What a Buddhist Waiter in the Florida Keys Can Teach You About Your Brand

I've heard this from too many women: I've taken umpteen seminars, poured everything I've got into building this business and I'm still not landing clients. What gives?You spent beaucoup bucks on the online business school course designed to help you create the business you love. Signed up for Pinterest, Facebook, Google+ trainings so you can master the art of social media. You hired a web designer to craft a website that will shine like a beacon, drawing clients to you like stargazers at a meteor shower.And what happened?Chirp chirp.You had every intention of creating a sustainable flow of great clients, which is why you invested so much of yourself and your resources in your business.And when client attraction and retention isn't happening, it feels... sucky. Like you did something wrong. Or didn't do something. You think, "Maybe my clients don't like me/my products and services/my website."If this feels familiar, you don't have a client attraction problem - you have a branding problem.Enter the Buddhist business coachAfter a wonderful day of snorkeling in the Florida Keys, I stopped for dinner at a marina restaurant with an incredible sunset view of that gorgeous orange orb melting into the Atlantic. Dinner was delivered to our table by a nice waiter with lots of tattoos.What really struck me was the wooden mala he wore around his wrist. A mala is a Buddhist bracelet, a meditation aid, and his was one of the most unusual I had seen. Large wooden beads in an interesting shade of green. I asked about it.


Turns out the dude is a recovering addict. Turned to Buddhism as a tool to get his life back in order and the mala, blessed by his teacher, was something he wears every day to remind him of his journey. Said he used to get pissed off by people, his reactions sending him down a destructive path. Now he sees everyone as his teacher. Nice people, difficult people, all kinds of people showing up with their stuff. They all have something to teach him.Every customer at the restaurant is his teacher.What that Buddhist waiter knows about your businessEvery client (and prospective client) is your teacher. They will tell you everything you need to know in order to find them, engage them and attract them to your work.Your prospective client will share what fires them up. And what keeps them up at night.You can learn where they hang out. The language they speak, the dance steps they like to do.You can't engage and attract someone unless you're engaging and attractive.Duh.Seems so simple, but so many business owners miss this critical point.Good branding is [client] attractiveWhen you take the time to understand your prospective client, you can craft your business brand in a way that resonates with your target market. You'll find your work attracts more attention, your programs and services will see increased enrollment and that bank account that was stressed building your business can now enjoy deposits.

Want More Facebook Followers? Create a Video to Promote Your Page to Your Facebook Friends!

Your Facebook friends are likely seeing your posts all of the time. They may like, share, and comment, and they may even follow you quite a bit, but you may not have the full appeal that you want. With social media, it is hard to stand out and to do better, but there is a way to make this possible. Creating a video to promote your page can help you to bring in attention and interest. This is easy to do thanks to the services available and it can give your page a huge boost. People will actually go to you more often and like what you have to say.Using video marketing for your online business is growing in popularity. When you have something to say, this type of marketing is one of the best options available. People like how quick and simple videos are, and how it saves a lot of time and effort. Just press play and the message begins. When trying to make money online, you are going to want this type of simplicity and appeal. It gives you the chance to bring in more interest without a lot of effort or time. For social media, this can make it easier for you to attract people to your page.Creating a video is not as hard as you might think. If you want to get your business moving, able to make money online and grow, you can start right now. Thanks to the marketing services available that are dedicated to videos or that offer exceptional quality with videos, you can find something that works for you. And it can even be as simple as using your cell phone to make a quick video and then uploading it to YouTube! This will give you the chance to do everything in little time and with great results. People will go to your page, will like what they see, and will listen to more of your message.


Don't hesitate about doing this! Marketing is vital for every online business and video marketing is continuing to be a popular option for this. It can help your page to stand out more while offering amazing profits for your business. People will like, share, and want to see more of what you have to offer. Make sure that you get in touch with the services available so that you are not losing any time here. The faster you move, the more that you can gain from these services once your video is completed and out!Stay Social!

Be the Best That You Can Be Write Your Book and Make Your Mark

Competition matters. You won't be able to carve a niche for yourself if you don't know which spots have already been taken by your competition.Amazon is the best place for you to start researching your competition. Simply key in a general keyword that people looking for your book might search for. Then, take a look at which of the books in the search results are good enough to be considered legitimate competition.By good enough, we mean those books that have good reviews, several buyers and enough reviews to tell you what the book is all about.You should also take a look at the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section, where you might find additional books to add to your competitors' list. A lot of the time, book titles don't contain the keywords you are looking for, so it's worth taking a look at this section, too.After you have filtered out the books that aren't your competition, the next step is to find out how you can make your book better than the books left on your list.When you're pretty sure you have the most popular books on your topic, it's time to read through their reviews one by one.Be sure to have note-taking software or your good, old notebook handy because you have to take notes of the most salient points in the reviews section. The following is what you should look for.

Common Comments.

The most common problems tend to crop up in the reviews. When more than one person points out a particular weakness, you've found yourself a target. Make sure you address that flaw in your own book.In reading reviews about dating books for middle-aged men, for example, you might find that one thing a lot of reviewers agree upon is that the content is presented in a cold, hard and completely un-relatable manner.You might be able to explain this by the fact that a lot of dating books are written by dating therapists and psychologists, not people who have conquered the dating world again in their middle age.Now, if you're that kind of person, if you were able to find the love of your life or several juicy flavors of the month while dating in your 40s and 50s, then your book won't be based on psychology but on your own personal experience.You've seen what works and what doesn't. You've experienced it for yourself. Most self-proclaimed love doctors haven't. That could just be what makes your book better.

Unanswered Questions. Reviews are very helpful in letting you know which issues are left unaddressed or not quite properly addressed by the book's author.

These are where questions, objections and other unpleasant reactions by real readers are raised. Take note of all of these and see if you can address these issues in your own book.


For example, one common complaint you might find in a dating book for older men is that the author thoroughly suggests ways on how to make yourself desirable for the kind of women you want to attract, but there is little said on how to actually approach a woman and ask her out.After looking through other books in your competitors' list and you find that a lot of reviewers share the same questions, you found yourself a unique book to write.

Length. You would be surprised to know that some e-books being marketed on Amazon are less than a hundred pages long.

If you're going for an e-book, this might be fine, but a real, printed book jam-packed with information and has lots of gold nuggets to offer should have at the very least a hundred pages. Anything less than that is not a book. It's a long article that's formatted in e-book form.People know when they are shortchanged when they're expecting a good, long read and realize they finished reading everything in an hour.Take advantage of this long article phenomenon and step up to the plate. Show your readers you can offer more than an hour's read and give them more information than what is normally available.

Publication Date. If your competitors' books are five years old or older, you're in luck. You can easily set your book apart because it contains the most updated, and therefore most relevant, information of all.

Of course, there are books that stand the test of time. Even though they have been written 10 or 20 years or even five decades, books like this continue to inspire and move people to action because they offer the one kind of content that readers are looking for, whether they are reading books in the 1960s, 1990s or 2100s.It's called evergreen content, and this is the kind of content you want to write in your book. Evergreen content is content that never goes stale. To one person reading your book now, your content is an amazing breath of fresh air, and it should still be that way to the other person reading your book five years from now.

Finding Your Niche (Part Three of Nine)

As you narrow your focus from the broader market towards your niche, you will move from the internal world of the personal qualities of spiritual gifts and natural talent to the external world of knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is not found in the acquisition of knowledge, it is found in the application. Therefore, how you gather and process knowledge and translate it into actions has a lot to do with identifying your niche. As mentioned in part two of this nine part series, there are three major ways to gain knowledge. You gain knowledge through acquisition, experience, and observation. The next three articles will look at these three different sources respectively. As I move down the list, let me remind you of the nine aspects of a person's life that contributes to that person's niche. For this article, I am going to discuss the concept of acquired knowledge.Spiritual gifts
Natural talent
Acquired knowledge
Experiential knowledge
Observational knowledge
Temperament
Motivators
Drivers
PassionAcquired KnowledgeThe third aspect that will contribute to identifying your niche is the aspect of acquired knowledge. Acquired knowledge is structured teaching and instruction given in a formal learning environment. It is knowledge that is learned through formal education, mentoring, and parental engagement. Formal education is only part of the bigger picture. A recent staggering statistic shows that only 62.1 percent of college graduates work in a job that requires an undergraduate degree. Even more startling is that only 27.3 percent actually work in the field for which they went to college. Formal education, though providing you a base of knowledge, will not be the only compass by which you will search for your niche. Formal education is a positive experience insomuch as this is education of your choosing. Earning a college degree or being certified in a formal trade is positive learning. It is a proactive form of learning which means that you actively seek out the knowledge without the motivation of a recent failure or need to solve a complicated problem. In other words you choose to pursue education as opposed to being forced to have to learn from mistakes.Formal education began the day you were born. The first five to seven years are formative years. These years are mostly impacted by parental influence and engagement. Absent these influences, the child will be at a disadvantage. Once a child enters school, he or she begins to receive instruction about the world from the perspective of adults who have been certified to give formalized instruction. Parents must be involved in this process to guard against social indoctrination from educators who have differing social, political, and moral views. As the child enters young adulthood and the world of advanced education, he or she is ready to test all of the information gathered in the earlier years. The parents are the first form of formal knowledge and based on their engagement with the child, will provide the foundation for acquired knowledge. Then the child will be influenced in the formal education environment. Beyond formal education, there are other structured learning environments that will allow him to acquire knowledge. As important as it is to receive positive parental guidance in the formative years and to receive a good quality education in the elementary and secondary school years, You should not stop pursuing the gathering on information and the acquiring of knowledge. As you enter your adult years it is critical to identify and associate with others who can help you to grow in your knowledge. What parents are to children and teachers and educators are to school aged children, mentors are to young adults.A mentor takes on the dynamics of both parental engagement and formal education. Having a mentor (typically someone who is older than you and one who can impart wisdom on your situations), is one of the best ways to narrow your focus. A mentor seeks your best and is willing, and has you permission, to tell you that you are wrong. I have had the pleasure of being mentored by Dr. Bill Williams, a clinical psychologist, who has become a trusted friend over the years. Dr. Williams is thirty years my senior and has a vast amount of experience from which I can acquire knowledge. Having a mentor is vitally important to the acquisition of knowledge. It is also profitable for accountability, growth, and life balance. By having access to the experiences of another person, you gain the knowledge and insight from the perspective of someone who has grown up with different motivators, drivers, and passions. In addition to this knowledge, you can learn wisdom that has been gained through the practical application of the knowledge of your mentor. There is no advantage to having your best friend as your mentor unless your best friend can tell you that you are wrong and still remain your best friend.


Your mentors (and yes you should have more than one) should be older than you and should have experience in the areas in which you are being mentored. If you are seeking professional development, you will want to find a mentor who holds a position in the company where you can gain exposure. If you are starting a company, you will want to find someone who has gone through the process and has been successful. Finding someone in your industry is advantageous but not necessary. Your mentor should be a person of character. He or she should be someone you respect, admire, and can trust with your struggles. Your mentor is someone after whom you will pattern your life. Therefore, you want to ensure you are following a person with good moral standing. You and your mentor should have similar goals because as if your mentor is walking or has walked your path, there is a higher predictability of success.Another trait your mentors need to possess is the ability to be available. There is nothing better than having the best of the best as your mentor, but if he or she is unavailable, then all you really have is the appearance of a mentoring relationship. It defeats the purpose of the relationship if the person is never available. A successful relationship requires each party to be available on a consistent and purposeful basis. You need mentors who are open and honest and with whom you can be open and honest without judgment or condemnation. Being able to share personal experiences and information and to do so in a safe and confidential environment can allow you to create a genuine relationship. Finally, you want someone who believes in you. Someone who believes in you and your potential will be willing to invest the time, energy, and resources to help you realize that potential. All of this creates the environment where knowledge can be acquired.Acquired knowledge begins in your formative years where parental influence can shape the foundation of your ability to learn. Once that foundation is established, formal education provides a wealth of information that can be processed into acquired knowledge. As you transition from the formative years to the educational environment to the world of adulthood, you need to find mentors who can continue the learning process. Dysfunction in any of these environments can short-circuit your ability to attain the knowledge necessary to be confident with who you are and the gifts and talents you possess. Acquired knowledge is a combination of parental engagement, formal education, and mentoring. It has a high level of influence in your niche, but it is not the sole determiner. This knowledge must be brought together with the two other forms of knowledge; experiential knowledge and observational knowledge. In the next article, I will address the aspect of experiential knowledge and how the process of experience is critical to identifying your niche.

The Evolution of Event Management Business

Event management is an old concept in the business world, but it has witnessed tremendous success in the last couple of years. Corporate events have come out as an influential part of the modern business actions. There are numerous reasons why a firm holds a business event and the importance of these events makes it crucial for event planners to organize them in a well-planned manner. Listed here are some major reasons behind the organization of a corporate event:-Product launch
Press conferences
Important deals or tie-ups
Annual functions/gatheringsWhen an event is organized on a high scale, it generally is convoluted since every stage of its planning needs to be managed with great care. Here arises the need for a professional event management agency, which will efficiently do the same for you. These professionals exactly know how to organize your event in such a way that it builds your company's reputation in the market.Earlier, both mid- and large-scale companies used to conduct events directed by their own team of professionals, whether or not they had an idea or experience in handling a corporate event. But now, businesses on a large scale are opting for the services of event management agencies. Since, these agencies hire experts in the field and the events organized by these professionals allow you to engage with your target audience. The events are also interactive enough to allow you to share information regarding your products and services with your customers or clients. These professional event planners understand the industry specifications and the nature of events, thus, they deliver the best events for all types of occasions.


Spending a few dollars on these services, you can enjoy numerous advantages:-Proper Planning: - Planning an organized corporate event means you need to consider every single aspect of the arrangements, which is very time-consuming. If you want to save yourself from this hectic task, all you need to do is to hire a professional event planner, tell them about your preferences/requirements and inform them about your budget. They will carry out the procedure in a proficient way.
Entire Arrangements: - Planning is the first and foremost step before organizing an event, but executing your plans in a successful manner is something that matters the most. Making complete arrangements for a corporate event is a tedious task. In that case, you must hire a professional event management agency, which can prepare its professionals rush for such arrangements. They would organize everything as per your specifications.
Professionalism Assurance: - If we talk about a corporate event, then professionalism is what you need to be really cautious of. Sometimes, planning and arrangements are not able to make for that "wow factor" as lack of professionalism fails the planners to do so. If you want your event to be a great success, you should hire experienced experts as they are the ones who can bring professionalism in their work and give life to your event.

Think You Don't Have Time to Build Your People? Think Again

If you boil corporate leadership down to its bare essentials, executives around the globe really only have two key missions:

Build Business-increase revenues and profits, grow volume and market share, expand into new territories, create new business alliances, etc.

Build People-help employees upgrade their skills and increase their knowledge so that they can grow personally and professionally, advance in their careers, and deliver increasingly more for the organization.
Most corporate leaders judge how well they are performing by the size of the businesses they lead. "I've taken on a bigger regional responsibility," they will say, or "I've moved from managing $XX million dollars in revenue to $XXX million."Yet, in reality, at the senior level, it's far more important to build people than to build business. Why? Because the higher you rise in an organization, the more people you are responsible for-and the more you simply cannot do it alone. In fact, at the upper echelons of businesses, it is not possible to do your job well unless you focus more on developing people than building business.People development is especially vital during times of change, and these days, change comes fast, furiously, and often unexpectedly. This holds true regardless of the type of business you run-a service business, a manufacturing / product-focused business, or any other kind.Despite this, many leaders focus the bulk of their time and attention on building business, relegating employee development to a distant second on their priority lists.The Single Lamest Excuse for Not Building Your TeamLeaders often tell me, "I know I should focus more on developing my team. But the reality is, I just don't have the time. I'm already putting in 13-hour days building the business. There isn't an extra minute to spend on developing people."I consider this the single lamest excuse for not focusing on building your team's skills. Why? Because growing your people's capabilities shouldn't be a separate job nor an extra time-consuming activity. As a senior executive coach, I often "shadow" senior leaders in action as they lead teams or run meetings. That gives me the privilege of witnessing firsthand what works well and where there's room for improvement. Throughout these experiences, one thing has become perfectly clear: The best leaders demonstrate that building business and building people are fully integrated processes. Developing people is not a "task" to be added to a to-do list; it is a mindset.


As a leader, not only is it important for you to remain coachable, but you must also be a great on-the-job coach yourself. In fact, I encourage you to go through your day with this thought in mind: Every moment is a coaching moment. If you think of building people in that way, it becomes less of a daunting task.

When a direct report does something well, let him or her know right away. That way, it becomes clear what you consider good work, and team members will continue to produce the same or better results.

Likewise, if a direct report does something "not so well," it's your job to let that person know right away and coach him or her to consider how to do it better next time.
As you can see, both situations offer coaching opportunities that are integrated into your day-to-day work life. The best leaders make people development a seamless part of their work, and they recognize coaching moments on a regular basis.

First, they give their direct reports the right challenges and responsibilities to help them grow.

Second, they interact with direct reports in ways that challenge employees to think about and strengthen their own leadership capacities.
Again, the best leaders do this constantly and naturally as they go about building business.Bottom line: Coaching team members to improve isn't a separate activity that takes extra time-it is a mindset that can be learned and embraced. Developing the people you lead allows your direct reports to take on more responsibilities so that they are constantly learning, and that gives you more time in the long run because you will eventually be able to delegate more. The outcome? I've seen this essential shift in mindset and behavior help leaders shift stressed-out, 14- to 16-hour workdays to a calm and confident 8 to 10 hours. By keeping in mind that every moment is a coaching moment, you too can begin to experience building business and building people as wholly integrated processes.

Branding Systems - Keys to an Effective Branding Strategy

Most small business CEO's and entrepreneurs fail to realize this one simple thing.That is, the key to an effective branding strategy is being able to deliver.Seems simple, but it's missed by an insane amount of business owners.You must... No let me start that over.YOU MUST be able to back up your claims and produce exactly as you say. You got to walk your talk or else you will be walking into going out of business.The majority of your business sales and profits come from repeat customers.Because here's the thing, nobody is going to be disappointed by your services twice.And, that is exactly why, you need a rock-solid and profitable branding system, that involves:CUSTOMER SATISFACTIONBrand is just a mere representation of your company. Therefore, it must reflect exactly what your business can deliver for the customers and build its reputation from there. If you cannot produce quality products or services, then regardless of how potent your branding system or strategies are, you'd never be able to turn your marketing campaigns into a sales force.Therefore, you need to be as sensitive to your customers' needs as possible. But only to a certain extent that you still hold control over the image and reputation that you want your brand to exhibit.Indeed, brand equity is a vital aspect in every business, especially consumer-based equity. It reflects the level of trust and attitude that a customer has towards a product associated with a given brand. This is impacted by the actual experience that a consumer has had with the product such that brand loyalty is affected by factors such as perceived quality and the delivery of the product.CONSISTENCYOne of the most effective ways to build trust amongst your customers is to be consistent with the message you are trying to convey. Consistency is most important when exhibiting the values that are key and vital in your company. Then, focus on every aspect of your business to ensure that it remains consistent with the values professed by your company and that they make a good representation of the company's vision.


EXPANDING YOUR BRANDCreating a brand for your company is not only limited to the creation of a logo. While it is essential, your work does not stop there. After all, a logo is just a representation of your professional image but there are several factors in between that would help translate them into sales. You do not even have to spend lots of money to fulfill them. In every form of communication that you use in your business transactions, include your company logo in it, whether you'd be using business cards, yellow page ads, newsletters, letterhead, invoices, envelopes, and many more. Your logo is of no use unless you are able to capitalize on it and make it do its work for you.MANAGING YOUR BRANDAs market trends continue to change and evolve, so must your approach at branding strategies. While you set your own company's branding standards, you also need to look into exceeding those promises you've set and this is one of the most effective ways to generate more customers. On the other end, one failure could eventually ruin your business' reputation on a long haul.If you see any opportunity where changes can be done or improvements can be executed, then don't be afraid to execute them.This is one way for your business to stay on top of things and keep up with changing trends in the market for an effective business branding effort.So, tell me, what are you working on RIGHT NOW to expand your brand?