1. Appreciate your uniqueness.
You have wonderful ideas, your mind is always going and always creating, you have courage..LOVE that about you.
2. Hire a coach.
Entrepreneurs are the Captains of their own ship. It is wonderfully important to have a trusted Coach to use as a sounding board and to keep you on track with all of your great ideas. (Maybe even stimulate you to look at things in a new way.) Coaches are great to help Entrepreneurs solve client and employee problems.
3. Isolate your strengths.
Strengths are your skills that come natural to you, you can do them with ease and enjoy doing them, even LOVE doing them. Very often they are things people compliment you on and you think to yourself, "Can't everyone do that?" NO! It's your STRENGTH!
4. Delegate your weaknesses.
OK so maybe weakness is too harsh a word for ya, but these are things you hate doing or are not your forte. Hire someone to do these things and find a person who LOVES to do it...it is their STRENGTH.
5. Create your brand.
Who are you? What is unique about working with you, buying from you? Your Brand must be compelling and specific and it must resonate with you.
6. Clearly communicate your brand internally first.
Make sure that everyone in your organization, including you, is living the Brand. From the receptionist on. Clearly communicate your Brand internally and even have your employees give you input about how they think they can be the Brand.
7. Create a 15 second "elevator speech."
My Coach really encouraged me on this one! Create a 15 second speech that clearly and powerfully communicates what you do. The object is that your speech is so specific and attractive that by the time you get to the top of the building you have sold your product or service!
8. Make sure your employees have the right role.
Just like you, make sure your employees are working in the area of their strengths. When people are working with their strengths they have an opportunity to be extraordinary but, if not, the best they can be is good.
9. Keep a notebook with you to record "cool stuff" and "uncool stuff."
Find what really lights your fire and see how you can bring that out or increase them in your business and life. Make sure things that are Uncool stay out of your business and your life! But please note, when things have a strong charge (either positive or negative) we are living with them already.
10. Create balance.
What else really gets you going? Music, golf, time with your kids? COMMIT to making these things a part of your life. Schedule them in to ensure you take part. Feeding your soul will feed your business.
The Top 10 Points about the Forgotten Marketing Tool
When it comes to planning your marketing strategy look in a mirror and say hello to your most important marketing tool. It is the one marketing tool that most of us forget about.
1. Keep thinking about marketing yourself as the best way of marketing your business.
In many businesses, such as coaching, you ARE the business. You do not sell products or impersonal services, you sell your skills and values and strengths to enter a relationship with a client that will, hopefully, change their life.
2. First Impressions first.
Remember that on a face-to-face meeting the first impression is the most lasting. Take the time to get ready for such a meeting to ensure that the first impression is a very good one. Remember that your way of dressing, the way you stand or sit, the way you shake hands, the way you look into the other person's eyes, your smile or lack of, make a statement about you that will be transmitted to the other person before you even start talking. The better your statement now the easier it is to turn that meeting into a chance of having a new client.
3. What you can do for your client is more important than what services you offer.
Make sure that you tell your client what YOU can do for them NOT what services you are offering. It is much more effective to say: "I will help you create the perfect structure for managing your time" than to say: "I help clients become more effective at time management."
4. Use a powerful elevator speech.
Work on a strong elevator speech that will help you catch the attention and interest of those hearing it. A good elevator speech is the one that will prompt questions for more details.
5. Demonstrate your skills and strengths.
Share case studies with your potential clients that demonstrate your skills and strengths. Underline the successes your clients had and how it worked for them. Needless to say there will be a link between you and their successes.
6. Use testimonials.
Understand the power of testimonials and make use of them in reaching new clients. Use the testimonials to underline your skills and qualities. Make sure your clients and prospective clients know not only your skills and career experience but also most importantly your value and your talents.
7. Make yourself known.
Become a regular writer for on-line magazines, article websites or newsletters or if you feel confident enough put together a 30 min talk and find places you can be a guest speaker or organize your own events. Make sure you choose a subject you feel strongly about and keep adding value to your contribution in that area.
8. Stay in contact with current AND past clients.
Take action to ensure that your name will come first to mind when someone around them asks for help.
9. Improve your skills continuously.
Analyze the market and constantly look for areas that you can match against your skills or better still build skills to match an area of interest.
10. Meet others with a smile on your face.
Be open when meeting new people. Be clear, truthful and non-judgmental. Inspire trust not by doing it but by showing it.
I have had the opportunity to work with some incredible people including Jack Canfield, Judge Joe Brown, Smokey Robinson, Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O'Conner and Oprah. My appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show was one of my life's best experiences.
I have had the opportunity to work with some incredible people including Jack Canfield, Judge Joe Brown, Smokey Robinson, Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O'Conner and Oprah. My appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show was one of my life's best experiences.
I have had the opportunity to work with some incredible people including Jack Canfield, Judge Joe Brown, Smokey Robinson, Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O'Conner and Oprah. My appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show was one of my life's best experiences.
I have had the opportunity to work with some incredible people including Jack Canfield, Judge Joe Brown, Smokey Robinson, Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O'Conner and Oprah. My appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show was one of my life's best experiences.
Hello fellow Jazz lovers, I believe it's time that we start to take a serious look at this concept called SmoothAhead. I know some people may think the name is a little corny or not easy to say, but get pass the name and think about what it represents. With the demise of so many Smooth Jazz radio stations across the country and only a few NPR stations at all, wouldn't it be great if we had stations that played both genres. They could rotate (Traditional or Straight-Ahead) with (Contemporary or Smooth Jazz) in such a way that the listeners would be delighted to hear both. What if you heard a Charlie Bird Parker song played and then you heard his song later played by a Smooth Jazz Artist, what a great way to not only honor him, but get younger kids to listen to this great music called JAZZ. The concept is really simple; pay both genres in such a way to get a wide variety of listeners to enjoy both styles. I will be out here on a crusade to make this happen. Let's just make it happen. Linda Morgan as Ms. SmoothAhead Jazz. May 24, 2009
Responses from friends on Different Sites
Comment by Esther Berlanga-Ryan on May 25, 2009 at 9:41pm Linda,
I think you will happy to know that I have been doing just that for almost as long as I have worked in the radio industry. I agree with your concept one hundred per cent! I should also say that in my case I didn't stop in Jazz and Smooth Jazz, because I add some Blues, some contemporary Bluegrass, some R&B, some acoustic Pop- Rock...but the core of the show (and station) is Vocal Jazz, Jazz and yes, Smooth Jazz. I don't believe in shutting doors, I believe in opening doors and windows! It is this same idea that finally lead me to start my own internet radio station, which happens to be the #1 Vocal Jazz station on Live365.com, despite of the mixture of styles I program. Wouldn't you call that being on the right path? :)
I don't know if you have ever heard my station:
http://www.live365.com/stations/estherberlangaryan
I am listening to what you are saying with a smile on my face. Let's make it happen worldwide!
Comment by Bubba Jackson on May 25, 2009 at 11:25pm
Linda,
Well the secret is no more. Smoothahead is here and it has the juice to sway and entertain the masses. The concept behind smooth jazz is based on a/c radio. You, the jazz listener can't understand the scope of jazz. So let's programmed a "muzak" form of jazz, a lot of syncopated beats with little substance. And yes we add some pop music to "help you" understand Jazz.
Many of the listeners today came into jazz from RTF, Herbie Hancock, the Jazz Crusaders, Grover Washington, Jr, Patti Austin, Chuck Magione, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Eddie Jefferson etc. They brought the records and then CDs and kept the jazz format live. Corporate American came in and started buying stations due to deregulations and having a commercial jazz format became "not cost effective". Public radio became the last bastion for jazz. That's where it is for the moment. But should that be the only Place? No, hell no!
Linda, you have the vision to bring the audience to jazz and bring those who need a musical format that exemplify their taste in good music. Jazz has always been a danceable music. Because of its origins it does not hold as a art form to be celebrated by America. The whole world celebrates jazz, let's do it with now with Smoothahead Jazz. Think Lee Morgan and Rick Braun, Grover Washington, Jr with Kenny Burrell and Grover Washington, Jr and George Benson, Al Jarreau and Eddie Jefferson, Ella and Diane Reeves, Earl Klugh and Jeff Golub. I could on and on but this is what I have been programming since 1974 playing John Coltrane and Grover Washington, Jr in the same hour. In Denver, I was voted the # 1 Radio Announcer in the Seventies and in 2009 I was voted the Best Radio Personality by the OC Weekly. All I do is program jazz and the blues, no adjectives necessary. The audience is there. The artists are there and want to play. I have counseled so many artists about playing into a "format". Play the music that expresses who you are. If the music touches the listeners will respond. When you play to a formula and that formula changes, you become dust on a shelf. Keep in mind that 50 years ago Miles Davis's "Kind Of Blue" was recorded plus TIME OUT, SKETCHES OF SPAIN, and MINGUS AH UM. No formula needed just jazz baby. JAZZ!
Smoothahead is the music that is needed to keep jazz on the Radio. Linda, I am with you one hundred percent and I will be your programmer.
Ms. Smoothahead, thank you for your vision!
Bubba Jackson
Breakfast With Bubba
KKJZ, FM 88.1