by | September 11, 2012 · 9:13 am

How To Do Business on Social Media RIGHT

by Laura Rubinstein, Social Media and Relationship Marketing Strategist

Maybe you’re like I was a few short years ago and knew you had to get your business on social media, but didn’t know which network to attack first or where to go to learn how to do it right. The fact that you want your business on social media is the MOST important part of the whole process. Once you’ve made that decision, you are ready to set your business up on social media RIGHT

1-Start With RIGHT Goals

Social networking sites are all about people! Therefore, you must put people and your relationships with them first. Additionally, since social networking platforms enable entrepreneurs to access thousands of people without having to spend thousands on advertising, the playing field for marketers has been leveled.  The world of marketing is finally shifting toward the principles of relationship marketing that I have always implemented successfully with clients. The first step in setting up the right goals is to make them relationship oriented.

On social media you can be very creative. You know that you don’t like to be sold in a social environment. I believe that selling/sales should NOT be one of your primary goals. Instead choose goals that build relationships and ultimately drive sales. This way your focus is not on selling. That’s super important so that you don’t come across as desperate or push

Goals that are relationship oriented include

  • Growing advocates and active community members. This means you may track retweets, mentions, shares, comments and endorsements by influencers.
  • Increasing newsletter subscribers by a certain amount. Then you can track conversions of subscribers to sales/raise money. Take them through a sales funnel once they are on your list.
  • Driving more traffic to website. Google analytics makes setting a specific targeted percentage increase easy to track.
  • Attracting a specific amount of new community members.
  • Developing brand advocates to regularly mention, share and post about your content.

Remember to make your goals specific and measurable.  Use percentage increases and numbers.

2-Choose the RIGHT Networks

Whether your business is coaching, speaking, or you’re a local professional, or retail book store, salon or mechanic, you need to choose the networks where your market is hanging out and engaging

Facebook is about People

Facebook is a great place to start for most businesses because it starts with your immediate circle of influence. In other words, the people you already know and as a result you will be a second or third degree separation away from millions of others. Facebook is also the number one network for forming new relationships because of the sheer numbers of people using it and the variety of ways you can connect with them. Use groups where your market hangs out and is active.

Twitter is about Popularity

On Twitter you can find out about what’s trending in real time. In essence your Twitter account is like your own news station that is interactive. This is a great network to meet the media, do market research, and provide customer service. In other words, you can elevate your influence fairly easily with Twitter.

LinkedIn is for Professionals

Everyone should have an optimized profile on LinkedIn because it is your power resume on steroids. Prospective clients/customers can read recommendations of others and you can showcase your blog and presentations with their apps right on your profile page.

Also, LinkedIn has very segmented groups that are great for connecting with your audience.

 

Google Plus is about Passions

People love posting about what they are passionate about. If your niche is a cause or area that you and/or others are passionate about, you’ll find your people there interested in engaging. Don’t forget that Google owns this platform and therefore can be useful for SEO purposes.

Pinterest is about Pictures

Make sure you have a visual component to your brand and content and you’ll get good SEO by using Pinterest. If you don’t yet have a website built out or intriguing pictures to post, you may want to come back to this network.

Also, the network(s) that are right for you are the ones you resonate with as well as your market resonates with.  If your market is there, I highly recommend you find a way to get into it.

Here’s a great infographic posted by Mashable [https://mashable.com/2012/04/16/social-networks-tips-infographic/] that describes what each of the most popular networks are focused on.

3-Get Your Business Set Up RIGHT on the Social Networks

Once you’ve chosen your social networks, you want to make sure your brand is well represented there with the following:

  • High quality photo of you
  • High quality brand images
  • Professional copy written for bios, about information, summaries, etc.
  • The information 100% complete

Make sure you know the Do’s and Don’ts of each network and follow their Terms. We cover that in the Social Media Blast Off program (https://SocialMediaBlastOff.com).

4-Learn How To Find the RIGHT People and Build Profitable Relationships

If you are going to be on social media, you need to interact with people. There are a few groups of people to focus in on.

  1. Your Market Influencers (may include competitors/colleagues)
  2. Your ideal prospects
  3. The media

There are an unlimited number of ways to meet new people.  You can be a newbie or even local business and meet influencers right in your community.

The Social Buzz Club (https://SocialBuzzClub.com)  is great platform to meet other influencers who have large networks and are committed to collaborating and growing each other’s influence on the social networks.

5-Implement the RIGHT strategies

The very first step was setting the RIGHT goals. Given that you’ve done that and understand what’s important to your market, you then need to plan a relationship building strategy for achieving each goal.

Strategies may include the following:

□   Educate your market about your solution, cause, or area of mutual interest.

□   Entertain your market and build an affinity

□   Exchange ideas

□   Engage and respond

Getting social media done right does take some effort, but the relationships you build can become very profitable.  To learn more how to do social media RIGHT for your business subscribe to my fan page https://fb.com/CoachLauraR or check out the Social Media Blast Off program for entrepreneurs.

About the Author: Laura Rubinstein, CHt is a Certified Social Media and Relationship Marketing Strategist specializing in brand visibility and profitability using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.  She is the President and co-founder of the Social Buzz Club (https://socialbuzzclub.com) She regularly posts social media strategies on her blog at https://TransformToday.com and leads the https://SocialMediaBlastOff.com social media marketing business training course.

 

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by | September 5, 2012 · 3:39 pm

Music and Sound – The Inside Story!

By Sharon Carne, BMus, MFA

More and more people are beginning to understand and acknowledge that everything is in vibration. Sound is defined as vibrational energy.

It pushes against atoms as it travels. Including your atoms. Not everyone knows that sound travels through the human body about four times faster than it travels through the air. Yes, we hear the sound – like a knock on the door – but it is also traveling through our bodies – creating waves as it travels.

Sound is actually a nutrient for our body. It feeds us. Particularly our nervous system. As you become aware of how you respond to sound at all levels, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, I encourage you to ask whether a particular sound feeds you or whether it doesn’t.

Some sounds are beneficial and some are not. Do you know how to tell the difference?

Here is an experiment that offers you a physical experience of two contrasting sounds:

1. Take a deep breath. Release the breath slowly with a big sigh.

2. Check in with your body. How are you feeling right now? Just notice.

3. Click on the track below to listen to its sounds. The track is 22 seconds long.

Click here.

4. Check in with your body again. Do you notice a difference from how you felt before listening to the track?

5. Click on the track below to listen to its sounds. This track is 30 seconds long.

Click here.

6. Check in with your body again. Do you notice a difference in how you respond to these sounds?

7. You can repeat this experiment with your attention to what is going on in your mind instead of focusing on how your body feels.

8. You can repeat it again with your attention to what is going on in your emotional state to increase your awareness of how sound affects your emotions.

The next time you go shopping for groceries, listen to the music playing. Decades of research have shown that music with a slow rhythm can increase sales by up to 40% in grocery stores. The next time you go to the mall, listen to the music played in the various stores. Most retailers know what music will keep customers in their store longer.

This process is called entrainment. Your heartbeat is affected by the rhythm of the music. This takes about five minutes. Your altered heartbeat then affects your breathing rhythm and your brainwave state.

These three systems are intimately connected. When you affect one of them, you affect all three. And we can’t turn this off. The human body is a resonator for sound.

We all use music intuitively. For example, a favorite piece of music after a tough day can shift your mood completely.

And some music can be healing – reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, strengthening your immune system and much, much more.

For thousands of years, sound and music have been considered core values of civilization itself. Music is a language that transcends borders and differences. By touching our souls, it welcomes us all into one human family.

Sharon Carne has been a musician and teacher all her life and a student on the path of evolving consciousness for over 40 years. These two paths have merged into the visionary work of Sound Wellness – bringing the ancient power of sound and music to a deeper awareness and practical everyday use for these challenging times we live in.

Her workshops help people with tangible experience in how sound and music reduce stress, deepen meditation, assist emotional release, enhance focus and concentration and ease the symptoms of illness and disease. Sharon is the author of Listen from the Inside Out, has produced and recorded several CDs, solo and with others. She is invited to speak about sound therapy to a wide variety of corporate and private audiences, many within the medical community.

Join the free online community at www.soundwellness.com to download audio, video and explore more than 100 articles.

Join Sharon on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/scarne1

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by | July 24, 2012 · 9:36 am

How do you find new prospects?

How do you find new prospects for your services – through cold calling, leads, referrals or prospects who contact you? Each involves a numbers game. For example, 20 cold calls may bring you five appointments and ultimately one contract. Leads may yield better percentages, depending on their source.

Prospects that contact you are rare, but their closing rate is usually better. Good referrals have a much better closing rate. Everyone wants referrals. What is the trick to greatly increasing the number of high-quality referrals you receive?

Increasing your referrals

Tim R. Green knows how. He runs the Referral Training of Michigan and is the author of Set 4 Life: Four Amazingly Simple Steps to Personal, Financial & Referral Marketing Success.

Most salespeople believe they can get referrals simply by providing great service for a fair cost. Green told me this method is actually one of the least effective sources of referrals because clients already expect great service.

I asked Green if people can really predict the number of referrals they will receive. He replied, “Yes, if they take a proactive stance to referral marketing – not a reactive stance. We call this [reactive referral stance] the ‘good luck’ referral: first of all, good luck if you receive a referral this week, good luck if the person referred to you will talk to you and good luck if you close the referral.”

Instead, he teaches you how to take a proactive stance to referrals and not simply rely on good luck. Key to the proactive stance is identifying four referral partners who will provide you with referrals on a continuous basis. The Referral Training of Michigan  teaches this using its “VTB Process.”

Cultivating high-quality referral sources

What is the VTB Process? Green explained, “A referral marketing plan involves relationships of many different kinds. Among the most important are those with your referral partners, with prospects these referral partners bring you and with customers you recruit from the prospects.” Green pointed out that the relationships require nurturing through three phases: visible, trust and beneficial – an approach called the VTB Process.

Green went on to say that the VTB Process “describes the process of creating growth and strengthening of business, professional and personal relationships; it is useful for assessing the status of a relationship and where it fits in the process of getting referrals. It can be used to nurture the growth of an effective and rewarding relationship with a prospective friend, client, co-worker, vendor, colleague or family member.

“Understanding the VTB Process helps eliminate any frustration we might have around the referral process. Have you ever had someone point the finger at another or at a group and say, ‘They aren’t passing me referrals?’ Well, when we point the finger at others, three more are actually pointing back at us. You see, the fact that others are not passing us referrals has nothing to do with them.”

Green emphasized the need to take personal responsibility for “moving the relationship from V to T and then from T to B.” According to Green, the strategic objectives in the visibility phase are to get your potential referral partners to:

  • Show (know that) you are a friendly and considerate person
  • Show (know that) you like, respect and value them
  • Show (know that) you are a valuable resource for information, support and contacts
  • Become interested in learning more about you
  • Remember you

In the Trust phase, the goals are to get your potential referral partners to:

  • Establish a networking connection with you
  • Believe that you are trustworthy
  • Believe that you are a knowledgeable individual in your field

And in the beneficial phase, you should strive to get your potential referral partners to:

  • Seek you out for your products and services
  • Believe your products and services are valuable and reasonably priced
  • Promote you and your business
  • Provide you with referrals

What are the levels of referrals? Green refers to “4 different levels of referrals.” The higher the level, the easier it is to close the referral. Here’s how he describes them:

  • Level 1: I qualify a prospect’s specific need or interest and arrange a meeting between the referral partner and the prospect.
  • Level 2: I qualify a prospect’s specific need or interest and arrange a face-to-face introduction of the referral partner to the prospect.
  • Level 3: I describe products and services in person so well that I can tell my referral partner what the prospect is looking for within his or her product or service area.
  • Level 4: I bring my referral partner a closed deal.

Where to concentrate your efforts

Is it important to drive your relationships all the way through the VTB Process? Have you wasted or invested your time if all of your relationships stop at V or T? It only counts when you drive your relationships completely through the model, Green said.

Which source of referrals is the best for salespeople? “The absolute best referral partner you work with is one of your contact spheres,” Green noted. A contact sphere is an individual or business that has the same target market you have but is not your competitor, Green pointed out.

Green recommended that you begin with just four partners in the VTB Process and get to know them well.

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by | July 17, 2012 · 9:15 am

Lead a Life of Fulfillment Through Values

by Richard Schultz

Living and leading our lives through our values is one of the foundational elements of fulfillment and true success. By living authentically from our core values, by making our decisions based upon them and by matching our behaviors to them, we trend to the higher side of life experience, cherishing each moment with few or no regrets.

When we are true to who we are at the fundamental level of our core values, then life just naturally changes for us. Relationships will become deeper and improve because others experience us as more authentic and are more open to trust us. Decisions will become much easier because our values consistently inform them. We will find ourselves more within the flow of life because we have clear inner guidance for each step in each moment. Values are like lighthouses that keep us in the deep  clear waters; keeping us from running aground as long as we pay attention to them.

What are Values?

Values are deep. Each person has a set of values that is uniquely theirs. Although we are all different, if we find someone or some group that has similar values, then we will have found a rewarding relationship and a feeling of being home.

For a value to be true value, it must be lived. To commit to a certain value is noble, but it is not real unless our behavior matches our words. That is where many of us fail. We will speak one thing and do another. When we do this, others see us as being in-congruent and out of integrity. That creates distrust. For a value to be real, we must be able to walk the talk!

Values = Beliefs + Behavior

Values are seeded in our subconscious belief systems, so it is important to bring them into our conscious awareness so that we can make conscious decisions through them. It is also important to examine and change any limiting subconscious beliefs that might prevent us from being in integrity with this essence, no matter what situation arises.

How do you discover your values?

Values, like our purpose, is a discovery process. They are already there within you. The essence you came into this world and your life experience has shaped them. It is just a matter of uncovering what they are.

  • One way to find your values is to look at a list of values and pick which ones are important to you. While this is helpful and effective, sometimes when we pick off a list, we might “shop” for values which we “should have” rather than discover the essence of what is authentically present within us. You could also take the list to some people that know you well, and ask them what they believe your values are in order to get external feedback. Others may see what you do not yet see.
  • A second way to discover your values is to “mine your life experiences” for the essence of what has brought you fulfillment. What makes you happy & what are the values behind that? What are some peak experiences in your life and what are the values behind those? By examining our lives as we have lived them we can discover what “makes us tick”. Values bring us into a higher energy in life when we are living them and can bring us to a lower energy when we don’t.

Questions for Reflection

What are your top 10 values?

Where and how could you live in more integrity with your core values?

What decisions might you make if you were consciously leading your life from your values?

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WisdomWays (www.wisdomways.net)  has a couple of offerings that can assist you in getting to know what your values are, in changing any limiting subconscious beliefs you might have or in living your authentic life.:

1.  The Living a Values-Driven Life On-line Workshop. https://www.wisdomways.net/BeHappyNow

2.  WisdomWays Life Coaching: https://www.wisdomways.net/coaching

3.  Private belief change sessions: https://www.wisdomways.net/belliefchange

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Richard Schultz – WisdomWays-  www.wisdomways.net

Richard’s passion is to create & facilitate “sacred” spaces for personal and organizational transformation. For the past decade he has been internationally teaching and facilitating a powerful subconscious belief change process as well as working with individuals using state of the art concepts and processes for deep and rapid change.

Presently, Richard is stretching into a bigger game where he can use his talents and expertise in collaboration with others to facilitate and support the mass awakening of human consciousness. He sees the internet as a powerful ally in this vision and is currently developing new change technologies, e-books and courseware to serve on the edge of this wave.

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Register for Richard’s free on-line values workshop. https://www.wisdomways.net/BeHappyNow

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