Last month I had the honor of attending a reception for Ken Lund, Executive Director of Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.  The event was hosted by TiE Rockies, an organization that supports entrepreneurs and therefore, receives my undying admiration and support. Mr. Lund outlined Governor Hickenlooper’s Colorado Blueprint, a plan designed to bolster economic development through entrepreneurship in our state.  I was pleased to join a group of about 30 other business leaders to listen to the presentation. With the mission of helping local entrepreneurs start and grow viable businesses, TiE Rockies is a perfect organization to assist in implementing the Colorado Blueprint.  The local chapter of TiE provides education, mentoring and networking events throughout the greater Denver area.  Its membership includes successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists looking to assist promising start-up companies. I am delighted to join other TiE charter members to provide expertise that will transform the plan into a reality.  Our goal is to expand and enhance the local entrepreneurial ecosystem.  Developing programs and initiatives that will propel start-up businesses onto a fast track of success will definitely create jobs and improve Colorado’s economy. Having spent over 15 years providing training and consulting services to entrepreneurs, my team and I are ready to join forces with Ken Lund and TiE Rockies to launch some strategic initiatives and get the ball rolling.  For more information, go to rockies.tie.org.

For March there are 2 F*REE ways you can get in on this revolutionary way to market. Did you know there are people visiting your website right now, via their cell phone ? More importantly, did you know that if you don't have a mobile version of your website that you could be loosing potential customers? See for yourself - check your google analytics to see what I mean. If you aren't taking advantage of Mobile Marketing, your competition is. Regardless what you think you know, you will learn even more. And its free. Informed, experienced speakers bring you the latest used by successful marketers to grow their business. First on March 17 , Taylor Made Small Biz has our free webinar (45 minutes). If you can't attend it is recorded so register now. When texting and driving is great - how to drive foot traffic to your door Here is what you learn

• What mobile marketing is and how to start this in your business
• Setting up your first text message campaign
• Getting more leads and buyers from your current website with SMS
• 3 ways to get in front of cell phone users with your offers

  Register for the F*REE 45 minute webinar here Second on March 25^th Taylor Made Small Biz has been asked by Tie Rockies to present LIVE at the Harnessing Mobile Marketing event. Its Friday March 25th and of course I wanted to let you in on it too! It's a Free seminar with 5 experts in Mobile Marketing, huge content, detailed screen shots all on Mobile Marketing. I am delighted to have you as my guest so Register now (seating is limited to the first 100 and this is going out to over 3000) Join us and other business owners for networking before and after the LIVE event Here is what you will learn about

• How to set up your first text message campaign ( a bit like an email marketing campaign)
• Why it's important for you to have a mobile website,
• Fastest way to turn your smart phone into a credit card processing machine so YOU can take payment anywhere
• And hear first hand the real live Return on Investment that other business owners have experienced

Get up to speed on the latest ways to connect with your clients right on their smart phones. Register now Registration is limited to the first 100. Register yourself here and then forward this to your business associates and friends. Register here See you at the event! Patrice Barber and the Just Results Team PS - This applies to you and your business if you have clients you work with more than once, have a store front, provide consulting or coaching where you occasionally meet face to face or if you are in the marketing business and need to share this new technology with YOUR clients.

Lets dig into the controversy about using Facebook to grow your business. Most business owners still think it is a pretty silly social networking site that doesn't really have much to do with attracting "real" clients who will buy from you. Guess what ...they are RIGHT. Social Media is a place to build trust , its not about buying. At least  its not about buying right now. Once a business owner understands the purpose they can also learn how Facebook DOES provide return on the investment of time and the very small financial investment in things like ads. A recent study found that  78% of consumers trust peer reviews and only 14% trust advertisements.  Can you see KA_CHING  in those numbers It is crucial to be involved in your community. Ready to put the KA-CHING into your Facebook fan page? Client Response: My decision not to use Facebook has nothing to do with it being a social networking site. I won't use it because the owners will not guarantee privacy of personal information. In fact, they have stated publically that they believe all info should be available to everyone in this social networking age. As a woman who has been stalked in the past (a very frightening experience) and who is concerned about abused women trying to hide from abusers, I am absolutely opposed to this stance. I find it naive and arrogant. I welcome your comments. Reply: I completely agree with you and love the approach you are verbalizing about Facebook. AND I think there is an alternate to consider. First I too have been stalked in college and ended up putting the guy in jail , so I understand about the need for privacy, having escape plans from ones home and other settings  and completely agree with your stance. I have also had the experience of living in the Middle East – seven countries in fact and as a white girl  - very much the minority, I am keenly aware of the need to be cautious and keep my ears and eyes open as well as not to lead others directly to me and my home. If I were consulting with an abused woman I would advise they use a pseudo nym on facebook and every other marketing medium if they need to be  marketing on facebook at all. If your business doesn’t require marketing then don’t put your name out there as your real name. On Facebook , remember you don’t have to  use your real name or have a real picture so it is pretty easy to be anonymous when necessary.  In advising  individuals with that type of concern I would agree with you that I would not even be on facebook or any other social medium. Further I would advise people who are concerned about being stalked in the future,  that they had best get a Po box or alternate address – in the US this is pretty easy and can look like a regular street address. The much greater concern in the US is that if I google my maiden name, the TOP response on a goolge search is my full address for over 20 years history ( 7 addresses) , my children’s full names, my husband and my families addresses – all from the department of motor vehicles. TALK about scary! I am very glad that my name I use now is not my legal name so is not contained in the government databases as is my maiden name. So its back to being a pseudo name EVERYWHERE.

If you are just getting started with mobile marketing in your business, you might find these tips helpful. 1 - Start with texting - Many of our clients have started with an email marketing campaign first and from there it is an easy step to add on a text message campaign with a free offer. Once this the free offer is understood, the ease of using a text message campaign becomes obvious. 2 - Know the law - There are some basic requirements and regulations to be aware of. Without these in place you could get in trouble and have your campaign shut down. To get some ideas you may read the Mobile Marketing Association’s Best Practices document as a starting point. Most of our clients prefer that we manage the campaign to get it setup correctly and just show the monthly reports so you can see the success. It will help to look around for examples of mobile marketing in action. 3  - Try it - See what other businesses are doing with mobile. It will also get your ideas flowing about what you can do with your business.  Subscribe to as many text message campaigns as you can find. Use the mobile web frequently. The more familiar you are with the technology the quicker you will be able to adapt (before your competition does). 4 - Get a plan - If you don’t already have an unlimited data plan – get one now. * * * * * * * * * 6  - The offer - Start determining what you want to offer to your customers using a text messaging campaign and on your mobile website development. You will find that your business type will flow best around a certain type of mobile marketing. Make a list of your clients and brainstorm what you’d offer them. 7 - Presenting the offer and tracking  -  Decide how you will present the offer so they can choose to opt in to get the goodies. There might be a little training of your staff to help them understand how to present the new offer and how to receive the coupon or other ways to redeem the offer.  Be sure to track your redemption with an automated system so you know the results. For paper coupons most of our clients have a redemption rate of 1-2%. With a company to help you manage mobile marketing it jumps to 14-15% and as high as 30-40% for some industries. Good luck with mobile marketing in your business. Please post your comments to let me know what you’re doing and how I can help.

A recent study found that  78% of consumers trust peer reviews and only 14% trust advertisements. Can you see KA_CHING  in those numbers?  It is crucial to be involved in your community and have a good reputation. What are people saying about your brand? About 25% of search results for a brand name links  to user generated content –  that means other peoples judgment gets to the top of the pile of information about YOU. Nourish these relationships. Best offense is a good defense - over deliver and under promise.  Then talk about it and have happy clients talk about it too!  This includes  Twitter, Face book, blogs, forums, industry publications and media. Monitor the conversation, join in on the conversation, be sincere and show that you care. Here are a few ways that I found to work for myself. Facebook can be a little tricky on how to get more fans. You will see an increase in fans if you do these following steps: 1) Creating a "List" of your friends and name it business. Find this when you login to Facebook and it is on the left hand side, click friends, edit friends, create list, then click on all your friends that you want to "Like" your page. (Note: every time you add a new friend put them in this business list) 2) When you create your page use the widget code that Facebook gives you to add a "Like" box on your website. 3) Add your Facebook Page link on your email signature. 4) Send an email out through your email system like GENESIS, Constant Contact, Aweber, iContact, ETC telling them you are on Social Media and inviting them to "Like" your page. You can give some type of incentive for those who like your page if you want. Example: "Like" our business page and receive 10% off your next order. 5) Make a compelling video to put on your welcome page on Facebook, show people who you are, what your personality is like, and what you do. (You can add a Welcome tab on your page through www.Tabsite.com) 6) Have customers tag photos of you and your products, leaving a testimonial with it. 7) Using Facebook Ads to get more fans. 8) Run a contest for just your Facebook fans, this creates interaction on the page. 9) You can use Mobile marketing to have people check out your Facebook page and "Like" it when they like it they get entered into a drawing, free prize, discount something along those lines. 10) Have your Facebook Page link on all of your marketing materials. 11) Funnel your Twitter followers to your Facebook page. 12) Use the Suggest to friends on page and suggest to the list you have been creating, from step 1. By implementing these few things you will see an increase in fans. Encourage your customers/clients to leave comments, feedback and questions to your page. Facebook ads are a great way to get fans quickly and easily, BUT you want to make sure you are doing the ads correctly. Make the message in the ad compelling so people want to come to your page and "Like" it. Facebook is a great way to make connections with people all over the world and a great place to get closer to your customers/clients. Remember it is all about building relationships! I hope this  was helpful. Have questions?  Have requests for other details? What have you done to increase your fans that you want to share? Post your comments and questions below.

  Marketing when you are on the go can sometimes be challenging. If you have wondered how you can still stay in touch even when you are not at your desk top, this presentation on using your smart phone solves all those problems. Nathan Womack shows you the screens shots you need so you can use Facebook on your smart phone to stay top of mind. He describes the importance of using Face book fan pages or personal pages to make your posts and more importantly answer questions or make comments right when they occur instea of going back in time and ineffectively trying to get back in touch. He gives incredible detail about the different smart phone platforms, describes what you can do on the android but not on the apple i- phone and how to save a ton of monthly fees by connecting using a wifi connection with your cell phone instead of just using minutes of talk time to make the same connections . When you have a solid marketing plan for your online marketing you know exactly what you need to get done and having an alternate way to get it all done for each months marketing campaigns by using your smart phone is a very handy way to manage it all.  There are a variety of tools that will allow your posts on one social network to be sent out to the other social networks as well. Getting these setup on your desktop is a great way to enhance your smartphone experience. Make a single post and have it appear instantly on other social networks. It is a excellent time saver. During the Put Your year In Gear event , Nathan will be describing how to use his proprietary 5 step process to get your tech in check for 2011. You will walk away, knowing exactly what your top priorities are for technology that you will need in 2011 and what to spend money on and what NOT to spend money on. To find out more about this strategy and get the screen shot , step by-step details go to www.putyouryearingear.com and request your free access now. These will be going away soon ( in November) . 6 & 7 coming soon.

  During this presentation Gary Barnes showed us how to use 3 magic words to create your online offer. He begins with the concept that people buy the sizzle but want the steak. Your prospects need to see great pictures, hear words that appeal to their old brain that are simple to understand . By creating your personal 3 magic words you are able to “interrupt” their thinking, avoid being put into the pigeon hole and labeled “like everyone else”. Using Gary’s unique method gives you the advantage of 3 words to describe what you do , how you do it, and the end result . It also creates an  image in the mind of your ideal prospect. Here are some examples we came up with for a balloon artist . Hot Air Guy, Super elastic man. As you can see there is a crisp image that you get in your minds eye. You definitely don’t label such a person as just another balloon artist. The words pique your interest to want to find out more and this is the key part of successfully creating your irresistible offer. Once you have your 3 words these can be used to attract clients in your social media efforts and right on your website as part of your high value free offer. They also begin to form your “brand”  because these are uniquely yours. To find out more about this strategy and get the screen shot , step by-step details go to www.putyouryearingear.com and request your free access now. These will be going away soon.

  Kim Dushinski , named one of THE Mobile Women to watch for 2010 by Mobile Marketer, shared screen shot explanations about how to use a  free tool  - Google Places- to get 1^st page ranking even if you don’t have a web site. Kim began by describing what mobile marketing is and what it is not. If you haven’t heard the term yet, you certainly are seeing this in action everyday on your TV and in other media. During the super bowl you are encourage to text in to win prizes and this is a form of Mobile Marketing. It gets you to use your mobile device to show you are interested in the topic. Places like your local Red Box video rental offer free videos when you signup to get a text message with the coupon number and you can go to the video rental and get your free video using the code from your mobile phone that they text to you. Mobile marketing is the next step of where the internet is going and it includes the use of your mobile device – cell phone or smart phone. At present this is a much more direct connection to your clients as 98% of text messages are opened whereas only 25% of emails are opened. If you have a business that has a store front with frequent repeat clients like chiropractors, restaurants, bowling alleys, this will become one of the most cost effective ways for you to attract clients back in for their repeat business. If you offer services in which you meet face to face with your clients on a repeat basis , using Google places, to list your business will be key to your future success. At present this type of listing is free and Google has disclosed plans for this to replace yellow page ads both online and offline. They have also hinted that this may not remain as a free service. Those who begin using this free real estate online will certainly reap the rewards from being a pioneer. To find out more about this strategy and get the screen shot , step by-step details go to www.putyouryearingear.com and request your free access now. These will be going away soon.

Our team member Ann Albergotti delivered a powerful update on how public relations and press releases have seriously  change in the last few years. She explained how today’s online submissions can be done by you. There are some key points that you have to understand for your article to be picked up and accepted by the press, but at a minimum your articles can get published into online article submission sites and have back links to  your website. Here is how the strategy works. First use those great “keywords” that you discovered in strategy 1 and then incorporate them into the article you are writing. Don’t go overboard, be natural in your writing, putting in great content first. Keep your articles to abut 200 words. Then read back thru the article to see where you might exchange some words for the keywords. When you have the article created in the correct article writing format which is NOT a sales pitch but rather a news piece, go online to the site recommended and enter the information requested. The basic information you will need includes the title and summary description which is the best place to house the keyword rich summary of your article. Articles are searched by the media – news reporters to find experts , like you and then they select your article, may re-write it, may contact you for more details or may publish the article as is. During this presentation Ann also explained how to reuse the article information to further attract media and  prospects by putting the shortened versions out into the social  network sites as well. During the upcoming Put Your Year I Gear Ann will go into more detail about how to find out how to check on where your articles get published out to. The team will also help you build your press release kit so that once you are found by the media,  you can quickly respond in the way the press requires so that you will be awarded interviews on the radio, TV and for publications. When Oprah calls you have 24 hours to respond. To find out more about this strategy and get the screen shot , step by-step details go to www.putyouryearingear.com and request your free access now. These will be going away soon.

This past week,  each of our 6 team members who are internet marketing experts , have spent  20-30 minutes to create 7 strategies in  incredible  high content videos to show you exactly what we do with our clients to attract  more leads online. These strategies include how to use the right words to build your huge contact list and how to use the media to get free publicity ONLINE. Here is a series of articles to describe each of the strategies and the link to go get the details for each one so you can use these right now in your business. Strategy 1 – Using the right words to build your Huge contact list When you understand what your ideal prospect is typing in to search online for you and your products, you have gotten to the golden keys. Our team member Rebecca Blackwell explains how to start  the discovery process by reviewing your target market . Some simple questions to answer – though they tend to take a while to get to the real answers- include: What benefits are your customers buying? What results are you offering that they want? What makes this challenging to answer is that we often answer with what they need. This is not relevant to your prospect, they only type in what they want. So be sure to do your research and talk to your favorite current and past clients to find out what they wanted when they  chose you. To find out more about this strategy and get the screen shot , step by-step details go to www.putyouryearingear.com and request your free access now. These will be going away soon ( in November) . Using a list of your products and services is a good starting point since these are more obvious and then back your way into why people want your products or services. Additional key points include looking at how you want your company to be perceived by others. Some questions that help you clarify this focuses on the end results like What do you want your customers to think about or say about your products and services a few months after they purchase? Consider the age range that will be most interested and then use the “so that” statement to connect the benefits to the features. An example would be ~ Hire entertainment for your event “so that” the kids are occupied and entertained for hours, with no work on your part. Once you have the words and phrases that describe your benefits , then go online to find out the traffic for those words or short phrases. In the training,  Rebecca shows the exact screen shots of what to look for in  traffic and the competition for these words so you know what words you should use in your website pages, and other internet based promotional areas like within your social networking. Often the words you initially choose will be high competition and by doing the research and using the tools which include Googles Free Keyword Tracker you will see exactly what similar words have lower competition and sometimes even higher traffic. To build your huge contact list you start by incorporating these newly found gold nuggets of keywords and include them in your website to attract your ideal clients. Once they arrive at your site provide them with high value content that they are anxious  to get in exchange for their email . As you gather the emails your list will grow. In the subsequent strategies we show you how to use the valuable keyword information to attract clients in other ways and ultimately to build an online money magnet. At the Put Your year in Gear event Rebecca will be  covering a lot more detail about how to get to your ideal keywords and how to attract clients online with a variety of key copywriting techniques. To find out more about this strategy and get the screen shot , step by-step details go to www.putyouryearingear.com and request your free access now. These will be going away soon.