Business – Page 6 – Velocity Media

29 September 2014

It’s all in the name: Five considerations when naming your business, product or service

Creating a name for a new business, product or service can be an overwhelming task, particularly when it can determine the identity, personality and the perception of your brand.

With this in mind you need more than a trusty thesaurus and clever word play, you need to think about the end result, the ultimate brand you want to create and then work backwards.

So here a five considerations to take into account when naming your new business, product or service.

1. Know your target markets and what they want

The first step in creating a great name is to know who you are targeting. While it won’t impact the name in every case, it can be a way of appealing and positioning your business, product or service in a way that easily identifies through name or slogan who it will benefit.

2. Research keywords

Research what words and terms your target market is searching for when trying to find your industry, products or services, and see if there is way you can use these keywords into your name.

By incorporating keywords into your business, product or service name, slogan and domain names you have a slight edge when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as it is an easy and natural way to incorporate them into your copy.

3. Be mindful of spelling and phrasing

While it can be fun, and advantageous for trademarking to invent new words and phrases, or change the spelling of existing words, be mindful of how your potential customers may spell it or search for it if they were to only hear your name.

Potential customers won’t always see your logo or the spelling of your name the first time they are introduced to you. They may hear it mentioned in an infomercial, be referred to you while talking to a friend or colleague, or perhaps even hear it on the radio or a podcast interview.

With this in mind, it is wise to make the spelling clear while it becomes established and also take precautionary methods (if possible) with domain names for instance in order to pick up potential searches and enquiries that may spell it incorrectly.

Also think about your name in terms of a hashtag. If you have multiple words in your name could they be interpreted as something else if you were to run them all together as a #hashtag on social media?

4. Use or create a verb

Using a verb or creating a word that could be used as a verb can be a great way to make your business, product or service stick in the mind of your customer and make it appear to be the best or ‘in’ thing to do. For example how many times have you said or heard someone say “Google it”.

5. Incorporate the problem you solve or benefit you provide

This can be a powerful positioning strategy that can set you apart from the very beginning.

Be mindful though that when you incorporate the problem you solve or benefit you provide in your business, product or service name you are making a promise to your customers. So whatever you say, you need to make sure that you can (while thinking of all ‘what if’ scenarios) live up to it and maintain it over the course of your business.

Do you have a process behind choosing names for your businesses, products or services?

Amanda

22 September 2014

Three sales writing mistakes that will lose you business

Sales letters can be an extremely effective way to generate new business. Whether it is sent via email, social media or good old-fashioned snail mail, when you get the right message, to the right people with the right call to action you can generate a great marketing response. When it’s wrong however, it can be uncomfortably quiet.

The good news is that the common mistakes people when writing sales letters are easily avoided – when you know what they are. So here are the three most common sales writing mistakes to avoid so you stop losing business and start winning sales.

Mistake #1 – Appealing to the wrong ego

Ego is an important part of sales writing, but not your ego. Too many people make the mistake of thinking sales writing is all about them, they build their ego through the text, when really they should be appealing to their reader’s ego.

How you appeal will obviously depend on who you are targeting and what you are selling, but comments like “as you would know” or “from your experience” can be a great start. You don’t want to be blatant with your ego stroking as people will become highly suspicious of what you’re doing or selling, being subtle is crucial.

Mistake #2 – Selling first instead of relating

The fastest way to turn people off is to go straight into a sales pitch. Think about it in terms of a networking event, you’ve just walked in the door and someone comes straight up to you, shoves a business card in your face and starts selling to you. What are you thinking? Chances are you want to get away from them as quickly as possible. It’s no different in writing.

You still need to build rapport and find common ground as you are writing. Get people nodding in agreement. Be relatable and friendly. Then once you have done that while telling the story, go in with the pitch in a way that adds value.

Mistake #3 – Calling your reader to act without incentive

While you need to call your reader to act, there is a difference between a passive “call us today on [number]” and a more active incentive like “call us today on [number] and receive/save [x]”.

An incentive doesn’t always need to be a discount, special offer or free checklist, e-book or report. It could be an emotional pull, creating urgency through a time sensitive promotion or appealing to our sense of competition by “not missing out”.

Just keep in mind that the less you know the person you are targeting, the stronger your incentive needs to be.

Do you use sales letters as part of your marketing strategy? What has or hasn’t worked for you?

Amanda

2 September 2014

The biggest point of difference you are underselling

If you are like most business owners your biggest point of difference comes not from what you do or even how you do it, it comes from what you know.

The knowledge you have around your industry, products and services, your customers needs, problems and challenges, the lessons you’ve learnt and the formulas, templates, processes and systems you’ve created based on your knowledge and experience is all extremely valuable.

What’s more it could be what influences a potential customer in doing business with you over your competitors. Yet most of us undersell it.

So if by chance you are underselling your knowledge, here are four reasons why you should stop doubting and start sharing.

1. Your industry knowledge isn’t “common sense”

When something comes easy to you, it can be easy to think that it comes easy to everyone else too – but it doesn’t. The truth is you have distinct skills and knowledge that most people will never have. Even the most researched customers won’t come close to what you know.

2. You may share the same expertise, but not the same experience

While you may feel that the industry knowledge you have isn’t unique, that it is shared by anyone working in your industry, your experience is. The experience you have gained from working in your industry day in and day out can’t be replicated.

No one has been exactly where you are today. They haven’t had the same life experiences, the same customers, learned the same business lessons, or had the same setbacks and wins. You are far more knowledgeable than you realise.

3. Your explanation and application could be just what someone needs

Each of us respond better to particular communication and learning styles and build rapport quicker with specific personalities.

While you may not be the most knowledgeable person in your industry – or even close at this stage, how you explain, implement or package your knowledge could be what spurs a customer or potential customer to finally take action on something they have “heard a hundred times” before.

4. Every great expert started as an amateur

Remember that every great expert and every successful entrepreneur and business leader started out as an amateur. The only difference is they kept learning, growing and sharing what they knew with their staff, customers and the world.

Are you underselling yourself?

Amanda

25 August 2014

Three ways to be more compelling in your sales and marketing

Your ability to compel your customers, readers and followers to read on, act or buy, directly determines your leads, conversions and business profits.

So how do you become more compelling in your sales and marketing? Here are three ways to get you started.

1. Keep a little mystery

In the same way you wouldn’t tell your entire life story in the first few dates with someone, don’t feel you need to inform your potential customer, reader or follower of every facet of your business, industry or topic in the first few touch points. Leave a little mystery by informing them slowly.

Mystery leaves your potential customers wanting more, providing of course that you give away the right details to begin with. To use mystery effectively you need to know who you are targeting and what key selling points will most appeal to them.

Infomercials and your answer to the common question “so what do you do?” are great places to practice a little business mystery.

2. Offer information teasers

Key information like statistics, industry insights, inside secrets, usability tips, and handy hints on areas your target audience are interested in can spark interest and get them to take a level of action like giving over their contact details to you.

Knowledge is power, and in this day and age it is our most valuable commodity – not to mention our biggest point of difference. Sharing relevant and interesting information builds your credibility and positions you as an expert in your field, giving potential customers the confidence in doing business with you.

The trick here though, is in knowing how much of your knowledge to give away, as it will depend on the action you need a potential customer to take. Being a ‘teaser’ your information should be limited, but at the same time it needs to be enough to build trust and leave potential customers, followers or readers feeling like you’ve given them real value.

Always keep some information under lock and key for your paying customers, or to get potential customers taking bigger steps of trust with you.

Social media, newsletters, website opt-ins, blog posts and advertisements are great places to tease with compelling information.

3. Limit options and choices

While potential customers want to feel like they have a choice in what they do or buy, too much choice can overwhelm your buyer and cause you to lose control in the sales process.

Before you do any sales or marketing you should map out the steps you want to take each customer through. While not all will follow and some will jump ahead, having this planned out allows you to guide potential customers to the decision you want them to take.

In a service-based business it could be having a few core packages, memberships or services with the ability to customise or value-add further should you need too. For online product-based businesses it could be having a clear category headings and links to the most popular products from your home page as opposed to listing all products immediately.

By having limited choices buyers can quickly determine the products or services most relevant to them, or what their next step needs to be without being overwhelmed by information. It also means you can use sneaky call to action tips to help boost your conversions.

Keep in mind that too much information or too many choices can stall the buying process and even drive them to a competitor who keeps choices simple. This is particularly important for websites and sales meetings.

What are some ways you can be more compelling in your sales, marketing and copywriting?

Amanda

12 August 2014

Five sneaky call to action tips to boost conversions

Your call to action is one of the most important parts of any copy you write. While your words may be clever and compelling, and your images eye catching and engaging, if you aren’t calling people to act, you won’t get the results you want.

So how do you make sure you are calling your potential customers to act effectively? Here are five sneaky call to action tips to help boost your conversions.

1. Map out your sales process

The key to an effective call to action is to know what actions you need your potential customer to take. While it would be nice for a potential customer to go from not knowing you to spending thousands with you instantly, and yes it does happen, in most cases though trust and rapport need to be established first.

This is where your sales process comes in, working out each step that needs to be taken to build trust and turn your potential customer into your ideal customer.

For each marketing piece you write, whether it is a sales letter, brochure or website think about the very next step they need to take. Is it to call you? Answer your phone call? Sign up to your mailing list? Go to a landing page? Download a free resource? Make a small ‘teaser’ purchase that will lead them to a bigger purchase?

Break each step down, giving clear instructions as to what needs to happen next.

2. Create urgency

The whole point of a call to action is to get your potential customers acting now, not saying, “I’ll do that later”. But to do this you need to communicate the urgency.

You can do this by using scarcity and competition to hint at what they could miss out on if they don’t act quickly, and/or using urgent language like “try it now”, “immediate access” or “call today”.

3. Use triggers

Sometimes you need to give potential customers a little extra help to get over the line, that is where sales triggers, little messages that motivate, come into play.

It could be a testimonial with results you know they will want, a risk minimising message like a guarantee or even some bullet points that overcome common objections and establish your value all put near your call to action to ‘seal the deal’.

4. Make your ‘buy buttons’ green or bright coloured

We have been programed in society that green = go and red = stop or a hazard, are your buy buttons giving off the right signal?

While green is a good idea for your buy button, bright colours, particularly against duller colours (if you were wanting to highlight a particular package, membership or option for instance) can also draw the eye and send the right signal.

5. Get rhyming

While it may sound funny or corny, research has shown that rhyming phrases are perceived to be more truthful and accurate. Get a little creative and give rhyming a go for one of your calls to actions and test your results.

Hopefully this has helped you a fraction, what tips will you use in your next call to action?

Amanda

2 August 2014

How to give people a “good feeling” about you

Like it or loathe it intuition and having a “good feeling” about someone or something can greatly impact our business decisions and the purchase decisions of our customers and potential customers.

So how do you ensure you are giving out the right vibe when you are talking to people? Here are five tips to help you give people a “good feeling” about you.

1. Be confident, friendly and approachable

People are naturally drawn to warm people and are more likely to listen to confident people, that is why being confident, friendly and approachable is the rapport building trifecta.

Not only will you be more likeable, people will feel more relaxed around you, respect your opinions and be more inclined to follow you, leaving you smiling all the way to the bank.

2. Be an expert in your industry

When you are an expert in your field, and know your products and services intimately you give better explanations, presentations, infomercials and pitches and answer those tricky questions and objections quickly and powerfully.

Nothing gives a customer or potential customer more confidence than having all of their questions answered or hearing someone knowledgeable share insight that will help them in their life or business.

3. Add value

Instead of seeing what you can get out of each person you meet, focus on how you can add value. By adding value you prove your value and your potential customers guards naturally come down.

With this approach potential customers will not only be more receptive to what you have to say, they will open up to you, making it easier to convert sales and build profitable relationships.

4. Ask questions and listen carefully

Asking the right questions and listening closely to the answers can be incredibly powerful. You can establish rapport, showcase your knowledge, increase credibility, uncover needs, and build relationships.

The more targeted and intelligent your questions are, the better the answers you receive and the easier it is to find even more ways to add value.

5. Never underestimate the power of your body language

Often the “feeling” someone will have about you will come more from what you are not saying. While you may be a smooth talker, if your body language doesn’t support what you are saying, people will question your authenticity.

If a person can’t maintain eye contact with you, covers their mouth a lot when they speak, is fidgety or seems uncomfortable, leans back and crosses their arms, or frowns a lot, chances are you are going to walk away from the meeting and not have a great feeling about the person you were talking to or how the meeting went.

However, if you are meeting with someone who maintains eye contact, faces towards you and leans in, smiles, nods and is open and animated, you will naturally warm to them.

Next time you are talking to someone ask yourself “what is my body language saying about me and is it matching my message?”

Do you use your intuition in making business decisions? What gives you a “good feeling” about someone?

Amanda

27 July 2014

Knowing when to walk away

In business we often come across opportunities, people, businesses, ideas and situations that look promising and profitable.

While some can certainly meet and even exceed our expectations, every now and again one can hand us a confronting dose of reality that can result in hard decisions and the possibility of cutting all ties.

But how do you know when to stop or when to try harder? Here are five checks to put in place so you know when it’s time to walk away in business.

1. Know what you stand for

Know who you are and what you stand for both personally and professionally. Also know what your business and brand stands for, beyond just making sales or profits.

What boundaries do you want to set around the way you work? What behaviour is acceptable and not acceptable from you, your staff, your customers, suppliers and associates? What lines are you comfortable with crossing in business and what lines will you never cross?

By establishing what you do and don’t stand for and what you will and won’t tolerate you make it easier to identify when you need to take action to prevent a situation from escalating, or when you need to cut your losses and walk away.

2. Be committed to win/win

Any business arrangement you enter into should be win/win, and equally win/win at that. If it isn’t steps need to be taken to rectify it in order to create a mutually beneficial arrangement.

To guard against possible resentment and relationship breakdowns, you need to regularly evaluate your working relationships and maintain open communication to make sure all parties are getting what they want and need.

Sometimes in relationships one party ends up giving more at times, the key is to be aware of it and manage it to ensure it balances out. If it still continues to be win/lose than it might be time to lose the relationship.

3. Keep your emotions in check

Emotions influence and impact every decision we make. For this reason it is important to be mindful about how they may be motivating or fuelling your thoughts and actions through crucial situations and circumstances.

Whatever you are dealing with examine your thought process, are you making rational arguments? Are you calm or highly emotional? Are you looking at the facts or at the hypothetical? Often some time and space from the situation can be enough for you to think a little more rationally and logically.

4. Listen to your intuition

Our subconscious mind takes in far more information than we can consciously process and can often give us little clues through our intuition to help us in our decision-making.

While we can’t recall all of the information, we will often get a ‘feeling’ that something is not quite right. Listen to it; you get this for a reason. Find out more information to evaluate the opportunity, person, business or idea properly if needed and make the decision that gives you the most peace.

5. Know your value

In order to avoid resentful and difficult situations you need to be clear on the value of your time and expertise. What you do, what you know and even who you know is valuable.

If you want to know how valuable, work out what it would cost to hire someone else to do everything you do at your level. You will soon see just how much your time is worth and how valuable your knowledge and skills really are.

Once you know your value set your price and stick to it. As tempting as it can be to chase, discount and say, “yes” to the money, it can come at a cost and sometimes even a loss to your business.

By knowing what you are worth and what you want to command you will be able to sort the good opportunities from the bad or the costly, and move away from those who don’t value you faster.

How do you decide it is time to walk away in business?

Amanda

21 July 2014

How to identify what your customers love about you

While you know exactly what you love about your business and what you think are your biggest selling points – do you really know what your customer’s value and love about you?

More often than not business owners are selling what they want to sell rather than selling what their customers want to buy. To make sure you’re not one of them, here are four quick checks to ensure you’re not assuming what your customers want, but rather listening to what they value.

1. It’s in their frustrations

If you want to know what your customers and potential customers value, look at the common frustrations and stereotypes of your industry. What do people groan and complain about? What are the common bad experiences?

Now that you know what people don’t appreciate, list the opposite and you will start to see what your customers and potential customers will really want.

2. It’s in their objections

Don’t be put off by objections, objections are your potential customers way of voicing their concern and when handled right they give you the opportunity to make a more personalised sales pitch to get them over the line.

Though in saying this it is important to pay attention to them and make a note of the objections that keep coming up. Is there something that your customers and potential customers need that you aren’t providing? Are there benefits or features that you aren’t promoting that you should be?

Through objections your potential customers will tell you what is important to them, what they need to know and give you insight into how they make their buying decisions.

3. It’s in their testimonials

Look over the testimonials you’ve received from your past and current customers. What have they praised you for? What have they valued? What are the common themes through all of them?

Chances are that the key features, benefits and results that your past and current customers loved are also the same features, benefits and results that will appeal to your future customers.

4. It’s in their introductions

Referrals and introductions are also a great way to gain insight into what your customers and business associates value about you. More often than not when someone introduces you in business they will lead with what they see to be your biggest point of difference, key area of expertise or your top benefits.

So the next time someone introduces or refers you, don’t just focus on the new contact, focus on what they have said to get the new contact interested and wanting to talk to you.

When all else fails remember you can ask!

Amanda

14 July 2014

Three ways to gain more clarity in business

Every minute of every day our brains are filled with thoughts, from client deadlines, to-do’s, calls, meetings, appointments and ideas, to errands, the friends we need to call, the family commitments we have for the week, the things we’ve forgotten to do but still need to do, and on it goes.

With so much action going on all the time, it can become almost impossible to focus on the task at hand. To help you be more clear and precise, here are three ways to gain more clarity in business.

1. Go back to basics

It is easy to get distracted in business. From the regular interruptions of phone, email and social media, to watching what competitors are doing, listening to every bit of customer feedback and innovating products and services to meet market demand and grow, we can lose sight of what we want to achieve in the day, week, month, year and beyond.

When this happens it’s important to go back to basics. Look at the key markets you are targeting. Have they changed or do they need to change? Profile your current and ideal customers, remembering that your market should be an inch wide (targeted and specific) and a mile deep (lots of interested customers).

Then look over your points of difference, your key messages, your brand positioning, your business SWOT, the ‘why’ you do what you do and what you want to achieve. These business and marketing basics will give you more clarity on your business and help you establish the direction you want and need to take.

2. Simplify

By over complicating tasks and processes, failing to reduce wastes and inefficiencies and refusing to give up control and delegate or outsource, we leave ourselves bogged down in task overload and unable to see beyond our own to-do list.

With complication being the enemy of clarity and creativity, look to simplify. As you go about your day always be asking, “Is there any easier or quicker way to be doing this?” By simplifying, you’ll reduce the time and money spent, and give yourself more brainpower to prioritise and focus on what you really need to be doing.

3. Purge your thoughts

If you are becoming increasingly distracted by thoughts going a million miles an hour, take 5-10 minutes to write down everything that is running through your head.

As tempting as it can be, this is not the time to develop your ideas further or put them into action. You are simply purging your thoughts and ideas to increase your focus and clarity, with the added bonus of providing a point of reference for later.

What are your tricks for gaining more clarity?

Amanda

8 July 2014

Four tips to push past the point of no inspiration

We’ve all felt the frustration of staring at a blank computer screen or piece of paper when it needs to be full of ideas or content.

In a time where our intellectual property is so highly valued, it is important for us to be able to come up with new ideas, innovations and content at the drop of a hat even when inspiration is no where to be found.

So how do you keep your creative juices and ideas flowing? Here are four tips to help you push past the point of no inspiration.

1. Break it down and plan

While it can save time going from idea right through to completion in one go, don’t feel pressured to do this every time. Break your task into stages.

Even the simple step of writing down what you need to do, what you want to achieve by it and the framework of how you are going to do it can be enough to get you going. For example, if it is a blog post you need to write, determine your audience, set the topic, write down the main points you want to cover and what you want your reader to know and do by the end of it.

If it is a proposal or pitch you need to produce, briefly outline your target audience, their current frustrations, how you can make it better (with proof) and what they need to do to act.

Starting is often the hardest part but by taking the small step of planning you not only give yourself more clarity around the project, you save time and make completing the task far easier.

2. You don’t need to have it all figured out immediately

We often put so much pressure on ourselves to have everything figured out from the start, but ideas are a work in progress.

If you feel you are stumbling over a word, sentence, section, page or particular task mark where you are up to and move onto the next word, sentence, section and so on. Don’t get so bogged down in perfecting your work that you stop making progress. Remember no one needs to see the planning or working version of your task except you.

3. Eliminate all of your distractions

Give yourself every opportunity to focus on the task at hand. This means turning your phone onto do not disturb, unplugging from the Internet and bringing order to your workspace.

Many of our thoughts can be silenced by the noise and distractions that fill our daily work day. By eliminating those distractions you give yourself the opportunity to think and focus.

4. Step away to move forward

Sometimes the best plan of action is to give yourself some space from the task at hand. The longer you are in a stressed state the longer your ideas and thoughts will be stifled. To break the cycle you need to change your state.

Get some fresh air, change your work environment, run on the spot or take a break, do something that will relax you and ease your stress. While you can think you don’t have time, this will clear your mind and get your ideas flowing again.

If you would like help with your copywriting or content marketing, I would be happy to help.

How do you push past the point of no inspiration?

Amanda

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