When you first venture onto Pinterest and see all the pretty things that people have Pinned, it can be rather intimidating.
It leaves you wondering how you compete with that as a small business owner? Will you have to hire a team of photographers and graphic designers to create images worth Pinning?
Don’t panic. It’s much easier than it looks. Here are some tips that will have you creating stunning Pins in no time.
Take great photos. You don’t have to have a lot of fancy equipment to take Pinterest-worthy pictures, but it helps to have a reasonably good camera. Pay attention to the lighting when you’re shooting, and keep the background free of distractions. For product photos, a solid white background is usually best. If you’re taking pictures of small objects, consider using a lightbox.
“Personal branding (the art of defining and communicating your unique selling points) helps you not just identify the value you can bring an organization, but also the type of roles or companies that are a good match for your talents, interests and values.
Your brand (brand you) isn’t defined by your company or job title, but rather it’s the blend of your experiences, accomplishments, skills and values that differentiate who you are.
When you have a brand, you can market ‘you’ to the right organizations for the right position at the right amount of pay.”
Below are two tips from my new book: Fit, Fine & Fabulous in Career, Business & Life that will help you move from being generic to becoming a brand
Last weekend I went shopping for a Mother’s Day gift for my girlfriend with her 6 year old son. My intention was to get in and out in under 5 minutes. That didn’t happen. It was about 10 minutes! I would have been out sooner except I had to find my girlfriend’s son hiding under a table listening to Kanye West on my iPhone! So cute!
As I was rushing out the door the saleslady asked me if I wanted a store credit. That stopped me in my tracks. Why? Who doesn’t love getting a deal? Right?
Check out the store’s discount strategy. They give you store credit for 10% of your current purchase that you can use on your next visit, but it expires in 30 days. Clever! They hand write the amount of money on the coupon and for some reason it just seems more real. How could I throw away $8.73 worth of store credit? I stuck it in my wallet just in case. In the back of my mind I knew I only had 30 days to use it.
There’s nothing worse than missing a client appointment. It doesn’t matter if it’s because you forgot to schedule it, your Virtual Assistant missed the request, or another reason; your business won’t see the excuse as a good thing and it’ll be more damaging than you may imagine. You’re busy and that means you must write things down. No matter how good your memory is, it’s not a good idea to try to do everything on your own.
There are many ways to handle managing your time and some of them will even automate the process for you. You can use Google calendar to manage your client meetings, but that’s not automated, and when you run a business you need to automate as much as possible. When things are automated, you’ll have more time to work the parts of your business that require you to work them.
When you’re considering scheduling tools that are automated and will help you manage your business, you need to consider vCita. This scheduling tool gives you the coding you need to quickly and easily add it to your site so you have the ability to immediately begin adding client appointments to your calendar. It’s automated, so you don’t have to do any scheduling yourself.
It’s true: first impressions are lasting impressions.
You may be incredibly talented and a sheer genius, but many business owners are coming across as clunkers (as opposed to the Hot Rods they should be!) in their marketing.
Let’s start with social media profiles.
Your profile page – whether on Linked In, Facebook, YouTube, etc- is the gateway to new opportunities, clients, and valuable connections. It might seem like a casual place to hang out, but it’s one of your most important marketing tools that can be seen by the exact people who’ll hire you and pay you top dollar for your work!
Are you having a hard time driving traffic to your blog? Here are a couple of easy tips on how to share your blog post on Facebook. Remember it is your responsibility to get the word out about your business, website or blog – not their job to come find it. Don’t forget – you need to make it easy for people to share you online through social media share buttons.
When I first started coaching over a decade ago, I was taught to “let the client lead the agenda.”
The problem with this approach is it put me in a reactive position as their coach (meaning, I followed their lead, responding to what they decided to coach on), rather than a proactive position, where I could stretch them in bigger ways, helping them to accelerate their progress.
Plus, the problem with this old style approach is that it opened the door to hearing, “I’m not sure what I want to coach on today” which resulted in higher client drop out rates.
And, to top it off, I felt I was hiding out, not speaking my truth and holding back from giving my clients more of what they needed to thrive and excel.
For many entrepreneurial women with children at home, your working time is limited. Given this restriction, how do you balance the children, household tasks and work to keep your business growing?
One thing I know from having three children and a business is that it is a Catch-22. It’s hard to bring in more clients and more money when you don’t have the support. You need some type of child care. Yet it’s hard to afford childcare when you don’t have more clients and money coming in, right?
What I’ve experienced in my own life is that I need a single focus. What I mean is – when I’m with my clients they have to be my focus and when I’m with my children my attention must be with them. Any time you do anything less, you’re cheating one or the other which is never a good feeling or very productive.
You already have a personal brand manager. And if you aren’t actively using them, then your brand is missing out on being as awesome as it could—and should—be.
You’ve heard about your inner critic—the inner fear-based voice that you should not listen to.
Well, your personal brand manager is actually an inner brand manager—inner wisdom that you absolutely must listen to.
You inner brand manager has a big-picture view of you and your brand. It sees all possible paths and helps you choose the right one for you. It knows who your ideal client it and what they need to hear from you.
And your inner brand manager is desperate to share this information with you!
