Wednesday 29 March 2017

LinkedIn Tip 88 - Is it ALL About YOU?

Do you feel like you need to make a sale at every meeting you attend?

Is everything you do in life and online all about YOU?

How do you feel about sharing other people's posts in your social media?

I heard a comment at a networking meeting the other day that made me think. "Oh Christine has been at it again...sharing other people's things." The tone of voice that was used made me also rethink what I was doing with all my online marketing.

One thing is for sure, I always am open to helping other people get their messages out. If they have an event locally, I will schedule their message to be posted until the date of the event. All they need to do is send me a URL and digitized poster that is easy to share on social media.

What I find appalling in many instances is the reluctance of people to share other people's posts! Don't they realize that being in business and sharing online is not all about them? It is about how many people we can all help, right.

All too often I see people posting things about their business, which comes across as a big pitch every time. They think that educating and informing their audience is telling them how they do this or that better than the competition. Or they price cut.

None of this ever works as well as if we just take time to blog about questions that our clients have had in the past.

Try thinking from your client's point of view. What is their pain? How can you help them get rid of their pain without a pitch?

Personally, I never worry about people stealing my clients when I post someone else's post. If that happens, then those clients were not meant for me in the first place.

If we never give out tips or answer questions through a blog, we never allow people to build the trust needed for business.

Sharing other people's great posts is both a compliment to them and to you, because you were selfless enough to think of them and how you can help them without pitching your own stuff.

In the 'Rule of 10 Posts', 6 are re-posts of other people's great quotes and blogs; 3 are your own blogs educating and informing people; 1 is a pitch where you invite people to your next webinar or workshop or offer a complimentary session.

So, the rule of posting is to pitch your own business 10% of the time. 60% of the time you are sharing and re-posting other people's great posts.

The way social media works and has the most impact is if we all start sharing each other's posts. If we fail to help others, they will not be as open to sharing your posts.

Connect with me and when I see your great posts, I will share it through my networks.

Remember, what goes around, comes around.

"I scratch your back; you scratch mine."

Deal?

Learn more about how I help people through my website below.

Make it a great day!

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress





MM Tip 22 - If Only...

"If only things would just stay the same I could soldier on without continuously having to learn new things. Then I could get a better grip of my business!"

Is that what you think?

If so, I completely understand. Ever since I became involved with a computer and online marketing, there are days when I say, "When will this ever end?"

But that's progress, right.

Have you heard of the "S" Curve of Economics? It is all about building your business and the bottom starts out slowly. Then as you accelerate your business and sales increase, you experience a rapid growth period. When you reach the top of the "S" curve, if you do nothing to expand your business with new ideas and innovations, your business sales will level off and start to drop.

Is your business starting to drop off and you cannot figure out why? You are doing everything the same as before, perhaps even stepping up with your customer service, but those sales just don't seem to be the same as before.

Would you like to increase your sales and avoid the "drop" at the top of your "S" curve?
Here is an example of what you can do to re-invent your business.

Your sales have been going great, but now have started to drop off. Check your products and services. Which ones are still going strong and which ones are dropping off in sales? Perhaps you need to eliminate those that are no longer selling and replace them with new more innovative ideas.

No, it is not you that is causing the drop in sales.  It is just economics, where your competition is going and what is new in the market that will better help your clients.

Sometimes you just need to take a look at your client demographics. Who buys from you? Has that demographic changed? If so, then you need to bring in more ideas to serve your primary demographic.

If the Boomers have been using your products and services more and more, perhaps you need to target them more. If you see that the younger generation is your primary clientelle, target them. Get my drift?

Another thing that you can do is see what your primary clients are needing now.

When I first started my business, I just did LinkedIn. Of course I knew how to use the other platforms, but I realized that there was a need for someone to specialize with LinkedIn. As there did not seem to be many professionals out there who really knew how to exploit every aspect of LinkedIn, I saw a need and filled it.

I still do my LinkedIn coaching, however, I have realized that most of my clients are not doing all the things that I have been teaching them. So I started asking my past clients how I could help them further.

The results were amazing!

I was teaching them that they needed to be blogging and posting on all their key social media 5 times a day. I even gave them an outline of things that they could do. I left them with those ideas, but I saw very few actually start posting anything.

Lightbulb moment! They needed someone to help them with their blogging!

I have now added blogging and several new packages to my repertoire.

Need help with your online marketing?  Marketing Mentress Packages

If you have some LinkedIn questions, I would love to hear them and get back to you through my blog.

Make it a great day!

Christine Till

The Marketing Mentress


 



Wednesday 8 March 2017

MM Tip #20 - The Law of Attraction in Marketing.

Are you attracting your customers to you or are you just pitching them?

As I spend hours each day online searching and reading material, I am astounded at how "pitchy" most of the business blogs are. It has been my observation that people do not respond well to being "pitched" to over and over. However, that said, I also notice that people are trying to blog more, especially on Facebook and LinkedIn. You are on the right track.

Here are some ideas from my own personal experience that will help you understand how to use "attraction" to bring customers to you.

I am a Cub Scout leader. We have a pack that meets in our church every week. I am also a classically trained Mezzo Soprano. Here is how these two completely different ideas came together for me.

For over a year I was called to be the Primary Music Chorister. I directed the singing for the children between 3 and 12 years of age for two hours each Sunday. I used puppets and visual aids and actions and fun activities to help the children learn songs. We had great fun together and the children and I would look forward to singing time together each week.

I dearly love the children and enjoy all their brilliance that they bring to the mix. Great fun!

I learned the name of each child so I could address them by name and help make them feel welcome and part of the group. They each got a turn to be my "monitor" or helper, for want of another word.

Fast forward to a year ago when I was called to be a Cub Scout leader for the pack that met in our church.

Oh, I still get asked to pinch hit for the person who is now the chorister in Primary. So the children and I see each other almost every week and we wink at each other and say, "Hi!".

It has now been a year since I was first called to be a Cub Scout leader and I am really not very good at it, in my humble opinion, but I love those boys and they know it.  My name in the Pack is Rukshaw, from the mother wolf in Jungle Book. The big leader of our pack is Akela. 

Together we help the boys 8 to 10 years of age choose activities along the Canadian Path outlined for the Scouting program in Canada.

We have done many great, amusing, fun and challenging activities this past year and our "fame" has been heard among all the young 7 year old boys. We did things like help the boys to extract banana DNA, build fires, have a bike challenge, geo cashing, orienteering, map reading, international day, baking pizza from scratch, make pinatas, knot tying, tons of games and treasure hunts galore.

These are the things that all the younger boys have been hearing.

A few years ago Michael Losier wrote a book called The Law of Attraction. I highly recommend that you read it. It happened to be published at the same time the movie came out and neither one were connected to the other. Talk about divine intervention!

Back to my story.

It has taken a couple of years of consistent effort to build the know, like and trust with the children in Primary. Until one day I had young children come running up to me to give me a big hug whenever I walked into Primary or into the church. What a pleasant surprise!

Yesterday morning I was sitting in a pew waiting for church to start and along came several children, who sat beside me and gave me hugs and shared all about their week and birthdays coming up.  It moved me to tears!

It was all I could do to keep from breaking down on the spot! These precious children made my heart swell, nearly popping out of my chest.

It all happened because I took time to just listen to them and get to know each of them better. One of the children was a boy of 7, who said his birthday is in May, and he is so excited to come to join our Cub Pack! He just wanted to sit with me the whole church meeting despite the promptings to go sit with his family. Finally he begrudgingly went to sit with them at his Dad's insistence.

This story came about because of The Law of Attraction.

My question to you is, "How attractive are you to the people around you?

Are you making it easy for people to approach you and want to do business with you? Is your focus on others or is it on yourself?"

Most of my customers come to me as a result of practicing this great law.

I promise you that if you start applying it, you will receive great results.

Remember that it takes time to build that trust we need and want for business. Also remember that our customers are people too. Their needs are much like our own.

Because I care about you and want to help you in any way I can, I am inviting you to attend a webinar to help clear the fog with the new LinkedIn platform that is now showing up. The cost is minimal...$20.00 Canadian + taxes. It is called "What the Blue Blazes Happened to LinkedIn?"

Date: March 21st at 7:00pm MST

See you there!


Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress


MM Tip #21 - No Time to Execute Your Own Marketing Plan?

As a solopreneur, how can you get everything done for your own business?

When you are the one who serves the customers and also builds your business, sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day! When will you have time to create a solid presence on your social media?

There is nobody to delegate to, except to find someone who can be your 'clone for a day.'
I just might have a solution for you.

For years I have been coaching solopreneurs on how to use LinkedIn and social media marketing for business. They all get very excited and by the time we are finished our training, teaching them how to do it for themselves, they are so overwhelmed that they don't know which end of the computer is up, let along get going with their online marketing and branding.

I have noticed that most solopreneurs have great intensions, but few ever get to it.

This dilemma has been bothering me for a while, so I have come up with some solutions.

There are some packages that I have developed that can help save you huge amounts of time and yet still provide you with a great online presence that is professional and attracts your customers to you, rather than you feeling like you need to pitch to them all the time. (Pitching just turns people off anyway.)

It is your blog that needs to be at the center of your marketing program. It is also great if that blog is on your website, however, if you do not have one on your website, you can always set up a free blog site as your temporary website.

Since your blog is the engine that runs your entire marketing program, it is imperative that you start blogging. However, if you do not know how to blog and have never done it before, you can hire a ghostwriter...ME!

Many people have mentioned to me that I am a good writer, so I thought that I would offer my services to others. All you do is record your thoughts for each blog on your phone and attach the recording to an email you send over to me. I can have your blog up and posted in a very short time.

If you need more, I have other packages to offer you that include a "do-it-for-you" program.

Is money short? We can find a grant that will help cover costs.

Check out my packages: Marketing Mentress Service Packages

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress



LI Tip #83 - Has the New Look Found You Yet?

Monday when I logged into my LinkedIn account, voila, the new look appeared!

I can see that there will be opportunity for a series on how to navigate this new platform.

How exciting!

Let's start with the Home page.

Love the new look! It is a lot like it appears on my iPhone.

It takes time to learn the nuances, but seems pretty user friendly.

You can still publish on the home page like before. You can also post updates like before.

My Network page:

Definitely looks like it does on my iPhone. However, when you accept a connection, it does not automatically show a message with an envelope to click and send a "thank you for linking up" message.

To the top left of the page, LinkedIn shows your number of views in the last 90 days and the number of views your latest blog post has received. In that same box, LinkedIn also invites you to use your email to search for people you know and invite them to connect with you on LinkedIn. I read the notes and they say that they will only invite your network from that email ONE time and not continue to pester them to death. However, I was stung with this feature before and will never give LinkedIn my password to my email again. They just kept on inviting my email network to connect with me on LinkedIn and I had my whole family furious at me because I was inviting all my little grandchildren to join LinkedIn. (They have special emails just to use with family.)

My gut feeling is that I don't even want one message sent to my entire network on email!
Get my drift?

I notice that the little box in the upper right hand corner is now gone. That was where you could 'like' 15 of your connections each day, if you wanted. No big loss though, because it has been added to your 'Notifications' feed.

So far, I really like and am enjoying all the updates.

Will keep you posted.

To catch my latest webinars, reserve your seats at:
MM 101 - Doing it right the first time out, up close and personal
Second Thursday of each month: 7-9pm
MM 202 - The Secrets of the groups. LinkedIn and Facebook
Third Thursday of each month: 7-9pm
MM 303 - Putting it all together on 15-30 minutes once or twice a day.
Fourth Thursday of each month: 7-9pm
What the Blue Blazes Happened to LinkedIn?!

See you there!

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress




LinkedIn Tip #84 - Advanced Search is NOT Gone!

Happy Day! "Advanced Search" on LinkedIn is not gone for good?

We simply have a new way of accessing it.

Go to your profile page.

Once you place your cursor in the 'Search' box at the top, Click 'Enter'.

The next window that you see will show you all the different search criteria to choose from in order for you to perform your searches.

You can search for People, Jobs, Posts, Companies, Groups, and Schools.

On the right side is a list of all the different criteria to use for your searches. I have attached some more helpful tips on how to perform searches with the new platform.

How to do searches on LinkedIn: Searching on LinkedIn

Because of all these new changes to LinkedIn, I have decided to do a webinar to help you out.

We will learn how to do searches, how to manage our connections, how to invite to connect and respond to requests to connect with a personalized message. We will also discover where to find all the old items we have become familiar with on the old version, as well as how to navigate the 'Groups'.

You will have a full two hours of "Newness"!

It will be a fun-packed meeting. Spaces are limited, so reserve early.

What the Blue Blazes Happened to LinkedIn?


Make it a great day!

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress





LI Tip #85 - Why should I be using Social Media for my marketing?

Are you one of those people who has been sitting on the fence?

I don't blame you.

Personally, I would not be using any social media whatsoever if I had not seen that I needed to be using it to reach a target market back in 2009, when I was working with a senior care organization. The company provided home care services for seniors so they could age in place. Their own research showed that 73% of the time seniors made a decision, the kids were involved helping them make those decisions. And it was usually the gals.

But where were the gals when I was doing a presentation at a senior centre? They were at work.

These gals would come home at night in tears from the stress of being sandwiched between aging parents and their own careers and families. They were searching for help.

My boss refused to pay for any online marketing time, so I decided to do it on my own.

The very first time I posted a blog about senior care, within an hour I had a response back from a gal saying she had no idea something like this was available to help her with her 95 year old Dad.

When I showed this to my boss, he still refused to pay for any online marketing.

Seeing that response in such a short time was amazing to me! It was proof enough that I needed to keep on doing what I was doing.

Since then I have launched my own business as The Marketing Mentress in January 2011.

Today, I have clients that I coach to help them with LinkedIn and setting up their online marketing network. I teach them that their blog needs to be the engine that runs their entire marketing program online, and offline. It is through blogging that they can relate to their audience by sharing tips and information to educate and inform them.

The blog us used to build the trust that is so valuable in your business. People like to do business with people they trust.

Adding video and recorded podcasts is also a bonus that adds credibility.

There are so many wonderful people that I have helped over the years, but it breaks my heart to see that most of them still are not blogging. It breaks my heart to see this because I know from experience that their marketing program will never succeed to its potential without a blog.

So what I have done is start to provide a blogging service for people.

If you are looking for someone to write blogs for you, get back to me and we will start your 'engine' for your marketing program. See my email below.

Make it a great day!

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress




Li Tip #86 - Did You Know that You can Control Viewers of this Profile Also Viewed?

Have you wondered why this isn't showing up on some profiles you view?

A fellow colleague drew this to my attention this morning. Thank you Wayne Breitbarth!

There are so many nuances to LinkedIn that there are some features which often get overlooked. The "People Also Viewed" feature is one of these.

When we look at someone else's profile, we can see a list of "People also viewed" members to the right hand side of the profile page. Have you wondered how LinkedIn compiles this?

When someone looks at a profile, it is usually because you have something in common or some similarities. Or the people you are checking out all have something in common. Or they could be people you know. LinkedIn's algorithms pick up on these little similarities and displays them in your "People also viewed" section of your profile. Speaking in very simple terms.

There is also a way to turn this on or off for your profile.

Click on the tiny icon in your upper right hand corner of your profile page and scroll down to the "Privacy & Settings" tab. Left click.

On the next page, left click on "Privacy".

Then scroll down to "Viewers of this profile also viewed". Left click.

Choose whether to turn it on or off.

It asks if LinkedIn should display the viewers of this profile (meaning your profile). You can choose "Yes or No". By choosing "No", you will turn off the display in your right hand column that lists the profiles of "people also viewed".

Turning this feature off can be helpful when you do not wish your competitors to show up on your "People also viewed" list of your profile.

You can still view the "People also viewed" list of other profiles...unless they have turned this feature off, of course.

With the "People also viewed" feature turned off, you can still see your "Who's Viewed My Profile" list on a daily basis and respond with the people there using your personalized messages and paid InMail.

To catch the Early Bird for my next webinar, reserve before February 10th or the second Friday of the month, The Secrets of the Groups on LinkedIn and Facebook: http://bit.ly/SecretsoftheGroups

Make it a great day!

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress


LinkedIn Tip # 87 - Whose Viewed Your Profile?

Have you ever wondered what this feature is used for on your LinkedIn?

Every time you log into your profile, you see faces of all these lovely people that have viewed your profile, right. Have you wondered what they wanted from you or why they stopped by to view your profile?

I used to wonder what I could do with this feature until one day, it dawned on me. This is like a networking meeting only online, and I should introduce myself and ask them if I can help them in some way.

It is a lot like having your own store front on main street. When someone comes into your store, what do you do?

First you let them browse a bit before you "pounce" on them.

Then you slowly walk up to them making yourself busy doing little things until you are close by and then you ask how you may help or be of service to them? Or what are they looking for?

Notice how I am using open ended questions?

So I started going into my list of people who viewed my profile and asking them how I may help them or answer a question.

Now here is a trick, you can only do this if you have paid InMail. If I am not connected to the person who has viewed my profile, I can use one of my paid InMails to reach out to that person and not only ask them how I may be of service, but also invite them to connect with me.

Most of the time I reach out like this, I get a response back. It all depends on how you ask them. You need to ask open ended questions that they have to respond to with more than "yes or no". And you need to speak in their best interest...not yours.

It has been my privilege to get clients from this process...much like you do in a store on main street.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me or attend my next webinar.

By the way, how is LinkedIn working for you? I have a special webinar coming up on the 21st of March called "What the Blue Blazes Happened to LinkedIn?!"

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress