Personal Branding Techniques for Real Estate Agents and Brokers

A key principle of marketing is to find something unique about what you offer as the basis of your sales message. Even if what you offer is a commodity, there is always one thing unique in your business — you. A big error made by many Real Estate Agents and Brokers is to try to develop an institutional image like most big companies. People do not like to do business with institutions; they like to do business with people. In advertising terms, branding is the "image" created in the minds of people when they see or hear a name, product or logo. Companies invest a lot of money in creating and maintaining their brand, but the Internet has sparked a new trend called "Personal Branding". Personal branding isn’t only important for promoting a product, business or political cause, but also for promoting yourself for advancement within your own organization. It involves developing your personal reputation. Branding can be done to any product, or any person. Before undertaking an exercise in personal branding, however, consider your distinctive strengths and abilities and what they offer the market place. Traditionally personal branding was for sporting celebrities who gained enormous coverage and following through their sporting prowess. Movie stars have also had celebrity status and association since movies began.
A personal brand is about creating strong, favorable associations in the minds of people that you encounter. If you don’t actively do this, they will still make associations. Therefore, it may be better to be proactive and undertake the branding exercise for yourself, you cannot control what they think but can give them some information to assist with the associations.
WHY BRANDING OURSELVES?

Places you in a leadership role
Enhances prestige
Attracts the right people and right opportunities
Adds perceived value to what you are selling
Earns recognition
Associates you with a trend
Increases your earning potential
Differentiate yourself from the competition
Position your focused message in the hearts and minds of your target customers
Confers top of mind status
Increases authority and credence of decisions

HOW DO WE BRAND OURSELVES?
Like any branding exercise, the key to personal branding is having a good product, one which you understand and pitch to the right market. The first step in personal branding is knowing who you are, find out what strengths your brand possesses and how these strengths can help you. Personal branding is not about presenting a façade to the public; a poor product will not stand up to market scrutiny. This is also a choice of brand elements, people you deal with, the look that you have, and how you conduct yourself. Once this has been done, determine what you are going to offer. As a product what do you do, what need does the product of you satisfy in the market. Next figure out the position you will take in the audience of your mind. What unique space do you wish to occupy and what unique associations do you want people to recall when they think of you? Finally, once you have established the first three steps, manage your brand over its lifecycle. That is keep visible, be consistent and be yourself. According to Montoya, the well-known personal branding guru, the key to managing your personal brand is word-of-mouth (WOM), the most trusted form of communication.
How does one go about building a personal brand? Recognize your personal strengths and gifts! Think about how you best connect with people, consider what your target audience needs and wants, identify the value you deliver to meet those needs and wants, and communicate in a way that reaches your constituents in their hearts and minds and via the channels that work best for you
Functional associations are important such as timeliness, quality, dedication; as are emotional associations like inspiring, leadership, being an innovator.
The three C’s of personal branding are clarity, consistency and constancy.
Clarity deals with being honest about yourself and your strengths and promises of value attached to your personal brand and being clear in the way you communicate them. Often, for simplicity, you must focus on one or two aspects that are most vital and focus on communicating them. Think about the things you associate with prominent artists or mangers, and they are unlikely to be complicated.
Consistency is keeping things consistent for the customers. This does not mean staying stuck in the past, but just not undertaking drastic changes. Coca Cola have had a consistent message for 50 years; the message evolves continuously and is not stagnant but is consistent. Artists like Madonna change every three or four years, but there is a consistency to the change.
Constancy means being visible with your brand and maintaining an on-going level of awareness in the marketplace. Oprah Winfrey is visible constantly, and although most of people do not have the visibility or exposure of Oprah, they can still be visible in a smaller audience. There is no point trying to build a brand image quickly to coincide with a new exhibition or performance you may have coming up brands take time to build in consumers minds.
A FREE PERSONAL BRANDING TOOLKIT FOR REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS
NetReal.net, a company noted for its template-based Real Estate Web design solutions, offers a Winter Holidays Gift for Real Estate Agents and Brokers the Personal Branding Toolkit: netreal.net/personal_branding.php The Personal Branding Toolkit contains the “Essential Marketing for Real Estate Professionals” ebook and 17 Real Estate Reports and the tools to personalize them with your name, contact info and photo.
NetReal’s editorial team put together the top 25 highest- rated Real Estate marketing articles of 2004, and created a must-have e-book – “Essential Marketing for Real Estate Professionals”. The ebook covers Marketing 101 , Network marketing, Personal Marketing, Customer acquisition and retention, Telemarketing & Direct Mailing, E-marketing. You can personalize this e-book with your data and send it to your contacts, absolutely free of charge. This is a great way to offer a helpful gift to your colleagues and partners.
The “17 free Branded Reports” allow you to create your own branded Real Estate reports (for buyers, sellers, investors, movers) with your contact info and photo/logo and an exquisite design. Distribute them to your prospects or clients as e-docs or printed materials, or upload them on your website. Show your professionalism with these great tools to acquire new clients.
The Personal Branding Toolkit for Real Estate Professionals (netreal.net/personal_branding.php) is free for everyone.

The Marketing Secret Every Child Knows

Little Kids Ask Until They Get What They Want.
Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, can I have an ice cream? Can I, Can I, Can I, Can I? Please, Please, Please, Please. I’ll be good for a whole year. I promise. Just give me a dollar. I won’t ask again for a long time. Pleaseeeeee!
Regular, repeated mailings are the way to create big predictable results. When you mail every 30 days for a year you will cause a dramatic growth in your business.
People respond to repetition. If you are a parent you know how hard it is to refuse repeated requests for an ice cream or a desperately wanted toy.
If you are not a parent, I’m sure you remember asking, even begging for a toy, a treat or permission to stay up past your bedtime, until your parents finally gave in. Your customers and prospective customers are similar. They need to be asked repeatedly too.
Who You Should Ask:
You should be asking 3 groups of people to do one of 3 things:
1. The first group is your house customer list (your own list of existing customers).
You should be asking your existing customers repeatedly to contact you about some offer you make to them for your products and services.
A clear offer with an easy way to contact you should be made, like:
“We will give you 5000 full color postcards for $389, simply give us a call at 800-628-1804 to set up getting your postcards.”
Or some other offer you reasonably believe they will be interested in based on your personal knowledge of them and preferably based on their actual previous buying behavior.
2. The second group is your house prospect list (prospects you have caused to inquire about your products and/or services through your own marketing efforts).
This group of people is interested in your service but hasn’t made the decision to go for it yet. They will be the most likely to respond to a special when you offer it to them.
3. The third group of people are people who can reasonably be expected to be interested in your products and/or services, but who have never purchased anything from you and have never inquired about your products and/or services either.
The likely reason they haven’t contacted you is that they don’t know that you even exist.
You remedy that by contacting them with a series of postcards offering free information about how they can benefit from your products and services.
If this list of people is properly selected and if you make an offer that a reasonable person will find very, very difficult to refuse, then your response rate will be high.
That is the whole game in a nutshell. Create or get a list of people who have demonstrated they are interested in the type of product or service you offer. AND/OR Get a list of people extremely likely to be interested even if they haven’t already proved they are by buying from you or one of your competitors.
Once you have these lists of people contact them with postcards which offer them the benefits of your products and services and keep making them offers until they inquire and/or buy from you and then ask them to buy more on a regular basis.
If you do what you have just read about you will have more business than you can shake a stick at.
You will have a smile on your face just like the little kid with a belly full of ice cream he/she convinced mom to buy.

How to “Really Get Your Customers”

What Really Makes Your Postcard Mailing Successful?
The biggest single factor in the success of your postcard mailings is who you send your postcards to.
You need a list of people or businesses to send your postcard offer to.
This can be a list of existing customers or prospects who have inquired as a result of any of your marketing efforts or a list which you purchase.
The list must contain the names of people who are likely to be interested in the benefits of your products or services.
If you send a postcard offering a free 6 pack of beer with the purchase of 2 large pizzas to a list of purchasers of a “pay-per-view” boxing match (a list which you purchased from your local cable TV company), you are more likely to get a big response than if you sent the same offer to a list of the ladies auxiliary bridge club.
This concept is known as targeting. You either have a list (existing from your own records or the records of a person or business willing to cooperate with you by letting you use the list), buy a list (of people who are likely to be interested in your product or service because they have purchased a related product or service, such as a magazine subscription on a topic related to your product or service), or a list can be compiled using characteristics about your target market.
When You Don’t Pay Enough Attention To Your List:
When you don’t pay enough attention to the list you select to mail to, you get a list which is poorly “targeted”. This means the people on it are not likely to be interested in your products and services.
A “good list” is a list which is a good match for interest in your products and services.
A “bad list” is a list which is a bad match for interest in your products and services.
House List, Response List, Compiled List.
The 3 basic kinds of lists that you can use in order of their effectiveness are:
1. Your own list of prospects and customers. This is a list that you collected with your own personal marketing efforts. This is known as a house list. These people are most likely to respond to your offers, because they have responded in the past.
You own this list.
2. A response list or an opt-in list’ is a list of people that have actually done something. They have either purchased something from the people who put together the list that their name came from or inquired in response to some offer. The last way they could have arrived on the list is to have asked to be on the list.
Presumably if they are on a response list the people on the list have some level of interest in the topic or purpose of the list.
This type of list can be effective if you are confident in the provider. They have not previously responded to you, but according to the provider have responded to someone in a related area.
This is a list you can purchase from the owner of the list or a list broker.
3. A compiled list is a list of people who were selected to be on the list because they possess the characteristics that you asked the list broker to screen for.
Examples of characteristics used to target correctly may include age, sex, geographic location, income level etc.
The characteristics are more fixed characteristics than response list characteristics, which are behavioral characteristics.
Again, if you trust the provider this type of list can be very effective.
This list you can purchase from a list broker.
Determine which list you should use to maximize the response to your postcard mailings. And really go get your customers!

2 Step Marketing

Do it Right.
I receive postcards all the time. The other day I received a postcard trying to sell me a copy machine. It had tiny, tiny lettering slathered all over the front and a large portion of the back of the card.
It was extremely hard to read, so hard in fact that I threw it away.
Several days later I received a postcard with 32 words on it telling me that I could get complete information on unrestricted long distance telephone service for 5.5 cents a minute with no additional monthly fee by calling the 800 number on the card.
I did call. I got the information, had my questions answered and ordered my long distance service changed.
The company who offered me the long distance service was using a time tested 2 step selling process:
Step 1. Generate a lead – Get me to call their 800 number
Step 2. Provide the requested information – Provided to me on the phone by one of their sales representatives, who was able to answer my questions and make me feel confident that I could save quite a bit of money on my long distance bill and that the service would be as good or better.
What’s So Good About 2 Steps?
It is much easier to create interest (a lead) than it is to get a person through an entire buying process (a sale).
You aren’t getting the prospect or existing customer to part with any money just yet.
You can use postcards to inexpensively promote to your target prospects and customers and generate leads (inquiries about your products and services) to then be followed up on and converted to sales.
This 2 step process also helps you to create a list of people who were interested enough in what you offered to contact you.
You can then recontact the one’s who you didn’t complete a sale with when they first inquired, preferably until they do buy from you.
IMPORTANT: Be sure to get the information you will need to recontact the people who responded to your postcard offering.
Repetitive follow-ups with the people who contacted you will result in increased sales. Make it a company policy to follow up with those people who contacted you about your products and services.
The Most Effective Use of Postcards:
The purpose of your postcard’s message is to generate a sufficient level of interest in the mind of your prospect to get him/her to contact you to ask you about your offer.
You are generating interest, not collecting their money (not yet anyway). That is what the 2 step marketing process is about. Generating interested prospects and customers who contact you for more information.
Your message needs 3 parts to be most effective:

A clear statement of the biggest benefit of your product or service (in the long distance example, it was cost savings).
A good reason for them to contact you NOW.
A simple, easy way for them to respond (an 800 number for example).

Your message should be short and to the point. Short messages on postcards produce more leads than long ones.
For example:
Call 800-555-1212 for Your Copy of Our Free Report:
What 99% of Business Owners Don’t Know and Will Never Find Out About Using Postcards to Explode Their Profits
Offer ends 5-5-01 (Print a date 3 weeks from your mailing date to create some urgency)
Lots of people will respond to find out what they might not know. Don’t forget, they responded, which is proof they have at least some interest in the information you have created a curiosity about.
This method works and is sure to produce a large number of inquiries if sent to your proper market.
This 2 Step Marketing Process Works.
Use the tips you have read here to create your next postcard’s message and see what happens.
You will generate a bunch of leads from people who are truly interested in your products and services.

Marketing or Selling — Which Is More Important?

A question I often get from clients and students goes something like this: “I’ve been collecting marketing ideas… and I have a drawer full! I also have a stack of promising leads I’ve accumulated. And I know it’s important to stay visible, so I do a lot of networking, but then I just end up with more names in the stack. How do I prioritize all this?”
If you’ve ever wondered something similar, you may have lost sight of a very important truth — the way to win the marketing game is not to collect the most leads; it’s to make the most sales. Marketing activities that increase your number of sales are good, and activities that don’t are bad, even if they bring in plenty of leads. If you don’t follow up on the leads you gather, you are throwing away your time and money.
The main purpose of marketing strategies like public speaking, writing articles, getting publicity, networking, promotional events, and advertising is to gain visibility. (A secondary purpose of the first three strategies can be to gain credibility.) Why do you want to be visible? It’s not just so people will know who you are and what you do, it’s so they will do business with you.
If someone has already expressed interest in doing business, call them. Do it now. Memorize this rule — following up on hot, or even warm, client leads is always more important than marketing for more visibility.
There is a simple diagnostic test you can take to see where you need to focus your marketing vs. selling efforts, which I call the Universal Marketing Cycle. Think of the marketing and sales process as a water system that begins by filling your pipeline with leads. The pipeline empties into your follow-up pool, which you are continually dipping into.
Your intent is to move the leads further along in the system, to making a presentation of some kind (by phone or in person), and finally closing the sale.
Where are you stuck in this system? Is it in filling the pipeline to begin with? Or is the pipeline full, but you haven’t been following up? Perhaps you have been following up, but don’t seem to be getting to the presentation stage. Or maybe you are making presentations but not closing sales. Wherever you seem to be stuck is the area that needs more effort.
When you have promising leads you aren’t contacting, the follow-up stage is clearly your stuck place. Take that stack of leads and sort them into three categories: prospective clients, useful networking contacts, and other. Now sort the prospective clients into hot, warm, and cold. Stop right there and follow up with all the hot and warm leads.
If, and I do mean if, you still need to do more work about marketing after following up with all those leads, go to the networking contacts and sort them into two groups: people who can lead you directly to prospective clients, and people who can lead you to other marketing opportunities, e.g. a new networking group or a speaking engagement. Stop, and you guessed it, follow up with the people who might have leads for you.
You should now have three groups left: cold client leads, people who can lead you to marketing opportunities, and other. Now is the time to decide whether you need to do something new to market yourself at all. Look at what you have been doing so far to get all those hot and warm leads you had. Maybe you just need to do more of the same.
If that’s true, put those cold leads aside, because you’ll have more hot and warm ones shortly. If you need to do something different to get better leads than what you had, go ahead and explore one of the new marketing possibilities in your second group, or one of the ideas stashed away in that drawer. And that “other” group? Throw them away. They are just cluttering up your pipeline.

Rules of Thumb for Marketing to Your Past Customers

Keeping in touch can dramatically increase business, when done properly.
It’s a fact that your customers are your best leads. This means that the most likely people to purchase your products and/or services are the ones who have paid for them before. It’s also a fact that it costs far less money to keep a customer than it does to go out and get a new one. These are the two reasons that using direct mail to keep in touch with your customer database is a must. There are a few principles to follow when marketing to contacts in your company database that can maximize your bottom line.
Rule #1 – Collect all of their information. It sounds like a no-brainer but you would be surprised. The more information that you have on your customers, the more likely it is that you will be able to get in touch with them to let them know about specials or to remind them it’s time for their next service. Also, don’t neglect to ask for your customers’ email addresses, most everyone has one and most will give it up pretty easily.
Rule #2 Don’t treat your customers like prospects. Make sure when you collect the information in your database you differentiate between people who have placed an order in the past and people who have not. Customers want to feel like you are paying attention to them and when they have placed a few orders with you and are still getting your “10% for First Time Buyers” postcards they tend to feel unappreciated. Bottom line, if they don’t qualify for an offer you are sending out, don’t send it to them.
Rule #3 Don’t let your designs get stagnant. When you are mailing to databases of people that you have never spoken to before, it is OK to send them the same postcard multiple times. It helps to increase recognition and will eventually increase your response rate. Dealing with customers and prospects that you have already spoken to (meaning they already know most or all of the details of your business) you need to mix things up a bit. Your mailings should be attention getting and informative. If you have started offering a new service recently, a piece designed to let your database know about it would be a smart move. The main point is to keep your company in the front of their mind and to keep them reading your promotion.
Being great at what you do is not always enough to keep the customers that you have earned. With all of the competition out there today you need to be constantly reminding your customers that you are the best at what you do. Direct mail is the best way to give them that reminder.
Always remember to keep mailings that you send to your database informative, attractive and most of all current. Personalize everything that you can and make sure that what you are sending to a past client actually pertains to them or their company. Anything less and your customer may start to drift, and the only people that are going to be happy when that happens are your competitors.

Warning! The Person Doing Your Marketing May Not Even Know How to Market Themselves!

As a business advisor I work with clients helping them gain visibility within their market. Without sounding too arrogant or bold I can safely say I have earned the right to do this. The primary reason is because the very strategies I teach my clients are the same tactics that have afforded me a great deal of visibility within my market. It is this visibility that sets me apart from my competition.
There is incredible power and profit that comes from visibility. The more visible you are to your market the more you will be the person a client calls when the need for your product or service arises. Hands down – visibility is a primary aspect of one’s marketing.
Unfortunately, many people either don’t know how to gain the visibility that sets them apart from their competition or they aren’t willing to put the time into creating it. Worse yet, they may have someone who is doing their marketing that really doesn’t know how to position the client for maximum exposure.
So how do you go about gaining massive visibility within your market? Actually, it is very simple. Not necessarily easy, but it is a simple formula. It is all about developing systems and being very strategic in your approach to implementation of the system.
Gaining recognition is about becoming “famous” to a targeted group of people. By famous, I am not referring to world renowned. Fame in the context I am using simply means being visible to those people who make the decision to utilize and purchase your products or services. It is in this fame, or name recognition, the process of selling becomes one of being a problem solver rather than an order taker.
Gaining visibility within your market does not have to be an expensive proposition. On the other hand there will be occasions you will need to make strategically planned financial investments.
Many uninformed individuals assume advertising is all that’s necessary to market their business and gain name recognition. Advertising is only a part of your marketing, not marketing in and of itself. Unfortunately, many people waste countless dollars on ineffective ad campaigns because they were led to believe an ad was all it took for them. This happens both offline and online.
Prior to the use of the Internet in marketing campaigns, I saw person after person taken advantage of by a slick account executive who offered some amazing ad campaign. A campaign that was just too tempting for the uninformed client to resist.
Often, the campaigns were so cheap that the client simply signed on without any research. Unfortunately, many of the campaigns were very ineffective. The primary reason was because there were so many missing elements including who the target market was.
Now that the Internet has become an integral part of many marketing campaigns, the same thing is happening online as has been happening for decades offline. People are buying into campaigns without doing the necessary research.
To succeed, you must take a holistic approach to positioning you and your company. Again, one way to enjoy success is to gain visibility within your market.
However, before you will obtain the name recognition you desire you have to lay a solid foundation. The place to begin is to know your market. A few things to consider are:

Who do you want to sell to and who would buy your product or service?
Gender
Age
Income level
Industries or professions
Education
Interests and hobbies
Geographic region
Association involvement
Lifestyle

From there you have a number of avenues you can take to gain visibility. One of the most effective is to host a complimentary informational event, seminar or workshop. It positions you as an expert and you are a resource before you are a vendor.
Events can have as few as 6 people in a workshop on up to a 500 person event. Many people miss this incredible opportunity because they don’t think they can present. My response is you are presenting all the time. It’s just a matter of what you are presenting.
With the power of the Internet you can set up a system that allows you to continually host information seminars and costs very little to market. All your marketing efforts should lead people back to your website.
A website is really intended to be more than just an electronic brochure. It should be something that gets people to take action, provides great information, is updated on a regular basis and is something people can use as a resource.
Set up you web site so that people can leave their contact information. Offer something of value to your market such as a free report, an Ezine, an Ebook or anything that creates a compelling enough reason for viewers to give you their information.
This can be done with an autoresponder. The purpose of the autoresponder is to automate the process and develop a database for future marketing efforts. Many people do nothing at all to get contact information from the dozens, hundreds or thousands of visitors to their sites. This is simply missed opportunity.
Develop a list of local media contacts you can send a press release to if the event is open to the public. Find out what their criteria for sending in a release via email is. Many will not open any attachments. So if you are sending an attached document to the media there is a good chance they won’t read it.
Make sure the release is short and to the point. Simply put, the Who, What, When, Where and Why. Many releases do not get read or published due to being poorly written or too lengthy.
Write articles with a topic that is connected to the information seminar you are offering. Send these out to various locations online such as Yahoo Groups. Add a compelling byline that encourages people to visit your website.
You can also send the article out in an Ezine format to those people who are in your database. This is the very reason you want to be able to collect people’s contact information from your website. If they leave you their contact information chances are very good they are interested in you and your products, services and various offerings.
So as not to miss those folks who are not in your online database you will be well served to also send out a direct mail piece. This piece is used to announce the event and should encourage people to visit your website to sign up for the event.
If you are strategic marketing the event you will most like gain some free publicity for yourself and your company.
The day of the presentation you absolutely must make sure people have a stellar experience. This would include the actual presentation being one that is so content filled that even if people never buy a thing from you they feel they have received incredible value.
Within 24 hours of the session send out a thank you letter highlighting key points you made during your presentation. Depending on your market the letter can be sent out via email. Mention in the letter that you would enjoy speaking at either their company or an association meeting. You will be amazed at how many opportunities this can generate if your initial presentation exceeded expectations.
Your success with this process will be determined by how consistent you are in keeping your name if front of your market. I have witnessed time and again people who will try this method once, get busy with other things and then let the system drop. What an absolute waste.
With the system outlined I have successfully promoted events in my market that have cost me less than $50 in marketing costs and realized a return of tens of thousands of dollars in revenue from subsequent sales. However, I have been using this system for years and am very consistent in my process.
As you consider the things you can do to increase your visibility and who you may choose to work with on your marketing, a couple of questions you need to ask are, “Am I willing to put the right systems in place to gain the result I want?” and “Does the person I am considering to help me market my business know how to market their own business?” The answers will help to determine your level of success.

How To Survive Speed Networking

Get More Clients From Networking Follow The Rules Of Dating.
If you’re a business owner, you probably spend quite a lot of your time at networking events. In fact, it may be the main way you try to get new clients. But do you ever feel that you could get more from these meetings? Do you actually get the results from your networking to justify the amount of time you put into it?
If you don’t find you get a lot of interest from the people you meet, it may be that you’re going about things the wrong way. You may need a new approach.
My own view is that you can’t go far wrong if you think of networking more like dating. The two activities have a lot in common ( although, I must admit, I’m relying on distant memory here ). Here are some things you need to think about.
1. What sort of person do you want to meet?
If your answer is ” anyone ” you risk wasting time talking to a lot of people who just aren’t going to be ” the one “. You also sound a bit desperate, to be honest. Not everyone is going to be your ideal client. Once you know who that is, you can be more choosy about who you talk to.
2. Where are you likely to meet them?
There are lots of places to meet people, but where will you find your ideal person in a club, at evening classes, at the Bingo? Don’t just go to the first place you find, pick the event where you know the person you’re looking for is most likely to be.
3. Think about joining a dating agency so you can look through details of the other members.
Look at the members list of any group before joining if you can get hold of it ( ask for photographs if possible ). Also, look at the list of attendees before a meeting so you can make a beeline for the people you want to talk to.
4. Accept that it takes time to build a relationship.
Don’t expect too much too soon. People will need time to get to know and trust you and, in this case, you’re looking for a long term relationship, not a one night stand.
5. Think of something interesting to say about yourself.
If someone asks you ” What do you do? ” don’t just say ” I’m a Financial Adviser ” or ” I’m a Consultant ” and expect them to swoon. Tell them what you do for people, how you help, the problems you solve. But don’t make things up to impress them, you’ll be found out sooner or later.
6. Don’t spend the whole time talking about yourself.
One secret for getting people to like you is to ask them about themselves. Be a great listener, not a great talker. People love talking about themselves, they don’t want to listen to you telling them how wonderful you are. Stop talking before they lose the will to live and ask a question. Prepare some good ones in advance so your mind doesn’t go blank. Avoid ” Do you come here often? ” or ” So what line of business are you in? ” Try to find something you both have in common.
7. Don’t be too pushy on your first date.
Just because someone shows an interest doesn’t mean you can bombard them with information about all your products or services. You’ll look too needy and that puts people off.
8. People always say they’ll ring, they never do.
Sad but true. Don’t rely on other people ringing you, make sure you get their number so you can call them. It’s much more important to get someone else’s business card than to give them your own. It gives you the initiative.
9. Keep your numbers in a little black book.
Set up a contact management system so you don’t lose the details of the people you meet. This might just be a card index or it might be sophisticated software. Whatever it is, have a system which you know how to use.
10. Keep in touch.
Do contact them again if you got on well, they want you to really. Call or write, refer back to your conversation and mention something they said. Send them an article about an interest they mentioned, it will show you were listening and you care about them. It’s amazing how many people go to networking events, then never follow up with the people they meet. Don’t expect ” love at first sight “, it takes several contacts before someone is likely to do business with you.
I hope that’s given you some ideas. Of course, you still have to remember the basics, such as dressing up a bit and cleaning your teeth, but that’s down to you.
And, of course, there is one big difference between networking and dating with networking, you’re allowed to see lots of people at the same time!
Good luck.

Three Ways Flat Rate Conferencing Can Help Grow Your Business

There is no question that teleconferencing is revolutionizing the way that people do business, both on the Internet and offline.
Internet marketers, coaches, consultants, counsellors, major corporations, even Sunday School teachers are using teleconferencing to stay in contact with their staff, clients, potential customers, and classes without having to set up a meeting place.
Teleconferencing has also added a new dimension to the way people can teach and deliver information over the Internet. Seminars and classes can now be held for hundreds of people at the same time without having to leave their homes. With a preset date and time, people can call a number and either learn more information about a topic or participate in a forum of discussion.
Charges for admission to these types of calls can be anywhere from $20 to $30 up to $100’s of dollars for typically one hour.
Three Ways To Boost Your Income And Grow Your Business
Teleconferences can lead to an amazing growth in your income, and credibility as an expert on a given situation. You can also ADD more to your conferencing by utilizing flat rate conferencing.
Flat rate teleconferencing is simply setting up an account for unlimited monthly conference calls for a set rate. By doing so, marketers are seeing exponential growth in both their reach of new customers and as a byproduct, their income.
In watching this use of flat rate telenconferencing among individual marketers, corporate executives, coaches, and consultants I have singled out three ways that flat rate conferencing can lead to added growth and income.
1. Talk As Much As You Want.
Typically the average conference call would last for one hour. But, there are times when the conversation, and/or, meeting would take on a whole new life and 60 minutes just isn’t enough time. But, either the call is cut off or the host has to pay extra charges.
With flat rate conferencing you can host your call for as long as you want with no worries of extra charges or disonnections. People are more at ease and can have added time to grasp what is being taught or talked about.
2. No reservations needed.
With regular conference calls you need to reserve your bridge in advance. With flat rate calling, there is no need. You can set up calls wihthin a minutes notice if need be.
This works well with telecommuters and for staff meetings.
3. You can set a conferencing budget.
If you can budget something every month you can use it to grow your income. With flat rate teleconferencing you are able to know every month how much you’ll be spending on it and know how much you’ll be earning with it.
If you’re using teleconferencing to hold paid seminars or courses you can hold as many as you want each month for the same price.
People Are Learning More And Enjoying It
Teleconferencing has not only changed the way that people do business online, and added a new income avenue, but it has also helped alot of people get started with their own business, changed the way they learn, has helped coaches and counselors give more attention to their clients, and Sunday School teachers lead a lesson to shut ins and people who were on vacation.
And people are enjoying the new option of attending a seminar or class without leaving thier home.
Flat rate conferencing is going to add a new way for people to experience this more often and give businesses, and teachers, a new tool to reach more people.

Does Your Brochure Pass the Test ?

In part one of this article we discussed the importance of the look or appearance of your brochure.
The look or image that your brochure conveys is vastly important. In fact, the appearance will determine how most people form their initial impression of your company. But, the message on your brochure is just as important. Ultimately you need to say something of value in your brochure if you want it to move people closer to the sale. Here are a few tips to keep in mind to ensure that your brochure has the right message.
1. Speak in Terms of Your Prospects Interests. There’s an old saying that all people are tuned in to the same radio station WIIFM, which means “What’s In It For Me?” That is the question that all people will be asking on a conscious or subconscious level as they read your brochure. Only talk in terms of your prospects wants and interests.
2. Focus on Benefits, not Just Features. Features are the technical aspects of your product i.e. power sunroof. Benefits are the enjoyment or satisfaction your customer will get from that feature. Remember that people buy the benefit that your product will bring them not the features. For example people don’t want to buy a treadmill; they just want to loose weight and look great. They don’t want to buy a washing machine; they want clean clothes with no effort and so on. Don’t stop at features; make sure you mention all of the benefits that you offer.
3. Brand Your Logo and USP. This falls under image and message. Make sure you put your logo and your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) together. You want to reinforce the fact that your company is different and better than the competition.
4. Have Some Kind of Offer. To get the most out of your brochure have some kind of offer. Offer a discount, a free report, a sample, a free trial, or whatever makes sense for your business. Having some kind of offer will increase the chances that your brochure will generate sales.
Following these 4 tips will greatly increase the likelihood that your brochure will be noticed, and read, and, hopefully it will aid in making a sale. If you don’t follow these 4 tips, then you brochure is probably headed for the trash.