I was sitting with one of my students in the office during a VIP private coaching session and the subject came up about branding.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know we all need to brand ourselves and for us top guns that fits, but I’m not so sure the newbies to the industry should do that. They have no backing and customer knowing they have Remax, or Keller Williams, MonaVie or whatever big name behind them can really make or break a deal.”

I spent almost 10 years in mortgage and new home sales but was not even close to being a producer like this guy – for a moment I set there and thought who am I to teach him about closing real estate deals… then it dawned on me: nobody. But I was not there to teach him about closing real estate deals. I was there to help him market his successful agency online, and THAT was a whole different ball game – and I am an expert in that.

So for the next hour or so we discussed much about being branded online, but what really made a big difference for him was realizing that offline marketing is not the same as online marketing.

Selling the company is like playing a poker. I’m not much of an expert in that either, but I do know you’re not supposed to tell everybody what cards you’re holding. It has its time and place. Same with company you’re with.

The reality is you are the one they are buying. Not the company. They could care less about the company, and the pay structure, and the advertising training and all…

People don’t wake up one day with the knot in their gut and say I really would like to owe a bank 350,000 but I would like ReMax to set me up with that, or I really want to spend the next 5 years selling vitamins, lotions and potions for Amway, but they do say I want a new home, or I want to retire, pay all my bills of and travel the world. So if you can help them accomplish that that is what will happily pay you for – not the company name and history.

If you’re only marketing yourself and foremost with your company name and website, you’re turning yourself singlehandedly into a commodity. What makes you different from any other person related to the same company? Nothing.

And if YOU don’t try to differentiate yourself form the crowd, the prospects will take it upon themselves to do so, with: how are you different, how much are your fees, can you cut your fees, and so on… and that is if you’re lucky for them to notice you.

By branding yourself and yourself only, you immediately stand out among the sea of people who are doing the same thing – regardless of your success so far. But one thing I can assure you of, by branding yourself first, you’ll get to success much quicker and you’ll have lot more fun doing it.

4 days later I got a call from the same client, he said he had 2 new people that just joined him and he wanted to know how soon I can meet with them.

I always liked to plan the things I do, but when it comes to planning the business, it really used to kick my butt…

I’m not sure how you go about planning your business.

I love thinking about it and coming up with ideas, but to put it into a one concise blueprint was a whole different thing that always somehow slipped and rarely ever got done as my mom would say: “The way God commands it” – in translation: properly.

This past year, I really got to realize and see how effective it can be to have a clear path of where I’m going.

I am a person who likes to go 90 miles and hour and really, really love to paddle around with my blog and all the technical stuff and it’s so easy to get taken away from what really needs to be done.

Then after I’ve spent a day or so “playing around” with important things, I would realize the things I should have done did not get done and then I’d be disappointed with myself.

As the year went by and I read more, and learned more, and hit my head against the wall more, I came across a idea for putting the plan together that really spoke to me, and the more I looked into it the more I started remembering all the things that went great and were do on time and with success because I knew exactly what’s step one, what’s step two and so on.

So here are some tips I would urge you to follow. I could not image more business success without applying these.

1. Make a list of top 10 accomplishments you’ve made this year so far (if you can come up with more – great, but if not, at least 10) The room around you might get foggy as you read this, but I promise, if you put your mind to it, I’m sure you can come up with 10 things no matter how trivial you think they might be. It does an incredible thing for your self-esteem and for you head in general.

2. Look at your business results so far. Break them down into: traffic, leads, and sales

3. Add then add a healthy increase to those. If you’re asking for 579% increase, that may not be very reasonable but maybe 30-45% would work. Whatever numbers you feel comfortable with put them in the second row.

4. Think about what obstacles you might run into getting from 2009 numbers for 2010 and write them down.

5. Write down what you would need to be able to overcome those obstacles

6. Break your year in 90 day segments. Through all the work I’ve done with my students and the high level coaching I have received, plus what I’ve seen in the real world when it comes to businesses 90 days (a quarter) has a certain magic and power to it. And what I’ve seen over and over again is, that people are focused on one major thing for the full 90 days at the time, phenomenal results show up that truly transform a business each time.

7. Take your 90 day sections and spread the work any which way you feel during that time. Work only days you want, hours you want and have some time off in between as well. But don’t forget four important things:

• Stick to the plan
• Respect your own word (deadlines)
• Every day, even on your day off, do one thing to improve your business, no matter how small it might be. In 365 days you business will look a lot different that on day 1.
• Have fun in the process. If you’re not enjoying what you do, you will never do what it takes to be done to get to the finish line.

Aleksandra

P.S. I have also discovered way back a cool free software that can really help you brainstorm and put those ideas you have in clear picture – in a easy way.  Go here to see: http://bubbl.us.  Then print out the final version and hang it in your work area where you will see it every day. It’s going to your map. It has done wonders for organizing my thoughts and accomplishing complex tasks in a fraction of time, I’m sure it will help you too.

See anything missing?

me and my brother’s dog at my parents’ house

Christmas Joke

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.

Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should have known… ONLY women would be able to drag a fat man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

Names of the other Reindeer

In addition to Rudolph, Santa has nine more reindeer who haul the sleigh the other reindeer are called: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner.

by: http://www.guy-sports.com/jokes/christmas_jokes.htm#Christmas_Jokes,__One-liners

_______________________________________________

I found that one of the  valuable ingredients in happiness is to be grateful for what you have and what you have accomplished. I want to see 2009 leaving in a good light. So I decided to remember it by good things.

Top 15 things I’m grateful for not in any particular order:

1. my family
2. my health
3. my business
4. my readers
5. my friends
6. my personal belongings
7. flowers I can smell
8. my animals
9. blue sky I can see clearly
10. sun I get to feel on my skin
11. green trees that stand tall and beautiful
12. that I speak two languages
13. all the memories I have
14. all the laughter in my life
15. all the tears in my  life

In 2009 I realized that there are many things I’m grateful for and the real meaning of “smell the roses” – wow, whole new world out there.

Wishing you all much happines, health, and huge prosperity online

Aleksandra

P.S.  what is your list of thing you’re grateful for, feel free to share, I’d love to know….

In the previous post we discussed what spam is and what it looks like. Today, let’s discuss some of the strategies you can use to market without spamming.

In order to be able to implement this strategy I’m going to share with you, it’s imperative to understand few elements. (I know I keep repeating these, but I am doing it with an intention it will become a second nature to you to feel and think this way about social media.)

• Social media is not a place to sell
• Create relationships first and then sell
• Offer freely things of value, without expecting or asking for anything in return
• Truly care about people you meet there

If you can keep this mindset while on social media platforms, I promise, you will have a lot greater success.

#1 strategy to combating this issue of spamming is implementing the permission marketing.

Permission marketing is marketing to a group of people who have already given you a permission to market.

Permission marketing is a privilege you earn after you have practiced the important elements I described above. It’s based on mutual agreement of what they expect to receive and what they will receive. It’s not as much important what type of content you will send them, educational, salesy, news…what is important is that they have agreed to receive a particular type of content and then you send them exactly that.

Any tomato out there can get someone’s email and add it to their list, but getting other peoples permission to be added to the list is a whole different ballgame. I get about 10-20 emails a day alone from people who have manually added me to their list. If I had any say so, I would have never said yes. So if that’s the case, how much good is going to be for them to have a list of people who don’t want to hear from them???? Or to post on someone’s Facebook or Twitter profile how great their product is and such if all people will do in return is roll their eyes, ignore it, or delete it.

It won’t. It’s a huge waist of their time and efforts.

Now, some argue that the “numbers game” kicks in, and I’m here to promise you, if you’d do it right, your numbers will be 10s and 100s of times greater using permission marketing rather then spamming – hands down.

If your audience gives your permission to send them stuff, they are the ones who requested your marketing pieces they must have some sincere interest in learning more about what you do and therefore, more inclined to open and read your emails.

True permission marketing, as Seth Godin would say (Seth actually coined that term) is: “Real permission works like this: if you stop showing up, people complain, they ask where you went.”

Now that my friends, is a list of qualified, sold-on-you prospects. And when you have a list of those, you will not have a problem with spamming – ever again.

Wikipedia defines spam as:

E-mail spam, known as unsolicited bulk Email (UBE), junk mail, or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscriminate set of recipients.

I often wonder: do people who spam really know that they are spamming? Do they like to be the “trash” of the internet or are they really struggling with marketing strategies and simply do not know how to market in any better way – in which case I really feel for them.

So I decided to stop wondering and do some research in the marketplace.

For those who are not aware if they are spamming or not, the really important question here is, how do you know if you’re spamming?

Well, you’re spamming if you are:

• Sending business related mass emails that market your product/service to people who did not ask for it and never gave you their permission
• Using commenting feature on a blog post or a video on YouTube ONLY to mention your company name or post your website url
• Posting on other peoples’ profiles ie Facebook, Twitter things like:

Chris Head thanks for the add check this out

http://ypeoplestring.weebly.com/

ypeoplestring – Home

ypeoplestring.weebly.com

It’s amazing how many “full-time job” people get involved with multi-level marketing, especially lately with the economy and such. But what I really find mind-boggling is just how much of those same people, 97% to be exact, end up failing.

Are you or someone you know one of those people?

Keep in mind, in this case I am talking about the legit MLM companies where others do make money – just not you. (In 02/2009 I wrote a post Is MLM a Pyramid Scam? Explaining the difference).

So if the company is legit and bunch of other people are making money in a seeming overly simple set up, why can’t you and those 97% do it too?

Aaaah…a million dollar question!

Well, for those much intrigued, here are few eye openers:

1) Most people do not, I repeat, do not believe really in their product. Regardless of what they say, deep down, they don’t and that shows. Solution: find the one you believe in or get out of the business, because you’re wasting your time.

2) They are not taking it seriously. They are in it to “try things out”. No business has ever become something during “try things out” phase. Solution: Get serious and you will get serious results.

3) They actually do believe in their product, they do believe in the company, but simply don’t know how to market their business. Solution: Get some type of marketing system in place.

There are millions and millions of pages on the internet on how to market your business online, yet millions of people fail – all the time – another puzzler….

The truth is, even those who actually are willing to put the time and effort into it, do not know where and how to begin to market after they’re done with their list of 200 closest family and friends. (Huge number of people never even start MLM because they do not want to work off of, or don’t have, 200 closest family and friends.)

It’s overwhelming to say the least for most of them.

The funny things is that it’s very simple to do, but not easy to figure out. Most offline strategies do not work in online arena. So having a step-by-step blueprint on how to do it becomes imperative. And on top of that if you don’t even have to be a tech person, now that really makes a big difference.

To see how one powerful marketing system look like, and to  get immediate access to a simple marketing blueprint along with free MLM training click here…

What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made in multi-level marketing?

…Even if marketing online is not your main calling.

Blogging can be very profitable career to have, but not everybody who’s looking for leads on the internet is interesting in becoming a full time blogger.

So for those who’s passion is not in blogging, but they do understand the power of it and want to use them to generate leads and perhaps even some extra cash, here are few ideas for monetizing.

These are the 3 most common ways to monetize your site:

• Google Adsense ads – even though Adsense can be quite profitable, lot of marketers look down on it. If you’re not carful when choosing your Adsense settings you can find yourself with the website that looks too busy, cheap, and unclassy. So try them out and see what best fits your site and your personality.

• Ad Networks – once you’re attracting quite a herd to your site, you can approach to other businesses who are interested in placing ads (text or banner) on your site for a few bucks. As you grow – don’t forget to adjust the pricing accordingly.

• Affiliate programs. Today there is affiliate for everything you can think of. Spend few minutes on Clickbank, Commission Junction, or any other similar advertising channels and find few good products that your audience could benefit from. I would suggest you purchase those products/programs first and check them out as well as the those offering it prior to placing it on your site and asking your audience to buy it.

I only suggest programs I have personally tried and used or those created by people who’s programs I have tried before and/or they have a great reputation on the market. I think it’s very important to make sure that the products offered are really good quality products for your people.

Some of these monetizing strategies are easier then others, but they are all doable and profitable. And in all situations they create it, they process the orders, they deliver it, and you just collect the money…

…however, NONE will work unless the traffic is coming to your site first.

Your voice is important, feel free to comment below: What is your preferred method to monetize a site?

There are millions of articles, posts, and videos on the internet on what is the best way to use Facebook – and mind you few are exceptionally good.

However, very few really drive home some fundamental basics that keep the entire social media marketing strategies in a firm place.

So here are few very first, beginning steps every person wanting to use Facebook or any other Social Media platform should be aware of.

• Create complete profiles. Creating a profile seems to be a bit of an issue for a lot of people. Most are not aware that Facebook profiles are matched with other profiles very much like dating profiles. So make sure all your “interests”, “hobbies”, “favorite movies”, “favorite music” and such tabs are fully filled out. When you get matched with people of common interests, it’s lot easier to create relationships then with people who have nothing in common with you.

• Keep your profiles public. Keeping your profile restricted only keeps you apart from prospects. Think about it, it’s like fishing in the same pond with the same 3 fish over and over again.

• Invite and welcome new people – it’s the only way you will keep refilling your pipeline. You never know which person will need your help next. Think about it, even great spammers of network marketing need new homes, insurance, airplane tickets or whatever else your product/service might be

• Visit your pages daily. Someone might ask you a question, need an advice. Make sure you don’t leave them hanging. Let people know that you take care of “your people”. Show them you are around, live, and kicking and only a post away.

I see too many people not getting true results with Social Media. Grant it there is a lot to it, but as you know yourself, weak foundation can’t hold the house no matter how pretty the house is.

Make sure you put some thought into your Social Media activities. Just like your clothes and your posture create a picture of you on the street, that’s how your profile and your socializing create a picture of you on the internet.

The private profile thing seems to be a heavy used setting for a lot of people on the internet, what are your thoughts on that?