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

  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

Laurie Polinski
Spinning Gold Marketing

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

Laurie Polinski
Spinning Gold Marketing

 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.

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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

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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

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  In Business, Is It Luck Or Opportunity?

  I attended a conference last weekend and while I was listening to the presenter and taking notes, I overheard someone say: “How lucky can she be? She is always in the right place at the right time.” I have heard that type of comment many times before so I just ignored it and turned my attention back to the presentation. Later that evening that comment popped back into my mind and for some reason, it just did not sit right with me and I just couldn’t put my finger on why. As I was driving home that night I had that “AHA” moment that gave me the clarity I was seeking.

Entrepreneurs, Are You Ready When Your Time Comes

  The thought that became so clear to me that night was this: “How many entrepreneurs and small business owners are in the right place at the right time and never no it!” That place and time is not just reserved for one person so how is it some capitalize on the opportunity while others let it slip by? The concept of being in the right place at the right time is just not enough, there is more to the equation.

The Right Formula For Success

  Yes, being in the right place at the right time is not enough and if you are not prepared in your business your time will escape you. This is the formula I believe will prepare the entrepreneur for success and put them in the right place and time. This is what you need:

• The right YOU: Do you have the right mindset when opportunities unveil themselves to you or will you hesitate and let them slip by?
• The right KNOWLEDGE: Have you done all you can to prepare yourself? Do you have the proper systems and tools in place? Are you constantly up to date on your changing industry or field? Have you had the proper mentoring and coaching in your niche?

   In business I believe there are opportunities and not luck. Having in place, the right knowledge and the right mindset will put you in the right vehicle at the right time(opportunity) to drive your business into success.

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  Entrepreneurs, Stop The Insanity!

 “Insanity ~ Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

  I was thinking of a storyline this morning which is quite common and often seen in movies or read in books. The story involves one or more people, usually trying to find their way out of the forest and after and after much effort and heartache the find themselves right back to where they started. Many times the characters in the story will head off again and after much effort and determination, they again find themselves at the beginning once more. This of course emotionally and physically drains the characters in the story and as an observer of the story one cannot help but feel their hopelessness of the situation.

  Is Your Business Off Track?

 Just as the characters in the story went off track without realizing it, as entrepreneurs and business owners it is also easy to get off track from our goals. Chances are when you decided to go into business, you had a clear vision in mind along with whole bunch energy and determination to see your dream come true. Am I right?  Now lets fast forward six months, a year, maybe even longer, and you realize even though you are busy everyday, you are no closer to your vision than you were the day you started. You drifted off track from your business plan, but how?

 This is very common situation for entrepreneurs to get themselves into because many either work alone or in small teams so they are not getting the feedback they need in a timely manner and there isn’t anyone holding them accountable and letting them know when they are getting off track and side tracked.

 Get Your Business Back On The Fast Track

 Some entrepreneurs, when realizing  they are not getting anywhere in their business, just work harder doing exactly the same thing they were doing before. These entrepreneurs somehow feel that by just working harder, the end result will be different. This is called desperation and insanity and by now we know where that path will lead. Getting back on track with your business is easier than most would think.

 If I dropped you in the middle of the forest without a map and told you to find your way out, how long would it take you, hours, days, weeks, never? Now if I dropped you in the same forest with a map showing you where you are now and where you need to get to, it would make things much easier, wouldn’t it. Having guidance made the difference, didn’t it.

  The same applies with your business! When things are not moving the way you need them to, and you are moving father from your goals, you need someone to get you back on track and find your way again. The proper business coach will help in discovering where things started going wrong in your business and guide you onto a solid path to your vision.

Laurie Polinski

Spinning Gold

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