Entrepreneur Excellence

Watch and Learn

The other day I was using Adobe Illustrator to design a logo.  Normally, I pass on this work to one of my go-to graphic designers (always a good call) but this was a special project and I had a strong idea of what I wanted. 

I’m not a bad designer, but I’m a slow one.  Seriously, I’d make about $1/hour if I did graphic design myself.   You have to know what you’re good at, right?  I can whip out a press release or a case study in no time, but design - nope, I belabor every permutation.

As I was working on the logo, my 5th grade daughter sat down next to me and asked if she could play with the logo.  Sure! So I handed over the computer and watched as she randomly just hit buttons investigating what every little thing did.  In no time, she had found all these cool new features that I didn’t know even existed.  Here’s the logo she created:

(Don’t you love the tagline?!)

OK, so her logo is a little busy, but I love how she just jumped in and looked around.  I would never do that!

I wondered. When did I become so careful?  Why do I look in the help files before just messing around with the program?  But I think it’s just my nature.  Whenever I get a new gadget, I’ll sit down with the manual and read it cover-to-cover. 

I hate doing things wrong, but sometimes there is no wrong. There’s no consequence. The best thing is to just dive in.  

I think the lesson here is to watch and learn from others who are different than you.  Look what I learned from an 11-year-old.  Amazing!

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Orange County Blogging for Business Marketing MeetUp

Are you part of the Orange County Duct Tape Marketing Group yet?  Our March topic is Blogging for Business!

If you’re not blogging about your business, you are missing out on one of the most effective and affordable ways to promote your business online! Blogging is the foundation of social media marketing, providing fresh conversations. In this meeting, you will learn why blogging is should be a foundational part of your marketing mix. We’ll also discuss:

• Why blogging is an extremely effective marketing strategy for small businesses right now.
• Finding keywords that will bring the most traffic from search results.
• How to develop persuasive, compelling content in just minutes.
• Leveraging your blog to influence friends in online social networks.
• How to develop persuasive, compelling content in just minutes.
• Etiquette, tips and tricks that make you look like a pro!

Why should you attend?

Blogging is an easy and fun way to promote your business - BUT if you don’t have your blog set up right, you won’t be getting the full business benefits.

Register to learn about Blogging for Business

MEETING AGENDA:

5:30 Welcome and Networking - Appetizers Served
6:00-7:30 Marketing Meeting
7:30-8:00 Wrap Up

Come mingle with other small business owners, marketing and sales professionals as you learn how to apply Duct Tape Marketing’s principles to your business. Veteran marketing professional, Adrianne Machina of Tornado Marketing, an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Coach, will facilitate a discussion on the practical steps you can take to market your business affordably and effectively.

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OC Duct Tape Marketing Meetup

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Differentiating in Professional Services

Are you having a hard time writing a tagline?  I’m a BIG fan of taglines, because they give you an extra few words to describe your company and what you do.  But if you read the taglines of many professional service firms, they begin to all sound alike:

• We believe in quality (or service or honesty)
• Your trusted advisor
• Your one-stop stop
• When experience counts

When you’re boiling down your entire company’s experience, it IS truly hard to pick just 3-5 words.  Believe me.  The trick is to pick the one thing that matters most to your company and try to distill it down to it’s essence.  Do you provide - Speed? Convenience?  Security?  Safety?  Start with ONE word that best defines you, and build from there.

Then to support your tagline, you need to build out your marketing story.  Tell HOW your tagline defines your differentiation.  If your “people make the difference” tell me how! Is it because they’re smart?  Do you have a story that showcases how smart they are?  Do you have a testimonial or case study where someone else will tell me how smart they are? Do they all have Ph.D.s from highly-regarded universities?  Give your buyers proof.

When we’re buyers of professional services, we know there’s a difference between companies.  That’s why some hairdressers, dentists, doctors and accountants are backed up for months, and others take walk-in appointments. 

When we’re sellers of professional services, we need to be able to articulate how we’re different than our competitors - and that begins with HAVING a difference.   If you don’t have a way to differentiate and dominate, you’ll be stuck competing on price.  And that’s a problem, because there’s always someone willing to lower their prices, and go out of business faster than you. 

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Forget Your ABCs to Succeed in the New School of Marketing

Remember the olden days when you were taught your ABCs….meaning Always Be Closing?

Yuck!  Let’s change it to Always Be Contributing.  I know that sounds a little cheesy, but the truth is that referral marketing, relationship marketing, word of mouth marketing and social media marketing all depend on people LIKING YOU.  If they don’t like you, they’re not going to recommend you to their friends.  And they’re not going to like you if you keep pushing your agenda, and you never contribute anything interesting or meaningful.

You might be genuinely excited about what you’re offering! You’re not trying to be a pushy sales person.  It’s just that your enthusiasm is being misunderstood. (I’m sure we’re ALL guilty of that at times!)  If that’s the case, you can make a minor course correction.  But when people start avoiding you, stop returning your phone calls, and block you as a Facebook friend, you need a major wake-up call.  Let me bring  you some self awareness.  You are “THAT GUY” if:

• You never call your friends, clients or associates to say “Hi” or “How are you?” without leading with some “Buy This!” or “Oooh, I need a favor?!” message. 


• You give only with the ulterior motive to get something in return - “Buy-that-lady-a-drink!”


• You only ask self-serving questions on LinkedIn - Would you like a solution that does XYZ at a fraction of the price of our competitor? Oh, we do that!


• You only comment on blogs to say - “Great post! Come visit my blog at XYZ.com”


• You do all the talking - and not enough listening.  You don’t truly converse with other people. 


• You ask questions at a conference with the sole purpose of getting the microphone so you can tell everyone about your company.

All of us who are in sales and marketing walk a fine line between letting people know what we do - and shoving it down people’s throat.  (Do the former; avoid the latter.)  It’s OK to be excited about what you sell - you should be!  Just don’t expect everyone to jump on board before they even know you. Pay attention to the feedback you’re getting and adjust appopriately.

Contribute.  Educate.  Give.  Resolve to do one nice thing today without expecting anything in return. 

Always Be Contributing!

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Calling all Orange County Entrepreneurs!

You know I’m a fan of online social networking, but I am also a HUGE fan of the good-old-fashioned in-person real-life shaking-hands type of networking.  

Before Twitter or Facebook or any of the ‘new media” sites, I built my business (and several previous employers’ businesses) by getting out there and meeting people face-to-face.  Networking is one of the lowest-cost, highest-impact and most-sustainable marketing efforts you can do on a consistent basis.  Are you doing enough real-life networking?  Or are you hiding behind your computer, waiting for business to come to you?  I encourage you to get out there - and I have just the place in mind.

If you are a small business owner and live in or around Orange County, California, I want you to come out and meet me this Thursday, October 2nd from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.! Not only will you get an opportunity to mingle with other new and accomplished entrepreneurs from the Orange County Entrepreneur’s Center, but I’ll be sharing with you the 7 steps you need to take to create affordable, effective marketing programs for your small business.   The event is FREE if you are an Orange County Entrepreneur’s Center Member, and only $20 if you’re not. 

REGISTER HERE!  http://www.ocentrepreneurs.com/networking/ 

Yes, I know it’s Thursday night, which means it’s must-see-TV on NBC, but you have Tivo or Cox’s DVR service, don’t you?

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Prioritizing your Small Business Marketing Efforts

What do bags, shoes and jackets have to do with small business marketing?  Prioritization. 

Like most people, I love to shop, but I have to watch my budget too.  I will spend a disproportionate amount of money on bags, shoes and jackets because (1) they are worn more often (2) have a greater impact on the overall look and (3) when I buy quality, I can keep them longer.  

The marketing equivalent of bags, shoes and jackets are your website, business card, and marketing folder (used to hold your marketing kit materials.)  I’m continually shocked by how much time and effort will be devoted to nit-picking a direct mail piece, when the website looks like it was developed in 1995, and the business card doesn’t even tell me what the company does.  I refresh my business cards about every six months!  Once you have these fundamental marketing pieces in place, THEN you can look for other ways to market your business and generate leads.  These pieces function to generate awareness and leads, while they raise your credibility level. 

Clients and friends are always asking me, “How much of my time and money should be spent online?”  In most cases, I recommend about 75% of a small business’ marketing effort should be invested online - but there are exceptions.  For example, you may have a tradeshow that’s a cornerstone of your marketing plan.  If that tradeshow drives above-average awareness and sales activity, you should be spending more time and money on that tradeshow.  If there’s a magazine that with a long shelf-life that’s avidly read by your target audience, you should be in it.   But in all cases, small businesses need to focus their marketing efforts where they’ll get the biggest bang for their buck.  Make sure your website, business card, and marketing folder look as polished and professional as you do - you’ll quickly reach your goal of getting people to KNOW, LIKE and TRUST you.

How do you prioritize where to spend your marketing dollars? Are you focusing on the right things?

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Orange County Entrepreneurs, Women Entrepreneurs

Last week, Michael Banks of the Orange County Entrepreneurs Center invited me to participate in a professionally-done studio video shoot showcasing a variety of Orange County entrepreneurs in their various stages of business development.  I spoke specifically about being a woman entrepreneur.  I’ll let you know when Michael posts his videos, but watch this video to hear my thoughts right after the shoot:

Now of course, after I shot THAT video, I thought of still MORE I should have said.  The above post-OC-Entrepreneurs-video really explores more WHO would make a good entrepreneur, and what skills and attitude they need to possess to be successful.  But one of the things I didn’t touch on, and felt I should have, is the difference between a Work-At-Home-Mom (WAHM), a Freelancer and an Entrepreneur of the Female Persuasion.  I think it’s a difference of commitment level.

I consider myself an entrepreneur.  By my own definition, a freelancer takes on short-term jobs and moves from one project to the next.  A work-at-home-mom (again, my definition) is juggling kids between phone calls and work - and often the work is done for an employer.  I’m neither a freelancer or a WAHM.  I work with my clients long-term, usually a minimum of 3 months and some …basically forever… and my kids are in school and at sports all day.

The other reason I consider myself an “entrepreneur” is because I have a grander vision of Tornado Marketing’s business potential. Today Tornado Marketing focuses primarily on marketing consulting and coaching - but that’s not where we’ll be forever.  While I love my customers (thank you for all your support!!!) - and I adore my existing employees (thank you as well), I don’t want to grow significantly in size in either customers or  employees.  Instead, I want to continue to extend my reach beyond 1:1 engagements, to continue to grow and learn.  I want to create info-guides.  I want to do more speaking engagements.  I want to run more one-to-many training sessions to reach the small businesses who can’t afford their own dedicated marketing coach / consultant.  That’s one of the reasons I became a Duct Tape Marketing Coach. 

(BTW,  if you’re looking for a 1:many marketing workshop, make sure you sign up for my Tornado Tips Marketing Newsletter, and I’ll let you know the dates for upcoming sessions.  They’ll also be posted on my http://Tornado-Tools.com website. )

My friend Matthew Scott runs a business called The Life’s Work Group whose Men@Pause program helps men transitioning from the corporate world to entrepreneurship.  Over the past few months we’ve shared our perspectives about about men vs. women owned businesses.  In a previous post, I talked about what we could learn from each other: http://tornadomktg.com/blog/men-vs-women/.  I joke with him that I should start women@pause- but I don’t think that many women want to be true entrepreneurs.  They’re more often looking for work-life balance than for total-world-domination…  ok, small-piece-of-the-world-domination.  Am I wrong?  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with work-life balance.  I know I keep looking for it myself!  It’s just a different mindset and goal.

I want to hear from you.  What do you think defines an entrepreneur?  What do you think holds women back from becoming entrepreneurs?

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The Partner Event for Microsoft Dynamics Partners and ISVs

Are you a Microsoft Dynamics Partner?  Are you going to The Partner Event?  If you are unfamiliar with the event, it is a mixture of the old Great Plains Stampede and BBC, and takes place from September 14-16th in Great Plains’ old stomping grounds - Fargo, North Dakota.

I’m going.  In fact, I’m giving a presentation on Duct Tape Marketing and how Microsoft Dynamics Partners can apply the principles of Duct Tape Marketing to make their marketing more effective and affordable.  I’d love to see some friendly faces in the audience - so for that reason alone, I recommend you go!  You can register right online at The Partner Event.   Here’s some detail about the presentation I’m giving.

Duct Tape Marketing Session - Adrianne Machina
9/15 at 3:00 and repeated on 9/16 at 9:00 a.m.

Would you like to attract all the clients your business can handle, work only with clients who value what you have to offer, and convert more leads to sales? Simply follow these simple small business marketing systems, strategies, and ideas. Duct Tape Marketing is the first small business marketing program that treats marketing as an integrated system. At the core of the system is a series of steps and strategies, in various stages, that any business can use to finally produce stunning returns from a consistent marketing effort.

I know that travel is expensive.  Conferences are expensive.  The out-of-office time is expensive.  But for me, nothing replaces meeting people face-to-face.  To me, events like The Partner Event are worth the investment - not just because I’ll have clients there.  Long before I became a marketing consultant, I was a marketing director for a Microsoft Dynamics partner. 

I am so thankful that my former employer saw the value of the Microsoft conferences.  I think they also saw that I put a lot of energy into attending, networking and getting maximum value from their investment.  Like anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it! The Microsoft conferences always replenished my spirit.  I found kindred spirits who were struggling with the same marketing and sales issues.  I learned about Microsoft Dynamics ISV solutions that I didn’t even know existed.  I learned who in the channel I could trust (and who I couldn’t.)   I created new referral and co-marketing opportunities.  And most important of all, I got re-enthused about my job and the opportunities to improve my marketing programs. But what’s right for me, may not be right for you.

Just like local networking, attending conferences can become a critical part of your success as a Microsoft Dynamics VAR or ISV - or they can be a complete waste of time.  If you are going to spend the time and money to attend, prepare for your success:

1.  Bring plenty of business cards!!!! 

2.  Attend at least some of the sessions.  Even salty old dogs occasionally can learn a new trick. 

3.  Set up meetings in advance.  To find people you don’t already know (most will be 2-3 degrees of separation away from you) network online though LinkedIn, Plaxo and Facebook. 

4.  Hang out.  Be around.  Mingle outside of your clique.  Much of the networking value comes from after-hours and hallway meetings.

5.  Have a follow up strategy.  Many connections are missed just because people get back to the office and don’t do anything to follow-up with the people they met.  And remember, your connection needs to have a ring of authenticity.  Microsoft Dynamics VARs often feel barraged by Microsoft Dynamics ISVs.  If you are an ISV, make sure that you are offering value, not just asking to be brought into the next deal. 

6.  HAVE FUN!!!  And if you are having fun, call me because I like hanging out with fun, positive people!

Hope to see you there!

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Marketing to attract the ideal client

At my Mission Viejo Toastmasters Club meeting recently, a group of us were discussing how to attract more members.  Attendance has been really low over the summer, and the group would be more fun with more people.  The ironic thing is that our group actually has about 25 members - a very decent sized group!  But because expectations weren’t set to make much of a commitment to the group, some people only show up when they are scheduled for a Toastmasters Club function - like being the speaker or an evaluator.  

So the conversation turned to how we can attract more of our IDEAL member.  An ideal Toastmasters Club member would be someone who:

• Shows up (almost) every week
• Is highly motivated to improve their public speaking skills, and
• Is willing to give of themselves as much as they get from the Toastmasters Club group.

The secret to finding our ideal club members is to set the expectations correctly right up front.  We have plenty of people who show up as guests.  If we want to be a thriving club, we can’t just accept anybody.  We need to screen for the ideal Toastmasters Club member as outlined above.  We need to let people know what’s expected of them when they join.

Sound familiar?  My clients know that I’m a HUGE proponent of finding the IDEAL CLIENT.  You may not always hit your target, but by setting your bar high, you will avoid a ton of headaches down the road.   It’s not enough to say, “I want to attract the CFO of mid-market companies.”  That’s a good start, for sure, but I encourage you to take it a step further.  For example:

• I want to find clients who are really committed to using technology to save money. 
• I want to find clients who consistently pay their bills on time. 
• I want to find clients who appreciate the value of outside consultants.
• I want to find clients who have a pleasant disposition. 
• In want to find clients who are in a particular industry so that my consulting team can become really hone their expertise in that one particular industry.

Sure, when you’re starving for business, you’ll take anyone with a pulse.  You’ll make concessions.  You’ll jump through hoops.  That’s all the more reason to fill your marketing pipeline.  You can only be picky if you have choices.

DTM Differentiate

Anyone who isn’t a current client, and who wants to figure out how to attract the ideal client, may want to check out Duct Tape Marketing’s Differentiate and Dominate program. 

For those of you who want guided group coaching, email us at Tornado Marketing, and we can put you on the list for the group session we’re running this October.

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