Spinning Gold Marketing » business owner

3 Insights to Manifesting the Success You Want in Your Business~

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:46:40 +0000

Being clear about who you are, what you do, and the benefits of working with you, will dramatically affect your ability to attract and connect with more of your ideal clients and manifesting the success you want.

That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? Why, then do so many entrepreneurs struggle to attract clients? Most often it is not because there is anything wrong with what you do, or how you do it, but the problem lies in being able to clearly define and communicate your authentic message in a way that really connects with your ideal clients.

Here’s an important understanding: You know you have a unique gift that no one else has, and you know that you can help others. It is your mission to identify your gift, do it to the very best of your ability, and create your compelling branding and marketing message that is authentic to you and attracts clients who want what you offer.

Here are 3 things you must be very clear on that will help you instantly transform the way you feel and communicate about your business, and expand how your potential clients perceive and connect with you and your business.

1) Know what your unique gift is. What do you do, exceptionally well, that no one else does? In other words, what sets you apart from others in your field?

Golden Tip: This is most likely something that you didn’t even realize is unique because it is something that comes naturally to you.

2) Know who you serve. The more well-defined your niche market is, the easier it will be to create your messages. You will also become known as the authority in that area.

Golden Tip: Most often your niche market is a group of people who align with the same values that you have for yourself and your business. In order to present yourself most effectively, you must first be clear on the values and qualities you hold and demonstrate.

3) Know what authentically connects you with your prospective clients. People buy on emotion and then back their decisions up with logic. What emotions do you and your services evoke in people that makes them want to work with you?

Golden Tip: This is typically found by making the connection between what your clients want from you, and what you offer. For example, if you are a life coach, your clients may be looking for possibilities, hope, power, confidence, success, etc.

As I shared earlier, you must be clear about who you are, including your unique gifts and your core values. You must be clear about what your services deliver, and what need or desire that fills within your clients. And, you must know – very, very well, who your ideal clients are so that the connection you make with them is clear, true and authentic.

To your joyful and inspired success~

Namaste,

~Laurie

Spinning Gold Marketing

What Is The “Marketing Hook” In Your Business?

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:27:44 +0000

Get More Clients With An Effective “Marketing Hook”

Everywhere you look today you are exposed to one form of marketing message or another. It might be on a billboard, in a magazine or on the internet and no matter what media you are engaged in at that moment, the message is basically the same; “buy our product or use our service.”

Marketing experts understand that they have just a few seconds to capture their target or ideal audience or their message will be a failure. They have just a few seconds to grab your attention and arouse your curiosity to know more of what they are offering or you will move on to something or someone else. Have you ever surfed the web and gone through countless of web pages without any interest and then one page just popped out and grabbed you, causing you to read more? Have you ever zipped through the channels on your television and found yourself stopping on an infomercial even though it was not your intention? You had no plans on buying anything and you know that they are just trying to sell you something and yet something they said or something they showed you, made you stop and say,”Hey, wait a minute. What’s this?”

This is what business marketers refer to as the “hook.”

Do You need A “Marketing Hook” In Your Business?

If you are in business and if you want to attract clients then the answer is yes, you most definitely need a “marketing hook” in your business. There is far too much competition out there to just hope and pray your ideal clients will find you and invest in your product or service instead of your competitor. Today there are thousands upon thousands of websites and for you to be successful on the internet, it is a must to be able to grab your prospect’s attention.

What Is Your “Marketing Hook?”

Before you begin writing a single word for your web-page, sales page or ad, you will want to do some serious research. At this point what you are looking for is that unique piece of story that will arouse a burning curiosity in your ideal client to make them feel compelled to continue to find out more. It is the eye-popping piece of story that will jar even the most distracted reader into full attention. The best hooks are the ones that come early in your message. Remember, the objective here is to grab attention immediately, to get noticed.

Every business is going to have a different hook. Every niche market is going to have a different hook. Your business might also have more than one hook, one for every kind of client you serve.

Many times business owners and entrepreneurs are too close to their product or service to be able to see what is unique about them. What sets them apart from their competition? Mentoring programs, coaching programs and mastermind groups are great resources to turn to in order to get an outside perspective of you and your business’ uniqueness to discover your very own “marketing hook.”

Laurie Polinski

Spinning Gold Marketing

Is Your Business a Wallflower or a Rock Star?

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:36:19 +0000

3 Things to ask yourself to make sure you are delivering a compelling message so that you can attract your ideal clients and accelerate your business success!

Think of your business as a person. What if your business had a face, a personality, a particular look, a feel; what if when potential clients thought of your business, they got a sense of how it thinks and what it believes in, just like a person? Guess what!?! Your business is just like a person and does have all of these things. Your business has its own personality.

Some people are considered wallflowers. They hang back, are quiet and do not draw attention. In fact, others barely know they’re there!

If your business is like a wallflower, it probably isn’t drawing much attention, either. In fact, as the business owner, you may feel like your working just as hard as all the other businesses, maybe even harder, but you still aren’t drawing the clients and income you’d like.

On the other hand, some people have the personality of a rock star! These people have no problem letting others know who they are, what they do and why they exist! If your business is like a rock star, you probably have all the clients you can possibly handle, and are busy creating more programs and products just to keep up with the demand! Lucky you!

If your business feels more like the wallflower right now, and you’d like to have more of what the rock star has, ask yourself these 3 three key questions:

1) Have I articulated and written down my brand promise?

The most important thing to remember about a brand is: A brand is a promise–a promise of consistency. A client chooses one person or company to do business with because they know what to expect from that company every time. That company has done a good job of defining who they are and what they can do for their clients, and it has done a good job of repeating that message over and over so that people understand what they are promising and trust it!

Clients have a certain set of expectations of people or companies they do business with. They want to know they can trust that the product or service will be very much the same as it was the last time they used it. That’s the brand promise.

Some promises a company, or brand, can make to its clients are:

Consistency (Most important)

Quality

Price

Convenience

Customer Service

Better than the competition in some way

Your brand promise should come through in all of your marketing and advertising efforts.

2) What do I want my clients to remember about me and/or my business?

When clients, or potential clients, think about you or your product or service, what is the core message they get? Your core message is a precise description of what you do, who you work with and why you are different (better) than your competition.

Your core message should be based on:

The nature of your services or products–what you are selling–and the benefits or features of your service or product.

Your unique selling proposition, or what sets you apart from the competition.

The promise you make to your clients–what’s in it for them?

It’s important that you understand and clearly articulate the core message you want to send for your business. You need to keep your core message in mind when developing all of your advertising materials such as your website, brochures, business card, etc. Your core message is what you want your clients to remember about you. This is how you create a deeply meaningful connection with your clients and prospective clients.

3) Does my company name and/or tagline explain the nature of my business or what I do?

When people see your company name they should be able to understand what you do. If that isn’t clearly articulated in your company name, it should be clear in your tagline.

For example, my company name is Spinning Gold Marketing. Now, people may, or may not, understand exactly what I do. My tagline is: “The Entrepreneurs’ Business Growth Coach for Focused, Fast Results.”

My tagline tells 3 things:
1) Who I work with – “Entrepreneurs”
2) What I do – “Business Growth Coach”
3) What I promise – “Focused, Fast Results.”

Taglines don’t have to be catchy to be memorable (although it certainly doesn’t hurt!). Your company name and your tagline do need to tell potential clients, or remind current clients, that you specialize in exactly what they need.

Your brand identity is the power and force behind your business success. Your brand message is what clearly tells clients and potential clients who you work with, what you do for them and why they should choose to work with you. And, remember, once you are clear on your brand promise–your core message–and have an effective company name and tagline, be sure it is consistent in everything you do.

Laurie Polinski
Spinning Gold Marketing

5 Key Tips To Stand Out In A Crowded Field On A Shoestring Budget

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:58:12 +0000

How do you stand out from a crowded field without spending tons of money on advertising?

1) Give some serious thought to what differentiates you from the competition. We’ve all heard that we need our “elevator speech”–the 30-second infomercial that quickly tells people who you are and what you do. Your elevator speech should answer the question: “Why should I work with you instead of any of the others?”

- How do you get clear on what you can offer?

- Do you offer a product or service that others don’t?

- Do you have special training or certification that others don’t have?

- Do you understand what you are truly expert at that sets you apart?

- What core values do you have, or does your business reflect?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you will have the basis for your elevator speech. Stick with it—that is your story. That story is the one that will stick in customers’ minds and, if it sounds authentic, they will repeat your story to others.

2) Start a word-of-mouth campaign.

Word-of-mouth is free and can be your most effective form of advertising as long as your message is authentic to who you are, what you offer and how you help people.

3) Do you have a membership or club that offers discounts or other incentives to your loyal, repeat clients?

This gives clients incentive to continue coming back to you instead of trying a competitor.

Remember, though, almost no discount or incentive will be enough if your client is not satisfied with your service. Again, this is where your message must match what you deliver.

4) Give your clients incentives or discounts for referrals.

Create some kind of reward for your clients who share your message with others. For example, you might have special cards printed for your clients to give to friends and when their friends use your services, both your referring client and the new client receive a discount or incentive.

Be sure your branding and authentic message is clear on whatever card or piece you use so that your existing customer doesn’t have to do the work of trying to communicate who you are, what you do and why their friend should go to you.

5) Make sure you have good marketing materials to give to potential clients.

Your brochures, fliers, website and any other marketing materials must reflect your authentic branding so that people quickly and easily understand who you are, how you can help them and why they should choose you.

Some of these suggestions may cost a little money, but when you have the right branding message–one that is truly authentic to who you are and what you are an expert at delivering–it will be the catalyst to what makes you stand out in a crowded field.

With the right branding message—one that is authentic to who you are and what you are an expert at delivering—these inexpensive advertising suggestions will be the catalyst to what makes you stand out in a jam-packed market.

Laurie Polinski
Spinning Gold Marketing

Understanding Your Unique Brilliance

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:25:28 +0000

Understanding Your Unique Brilliance in Your Business

Your unique brilliance is what you are inherently good at, and what you enjoy doing so much that it doesn’t even seem like work to you; it’s what you get so lost in that you completely lose track of time. Determining and harnessing your unique brilliance will allow you to provide your talent to others in a quality that no one else can, and will make you stand out against the competition. Understanding your unique brilliance will help you get paid for doing something that you would do even if you weren’t getting paid!

Uncovering Your Unique Brilliance

Although everyone is born equipped with a unique brilliance, not everyone is able to recognize theirs immediately. Throughout childhood, years of nurturing often (and often times involuntarily) causes people to lose touch with their natural talent. For example, you might grow up thinking that you want to be an astronaut because a parent or teacher encouraged you to be. Once more cognizant of yourself, however, you realize that you hate math and are terrified of heights and cannot stand the smell of burning rocket fuel, so you pick up the paint brush that you’ve been eyeing since fifth grade and become a world-famous artist, just as you were born to be.

Transforming Your Unique Brilliance Into a Business System

When you use your unique brilliance with your business, you focus on what you are truly exceptional at, or what comes natural to you. Concentrating at what you are truly great at will allow your business to flourish and the tasks which are not in alignment with your brilliance get delegated or just pushed aside. Identifying your unique brilliance is not always easy, so specialists have developed professional personality assessments to help people better understand themselves. As a marketing and soul coach, I am certified to assess multidimensional awareness profile evaluations that will help you pinpoint your innate talent.

Laurie Polinski

Spinning Gold Marketing

The Importance of Knowing Yourself in Business

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 23:24:45 +0000

Knowing Yourself Creates Clarity for Your Business and to Your Ideal Client

Last week’s article: “7 Key Steps to Taking Control of Your Business This Year,” gave you some important steps to follow to have greater clarity and focus in your business so you can have your best year yet. In the upcoming articles we will be expanding on each one of these steps in greater detail so you will have a clear picture of each of these steps and their importance to your success.

Your business starts with a foundation, and the strength to any foundation is it’s cornerstone. The cornerstone of a foundation provides stability and strength to support a structure and without it, the foundation will fail and the structure collapse. You are the cornerstone of your business structure and in being solid in your goals, vision and self awareness, you will allow for the support needed to build a strong successful business.

Knowing Yourself Allows You to Effectively Brand Yourself

As an Entrepreneur, being very clear on who you are at your core, allows you to build a solid relationship with your ideal clients. Promoting and operating a business that is a reflection of who you are will attract clients through authenticity, promoting a sense of deep trust. Operating your business with a self-awareness will nurture self confidence, and exhibiting self-confidence will assure your clients on a deep subconscious level that they are in the best of care.

Self Awareness Business Tools for the Entrepreneur

There are various tools and methods a person can use to be become clear on who they are and what is truly important to them. Here are two:

Daily journaling. Taking the time to journal every day as well as reviewing previous entries will allow you to realize the things that are important to you today, and how things are changing for you and your business and your vision. This is a very effective tool to staying true to the parts of your business which are important to you at the core.

Personality and archetype assessments. These types of assessments have been proven to be very important in uncovering the true essence of ourselves. Many times we are too close to our situation to make an accurate conclusion to what really is our driving force. Through series of questions, many people are often surprised at what they find out about themselves and then with this new information they can begin branding themselves in a more powerful way, a way that is truly them.

Laurie Polinski
Spinning Gold Marketing

7 Key Steps to Taking Control of Your Business This Year

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:58:11 +0000

It is important to have clarity and focus in order to achieve your goals in your business. Without a good plan to get what you want, you will keep chasing the new idea and wind up nowhere near what you set out to achieve.

Be sure to take the time to build that solid foundation under your business.

Here are the:

7 Key Steps to Taking Control of Your Business This Year

1. Know yourself: In order to achieve success in your business, it is necessary to first understand what it is that you are hoping to get out of your work. Without personal satisfaction, your determination to perform at your best will wane, and both you and your clients will lose enthusiasm for your business.

2. Know what your unique brilliance is: As in knowing yourself, deciding on your unique brilliance takes a bit of soul-searching. Take time to figure out what it is that you do so well, and what you are most passionate about, that it doesn’t even seem like work to you, and begin or continue to build your business around that.

3. Be able to describe exactly who your ideal clients are: Being able to target and attract your ideal clients is an indispensable instinct and art. Your clients will certainly play a main role in your work every day, so it is important to choose a client roster that you operates well with you so that your work is pleasurable rather than dreadful.

4. Know exactly what your clients want from you: The first step in attracting clients is to realize what business professionals need from you in order to realize their goals. Once you’ve obtained your clients, be sure to stay tuned into their goals.

5. Be able to clearly and easily communicate who you are: Through effective branding and communication through your website and online social networking, clients and potential clients will be able to effortlessly determine how you can help them manage their business, and that will attract them to your services.

6. Develop passive streams of income: Your a professional who is good at what you do. Your time is valuable. Start generating the income that you desire so that you don’t become burnt-out while trying to achieve your goals.

7. Create your plan, and stay focused on that plan until you get the results you want: Your business plan is your recorded path to success. Once you have constructed a business plan that you feel confident in, continue to trust yourself and don’t deviate from that path.

It’s easy to stray from the course, but with these pieces in place, you will find that your business is moving forward with less stress, and new visions and opportunities are begging to come your way.

Laurie Polinski
Spinning Gold Marketing

4 Steps To An Orginized Office

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:54:53 +0000

An Organized Office Means Freedom For You

When it comes to productivity, creativity and inspiration, having an organized workspace to complete your daily tasks efficiently and without distractions is crucial to your success. Unbury yourself today by following these easy yet effective organizational tips.

Keep Office Supplies Nearby

Keeping the supplies that you use most frequently—such as pens, staplers and your stress management tools(stress balls)—close-at-hand and storing the ones that you don’t in designate spaces will play a big role in keeping your desk and your office clutter-free, and will make finding items all the easier which will save you precious time.

Create a Comprehensive Filing System

Make documents easy to find by creating a well-organized filing system. A great way to do this is by creating categories for your paperwork, and storing them appropriately. It will also be helpful for you to review your filing cabinet regularly so that you may discard of papers no longer needed. Keeping paperwork scattered on your desk. his is a distraction as well as a thief in that it robs you of your time, energy and creativity.

Organize and Prioritize Your Snail Mail

Just like your e-mail service, equip your office with an inbox for hard-copy mail that you have yet to read. As you immediately open your mail each day, prioritize and discard! Separate your bills, payments on invoices and letters that need responses and shred the rest. This little tool will keep your workspace clear of mountains of unopened envelopes, and will make it much more difficult to lose important mail pieces.

Start Tomorrow off With a Clean Slate

We all know how important it is to start each day off right and in order to build the needed momentum first thing in the morning, you have to be without distraction. It will be helpful for you to clear your office of its clutter at the end of each work day. Filing the papers that you will need, throwing away the ones that you will not and storing supplies in their designated areas will allow you to begin the next day dynamically; instead of spending your morning sorting through the mess you made yesterday. Don’t procrastinate on organizing; you’ll thank yourself in the morning.

Organization Leads to a Happy Life

As you can see, these four steps are very simple for anyone to accomplish and can make a huge impact on the productivity of your day. It amazes me how many offices I walk into that are in total chaos and surprisingly the people who own these offices can’t understand why they cannot complete their tasks in a timely manner.

Get yourself in a routine of keeping your office space clean and organized and you’ll surprise yourself at how much you can accomplish in a day with increased creativity and still have time for yourself.

What I learned from James Malinchak & Mari Smith~

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:48:48 +0000

I cannot believe how much I took away from the James Malinchak Millionaire Speaker Bootcamp over this past 4 days! I’ve never taken so many notes in one sitting in my life! AND, for those of you know know I used to be a court-and-conference stenographer, know that’s a lot of notes!

I took SO much away from the info-packed content-rich 4-day seminar that I used up an entire notepad and had to start writing on the back sides of my pages! There is obviously way too much to share in one post, but one thing that I came home and implimented immediately was / okay 2 things / (1) from James: Get Things Done Fast! (2) from Mari
Smith – The importance of having your Twitter background custom-created to match your branding! Mari says this is the most valuable REAL ESTATE on the web!

So what I did, was take James’ advice, and quickly called my VP of Visibility, Christy Taylor, and my Twitter background is being created as I write this!

Can’t wait to debut it!

~LaurieP.
The Entrepreneurs’ Marketing & Business Growth Coach who gets Results!
Spinning Gold

Meet me on Twitter: LauriePolinski

Chat with me on Facebook: LaurieGraciePolinski

Stay on Schedule

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:46:08 +0000

The Importance Of Keeping a Schedule

Tips for better focus and clarity: staying on task by creating and keeping a schedule

If you’re an entrepreneur and especially if you’re working from a home office, it may sometimes be difficult to create and keep a schedule that helps you stay focused and productive. After all, many of us have wandered from the rigid course of the corporate world to explore our own path that allows us to be free and, lets be honest, to make us more money. And while that sounds wonderful on the surface, the challenge is that we no longer have someone standing above us, demanding we punch-in at 9 a.m., keep this meeting at 10 a.m. and have that on someone’s desk by 3 p.m. No, now we are responsible for making and keeping our own schedules and holding ourselves accountable.

Scheduling is not a dirty word and when done properly, allows any business to operate smoothly and more efficiently. Creating and keeping a schedule is one of the best–if not the best–ways to keep yourself on track, and one of the best ways to create a useful schedule is to use a daily planner. So, pull yours out of the drawer, dust it off and open it up. After each work day, grab your planner and write down on the page designated for the following day what you need to get accomplished, listing tasks in order of most to least important. This way, when you walk into your office each morning, you’ll be able to hit the ground running. If there are tasks on your planner that you were unable to finish during the day, make sure to write it down on the next page to be certain that you stick with it. There is something powerful about physically writing anything, down, pen to paper, that makes it easier to remember rather than just entering it into your Blackberry.

As an entrepreneur, your daily planner should always be nearby, lovingly watching you as you complete task after task, and meet deadline after deadline. I have an erasable marker board hanging in front of my desk where I can always see and know the tasks that need to be completed.

Spinning Gold