21 Business Skills We All Need to Know

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Business School Business Plan: the Whole Magilla

Business Plan Worksheet - Get more free documents

An Office Space of Her Own

An Office Space of One's Own for Entrepreneurs - Get more free documents

Planning the New Business: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Cost Assessment Checklist - Get more free documents

Work-Life Balance: the Attraction Checklist

Law of Attraction Checklist - Get more free documents

How to Sell Your Services

Though the following list of ways to sell your services concerns real estate, it is useful for all of us. Thanks to True Gotham (another LexBlog blogger!) for this recent post What Our Customers Don't Care About.

Straight from the pages of RISmedia comes these Nine Things Consumers Won’t Care About in the New Year. Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller who co-authored Gravitational Marketing: The Science Of Attracting Customers (John Wiley & Sons)
provide the list.

The Top 9 Things Customers Don’t Care About:

9. How good you are at what you do. They only care about how good you are at who you are and how you can help them get what they want. I would add that they care how good you are at what you do as it pertains to them specifically.

8. Your education, your certifications or your designations. They only care about how what you know can help make their lives more enjoyable, simple and prosperous. Agree.

7. Your brand. They only care that the experience of doing business with you is sensational. Agree, but your brand can be a powerful means of meeting potential customers. It can also be a way in which your prospective client base can "get to know you." (i.e. a blog as a branding tool)

6. You saying you have great service. They only care about getting great service. Agree. Actions speak louder than words as always.

5. How much you charge. They care about getting value for their money. This is client specific but I do agree that if you provide stellar service, people feel much better about paying you.

4. How you feel today. They care about feeling good themselves and having a positive day. Agree. I recently was out of the office with back spasms that completely immobilized me. One of my prospective sellers didn't care and hired another agent to sell her home (for the record, that agent priced the property almost 20% higher than me and the
property languishes on the market today.)

3. Why you can’t do something. They only care about fast, easy solutions. Agree which is why management of expectations is such a key factor in a successful transaction.

2. How long you’ve been in business. They only care about how you can solve their problems under today’s conditions. Another client specific issue. I'm finding that many of my sellers and buyers feel time in the market is indeed important as they are seeking expertise which often only comes with time.

1. How cool or slick your marketing looks. They care about how your
product or service can save them time, relieve them of pain, help their family or put money in their bank account. They want your "slick marketing" only if they believe that it will help them sell their property.

Competition?? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Competition

I have always said "I have no competition." Not because I'm so great but because I know this: my market is big enough for me.

What does that mean?

That means that the people who will hire me on a repeat basis do so because of the unique set of skills, education, experience and, yes, personality, I bring to the table. There are a lot of people who aren't in the "Vickie market." But I don't need them to be.

I firmly believe there are a sufficient number of people in the "Vickie market" to support a practice that will make me financially secure, even comfortable.

Now I see Susan Cartier Liebel at Build a Solo Practice has much the same mind set. Check out her post There is No Competition. That's Right, There is No Competition here. Excerpt below:

That woke you up, right? Well, a good friend of mine and I had this discussion recently and we realized we share a brain on this topic. We have never believed in external competition. We have always believed in internal competition, competing with just ourselves to be better than we were the day, month, year, decade, before. Yet, ironically, in doing so this triggers others to compete with us as we excel. In essence, we become the 'enemy.' (see below)

This philosophy has propelled me throughout my life because it is not about winning at the expense of another (yet, when someone wins, in a strictly competitive world another loses) but simply to better my experiences, to rise to the next level of skill and success.

This 'no competition' attitude is key to successfully marketing your solo practice. Let me explain.

To continue reading click here.

Write Your Way to Success: A Workshop for Marketing Your Business

Here's last week's meeting presentation outline (co-authored by attorney-mediator Lisa Klerman)

Why Write Articles As A Marketing Tool?

1. A reminder to your existing clients that you still exist
2. Exposure to potential clients who don’t yet know you exist
3. Become recognized as an expert in your niche
4. Increase your prominence and credibility within the field
5. Improve traffic with increased links to your website
6. Expand your geographic reach
7. Inexpensive
8. No face to face selling
9. You will master a known topic or perhaps even learn something new
10. Writing can help you clarify your personal vision and goals

“Yes, But I’m Not A Great Writer”

If you can talk about an interesting topic or idea in your practice, then you can write about it.

Tips to Get Started Writing

1. Determine your target market – who do you want to reach?
2. Ask yourself: “What do I know that my target market would like to know?”
3. Pick a topic; one you find appealing and exciting.
4. Ask: how would my target market prefer to receive information? Blog, newsletter, print, electronic? Short and punchy, or detailed and well-researched?
5. Ask: what about my articles will attract my market to me as a result of reading those articles? voice ? expertise ? creativity ? credentials ? knowledge of industry ?
6. Write an outline of the points you want to make.
7. Decide on three to five main points within your chosen topic that you want to share with the reader. Do not overload the reader with too much information.
8. Write it. Put it aside for a day or so.
9. Return to it with a fresh perspective. Edit it, and send it out!

Blogs: What’s All The Fuss About?

1. Benefits of your own blog (a very short and incomplete list)
2. you can write about and link to people in your market (rule of reciprocity)
3. you can publish at will
4. you can generate subscribers
5. you can become an indispensable source of information your market needs to have but doesn't have time to read, summarize, locate, etc.
6. Types: Aggregator; Opinion; Expertise; Narrative; Sales

YOUR OWN PERSONAL MARKETING PLAN

Within the next month, I will:

1. identify my target market
2. identify areas of interest to that market
3. write at least one article for publication in ___________
4. gather information about __________
5. subscribe to the following sources ____________ to generate article and blog posting ideas begin to read blogs in your area and post comments on them to get a feel for how they work.

Within the next ___ months, I will:

1. write at least ___ pieces for publication in ____ publications
2. gather information about __________
3. post entries in the following blogs: ____________
4. interview one person in my market for a short article about an area of interest to him/her for publication in _____.