7 Ways To Stay Motivated For The Long Haul

Posted on April 7, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

Staying motivated for the long haul is both challenging and necessary. We live in a fast-paced society where instant gratification is the norm. We may discover that we need skills and attributes to help us stay positive and on course as we deal with the ups and downs of business. We come to learn that growing a business is a process that requires patience, flexibility, trust, and the ability to deal with uncertainty, among other things.

It is important to note that we can learn new skills and attributes to help us in our business. Entrepreneurship is no longer something someone is just “born to do” instead it is something we learn. Through practice and patience, we have the ability to change what is not working and enhance what is working so that we can successfully grow our business.

Below are 7 ways to stay motivated for the long haul:

Make/Renew your Commitment – Being committed to one’s business venture is essential to staying motivated for the long haul. When we make a commitment to ourselves and our business, we are able to move beyond fears, doubts and insecurities that in the past may have held us back. I know this to be true because I experienced it. I didn’t make a commitment to my business until I was in business for almost three years. I would fluctuate in my commitment depending upon the circumstances. When things were going good, I was committed, when they weren’t, I thought about giving up. It wasn’t until I made a written and verbal commitment to myself that I was going to give this business my all, no matter what, that I began to reap the benefits of being an entrepreneur. What I learned is that when we are most challenged is when we need to be committed the most.

Be Agile/Flexible – Combined with being committed is being agile and flexible. Bill Rancic, winner of The Apprentice reality-tv series was recently a guest on my radio show, The Entrepreneur Hour. He said, “having a business plan is important but being flexible with the plan is more important.” Bill completely revamped his marketing strategy for his cigarsaroundtheworld.com business when his original business strategy wasn’t working. He shared about how we need to leave our egos at the door and just do what needs to be done.

Develop a support network – A support network includes friends, colleagues and family who celebrate our successes and help us through our challenging times. While it is easy to call a support person to celebrate a success, it can be difficult to call and ask for help or express a difficulty. It’s at the moment when we reach out and share our challenges, or ask for help that we begin to experience relief from the problem or challenge, see solutions and recognize the value of the people who support us. The support we receive is as strong as our ability to share the good times and bad.

Stay Balanced – When we are balanced within ourselves by getting enough rest, having healthy eating habits and taking take our spiritual needs, we are better able to cope with challenges. If you find yourself becoming irritable, impatient or the like, check first within your being – mind, body and spirit to see is you are in balance. We are always better able to cope and stay motivated when we take care of our human needs.

Be Realistic –Being realistic means that we know and expect ups and downs while growing and operating our business. These ups and downs may include anything from success to disaster. Our opportunity in being realistic is to know and believe that we have the skills within us to deal with any situation, regardless of the circumstances.

Choose a positive attitude – Having a positive attitude is a choice we can make at any moment of any day. We might be dealing with a difficult situation and while our natural tendency is to feel negative, we can choose to be positive. A positive outlook and attitude is a necessity in staying motivated for the long haul.

Stay Present – When we stay present to our business and to ourselves, we stay out of fear and worry. Staying present means that we “stay in the day” in our minds. We do this by not projecting our fears into the future or worrying about something that may or may not happen. Just like worry is a habit, we can develop the habit of staying present and being free from worry. Sometimes it helps to remind ourselves that all is okay for today.

Staying motivated for the long haul is a one day at a time journey. Enjoy the ride!

 

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7 Types Of Sales Letters You Can Use To Improve Profit Margins

Posted on March 6, 2012 by admin| Leave a comment

While the main objective for sales letters does not change at all – and that’s to encourage customers to avail of your products and services – there are different types of approaches you can use to make them more effective.

7 Types of Sales Letter You Can Use to Improve Profit Margins

Introductory Sales Letters – This is perhaps the most discussed about type of sales letter in the Internet. This type of sales letter introduces your company to prospective customers. Readers may or may not know about you, but either way, they’re sure not to have bought from you, and your sales letter should tell them why it’s time to change that fact. When writing this letter, keep it as brief as possible because they don’t know you well enough to believe that reading more than one page of your letter would do them any good.

Product Update Sales Letters – This is mainly for old and existing sales customers. The primary thrust of this letter is to let them know about your latest product offerings and how they compare to previous items in your product line. Usually, sales letters of this ilk offer incentives as well for customers to buy during the promotional period. Make sure you include details about the expiration date for the promo period as well as information for ordering just in case they’ve forgotten how already.

Selling Incentive Sales Letters – This type of sales letter is also for old and existing customers. Although you’re not offering them anything new to buy, you’re offering them the chance to purchase old or existing products and services for lower or better rates. There could be discounts, rebates, or other selling incentives. It could be a contest or any other promotion to encourage them to buy more and buy now.

When writing this type of letter, it’s important to make the incentive as exciting and attractive as possible. Secondly, emphasize the urgency. Selling incentives last for a brief period of time – it has to or you might go bankrupt – so make sure they understand that the clock’s ticking away!

Thank You Sales Letters – If it’s the first time for any individual to avail of your products and services, always send them a thank you letter right after completing their purchases. You don’t have to do it and they know it. But you did it all the same and customers will always appreciate your efforts. It will also make them remember your website more easily. At the end of your letter, of course, make sure that you mention what other great products and services are awaiting them in your website upon their return.

Holiday Sales Letters – Never let any important holiday in the year pass by without writing to your customers. Write to them one or two weeks before the holiday. Write the appropriate greetings then segue with explanations as to why your products or services could be a perfect gift for the celebrated holiday. If you have holiday promotional offers you definitely have to mention them in this letter.

Company Celebration Sales Letters – These sales letters establish the fact that you think of your customers as part of your family, and that’s why you include them in your celebrations. If this year marks the 60th year you are in business then make sure that you let your customers know this. Acknowledge the role they’ve played in your success and of course don’t forget to end the letter with an invitation to drop by your website in order to build stronger and longer lasting bonds. These letters also apply for any achievement, award, or recognition that has been bequeathed to your company.

We Miss You Sales Letters – Your customer or order tracking software can usually alert you when a long period of time has elapsed since certain customers have dropped by or purchased from your website. Make sure to send them “we miss you” sales letters to these customers as well as customized information regarding your newest products and services that you’re sure they’ll welcome based on data from their previous orders.

These may take time to write, but it’s an effort well-spent because it ensures that your customers will remember you – even when though much time has passed since their last visit – simply because you took the time to remember them as well.

 

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3 Steps To Selecting And Using The Right Keywords For Your Site

Posted on October 10, 2011 by admin| Leave a comment

Keywords play a great role in how popular (or unpopular) your website is in the internet. Here are three steps for using and picking keywords for internet marketing purposes.

Your website traffic is your business’ lifeblood. It is therefore of great importance that you employ all possible measures in order to increase your website traffic. One way to increase traffic is through search engine optimization or SEO.

The key to SEO is to select the right keywords that would drive targeted traffic to your website. The idea is to get visitors who are more likely to be persuaded to become your customers. Therefore, it is very important that you find the right keywords in order to get your target or your niche market.

Search engines are practically driven by millions of keywords, so there is a great need for you to find only the relevant keywords that you would need to make your site relevant to your intended audience. Here are some important points that you have to consider in determining the keywords that would get you noticed by your niche market.

Step 1: Study the competition

Is there a room for more? There is a need for you determine if your niche has a room for another competitor and another website. A particular niche may be saturated with too many websites and businesses endorsing their products that, inadvertently, you would always rank poorly in search engines queries.

Studying your competition and your niche size is very important in order to find the right keywords. Unless you are running a well-established website or blog, you should avoid keywords with high rate of search. Most likely, these keywords are used by a great number of your competitors. It will be very difficult for you to rank high in search results.

You should, therefore, carefully examine and study your keywords before anything else. This is very important because your keywords would determine your success in your marketing campaign.

If you find that your niche is indeed saturated, your option is to use more specific keywords. You must avoid general keywords, and instead, break the general keywords down. The goal is to choose keywords that have a minimal amount of competition.

Step 2: Research your keywords

Determine the characteristics of your keywords for your niche. The goal is to find the most pertinent keywords – pertinent to your business and your niche. This is extremely important in order to get your target market.

If your keywords are relevant to your market, chances are high that by optimizing your site for these keywords (through SEO), your niche will find your website and search engines will credit your website with higher ranking.

However, let me reiterate once more that it is also important that you find keywords that are innovative and unique, which would make your website stand out from all other similar websites.

Step 3: Take time in selecting your keywords

Your keywords are crucial to the success of your website. You should take time to consider and select the keywords that you should use in order to optimize for the search engines.

Check and test keywords using search engines. Google’s keyword tool is particularly helpful in checking out the competition for keywords. You will get an idea on what keywords are oversaturated, and what keywords will possibly help your website stand out and rank higher in search engine queries.

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