Archives for August 2014
Simple Ways to Personalize Your Marketing Efforts
One of the most important lessons for small business owners and marketers to learn is how to reach the right audience with the right message at the right time. To accomplish this, you can’t simply use a “one size fits all” approach with your marketing plans. Instead, you need to be able to personalize your marketing efforts (to an extent, at least) so that you can forge a better connection with your customers.
Too often we rely on the statistics of Google Analytics and Facebook Insights. When all we really need to do to get beyond the numbers, is to actually talk to our employees, our customers and those who did not choose us as their trusted resource. Get back to basics!
Here are a few simple ways that you can personalize your marketing efforts:
- Consider what your web design says about your brand. This is an often overlooked area when it comes to personalizing your marketing, but it’s important; the look and feel of your brand online, in
commercials and in other forms of advertising says far more about your brand than words ever could. It is a reflection of your brand’s personality, its values, its size and more. With one look at your website, customers should be able to tell exactly what kind of attitude your company exudes. So think about how you want your target customers to feel about your brand, and consider that with the way you design your ads and online presence.
- Ask your customers what they want. It sounds overly simple, but it’s extremely effective. Make use of surveys and polls, ask for reviews, talk to your customers on social media and more. Engage in actual conversations with your customers to figure out what they want and how you can give it to them.
- Learn from your customer service calls. What are the issues that people commonly have with your products or services? What are the best ways that you can solve those issues? The more you pay attention to customer service calls, the more you’ll be able to customize your products and your marketing so that you’re solving problems before they even happen.
- Be real. As long as your size permits, have actual people performing your customer service. Give thank you notes and discounts to loyal customers. In your advertising, tell the story of your brand in a transparent, raw way. Your company shouldn't feel like a corporate entity; it should feel like a person with its own unique personality.
What kinds of marketing are you currently engaging in, and how can Viral Solutions help? Talk to us today and we’ll be happy to work with you to personalize your marketing plan.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Tips for Scaling Up Your Business in a Manageable Way
One might think that the biggest challenge that small business owners face is growing their business to the level they desire. However, how they manage that growth is just as difficult, if not more so, than actually getting that growth itself. Therefore, it’s extremely important that small business owners understand how to scale up their business in a manageable way so that their company doesn’t quickly spiral out of their control.
Here are a few tips on how you can better scale up your business in a more manageable way:
- Determine what your best asset is. You may have a lot of things that your business is great at, but it’s important that you understand exactly what your greatest strength is. As you scale up your operations, this should be a defining characteristic of your brand that sets it apart from the competition.
- Understand the mindset of your lenders. It’s great if you have a lot of plans for what you want to accomplish in the future, but your lenders are more interested in hearing what the potential for a return on
their investment is in the short term, perhaps even more than in the long term. Focusing on the here and now will help you to stay in control as you plan your goals for the more distant future.
- Focus on honing your established sources of revenue. Instead of focusing on getting as many new customers as possible, put your attention during your expansion on the customers that you have already established. Create customer loyalty programs or referral rewards that will keep your customers coming back and rewarding them for their loyalty while setting it up so that they’re also bringing in new customers for you.
- Keep a focus on local growth to start with. Before you can become a nationwide empire, you need to be prominent within your local area. Scaling your business up gradually is just as important in regard to the geographic scope of your company as it is to the size and capabilities of your company.
- Stay focused on sales. Sales are what keep your business growing, so be sure that you don’t get sidetracked from what’s really important during a period of expansion.
For more assistance in scaling up your business, contact us today at Viral Solutions. We’re here to keep you organized as you achieve your business dreams.
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100’s of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
3 TIPS To Shape Your Influence Strategy
The root of all positives and negatives that shapes your online awareness strategy. Influence simply is getting someone to think about something in way that he or she wouldn't normally have thought about, or do something he or she wouldn't normally do.. There are many ways to create influence, but those ways are not influence. Rather they are delivery methods of creating influence. The online and social media platforms that you use to get your brand out are not influence, they are simply drivers of your influence strategy.
Influence is not marketing, social media, organizational branding, or public relations. Influence is influence. Simply changing perspective that one would not normally have about a given topic, subject, individual, organization, or whatever.
Perspective: Influence shapes perspective for a call to action. That call to action changes his or her thoughts or gets him or her to do something they wouldn't do. Perhaps, it is something as simple as clicking your website link opposed to others in the search engine, to following your 
page, to trying out your trial offer and sticking with it after the trial period. Whatever it may be, influence shapes perspective. That perspective can be transferred across a variety of platforms that are commonly associated with marketing, advertising, branding, and public relations. This can be new and old ways of using such platforms. Keep in mind those platforms are simply facilitating the travel or connection of influence from one to another to however many. Influence isn't popularity. Influence is simply influence. With a that in mind, we think of factors that create a greater influence.
Influence. It’s one thing to market, it’s an entirely different thing to influence. Influence is the magic that takes awareness to action. It makes person stop and do something. That something that can involve a positive or negative outcome. This can be seen in your online reputation, ratings, collaborations, sales, following, and many other areas. What shapes your influence?
Relevance
Resonance
Accessible
Reputation
Trust
Significance
These areas can certainly create a different level of influence or perhaps, no influence. However, looking at what they are, why they are relevant, and they can be used to create more effective influence strategy, how we can be influenced, how stakeholders influence us, how competitors influence us and our stakeholders, and so on.
Action. Influence creates action. Here, the action is for you to stop and truly evaluate how you create influence within your own firm. Do you? Do you reluctantly post, share, or distribute something that you hope sticks to get you noticed? How has that worked – probably, hasn’t. Do you truly plan or evaluate how your interaction will make someone stop, and act? I challenge you take something as simple as a 30 minute coffee break and ask yourself how your company creates influence? Specifically, looking at to your influence strategy – whether your actions are thought out and contribute to trust, action, relevance, significance and build or hurt your reputation. What you may find is your own call of action to create more meaningful influence strategies and in the mean time, your actions may increase your own internal and external influence for you, your firm, customers, and really, any other stakeholders that could be impacted by your influence strategy.
Great Read about Influence…
Sheldrake, P. (2013). Measuring of Influence. Measuring What Matters. Retrieved http://www.philipsheldrake.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/CW_JanFeb2013_AMeasureOfInfluence.pdf.
Sheldrake, P. (2011). The Business of Influence. Wiley & Sons.
Copyright Viral Solutions llc © 2014. All Rights Reserved.
by Katie Doseck, Ph.D.
Chief Visionary & Content Mastermind | Viral Solutions LLC
14 Sure Signs It's Time to Quit Your Day Job, and Start Your Dream Job
That’s right. You read the title correct. What’s funny is that if you clicked on it, you’re probably already feeling that it’s time to make the move. Yes, the move. You know, the one that you’ve been orchestrating in your head for the last eight-ten months, but have lacked the moxie to truly give your two-week notice and gleefully dance out that door. You can only reverse the Jerry McGuire office flip-out so many times in your head till that doesn’t have meaning to you anymore. So, in case you need any additional signs to help you jump ship and make the commitment to you – yea, you. You remember her. She was awesome, fun, and down for anything. The last year, she’s been awesome, but depressed, stressed, and other obnoxious, soul-sucking “ressed” words that are in the dictionary. Yea, her. Remember?
Here’s 14 sure signals for you to start packing and start dreaming – because 13 just wasn’t enough.
- You feel under appreciated.
- You’re undervalued.
- There has been growth, but no just compensation for that growth.
- Or there has been no growth and no room for growth.
- You’re unfulfilled.
- Your work stress is affecting your physical health.
- You no longer have a work-life balance.
- Your company is changing people like a revolving door.
- You bring your stress home and it’s impacting you, your loved ones, and even the mailman is creeped-out by your steady twitch.
- Your company is going through the financial and legal stresses due to some so-called “no big deal, or nothing to worry about,” lawsuits.
- You’re overqualified and not challenged enough.
- Your boss calls your ideas his. Seriously – get. a. life.
- Breaches of trust.
- The fear of leaving is finally less than the fear of remaining unfulfilled.
Yes. Let #14 sink in a little more. The fear that you once carried about leaving has minimized. Your fear of transition. Fear of what if this is as good as it get? Fear of what if you go broke? You finally hit the point, at the fork of the middle of the road. Which road will you take? Will you take the road to starting your own small firm? The road to work for a creative, solutions-driven, and employee appreciating company? Will you take the road where you take to a sabbatical job that has zero stress, buys you time to clear your mind, but still pays the bills till you figure out your true dream job – perhaps, you’ve been too miserable to look inward for that? Whatever road you choose, let it be the road that leads you to an abundance of joy, love, peace, and security. You only have one life – make it one worth remembering, sharing stories, and truly making you feel good inside and out. One that shows you how much you believe in you, and are ready to make the life you believe you deserve.
Today we share in on the toast to courageous individuals that have learned, let go, and moved in the direction of their dreams, and to those that make that decision today. Let go of ordinary and move toward extraordinary – a life built by you, for you, that empowers, energizes, and resonates with you.
Copyright Viral Solutions llc © 2014. All Rights Reserved.
by Katie Doseck, PhD
Chief Visionary | Viral Solutions LLC
14 Sure Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Day Job, and Start Your Dream Job
That’s right. You read the title correct. What’s funny is that if you clicked on it, you’re probably already feeling that it’s time to make the move. Yes, the move. You know, the one that you’ve been orchestrating in your head for the last eight-ten months, but have lacked the moxie to truly give your two-week notice and gleefully dance out that door. You can only reverse the Jerry McGuire office flip-out so many times in your head till that doesn’t have meaning to you anymore. So, in case you need any additional signs to help you jump ship and make the commitment to you – yea, you. You remember her. She was awesome, fun, and down for anything. The last year, she’s been awesome, but depressed, stressed, and other obnoxious, soul-sucking “ressed” words that are in the dictionary. Yea, her. Remember?
Here’s 14 sure signals for you to start packing and start dreaming – because 13 just wasn’t enough.
- You feel under appreciated.
- You’re undervalued.
- There has been growth, but no just compensation for that growth.
- Or there has been no growth and no room for growth.
- You’re unfulfilled.
- Your work stress is affecting your physical health.
- You no longer have a work-life balance.
- Your company is changing people like a revolving door.
- You bring your stress home and it’s impacting you, your loved ones, and even the mailman is creeped-out by your steady twitch.
- Your company is going through the financial and legal stresses due to some so-called “no big deal, or nothing to worry about,” lawsuits.
- You’re overqualified and not challenged enough.
- Your boss calls your ideas his. Seriously – get. a. life.
- Breaches of trust.
- The fear of leaving is finally less than the fear of remaining unfulfilled.
Yes. Let #14 sink in a little more. The fear that you once carried about leaving has minimized. Your fear of transition. Fear of what if this is as good as it get? Fear of what if you go broke? You finally hit the point, at the fork of the middle of the road. Which road will you take? Will you take the road to starting your own small firm? The road to work for a creative, solutions-driven, and employee appreciating company? Will you take the road where you take to a sabbatical job that has zero stress, buys you time to clear your mind, but still pays the bills till you figure out your true dream job – perhaps, you’ve been too miserable to look inward for that? Whatever road you choose, let it be the road that leads you to an abundance of joy, love, peace, and security. You only have one life – make it one worth remembering, sharing stories, and truly making you feel good inside and out. One that shows you how much you believe in you, and are ready to make the life you believe you deserve.
Today we share in on the toast to courageous individuals that have learned, let go, and moved in the direction of their dreams, and to those that make that decision today. Let go of ordinary and move toward extraordinary – a life built by you, for you, that empowers, energizes, and resonates with you.
Copyright Viral Solutions llc © 2014. All Rights Reserved.
by Katie Doseck, PhD
Chief Visionary | Viral Solutions LLC