Make Your Business Stand Out From The Crowd With These Attractive, Tantalizing And Eye-Catching Techniques
By A Distinguished Panel of Business Experts
Thinking about starting up a home-based business? Want it to be “sexy” — one that attracts more attention and sales of your products and services than your competitors? Drawing on their years of experience, a panel of business experts offers techniques to make any home-based start-up “sexy!” Their expertise can help you to get the right attitude and to conduct the right sales techniques, social media techniques, research techniques, branding techniques, and management techniques to become a “sexy” start-up. Also included are suggested “sexy” businesses to start this year. Learn from these business experts, and take action today to achieve home-based success with a “sexy” start-up.
SEXY ATTITUDE
A Business Basic – YOU
By Bill McBean
Every business owner starts with a goal, a reason for wanting to open a sexy business. And if you lose track of that goal it’s not unlikely you will find yourself with a company — even a successful one — that doesn’t provide you with what you wanted to achieve. It’s been my experience that the only way to keep this from happening is by doing a “check-up from the neck up,” as one of my mentors used to say, on a regular basis. To maintain success, here are some questions to ask yourself when you do a “check-up from the neck up.”
“Do I enjoy going to work every day and continuing to manage my company?” As a business owner, success is yours to define, both for the business and for yourself.
“Have I become a slave to my business?” As an owner, you should be running the business rather than having the business run you.
“Am I making the kind of money I’d hoped to make when I started the business?” If your answer to this question is “No,” you have to determine if your market and your talent are capable of delivering that kind of financial success.
“Where is my business in its life cycle?” Knowing where your business is in its life cycle enables you to determine not only how much you’ve achieved toward your goal but, even more important, how to get from where you are to where you want to be.
“Where do I want the company to be when I’m ready to leave?” It’s never too early for a successful owner to start thinking about an exit strategy.
The bottom line is that owners do what they do for independence, financial rewards, and the thrill of creating success. And if you stop every once in a while to do a check-up and ask yourself if that’s what your business is providing you, you’re much more likely to achieve them. HBM
Bill McBean, author of The Facts of Business Life: What Every Successful Business Owner Knows that You Don’t, spent many of his nearly forty years as a successful business owner. For more information please visit http://www.billmcbean.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.
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SEXY SALES TECHNIQUES
Six Powerful Prospecting Tips to Build Your Sexy Business
By John Boe
Successful sales reps understand that prospecting for new business is a necessity and not just an activity. The good news is that prospecting for new business, like any other learned skill set, can be trained and developed into a habit. The following are six powerful prospecting tips to generate prospects and build your sexy business.
Tip #1: Don’t Forget to Ask for Referrals. When it comes to asking for referrals, timing is everything. Research indicates that the most effective time to ask for referrals is right after you’ve made the sale or provided a valuable service for your customer.
Tip #2: Train and Reward Your Advocates. An advocate is a person who’s willing to go out of his or her way to recommend you to a friend or associate. Most customers are initially reluctant to provide referrals without some basic training and motivation.
Tip #3: Strike While the Iron is HOT. Each day you let slip by without making initial contact with your referral dramatically reduces the probability of you making the sale. Develop the habit of contacting your referrals within two-business days or sooner.
Tip #4: Schedule a Minimum of Two-Hours a Day for Phone Calling. Make your phone calls in the morning while you and your referrals are both fresh and alert. Avoid the temptation to try and sell your product or service over the phone. Your objective for every phone call is to create interest, gather information and make an appointment.
Tip #5: Qualify Your Prospect at Maximum Range. Unfortunately, not every prospect will be interested or qualified financially to purchase your products or services. Successful sales reps don’t waste time chasing after low-probability prospects and know when it’s time to cut their losses and move on.
Tip #6: Don’t Take Rejection Personally. Learn from rejection by using it as a valuable feedback mechanism. Salespeople who take rejection personally lack perseverance and seldom make the sale. HBM
John Boe presents a wide variety of motivational and sales-oriented keynotes and seminar programs for sales meetings and conventions. John is a nationally recognized sales trainer and business motivational speaker with an impeccable track record in the meeting industry. To have John speak at your next event, visit www.johnboe.com or call 937-299-9001. Free Newsletter available on website.
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SEXY SOCIAL MEDIA TECHNIQUES
Which Social Media Platforms are Right for You?
By: Marsha Friedman
If you want to be visible and sexy in today’s marketplace, you absolutely must have a presence on social media. But there are so many from which to choose nowadays! In addition to the biggies like Facebook and Twitter, we have lots of newcomers, including Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. How to know which platforms will best meet your needs? I asked Alex Hinojosa, our vice president for media operations at EMSI Public Relations, to share some tips for helping you decide.
- Facebook: This works best if you’re an individual interacting on a personal level, as opposed to a business. Artists, authors, public speakers and certain other professionals may benefit from having potential customers get to know them on a more personal basis.
- Twitter: Posts are limited to 140 characters – about the length of a headline – and can include a photo or link to a website. This is a great network for getting to know people without sharing a lot of personal information. Plus, you can follow whomever you want, and anyone can follow you.
- LinkedIn: The social network for professionals is a good place to find and meet people within and outside your industry. People can easily see your credentials and endorse your skills. The background information on your profile page – where you went to school, other companies you’ve been associated with – provides great fodder for finding common ground with strangers and building relationships.
- Google+: The Google search engine favors anything posted on Google+, which is great for SEO. It also combines the best features of Facebook and Twitter, including photo sharing and categorizing content using hashtags (#).
If you have limited experience in social media, jump into the platforms that seem to best align with your goals. You’ll have a learning curve, but a little practice goes a long way. And you’ll soon wonder why you didn’t get more involved a long time ago! HBM
Marsha Friedman is a 24-year veteran of the public relations industry. She is the CEO of EMSI Public, a national firm that provides PR strategy and publicity services to businesses, professional firms, entertainers and authors. Marsha is the author of Celebritize Yourself and can also be heard weekly on her Blog Talk Radio Show, The PR Insider. Follow her on Twitter: @marshafriedman.
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5 Social Media Advertising Tips for First-Time Entrepreneurs
By Ben Stewart
Here are five social media advertising tips to make your start-up sexy:
1. Know your goals. If the goal is to boost sales using social media, first ensure you have a way to accurately track campaign performance. Use destination URLs that can track people from the social media link they click on all the way to your website’s receipt page. After you’re set up to effectively track the campaign, then make sure your message is clear, engaging, and above all, centered on a call to action.
2. Know your solution. If your product lacks sizzle on its own, you can create engaging content by taking a stance on the problem it’s solving. And, in the end, it’s all about engaging content.
3. Know the medium. Each social network has its strengths and weaknesses. Twitter’s “less is more” approach limits message size, while Facebook allows users to get into the nitty-gritty. Naturally, these differences will affect your campaign’s reach. Deals containing coupon codes will be more effective on Twitter, while Facebook lends itself to campaigns that use images or video. So when you’re designing your campaign, think long and hard about which network will best communicate your message.
4. Know your target. The easiest way to find your target demo is to study your former customers. They may be broad in range, but one age group, gender, or demographic will likely stand out. You can find this info through most analytics platforms (such as Google), but the free options tend to be less accurate. A great method for cost effective analytics is to invite previous customers to like your business’s Facebook page in exchange for a future discount.
5. Know how to maximize your efforts. Posting once or twice a week on Twitter or Facebook doesn’t cut it anymore. To maximize your brand awareness (and boost sales in the process), you’ll need to create inbound word-of-mouth channels. If you post once or twice on Facebook or twitter, your reach will be limited to your number of followers — known as outbound marketing. But through inbound marketing, you can recruit your audience to spread the word. Social reward incentives can both strengthen your online relationship with existing customers and motivate them to spread the word to new customers. HBM
Ben Stewart is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of the e-commerce marketing platform Social Rebate. He has an extensive background in web development and design for large-scale e-commerce companies.
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SEXY RESEARCH TECHNIQUES
How the Little Guys Can Win In Today’s David-and-Goliath Business World
By Corrine Sandler
Before the Internet, small companies didn’t stand a chance against the Goliaths, That’s because no war can be won without intelligence and, before the digital era, collecting actionable data and information about one’s competitors, market and customers cost a lot more than most small businesses — the Davids — could afford.
But today, the Davids are taking down the Goliaths. Thanks to the Internet, startups have access to all kinds of free tools for gathering actionable data, acting on it immediately, and using it to predict next moves and spot opportunities. Smaller business owners should utilize the following tips for acquiring and using intelligence in their sexy start-up:
- If you lack resources, make use of free or inexpensive intelligence-gathering tools. Visit competitors’ websites and collect data about them. Many businesses put a great deal of revealing information on their sites, which can benefit you. Also, make note of any changes on their sites. Google Alerts can tell you when they’re releasing new products or expanding. Use Google analytics tools such as Google Hot Trends to tell you what’s in the collective consciousness — potential consumer demand — at any given time. Google’s key word tool will give you ideas for powerful key words in search terms, and use the traffic tool to measure global volume on those key words.
- Make intelligence-gathering part of your company’s culture. Every employee in your business is a potential intelligence resource. Encourage employees to pay attention as they interact with others outside the company. They may discover a nagging issue that no other company is addressing, allowing you to create uncontested market space. Or, you may learn critical information about a competitor that allows you to seize an advantage.
- Appoint a Chief Intelligence Officer (CIO) to coordinate and analyze information from a variety of sources. A CIO can oversee and coordinate the collection and analysis of intelligence, and brief you — the business leader — daily so that all data is actionable. HBM
Corrine Sandler is the founder and CEO of Fresh Intelligence Research Corp, a global market research agency; international professional speaker and author of “Wake Up or Die,” a book that applies lessons from Sun Tzu’s ancient classic, “The Art of War,” to contemporary businesses. Visit www.corrinesandler.com.
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SEXY BRANDING TECHNIQUES
Keys to Executing a Successful Business Brand
By Steve Blue
Key #1: Get clear on what a brand is. A brand is not just your logo. A brand is the sum total of the messages, interactions, and experiences a customer has with your product, services, and people. To a customer, a brand is the promise of an EXPERIENCE and the customer’s EXPERIENCE of that promise delivered. It’s a valuable asset to nurture over time.
Key #2: Understand that a brand has two owners: the marketer owns 50%; the customer owns 100%. Yes, that’s 150% in total. The marketer produces messages, products, and services. Your customers experience the brand, and in the digital age, they are in ultimate control of their messages they receive. Therefore, check in with customers and, at the very least, include those internal players who have the most customer contact.
Key #3: Your logo, tagline, typography, and design should tell a single-minded story. Every brand is heroic in some way. Its look, feel, and message should tell one story. Think about what your brand fights for and against what odds. Consider what is at stake for customers in terms of their problems and how you solve those for them. By becoming a hero to your customers, you, in turn, make heroes out of them. That’s truly adding value.
Key #4: Never stop supporting and promoting your brand. A successful brand is a living presence in the marketplace with a tangible relationship with its customers. It’s easy to support a brand in boom times, but much tougher in down times. However, study after study has shown that brands that are consistently supported during a down cycle, gain greater sales and share when the economy turns up — over those who cut support activities.
Key #5: Be a Brand Champion. Set up brand guidelines and procedures to make sure the identity you have carefully created presents a consistent image and message in marketing communications from business cards to digital media, in sales presentations, in signage, at events and trade shows — wherever the customer will engage with your brand. HBM
With more than three decades of management, executive, consulting and speaking experience in markets all over the world, Miller Ingenuity CEO Steve Blue is a globally regarded business growth authority who has transformed companies into industry giants and enthralled audiences with his dynamic keynotes. He is the author of Outdo, Outsmart… Outlast: A Practical Guide to Managed, Measured and Meaningful Growth. Follow Steve @MillerIngenuity.
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SEXY MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
Ways to Win This Year with a Sexy Successful Startup
By Melissa Thompson
This year will be a formative year for new business owners and early-stage entrepreneurs. Below are tips for the entrepreneur (or entrepreneur-to-be) to run a successful and sexy startup.
1. Clear the clutter. Clutter includes: toxic people, time drainers, unnecessary events, and non-crucial product features. Founders must wear many hats, and choosing the ones that bring the highest value is critical to success (and maintaining sanity). Rid your life of the physical clutter and learn to gracefully remove the social clutter.
2. Work harder than anyone. Be the first one to work and the last one to leave. Set the tone for your teams. Also, resources for startups are limited and precious. The more an entrepreneur can do personally, the more the entrepreneur is investing in the venture and can allocate financial resources elsewhere.
3. Simplify it. Get product feedback from an eight year old, an eighty year old, and every decade in between. No one will ask for more complexity.
4. Talk less, listen more. Often, entrepreneurs are too deep in the weeds of their own visions and can benefit from listening to users, testers, investors, potential clients and anyone not directly involved in the product’s creation.
5. Nurture your network: they are entrepreneurs’ biggest assets. It is the assets not listed on balance sheets that can often drive the biggest growth. Networks grow from friends, coworkers, peers, former teachers, bosses, and clients. These networks are what will help entrepreneurs the most in the early stages to turn napkin ideas into successful businesses. Find other entrepreneurs in your particular industry and watch your network grow exponentially. You need to find those who believe in you, believe in your ideas, and together with other entrepreneurs in your networks, grow successful businesses.
6. Implement digital detox. The physical and mental renewal of a digital detox will far outweigh a founder’s inclination to “work-til-ya-drop.” Do yourself and your business a favor: Power-down, and reboot from time to time. HBM
Melissa Thompson is the CEO of TalkSession.
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Sexy Businesses to Start This Year
By Sabrina Parsons
Thinking about starting a sexy business this year? Pay close attention to the industries that are expected to grow quickly over the next decade. The following are four of the best types of businesses to start this year:
1. Home Health Care Services: This is projected to be the fastest growing industry from 2012-2022, with an expected annual growth rate of 4.8 percent.
2. Retirement Facilities: Baby Boomers are reaching an age where many can no longer live independently; this industry is expected to grow 2.2 percent by 2030.
3. Financial Planning Services: The projected average annual growth rate of the financial services industry over the next decade is 2.1 percent
4. IT Consultancy: As businesses and individuals continue to upgrade their everyday technology, they need IT professionals to help. This industry is expected to grow 3.5 percent over the next decade.
5. Daycare Services: The number of families with two working parents continues to increase, so the need for daycare services is higher than ever. The projected growth for this industry over the next decade is 2.1 percent. HBM
Sabrina Parsons is the CEO of Palo Alto Software, a company that creates small business planning and financial tracking tools. Visit http://www.paloalto.com.
Get Sexy!
With the right attitude and with the right techniques, you can become a sexy start-up. Implement the attractive, tantalizing, and eye-catching techniques — for sales, social media, research, branding, and management —suggested by the business experts in this article. If you do, you will truly stand out from the crowd. HBM
