Tips Guides

I just returned from LA and speaking at Mark Victor Hansen’s Mega Speaking Event. It was a weekend packed full of bright speakers influencing a crowd of 400 some experts who want to learn how to get their information out in the world.

I always enjoy listening to these speakers delivering their message on stage and their “strategies for influencing an audience.

Have you ever bought something that later, you asked yourself, “What did I just do, and what made me buy that?” There are powerful influencing strategies blasted to us daily, some on TV, others on internet, still more in ways we didn’t even imagine.

We can be hypnotized to think we need this item, or that latest fad. Sometimes we do. And all too often that book we bought still sits on our shelf unread, or that dress we had to have hangs in our closet with the tags still on it.

So how are we really influenced? Seldom is it by need. Something much more powerful is occurring under the surface.

How can we best influence our audience, backed with integrity? Here are 3 Influencing Principles to increase your Influencing abilities.

1. Principle of Reciprocity: Every year when Thanksgiving approaches, I am reminded of this principle at work in Tony Robbins’ life many years ago.

Tony’s early years were filled with financial hardships. One Thanksgiving Holiday there was knock on the door and a basket filled with Thanksgiving goodies was handed to Tony’s family. Out of pride, Tony tried to refuse the gift, but the person would not take no for an answer, saying “We heard you are in need of help.

There will come a time when you can repay this gift by helping others in need.” Tony has gone on to reciprocate this gift over and over, as his Foundation hands out 2 million Baskets of Holiday goodies to families in 72 countries. You can help in your city by checking out Giving Extraordinary at the Tony Robbins website.

2. Principle of Contrast: I experienced this principle at work when I built my new home 2 years ago.

I walked into this model home and immediately loved the floor plan and ALL the luxury upgrades. As I walked through the model, I wanted all the extras. The base price of the model, however didn’t include any of the upgrade costs.

Naturally the cost began shooting up as I started selecting the luxury upgrades I wanted in my new home. The principle of contrast is used on us daily in automobile sales, home sales and more. It is easier for us as consumers to talk ourselves into all the extra goodies once we have decided to purchase the item at “base cost.”

My new home’s price ended up being 30% higher than I originally thought the day I walked into the model. I happily paid the difference to turn it into my dream home.

3. Principle of Expensive = Good: We have all heard, “You get what you pay for.”

In marketing to the affluent, experts state that often sales will improve when you raise your price, not lower it. The law of perception is at work here. When someone sees a high ticket price, the perception is that there is more value.

Whether it’s a designer dress or a luxury car, we tend to view them as better because of the higher ticket price. The principle of contrast can play a factor here as well.

Take two diamonds for example. They can be the same size, same clarity–but if one is priced higher than another, statistics will prove the higher priced diamond implies higher quality.

How can you begin to utilize these Principles of Influence in your life and business?

These principles are at work in our business, whether we know it or not. They can work for us or against us.

As a business strategy expert with 20 years of extensive work for legends Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, John Gray, and Mark Victor Hansen, Carolyn now coaches ordinary people to extraordinary results. She helps you define your business and personal goals while discovering a deeper sense of fulfillment and confidence on the road to grabbing your dreams.

Explode your business with Carolyn! Get her FREE Explode Your Biz Quiz here!

A personal online journal related to your business, a blog is a great, informal way of updating customers. Blogging can make your customers relate better to you on a personal level and is a great way to set yourself apart from the group of small and home based businesses crowding the Internet marketing scene. Tracked by search engines, your blogging information can be accessed not only by your current customers, but also by consumers browsing the web for the services or products they need. Like email newsletters, you can use blogging to keep your customers up to date on special sales, promotions, new products or services, major changes within a business, or general news about the industry your business is a part of.

Business owners who use blogging to update information about their company more than double their visibility on large search engines, such as Yahoo and Google. Each word you type in a blog is tracked by the search engine so the more blogs you post, the more traffic your website will get. To make sure youre getting the most value and customer response from your blog, follow these five blogging tips:

1. Be Informative
Showing your customers how much you know about your business and the niche market youre targeting will put them at ease and make them more likely to purchase your products or services. Make sure your blogs are written in a knowledgeable, expert way and double check all of your facts, spelling and grammar. Include detailed and informative information about your business. Initial posts can include information about what your business offers and who could benefit from your service and, further down the line, you could blog about new products or services available. As long as the information is useful to consumers, you can write about it.

2. Keywords
Use keywords wisely and select words you think consumers would use when searching for a company like yours that offers the same products and services. The more common keywords you select, the higher youll rank on search engine pages and the more traffic your site will generate.

3. Quantity
A simple headline or single sentence will not attract a potential customers attention, so make sure you beef up your blogs with a lot of informative content. The more substance to your post, the more youll attract the attention of search engines and interest consumers who click on your link.

4. Frequency
Its important to update your blog frequently, adding new and important information. This will keep your customers interested and search engines will begin indexing your page at regular intervals.

5. Grammar & Spelling
In only takes one or two spelling errors to turn a customer off to your services, so take the extra time to review your post and correct any grammar or spelling mistakes. Try creating your blog in a writing program that offers spell check, such as Microsoft Word, and then copying and pasting it into the blog once youre sure everything is perfect.

James Copper is a writer for http://www.marketinglinx.com where you can find out about small business marketing

Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the biggest pay check. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication.
There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and is continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these three tactics?

1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do to those who buys them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. Try to create auto responder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect.

Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they thought they want later and will find out that the sale is closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word free because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e zines and e reports. This way you can locate publications that is focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300 600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day.
Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistic.

The tactics given above does not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part.

Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end maintaining a good source of income and surviving in this business that not all marketers can do.
Besides, think of the huge pay checks you will be receiving.

James Copper is a writer for http://www.unitymarketing.com

Having a product or services, a kind of website and lots of enthusiasm is simply not enough to ensure that your small business succeeds. There are certain necessary basic marketing mechanisms you need to put in place to ensure that your business is around for a long time.

A simple template based website might be sufficient but you should ensure that it does the job perfectly. This means someone other than you will have to test it to see that all the links work and that navigation is logical and easy to follow. If you have a website where customers can make purchases ensure that the shopping cart feature is functional and user friendly. You should also have some kind of search engine optimization conducted to ensure your website is easily found.

Next you are going to need brochures and price lists. Included in these should be all the basic information connected with your business and your product and service pricing. Your website should encompass everything included here. These basic tools are essential to make selling your goods and services easier. It is shocking how few businesses have insufficient basic information to hand. Dont fall into this trap. If your goods and services are of a technical nature, ensure that you have specification or data sheets available. Remember: people like to do business with people that put their prices in writing.

You need to announce to the world that you are in business that your new products and services meet their needs and are everything they have been waiting for. Sending a press release to the media is an excellent way to do this. Dont feel inferior your business is newsworthy. Have a press release professionally written and distributed. If using a professional press release writer eats up your entire budget, consider distributing the release through an online service such as www.PRWeb.com and others.

If you are selling a product in the consumer market then you should make the effort to develop a striking point of sale POS presence. Go and find examples in your supermarket or in stores similar to where you product would be sold and develop these merchandising styles. These might include corrugated floor or end cap merchandisers, tags or wobblers. Remember to obtain the merchandising guidelines and policies from the stores involved in marketing your product.

Advertising of some kind should form part of your marketing mix. This need not be expensive. In fact, it is unusual for newly established small businesses to advertise in the prime media print, TV and radio. Even a simple online banner ad, a PPC campaign or an email campaign might be effective. Look at distributing business cards, flyers and leaflets. Work out a nice advertising mix that will address your target audience within your budget. Do not look at advertising your business as a luxury but rather as an investment that will pay handsome dividends over time.

Once your marketing campaign is operating, dont omit to test and monitor results via your website, public relations, point of sale and advertising efforts. Then you will be able to work out your return on investment. You will get an idea of how you need to alter and refine your campaign, this time around and the next year.

If you do not see yourself having the time, skills or patience for setting up your basic marketing plan then consider getting a marketing consultant or agency involved to help you. Some such agencies and individual marketing consultants offer full spectrum marketing services that can handle all of the above and more. A huge advantage of dealing through an agency is that it eliminates having to research and find reliable suppliers. Instead you work with one contact who takes responsibility for it all.

James Copper is a writer for http://www.marketinglinx.com where you can find out about a marketing consultant

We all know the definition of insanity–doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Are you wondering how to get different results in your business, while continuing to do what you’ve always done? If so, we need to talk.

You see, for results to change, the steps leading to them must change. We must change what we do! Ok you’re saying: “Like I don’t know that already?”

Over simplified yes, but I have to tell you, my experience coaching thousands of professionals for the past 15 years has shown me this is a global problem. My 8 years producing seminars for Tony Robbins, and observing the hundreds of thousands of people attending his programs also proved this critical fact: Many people want to reach new levels of success, expertise and confidence - without changing their behavior.

Convincing people to change how they think about their business is the greatest challenge. As soon as we change our thinking, we’ll not only change our income, but also our life!

What changes are we talking about here? The kind that says things will improve as soon as you get “your name out there,” as soon as you establish a “reputation”?

Yes, these can help. . . a little. Yet, if all it took was name recognition, most of us would be rich. And, since so many business and sales people mail out ads with names and pictures on them, their phones must be ringing off the hook, right?

Reality is, the phones don’t ring, at least not often enough. There’s a long wait between calls, sometimes years and years before recognition and image bring in big money. If you have lots of time and money, just keep doing what you’re doing.

But if you want to speed up the process, stop doing what you’re doing now and start marketing in a different, direct way. People will call. They will respond because they will be interested in your product or service.

You must get prospects and clients to respond to the bottom line.

When YOU recognize that having other people recognize you doesn’t pay the bills, you’ll be on your way. When you accept that your mind has to become a marketer’s mind, you’ll begin the process of a new life. When you realize that top-producing business and sales people don’t do what everyone else does.. . and that behaving differently is the reason they’re top-producing, you’ll make a big breakthrough!

It’s true. How you see the world determines how the world sees you. In other words, if you think the world is full of people who are interested in what you have to sell, and that your job is to find those people through marketing - you will find them

If, on the other hand, you feel your “Professionalism, good name, nice brochure or a good website” are enough to make people want your services and products, but you are not making sales, isn’t it time for a paradigm shift?

We always get what we want - always - if we have the psychological strength to focus on it, filtering out all the empty chatter that surrounds us which drowns out what is really most important!

Which is what? Getting interested people to respond to you! How do we accomplish this?

1. It requires adopting a new marketing mind-set.
2. It requires stretching your possibilities.
3. It requires reshaping your belief systems.
4. It requires a new focus.

My friend Mark Victor Hansen, co-founder of Chicken Soup for the Soul Series, has built his empire living this belief system:

“Your business is marketing, and marketing is your business.”

This week we can all remind ourselves of Aristotle’s wise words paraphrased, “Marketing excellence is not a single act, but rather a habit.”

To Your Ultimate Success!

As a business strategy expert with 20 years of extensive work for legends Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, John Gray, and Mark Victor Hansen, Carolyn now coaches ordinary people to extraordinary results. She helps you define your business and personal goals while discovering a deeper sense of fulfillment and confidence on the road to grabbing your dreams.

Explode your business with Carolyn! Get her FREE Explode Your Biz Quiz here!

Then you must get their attention and arouse their emotions!

As I’ve said many times: “Marketing costs the same whether it works or not.” So the question becomes, how do you get your marketing to work effectively? Here’s a proven, 5-step formula to marketing success:

1. Grab their attention!
2. Arouse their interest and emotions.
3. Capture their attention with a compelling fact or story.
4. Offer an incentive to take action . . . NOW. Create a sense of urgency to buy.
5. Tell them what to do, and make it easy for them to do it immediately.

Let’s look at each of these steps in detail:

Get Their Attention by Arousing their Emotions!

The mistake entrepreneurs often make is to think that just because we are in love with our product or service, others will automatically want to purchase them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unless you grab your prospect’s attention, arouse their emotions and tell them “what’s in it for them”, they won’t even notice you or what you’re selling!

Just think of the TV News headlines each day grabbing our attention: Love, hate, murder, fear, betrayal, money, sex, power, control, passion, –all emotional triggers that capture our curiosity and get us to tune in. The cover of any magazine will nearly jump into your hands with their captivating headlines. You’ve got to inject similar emotion into your product or service.

Remember, people are motivated to buy for 2 reasons:

1. To move away from pain
2. To move toward pleasure

More people are motivated to take action now in order to move away from pain. Notice TV advertising this week and you will see how most ads start with, “Are you sick and tired of being in pain, overweight, in debt, not sleeping?” It’s true that humans will often do more to get out of pain than they will to feel pleasure. The most powerful marketing occurs when you tap into both motivators.

So spend some time thinking about how your product or service solves your clients’ deepest pains and moves them toward pleasure. Make a list. Ask your current clients for feedback. This information is gold! Take a look at your list and notice what attributes of your product or service move people away from pain and which move them toward pleasure.

Now, structure all your marketing around these pain/pleasure motivators.

Offer an incentive to take action NOW!

Every department store advertises their big sale as “Save Big This Weekend Only!” If you walk in on Monday, the offer is over. Since it is also human nature to procrastinate, there must be a compelling call-to-action with a deadline. The IRS sets deadlines to motivate us to pay our taxes. Without a deadline, we will continue to pull the Scarlet O’Hara act, “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

In all your marketing give your audience one simple call-to-action telling them what to do, when to do it, and providing them an incentive to act now. This week, notice how you can better market your products and services by applying this 5 Step Formula.

As a business strategy expert with 20 years of extensive work for legends Tony Robbins, Stephen Covey, John Gray, and Mark Victor Hansen, Carolyn now coaches ordinary people to extraordinary results. She helps you define your business and personal goals while discovering a deeper sense of fulfillment and confidence on the road to grabbing your dreams.

Explode your business with Carolyn! Get her FREE Explode Your Biz Quiz here!