Make 2012 Your Best Year Yet – Here’s How

There’s a quote that applies to the start of a new year and beyond. It says:

“In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia” – Author Unknown

One of the greatest challenges faced by anyone who wants to serve local businesses is having goals. These re are just so many ‘possibilities’ that having real goals seems like an impossible task.

Tasks and Actions Are Not Goals…

You know this to be true. You know that it’s rarely a lack of knowledge about what problems local businesses face. 90% of your potential local business customers or clients would love to sell more and make more money. You have knowledge of marketing and business development solutions that can help them and you’re fairly confident you can deliver on your promise if given the chance.

So where’s the problem?

It’s in not having clearly defined goals both for yourself and your business. Solve that and you’re going to be more focused and more productive, not matter what you want to offer.

Does This Seem Familiar?

A subscriber of mine sent me an email just before the end of 2011. it was in response to an email I’d sent wishing my loyal subscribers and business partners a great time and a prosperous 2012.

In her reply she thanked me for the ‘nudge’ and wrote about how she “hopes” 2012 is the year that things actually materialize for her and her family because in her own words:

“I am feeling physically and emotionally sick and tired of under-achieving. Spinning my wheels, taking on more knowledge but not being able to take action because of all sorts of fear, lack of self confidence and just bad time management. I hope you can help me become a better person this year and I am committed to doing whatever you say I should do.

I need your help”

You know how bad it is when you feel physically sick because of a problem you’re facing? I do and I know it can be debilitating. It jams your thinking and paralyzes you from taking action.

Overall, unless you have some way forward or out of the situation it most likely will get worse.

My words back to this subscriber were that she should realize that she should follow a very simple formula:

1. Get clear about what exactly you want to do in you local business consulting (sticking to her business only here)
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2. Figure out the gaps in what you need to KNOW and DO
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3. Do whatever you need to do to close those gaps e.g. prioritize your time better, actually talk to local business owners, hire a coach, mentor, someone you wouldn’t want to disappoint, someone you respect etc to help you AND hold you accountable each week
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4.  Take action (Implement) e.g. host your own lead generating events, move prospects through your marketing and sales funnel, eliminate unqualified prospects ASAP
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5. Measure your results and make adjustments as appropriate because you can’t improve on things you don’t measure

Many of these are the same success tools my students used to get revenues between $50 to $100,000 in 2012. Many of them with little knowledge of business development, marketing or what you know in the IM circle as ‘offline marketing.’  And if they could do it, I believe you can too.

Next Steps

You should always offer help at no cost when you can. There’s a think called Karma that works whether you believe it or not. Its a great way to also pre-pave your way to attracting more business and clients.

I did go into a lot more detail in my private response and I’ve invited her to schedule some time for us to talk if she is really serious about maximizing her results this year.

That’s the first step and if she can’t find the time to do that, then she will have proven to herself (forget about proving to me) that she isn’t serious about wanting to rise above this year.

Achievement – How About You?

What do you need to do in 2012 to ‘rise above?’ No matter when you read this post, the steps I mentioned in my reply earlier on will still be 100% applicable.

Here’s a challenge for you …

Can you make a public commitment right here, right now to rise above, or are you comfortable not having any accountability to anyone including yourself, your family and those that are out there in your local area, waiting for you to serve them

2011 was my best year yet in local business development and marketing consulting (offline marketing). It was a blessing to be able to work with so many different business owners across different service industries and niches. In 2012, my focus is squarely on professional service businesses (and businesses that offer services) because after working with Chiropractors, Dentists, Law Firms etc, it just makes so much sense to continue this way (more information will be available here but primarily through the Instant Offline Guru Academy – http://InstantOfflineGuruAcademy.com)

I also had the opportunity to work with some wonderful Offline Consultants that were prepared to do what it took to get the goals they were seeking.

So, it’s your turn…What are YOU committing to do to ‘Rise Above in 2012.‘

Share your thoughts below and if you have a question I’ll give you my personal input.

Let’s do it together in 2012 and may it be your best year yet!

BAYO

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If you can that success is not ‘over night’ but ‘over time’ then you WILL be successful with your Offline Marketing consulting. Remember, even you can’t show local small business owners how to go from their current problems to an overnight success. If you could, you’d be able to give up working an a couple of months.

Here’s a Snapshot of What I Use for Webinars To Attract Personal Trainer Clients (Read The Full Post for information On How You Too Can DIY!)
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Need Help?

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If you need any help with any aspect of WHAT you need to do to ATTRACT and RETAIN high paying local business clients, particularly those small-medium sized  businesses that offer high-paying services, then you know you can always get in contact with me and while I can’t always promise to be able to solve every problem, I will do my best.

*TODAY’S SIX-FIGURE TIP*

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If you feel like you’re stuck in a rut or feel like you can’t switch gears into a higher revenue-generating mode let me share a simple approach with you that WILL work for you, just like it’s doing for me and my coaching students right now.

Here’s what I mean …

First of all I hope you plan your business on a 90-day basis, i.e. you plan for the next 90 days and then you ‘go for it’ so as to speak. This is a great way to make sure you’re working with focus and clarity.

Also, a 90 day time line allows you to audit what you’re doing and course-correct as needed to help stay on target.

In a 1-to-1 session with an Offline coaching client of mine over the weekend, I shared that one of my goals is to tap into a new service-based market, and I revealed that I chose personal trainers.  The key reason is because, like many other service professionals, personal trainers always need a steady flow of clients … and they too suck at marketing themselves for the most part. So I went to work and here’s what I did that you can copy and paste into your offline business.

1. Target Market – I identified that I wanted to work with fitness professionals. Fitness professionals is the target market.
2. Ideal Client – My ideal client is a personal trainer, not an ‘athletic trainer’ – There’s a difference (athletic trainers aren’t necessarily certified)
3. How To Gain Visibility – I registered in personal trainer forums to find out what their problems are
4. Generating Interest – I compiled solutions to those problems into different information products including an ‘on-demand’ webinar that runs weekly and focuses on the 4 biggest mistakes they make with attracting clients. The free webinar includes an offer to a self-paced 7-week personal training marketing program how to effectively market personal training services in 7 steps (fee for the self-paced package is just $497)
5. Selling – The fr.ee webinar accompanied by 10 well-crafted ‘positioning emails does the selling for the 7-week package
6. Retention – None of my current personal trainer clients has completed the 7-week program so this part is still under development, but I plan to offer them monthly coaching packages ranging from group coaching to personal marketing and branding packages priced from $497 to $4997 for the highest level package

What’s currently available to them is simple email marketing packages – 3 months (basic starter package @ $500 extra emails are just $100 if needed)

This is the strategy I am using and that you can use right now. You don’t have any excuses whatsoever. I have people that I have taught the deeper-level detail of this who gained clients in under 30 days.

Is this the sexiest target market? Probably not.

Is it rocket science? No it isn’t.

Does it work? You better believe it.

Can you do the same? Yes you can if you’re reading this right now.

Is there more to it than this? Well, in regards to step-by-step detail there sure is and if I was to write all of that out it would become a strategy guide all by itself. What you’ve just read is enough to get you started right now.

If you want to know more or you need help in getting started leave a comment below.

In the future I may consider running this as a private webinar event for people like you on my private subscriber but only if enough people indicate their interest in the comments box below.

Now go do some strategizing’

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Are you?

I’ve got a trick question for you….

What do you think is superior? A salmon sandwich or a filet Mignon?

Most people answer “filet Mignon.”

However, filet Mignon isn’t better than a salmon sandwich.

Neither is a salmon sandwich better than filet Mignon.

Here’s the mistake most people make….

If you picked “filet Mignon,” you SHOULD have said “I LIKE fillet Mignon better” … and not “fillet Mignon IS better.”

One is not inherently superior to the other. It’s a matter of personal taste.

You like filet Mignon. So to you, filet Mignon is better.

But I like salmon … so to me, it’s not.

So … what does this have to do with your Offline Marketing business?

A lot.

Every business needs a Unique Selling Proposition, or “USP” …  a reason why customers should buy from YOU instead of from your competitors.

Do you know what the weakest USP is?

It’s “we’re better.”

Better, you see, is nonspecific … and it’s difficult to prove.

You say you’re better. I say I’m better.

It’s difficult to prove … and just SAYING it causes prospects to disbelieve you.

Also, better is such a general term, that it has little meaning.

It’s the same thing with the overused phrase “quality.”

So how do you create a unique selling proposition that actually gets people to want to buy your Offline Marketing consulting
services (or consulting products) instead of your competition?

There are lots of methods, here are some of them.

The first is to focus on a feature of your offline consulting product – One that is different or unique, AND that delivers an important benefit to your local business owner and their business.

Examples from winning businesses:

* Crispix cereal – the manufacturer didn’t say it “tasted better.” They said Crispix “stays crisp in milk” … a benefit consumers wanted.

* Wonder Bread – “helps build strong bodies 12 ways.”  They didn’t say it was better tasting or more nutritious. They just said Wonder Bread built strong bodies in 12 ways.

The second way to create a USP with selling power is to narrow the target market – that is, to focus on a specific market niche.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that I focus On Local service businesses e.g. Chiropractors, Dentists, CPAs,
Attorneys and so on.

For example, there are thousands of ‘business development consultants” out there, including now, ‘Offline Marketing consultants…all fighting for the same local business from the same local clients.

But a good friend and mentor of mine, John Blackham, is a consultant who doesn’t fight for clients and I’ve followed his winning approach with big success in Offline Marketing consulting.

John has all he can handle … and potential clients waiting in line to hire him.

Why?

Because he is not just a business development consultant….

He is a business development consultant specializing in working with local Dentists.

It doesn’t hurt that, before becoming a business development consultant to professional services businesses, he owned one of the

largest and most Dental practices in town. If you were a Dentist looking to build your practice, who would you want to work with – John or a consultant who says he can help you but has never worked with a Dentist before?

The third way to create a winning USP for your Offline Marketing consulting business is through branding.

The branding approach usually takes a massive, costly advertising campaign that you probably can’t afford as a local small business
yourself, although there are ways to shortcut this, such as with a local ‘celebrity’ spokesperson.

A great example (on a much bigger scale) that you might be familiar with is the George Foreman grill….

I know abut grills because I love steak and this, in my opinion, isn’t the world’s best grill, neither do I recall the manufacturer making
this claim in their commercials…and trust me, I’ve looked!

However, it is the ONLY grill you can purchase with the name “George Foreman” on it. So if you want a grill that cooks good food, you can get it lots of places. However, if you want a “George Foreman” grill, you can ONLY get it from the George Foreman grill company.

You can’t confidently promote and sell yourself without a strong USP for your Offline Marketing business.

If you try to, you’re going to struggle and end up frustrated. This is What I tell my coaching students on my high-priced offline coaching programs.

After all, if you don’t have the reason why local businesses should invest in your Offline Marketing consulting solutions instead of competing services at the tip of your tongue … how will you persuade local business prospects to invest in what you’re offering instead of going to your competitors?
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When formulating a USP

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When formulating a USP for your Offline Marketing consulting business, start by asking yourself these questions:

• What is different about my Offline Marketing consulting product that delivers an important benefit to the local business owner and their business?
• Is there an industry, business application, or other niche I can specialize in?
• Is there a way to brand my Offline Marketing business or consulting products in a unique fashion with appeal to local businesses?

Action step

Come up with a USP for your Offline Marketing consulting products or service this week.

Go do it

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This is a little mistake that is costing you at least $4,970 a year!

…and I’m not joking either.

You’re probably giving away “Free no-obligation marketing strategy sessions” in the hope of converting your offline prospect into a paying client. If you conduct one of these a month on the conservative side, you’re not only leaving money at the table, you’re throwing money down the drain.

What makes you think that your time, the time you invest in educating prospects and clients in how to generate more profits by making tweaks in their business, what makes you think that you have to give that time away for free?

That’s what I used to do … Watch the short presentation below to discover how to separate yourself from the crowd and start to make your time valuable and profitable to you and your most ideal local business prospects, current and past customers and clients.

It’s a paradigm shift!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Quite a number of my private member readers use up so much time reading, dreaming, getting ready to take action, surfing and reading some more about creating and running a six-figure offline business however, for many reasons, they never actually do a about actually making it happen.

Stop Prospecting Start Positioning >>

Having big dreams is inspirational … and reading about the success of others just like you can be motivating and fun.

However, making thousands of ‘real-world dollars‘ or ‘pounds‘ each week providing  virtual problem solving events and selling simple business building solutions to pre-qualified local businesses and business owners in your local area (without leaving the comfort of your home by the way) is way more productive than just ‘dreaming’ about it. You can’t even make a real comparison between the two.
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Survey Results

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From surveys and phone calls with people on my various private lists and from surveying local business owners, I’ve discovered that the key reason most haven’t made much progress with or got started with their Offline Marketing consulting businesses yet is that they’re overwhelmed by all there seems to know about Offline Marketing Consulting.

Result? They don’t want to start until they feel that they’ve ‘mastered’ the knowledge. The result is that they keep planning, reading, thinking to them selves “I’m going to be ready soon. I just need to get a little bit more information on [fill-in-the-blank]”

Let me spill the beans on something the Offline Marketing gurus have been keeping from you….

Even though there’s a huge amount for you to know about working with local offline businesses, you DON’T have to know most of it for you to have your own highly successful Offline Marketing consulting business up and running – in very short order.
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Here’s the Truth…

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In a nutshell, for you to make a few hundred to thousands of dollars per week solving problems for local businesses just like I do, you really only need a number of things:

• A clearly identified target market (I prefer service-based businesses. How about you?)
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• A segment of that target market that has problems it is actively seeking to solve
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• Undeniable evidence that the segment, i.e. your potential clients/customers are able and willing to pay for the type of solutions you want to offer
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• Your ability to deliver on your promise(s)
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• A means of getting them to buy it from you

In my beginner’s program on “Getting Local Business Clients Using Virtual Events” I show you how to eliminate having to prospect and instead, ‘position’ yourself and get the most highly qualified to come to you with just a few basics. There’s nothing expensive to buy in order to get set to do this and you don’t need any fancy ‘props.’

I do everything I do either from my home office, from a hotel room when we’re on the East Coast visiting the kids in college and even from London, England when I go back on personal trips. I’m saying this to let you know that you can do this provided follow the instructions I gave in a previous post on the beauty of seeing one thing through to completion in your business

You can master everything you need to know to get started - and begin positioning yourself, getting clients and projects and start getting paid ‘decent fees’ for your Offline Marketing consulting business services within the next 30 days.

I guarantee it.

So for 2011, don’t make another meaningless ‘New Year’s Resolution’ that you’ve got no real intention of keeping.

Instead, make a resolution to get off your bum … stop just talking ‘big talk’ in forums, stop ‘reading’ and ‘thinking’ about Offline Marketing consulting and actually start to make money offline with a real local business in your area.

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Go On, Dare To Do Something Different…

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If you take the steps I recommend and for any reason you feel like you need help Contact Me and I will personally work with you to make it happen. That’s how confident I am and the guarantee you have. From here on you can radically change your life for the better … and make 2011 your best year in Offline Marketing consulting so far!

For more information about ‘How to stop prospecting and successfully position yourself in your local business area’ just click here now >>>

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Small business email marketing surveys reveal that around 46% of small businesses make use of email marketing in one way or another. Email marketing offers a way for you to send information to potential and existing clients on a pre-determined schedule.

There are various ways to measure the effectiveness of your small business email marketing efforts, when you measure, you’ll be able to adjust your small business email marketing campaigns based on a number of key factors.

More Engagement

Small business email marketing affords a way for consistent client or customer engagement. Your email messages can be scheduled using what’s known as email autoresponder software. This allows you to automatically respond to email messages you receive.

One of the most common examples of an email autoresponder is the traditional “Out of office” reply that people set up to notify any email sender that they are not available. Email autoresponders are a great tool for increasing engagement with your clients and customers. Small businesses that I consult with say that it’s a practical and effective way for them to quickly implement positive customer service best practices too.

You can use small business email marketing autoresponders in different ways. For instance, you could use your system to welcome users to your business or practice newsletter. You could use it to confirm account status or a purchase. Eve further than that, why not use it to request for additional information from your prospects, clients and customers.

Small business email marketing autoresponders can be used to guide your buyers through your sales process by providing product information, offering discounted rates and linking to a purchase page.

Small business email marketing, if you’ve not yet started to take advantage of small business email marketing, now is the time.

A Mother is a Mother, in any culture, language or location – Happy Mother’s Day to all Mums!

Click here to view the embedded video.