makes it hard to catch up.The good news is that local businesses have a shortcut available to them. By learning how to boost Google Places account, your businesses can become one of the top results for local searches.Let’s examine how to boost Google Maps rankings by looking at the factors that you need to pay attention to.1. Place Your NAP in the Correct PlacesWhen it comes to how to boost Google Places account, one of the most important acronyms you’ll ever learn is “NAP”. It stands for “Name, Address, and Phone Number”.It’s essentially how search engines like Google are able to recognize that someone is talking about your business in a local sense. By placing your NAP information in the right places, you’ll help Google associate the information it crawls pertaining to your business. This is just one of the ways you can learn how to boost Google Maps.2. Perform On-Site OptimizationLearning how to boost Google Places account can be as simple as learning how to optimize your already existing website. You need to ensure that the information that Google uses to match your business to your Google Maps listing is accurate on your business’s website.This is important even if you have multiple locations or franchises. You need to have your locations listed somewhere with the matching telephone number, address and name to allow Google to verify that your business is the right one.3. Create Local Buzz About Your BusinessThe third factor that helps to boost your Google Maps listing revolves around how popular your business is in a local sphere of influence. You need to have yourself, your customers and even other businesses talking about your business.This is how to boost Google Maps listings to the top spots. You’ll need every bit of buzz you can create about your business to ensure that your listing will rank that highly.The Importance of Google PlacesEnsuring that your business ranks highly when search engine users search for local results is key to promoting your business’s growth. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business, part of a franchise or a large corporation that deals with local branches. You need the traffic, because it translates into both walk-in and digital customers.Don’t downplay how important Google Places can be to your business. Start working to boost your listings so that customers can find your business easier while becoming more aware of your brand.
The Convenience of Online Shopping, It’s Just a Click Away
In recent years, online retailers have seen remarkable growth and expansion. With so many people all over the world now using online retailers as an important way of acquiring goods and services, there appears to be no signs of this industry slowing down. There are a host of reasons why online shopping is so popular, however one of the main reasons is its convenience.
Below are a number of reasons why online shopping is so convenient:
1. What makes online shopping so convenient is that you can shop from the comfort of your home. When you shop at traditional ‘brick and mortar’ stores, one has to shower, put on suitable clothing, get in the car, drive to the store, and find a parking spot. With online shopping you just have to sit at the computer wearing whatever you want, turn the computer on, connect to the internet, and begin to shop. You don’t have to worry about your hair, makeup, and pushing your way through crowds of people. With a click of the mouse and your credit card, you have access to millions of products and services.
2. Online shopping is a time saver. Our lives have become much busier. With work and family, we have hardly anytime for ourselves. Online stores are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. You can shop anytime of the day and night and not have to worry about traditional store set shopping hours.
3. Driving to a mall or retail store, can be a long and frustrating experience. You have to deal with traffic, fuel expenses, parking, and carry all of your bags of items back to the car. With online shopping you don’t have to worry about transportation issues and high gas costs. As well, the items you purchase will be shipped directly to your home.
4. Shopping malls and retail stores only carry a limited and particular line of products. With online shopping, you have access to millions of items, especially normally hard to find items. You are sure to find exactly what you want which you may not typically find at a “brick and mortar’ store.
5. Online shopping is a definite time saver. Shopping at a mall can often take a whole day. When you shop online, you can get what you want quickly. As well, if you normally shop on the weekends, shopping online allows you to free up your weekend for fun and relaxing activities.
6. Shopping online will allow you to save a lot of money. Their are a variety of ways to save when you are shopping online such as taking advantage of electronic coupons, discounts, free shipping, and comparison shopping tools. You can also read customer reviews about products so you will know if you are getting great value for your money.
When you shop online, anything you want is just a mouse click away. The convenience of shopping online makes shopping easy and fun. Once you have finished shopping, you will wonder why you did not start online shopping sooner.