In case you weren't aware of this, the first time I tried to start a business of my own, I failed miserably. In fact, after spending about 6 months struggling to find more than just 1 major client, I ended up tucking my tail between my legs and going back to the big-brand ad agency world, where I worked regularly with clients like Sony and Adobe and helped them boost their profits instead of following my heart and making a living on my own terms.

If you'd told me back then that I'd have a successful small business, become an author, coach solo professionals and small business owners around the world and have clients approach me rather than the other way around, I'd have thought you were crazy! You see, my first attempt at self-employment was so frought with stress and frustration that I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to make it ... until I made a simple connection:

The techniques I'd developed *that were working* for my big-name clients could also work for me! Not on the same scale, of course, but the principles themselves were exactly the same. I used them for my small business this time around, and that made all the difference!

So answer me this ...

Would you like to know what I figured out -- and more importantly, would you like to know how these simple principles can help you grow your own solo or small business?

Fantastic! I'm going to be giving you the details during a special F.R.E.E. teleseminar next Tuesday, February 6th called ...

Brand Your Way to Small Business Success!

During this call I'll reveal more about my own struggles and ultimate triumphs, as well as show you how you can use my simple strategies to get more clients and stop the 'stress cycle' in 30 days or less with your own small business brand!

To get all the info about the call and reserve your spot, simply head to:

http://AvenueEast.com/vipteleseminar

You don't want to miss this call! It could make all the difference for you in 2007 ... and beyond.

BTW In case you're not sure you can make the call on Tuesday, make sure to sign up anyway. We'll be making the audio recording available to you after the call so that you can still learn new ways to start getting better results with your business, reduce stress and start attracting clients to come to you!

Hope to have you on the line with me next Tuesday!

In the latest issue of Avenues to Marketing Success, I wrote about the power of blogging, and it only makes sense for me to fill you in a little more on why I personally blog.

Giving out information to readers like you is one key way that I can help you grow your business a small tidbit of marketing knowledge at a time. I hear from enough of you that this appears to be quite helpful to you, especially if you are new to your business or you're uncomfortable marketing yourself regardless of how long you've been in business.

I don't get a lot of comments here directly on the blog (though if you want to comment, you're welcome to -- click on the Comments link below), but I do get tons of e-mails asking for more information about what I've written, clarifying comments I've made and that sort of thing. I love hearing from you, and you give me priceless information about how I can better help you in the future with all your questions, so keep the questions coming! And feel free to share them here on the blog if you wish.

I also shouldn't neglect the fact that I personally love having an outlet to get out my frustration about some marketers' attempts to sway you to their services just so they can make a buck, even though there is little or no value to what they offer. I just got an e-mail this morning from the 30th Internet marketer promoting the same thing as everyone else, with the same e-mail every single time, down to the typos. I know that we're all in business and don't have time to reinvent the wheel every time we send out new offers, but honestly, make sure that if you use any sort of canned sales letter for any reason in your own business to tailor it to the way YOU write. Sorry for the mini-rant, which is somewhat beside the point.

What I should have said before I got off on that tangent was that long prior to getting today's e-mails, I also got apologies ... APOLOGIES from a number of folks who had sent the promotion out because they hadn't done their homework to see if the product in question was worthwhile. C'mon. You make thousands and thousands of dollars from each e-mailing you send out, and you can't take the time to verify if ANY of the information is useful?

I expect more. Your customers expect more. And that's where your blog can come in handy.

When you write a blog, here are some hints:

Get personal.

Dig deep.

Give it your all.

Don't try to sucker people into buying from you unless you offer a good product.

Show your value by showing yourself and your brand values to your readers.

And remember:

You don't have to be perfect in your communications, but the more you write about things in a blog that are helpful to your clients and prospects, the more feedback you get about what's helpful and what isn't. And you also become a better writer, helping you with all of your promotions in the future.

I urge you to consider starting a blog to give your prospects a better sense of who you are and what you stand for (that's a HUGE part of the branding process, after all, and I would be remiss if I didn't say so!) Blog for humanity. *laughs* Blog for your sanity. After all, if I didn't have this blog, I'd have nowhere to rant and rave! :) I don't think my cat cares what I think about marketing as long as she get her ocean fish dinner in gravy!

Think a blog doesn't work to draw in clients? Then why did you read this post?!

I wrote an article a few months back about how the entire marketing process is like dating -- you have to warm people up to you prior to getting them ready to open their wallets, to cut to the chase.

A more sensitive way of putting this is that your prospects are like someone you date: The first date is most important because it determines whether there's a second date. The second date determines whether there's a third date. At some point, there's a kiss -- and the beginning of a real relationship (and not necessarily in that order).

That's exactly how marketing works as well (and why you want your brand in order before you even make it to the very first date!). If you don't give your prospects reasons to seek you out a second time, if you don't charm them the first time, you're out. So that first impression means a lot.

There's an entire section in my High-Concept Brand Bible that explains the power of first impressions and why you need to make your small business's first impression nothing short of stellar. But not everyone understands this ...

I recently placed an ad on my local Craigslist for a simple subcontracting project for someone with a certain type of professional skills. The help I needed is far less interesting or illuminating than the responses I received -- and you can learn a lot about romancing your prospects from what I received.

Some examples:

1) An overly confident message from someone who sounds polished, but overbearing. The job in question is a simple task for someone who has done this professionally, and I am not concerned at all about finding someone who can handle the task. But I do not want to work with someone who appears to be in love with herself. There is a balance that you must find to be appealingly confident, whether you're on a date, trying to get hired for a freelance job or selling your products.

2) A resume that had absolutely nothing to do with the job I needed filled. The guy had been a producer, counselor, lawyer and a lot of other things that sounded great, but had no bearing on the task at hand -- and there was no cover letter to give context. If you're on a first date, you need to make sure to make a little polite conversation about yourself rather than throw out a catalog of everything you've ever done, right? Why wasn't that done here? I don't know, but I passed on that application. Give context and you'll get further (as in "I can help scrapbooking enthusiasts like you better than the rest because of my extensive experience as a scrapbooker myself" -- show the prospect why they can relate to you).

3) One applicant ended up telling me her life story, switched gears to ask about payment rather abruptly (which is a legitimate query, but not in the aggressive way that the applicant asked), and then began mentioning where she lived and how difficult it would be for her if she had to leave her home office for any reason. Other than the life story, none of the content of the application in and of itself was too problematic -- except that it was sent in an almost stream-of-consciousness manner that made me afraid she wouldn't be able to complete assignments and/or would end up spending more time chatting with me than performing the task, which I am outsourcing to save myself time. I love to work with great people, but ... this was a weird application and the person, however lovely in real life, seemed a little scatterbrained for the detail-oriented position I needed filled.

4) An earnest e-mail from someone with no experience, but the strong desire for the work. I may end up hiring this person, but there's one killer sentence in the freelancer's application that just blows away any value her potential clients might have for her -- she gave her recommended rates for the position, and then stated that if that was too much, to please "tell her what she is worth." If you are not confident about your rates, it is better not to mention them at first than to backpeddle so quickly in your marketing materials. Instead, say that your rates are competitive, and you can be flexible to meet the needs of the assignment. And better yet, gain the confidence you need to stand behind the fees you really want to make by building a brand for your business -- and then get what you ask for!

In any case, what impressed me the most out of this experience is that there is a HUGE market for talented small business owners who know how to communicate themselves well to their prospects in fields even I wasn't aware of. So don't tell yourself that you're not good enough to get high rates, that you're not able to break out of your current situation or, on the other hand, that there's no room for improvement in the way that you handle your prospecting, think again. What kind of romancing do your prospects need? And how can you improve your marketing skills, how can you strengthen your brand to get ahead?

At the end of the day, it's all about taking action to improve yourself. I have faith in you. Do you?

Are you fearless?

I have personally put in a lot of time lately to get Avenue East's business/marketing plans for 2006 and beyond hashed out. Strategizing like this is great fun for me because it lets me see how we'll be able to help people, expand our reach to an even greater number of small business owners, etc. In essence, it's my blueprint for my business, with flexibility built in, of course. (If you don't do this sort of planning for your own business, you should! But that's another topic, so I'll try not to preach here.) :)

While I was developing the plan -- just a Word document full of ideas, goals and information on how to make all of the above happen -- I constantly referred to a question that I like to ask myself time and again: Am I aiming high enough with my goals?

If so, then all was good. If not, I thought through the idea in order to determine how to set my sights higher. Why? Because when you aim low, you get what you ask for, and nothing more.

Think long and hard about what I am about to note, which is critical to your future success. Make it your mantra for the future. Here goes ...

If you make decisions based solely on your fear of failure, you are not giving yourself the chance to get ahead.

But what does that mean? Think about what is holding you back. Write down those reasons; make sure not to forget to mention any fears that might be keeping you from putting your business into the limelight and getting the attention it deserves. Then think about all you have to GAIN from taking calculated risks.

It's hard to put yourself out there. I know it can be scary to think about getting (gulp!) a lot of attention for yourself, a higher income, a changed lifestyle, or what have you. Change is hard for most people to take, especially if you have always thought of more wealthy individuals as somehow greedy because of their financial prosperity. (How can it be bad to make your family's life better? You also have the opportunity to help others more if your business brings in more profits, so it doesn't have to benefit only you.)

As you start off 2006, make sure that you aim for the very best that you can achieve -- and then implement a realistic plan to help you get there!

Again, a side note based on an ezine I subscribe to ... An expert marketer just weighed in on how ineffective branding is as a way of generating income for a business, and I felt the need to rebut such outlandish claims.

Your brand is the overriding theme of all of your marketing, from start to finish. It's what makes people choose your business over the competition, makes it simple to understand why you're special and makes the most of your company's biggest strengths in the marketplace.

Done right, your branding efforts make it much easier to market your business over time -- giving you the platform your business needs to serve as a solid basis for all of your campaigns and to keep clients coming back to you time and again.

What the experts call "branding" isn't branding

Every last one of the marketers I've heard "dissing" branding as a discipline are talking about the overly hype-ridden fluff that some "brand marketers" claim is effective in generating awareness of your business, but never gets a response. Of course that stuff is fluffy -- the marketing equivalent of the gooey marshmallow fluff you use to make Rice Krispie Treats, tasty in combination with something of more substance, but ineffective in and of itself. The "branding" that these experts are referring to are those silly ads in mainstream magazines and on TV that do nothing other than entertain a little and do nothing to generate a response.

But every brand marketer worthy of being called one (and I modestly include myself in that category) knows that a real brand is the foundation for everything else in your business, and in no way means that you can stop marketing yourself entirely the moment that you have outlined your brand identity. Marketing requires asking people to act, to buy, and it is the next step in the process after establishing a brand for your small business.

My upcoming manual helps people use a brand strategy as a means of strengthening their message to prospects -- and then use that strategy to market themselves more effectively. Anything less would be unhelpful and not worth the paper the book is printed on. But don't tell me that branding is useless -- it works for companies large and small all the time.

One last rant

With literally no exceptions, every single marketer who has spoken out against branding has done an *amazing* job branding himself or herself as an expert in a particular marketing field and works hard at keeping that reputation intact. You can't tell me that branding doesn't work because it sends work their way time and again. If they don't see branding for what it is, it's simply because they're calling it another name.

/rant mode off

[Originally appeared in Avenues to Marketing Success]

Imagine for a moment your average work day. Consider all the decisions you have to make, the types of problems you have to troubleshoot and that stack of stuff you just can't get to and keep setting aside for a rainy day.

If you're that busy, very likely so are your clients and prospects. After all, the world is more complex now and people are faced with more choices and decisions to make than ever before.

As a result, you need to think of ways to simplify your marketing message to make your clients' lives easier -- and literally almost spoonfeed them the reasons why they should choose you. If they don't know what you do or why to choose you, they won't. It's that simple.

In my upcoming marketing course, I will be sharing my comprehensive system to create a professional brand for yourself just like Avenue East does for its clients. Here's a sneak peek of some basic branding principles you should consider in order to make it easy for clients to say "yes" to you.

1. Carefully identify what you do for your clients.

Many business owners focus on the products or services they provide. Your clients are interested in what you do for them. Whether you sell products or services, outline the problems you help your clients solve.

2. What got you into this business to begin with? And why are you still doing it?

In the frantic day-to-day stress of the business day, it's easy to forget why you love what you do. Thinking about what keeps you going every day can help you figure out how best to communicate your marketing message -- and it will re-energize you so that you can put more power behind your message.

3. Analyze your competition.

If you haven't taken the time to take a look at your competition lately, it's high time you did. Examine the way they communicate their brand, their target audience (is it the same as yours?), the marketing tools they use to get the word out, etc. and see what you can learn from them.

4. What differentiates you from your competitors?

Are you actually different? Why? And if you're not different, you might want to focus on a slightly different target audience -- say, instead of all restaurant workers, only the upscale establishments in your area. Or you might want to brand yourself based on a benefit you've not considered before.

It has to be something that your clients also care about -- but you likely have something that makes you a much better option than the next business. What is it?

5. Summarize your brand message in a sentence.

Outline the problems you solve for your clients (see above), your ideal clients, and why you're different.

6. Include your brand message in all of your upcoming marketing campaigns.

Everything you do as a business sends signals to your clients and prospects. That's right, every single thing from your letterhead to your answering machine message to the look of your shopfront (if you have one, of course) lets other people know what your business stands for.

So what signals are you sending? Consider your:

• letterhead
• business cards
• tagline
• latest sales letter
• attire and that of your employees
• range of services or products
• the way you answer the phone

... and the list could go on and on!

When you concentrate on a single message for your brand, you will find that your clients better understand what you do and why they should choose you. If you can help make some decisions for them by creating a coherent brand for your small business, they'll appreciate you so much that they'll send business your way ... over and over again.

Ever read an article and think, "My sentiments exactly"? This happened to me a moment ago.

As I sat sorting through the dozens and dozens of my e-mails from the past couple of weeks that I didn't get to during the Thanksgiving holiday, I came across an article by Paul Lawrence that focused on a philosophy I have espoused in my life for a long time -- and it might be of help to you.

Whether you're aware of it or not, fear likely dictates a large number of your actions, day in and day out, both in your business and in your personal life. It might be fear of failure, fear of being unable to provide for your family, fear of success, you name it. We all face these fears on a regular basis.

Lawrence talks about the power of the Magic Question, however, as a way of coping with his own fears ... and since it is *exactly* what I ask myself when I face a new challenge, I wanted to share this Magic Question with you too.

Before I mention the question itself, consider this: Most solutions to your huge problems are not earth-shattering. They are not mind-blowing, over-the-top changes that you must make to achieve your goals. You just have to follow the common-sense advice and put it into action.

So what's the Magic Question, you ask? "What's the worst that could happen?"

When you are in a situation that brings out your fears and insecurities, simply ask yourself what the absolute worst thing is that could happen to you if everything went wrong.

For instance, I am about to launch a new course on how to brand your small business, and although I have already had a number of clients express interest in the course, of course there is always the possibility that no one will buy it, everyone will laugh me out of town and my business will fail to grow at the rate that I have planned. But none of that is likely to happen, and allowing my fears to rule my actions would be silly.

The same goes for you: What's the worst that could happen if you took a calculated risk?

[Reposted due to database problem]

I get enough inquiries from new subscribers asking me for advice on job hunting that I decided to post about it once and for all. The key principles of job hunting are so similar to that of marketing as a whole because a job hunt is, in essence, finding a job (market) for yourself that needs what you offer and convincing your employer (prospect) to select you over all other applicants (the competition).

Some simple suggestions before you start your next job search (and notice that these principles work for small business marketing as well):

Develop a personal brand that maximizes key strengths that only you can offer your employer.

Establish a network of people throughout your industry who can help you meet others who might want to hire you. I love hiring people who are referred to me because I know more about the person than what I'm seeing on a resume and cover letter.

Get professional "marketing materials" made up. In the case of a job hunt, you need to have a professionally written resume and cover letter that tell your prospective employer exactly why YOU and only you can meet their needs. If you're not a professional writer (and most of you are not), hire a resume writing professional to help you. Just like a copywriter trained to sell with words, a good resume writer knows how to make you look good on paper.

Dress the part. You don't have to wear a $1,000 suit to look professional, but dress as nice as (or nicer than) the folks interviewing you. You only have 1 chance to make a good impression.

Look up practice questions on a job search website and think through your answers prior to entering the room with your prospective employer. The fewer surprises you allow for, the more confident you'll be.

Shake hands like a winner. Come across confidently and you're halfway there.

During the interview, turn comments about yourself into benefits you offer the company. When a company is looking to hire someone, whether we're talking about an employee or a vendor, they want to know what they have to gain. So show them!

Follow up. Dash off a quick thank-you note to your contact at the company reiterating your interest in working with him or her. If you don't hear back within a reasonable period of time, write a polite e-mail or make a quick phone call to ask about the status of the job. Don't be pushy, but show your interest.

When you look at the steps, it doesn't seem all that difficult. But many people skip one or many of the items on this list, whether for their small business marketing or in the midst of a job search. The most important lesson of all, however, is to learn from your mistakes. If you go into one interview and find that you aren't as prepared in a particular area as you should be, work on this for the next appointment.

Good luck ... in your job hunting or your small business marketing. It's all based on the same principles, after all.

[Reposted due to database problem]

I'm not one to combine politics and business, but it occurred to me when I saw the early morning news today that there's a serious connection between branding and the Supreme Court Justice nominee process that's going on here in the U.S.

Bush's latest nominee, Harriet Miers, is apparently a workaholic dedicated to her job. Regardless of your politics, that in and of itself isn't a problem (though I prefer to work fewer than 17 hours a day, thank you very much, unlike Ms. Miers). But she isn't flashy. Doesn't call attention to herself and her accomplishments, either on the job or in the church in which she is active. No one knows who she is, what she does and why she may or may not be good at doing it.

That's fine and good if you don't want to achieve a high level of success -- in your career or your small business. If you want to succeed, however, you need to create a solid brand for yourself and/or your small business.

We like to tell ourselves that we should be able to remain true to ourselves and get noticed in our own right without our having to work at it. With all due respect, however, if you believe that, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you ...

People are busy. Their lives are crazy. These people -- your prospects -- have more distractions today than they've ever had in the history of time. Cell phones. PDAs. Just logging onto the Internet provides more distractions than you would have had in an entire day 20 years ago.

You need to shake things up, figure out what's special about yourself and your small business and then go out and spread the word! What are you waiting for? If you're up for Supreme Court Justice someday, wouldn't you want people at least to have some clue who you are? That's what High-Concept Branding is all about. And in a shameless plug, my forthcoming branding book will launch in just weeks. So stay tuned for more info.