Biz Growth Express - March 5, 2007

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IN THIS WEEKS “BIZ GROWTH EXPRESS”

Hi

I hope you are having a great week. I have to start with saying this will an unusually long ezine today. But I have a lot of no cost branding and business development resources to share with you this week. so I do hope you get chance to print out the newsletter and take time to read it over your coffee break.

We have had a terrifically busy weekend with a host of activities for the children and of course the long awaited Irish blog Awards.

Unfortunately we were not to be the overall winner – Kieran Murphy of IcecreamIreland.com won the business blog category. He is a well deserving winner and I highly recommend you check out his blog for a host of recipes and ideas for serving icecream. When I asked him why he decided to go into the business of icecream he shared that “well no one is miserable when buying icecream are they?” It seems to me that Kieran has found a pretty good way of deciding who your ideal clients are – not working with anyone who is miserable!

It was great to meet up with the other nominees and I will post photographs of the awards on the blog later this week. We also had chance to connect to create a podcast about our experiences and tips about business blogging – more of that later.

This week I am very busy. I am off to the UK for the Marketing Bites conference where I am speaking on the subject of personal branding and leadership branding to some 100 plus marketing directors; we’ve not one but two podcasts planned with a special episode for International Women’s Day on 8 March and we also have the first of our three part Lead Generating Masterclass starting tomorrow. I am already looking forward to the weekend!

You still have time to join me for this special no cost series – you can find all the details here.

And do join me for this weeks “Biz Growth Live” workshop where I will be in conversation with Mindy Gibbins-Klein, the Book Midwife. We will be revealing a host of strategies and tips about how to bring your business book to life.

This is the second in our series on strategies relating to writing, publishing and authoring your business book.

In the next two weeks we will have David Hancock from New York Publishing House Morgan James Publishing and Warren Whitlock ‘The Marketing Results Coach’ who has worked with hundreds of authors to promote and market their book so that they achieve the status of being an Amazon best seller.

And don’t worry if you are not able to join us live, we will making all four seminars and a number of bonus programmes available for you to purchase at the end of the series.

Each week we look to provide you with valuable content to build your brand and expand the success of your professional practice.

As you know, our goal is your success, providing you with strategies, inspiration and tips that you can adapt, adopt and apply to grow your business. 

I hope you enjoy this week’s edition of “Biz Growth Express”.

And if you have friends and colleagues who you believe would benefit from the strategies and tips we cover in the “Biz Growth Live” calls and our “Biz Growth Express” newsletter, I would be honoured if you forwarded this email to them or alternatively you can invite them to register at here.

Your recommendation is how we grow!

Here’s to bringing YOUR brand to life!

Thank you for being part of our thriving “Biz Growth Community” and please do share your suggestions for areas you would like us to cover in future editions and that would support your business growth in 2007 or subjects for our weekly “Biz Growth Live” calls.

Best wishes

Krishna

FEATURE ARTICLE: HOW TO CREATE YOUR MARKETING FUNNEL

In last weeks article we talked about one of the biggest reasons many professional services firms fail to grow is because they do not have a strategy for automating lead generation.

If you have heard me speaking on this subject previously, you will know that I have a strong belief in leveraging your time and expertise and creating products, services and solutions that your clients not only need and want, but are prepared to invest in.

Very often in professional services, many business leaders are selling only their time which is the probably the most expensive investment your clients could be asked to make to hire you.

An alternative model is to create your marketing or sales funnel. Consider a funnel with a wide opening at the top and getting narrower towards the bottom.

The idea of the marketing funnel is that your goal is to generate as many leads as you can for your practice, ideally using no cost solutions.

At the bottom of the funnel are your most expensive services and at different stages in the funnel are solutions at different price points.

Your goal in your marketing funnel is to have products, services and programmes at varying price points so that you have different solutions to offer people who would like to work for you but are not ready or can not afford to invest in your high end services.

This way you create new streams of revenue in your practice and make sure you are not leaving money on the table.

As an example here are some of the offerings in my marketing funnel:

A. AT THE TOP OF THE FUNNEL

  1. Our “Biz Growth Podcasts”
  2. The “Biz Growth Live” weekly calls
  3. The “Biz Growth News” branding and business development blog
  4. Our weekly newsletter “Biz Growth Express”.

Using these lead generating strategies, I am able to reach a wide community of people who can then experience my philosophy and approach to branding and business development with no commitment on their part to investing in anything other than their time.

I am also providing different ways to interact with me – remember some people are able to consume information easier is they read, while others like to listen.

If I am seen by my potential clients and prospects to be offering something of value, at some stage they may decide to invest in one of our programmes, services or products.

B. AT THE MIDDLE OF THE FUNNEL

This is where potential clients start a financial investment in purchasing services and products. These investments may range from as little as US$20 to US$400, for example:

  1. Our “Passion for Products Live Workshop” where we show you how to create information products and new revenue streams in your practice
  2. Our “Biz Growth Gym”, our new branding and business development mentoring programme where we offer live tutorials and one to one mentoring in a group environment
  3. Our home study programme “It Starts With Hello” which provides strategies and tips as a home study programme to enhance your effectiveness to introduce yourself to others in career and business networking meetings.

C. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FUNNEL

This is where clients choose to invest at a significantly higher level for example:

  1. Working one on one with me in our “Biz Growth Academy” programme and we are able to focus exclusively on their success in growing their practice, creating new streams of revenue while enjoying more time off from their business
  2. Consulting and speaking with leading professional services companies for specific branding and business development projects.

This Weeks Action Steps

I will be hosting three special events which you can access at no cost:

  1. 6 March 2007, 1pm ET (6pm Dublin and London) – using white papers to generate more leads
  2. 13 March 2007, 1pm ET (6pm Dublin and London) – audio strategies to grow your practice
  3. 21 March 2007, 1pm ET (6pm Dublin and London) – creating webinars that generate new leads and more profits.

You can attend these three seminars as my guest and at no cost. All you need do is send an email to leadgeneration(at)oneoceangroup.com.

Make sure that it is a valid email address as we will be sending the information about how to join me for these three special seminars to the email address you provide.

PERSONAL BRANDING TIP OF THE WEEK: BLOG COMMENTS – YOUR PATH TO NEW CLIENTS

As you know, here at Oneocean we are advocates of building your brand online through new media tools such as business podcasts and business blogs.

But what if you do not have a business blog yourself?

Have you noticed that most business blogs have a comments box that is open?

Well commenting on someone’s business blog, expressing your expertise and personal brand can attract more potential clients to come and find out about you.

You see most business bloggers will take notice of the comments that are added to their blog. Both the blogger and their visitors will very often check the link to see who the person is that made the comment.

I have had many people join our “Biz Growth Live” community or subscribe to my business blog through this strategy.

You can find business blogs of others in your field at Technorati.com or do a Google blog search.

Why not find 30 minutes this week to take time to make valuable contributions in your field of expertise to a highly respected and trafficked business blog?

You just never know who might be reading that blog and who just may be looking for expertise like yours.

BIZ GROWTH TELECONFERENCE – 5 MARCH 2007

GUEST EXPERT – MINDY GIBBINS-KLEIN, THE BOOK MIDWIFE

SUBJECT: ‘BRING YOUR BUSINESS BOOK TO LIFE’

So you have made a decision to write your business book so that you enhance your credibility as an expert in your field, differentiate yourself from your competition and attract more of your ideal clients. 

But how do you ensure that you bring your vision of writing your business book to life?

This week we are joined by Mindy Gibbins-Klein, The Book Midwife, who has helped over 100 authors get their book written.

Make sure that you join the call to discover strategies that you can apply today so that writing your book is faster and easier than you thought possible. Learn what you can do so you minimise the number of re-writes you will need to do and discover a new form of publishing – cooperative publishing.

NEXT “BIZ GROWTH LIVE” TELECONFERENCE – 12 MARCH 2007

GUEST EXPERT:  DAVID HANCOCK, AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER

SUBJECT: ENTREPRENEURIAL PUBLISHING SECRETS

If you have made a decision to write your business book, enhance your credibility as an expert in your field, differentiate yourself from your competition and attract more of your ideal clients you might be wondering what you now need to do to attract a publisher.

We are continuing our “Biz Growth Live” series on how to write, publish and market your business book.

Join me on Monday 12 March 2007 at 1pm ET (6pm Dublin and London) as I interview David Hancock, Founder of the New York Publishing house Morgan James Publishing (one of Fast Company Magazine’s Fast 50 in 2006).

Did you know that over 97% of manuscripts for business books get turned down by publishers each year?

So if you are ready to discover what publishers are looking for when deciding which book proposal they will move through to a publishing contract and discover the new model of entrepreneurial publishing that is shaking up the publishing industry, make sure you register for our next no-cost seminar on publishing your business book.

If you have questions about how to connect with publishers and what they look for in your business book proposal, you can post your questions before the call here.

PODCAST – A CHOICE OF THREE GREAT PODCASTS THIS WEEK

We have been Podcasting like mad this last week and have a choice of three great shows for you to choose from:

You can post your comments and questions against each of the podcasts so I look forward to hearing from you with your thoughts, ideas and what works for you.

BRAND BUILDING AND MARKETING – LIVE EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS

There are a number of terrific events that are coming up in the next month I am speaking at and that I think you will find them of immense value (not just because I am a speaker!).

Full details are on “Biz Growth News” – here is a quick overview:

Do let me know if you plan to attend any of them as it would be great to meet you there.

LOW COST INTERNATIONAL CALLS FROM IRELAND AND THE UK

With a significant number of my clients being based outside Ireland, I am always on the look out for low cost international calls. I have a number of service providers where I have an account that I use to make calls from a landline or mobile.

Whilst I enjoy using Skype.com, it does not always serve my needs when travelling or when joining a telephone conference as the quality can distort the phone line for all the attendees.

I was therefore delighted to see a new service called “All Free Calls” launched recently where you do not need to register to make low cost international calls.

I have tried the service from Ireland and I will try it out from the UK later this week. In fact we used the “All Free Calls” service to dial into my conference line to record the podcast on business blogging. Yes that’s right, it was less expensive for the 6 participants to connect using “All Free Calls” to a US conference call facility than finding another service provider in Ireland.

For some of the numbers  have called internationally I did need to use the national calling rate rather than the local calling rate, but it is definitely worth checking out the rates.
telephone call card specific to your location. 

Here is where you can find the access numbers: 

So for those of you based in Ireland and the UK, you now have no excuse of not having a low cost international calling provider so I look forward to hearing you on our “Biz Growth Live” seminars in even greater numbers in the weeks ahead!

Wishing you continued success, so until next week.

Best wishes,

Krishna De
Bringing YOUR vision to life!
www.bizgrowthlive.com
www.bizgrowthnews.com
www.krishnade.com
www.oneoceangroup.com
www.todayswomeninbusiness.com

P.S. If you have friends and colleagues who would like to join the weekly teleconference call, they would be very welcome – please invite them to register at Biz Growth Live.

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2007.  All rights reserved.

“Biz Growth Express” is a Oneocean Publication.  Oneocean Ltd is a leading business development consultancy with a difference – we focus on the unique strengths of an organisation and its people to unlock extraordinary performance and growth. You can learn more about our work here

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish extracts from “Biz Growth Express” in your own online ezine or news letter, providing the article is printed in its entirety and is left unedited and you include the copyright notice and the following statement:

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2007. All rights reserved. Reprinted from “Biz Growth Express”, a Oneocean Ltd publication for leaders in professional services practices, featuring inspiration, strategies and tips to build your brand, attract your ideal clients and enjoy greater success with less stress.  Subscribe today at http://www.bizgrowthlive.com and access free weekly teleconferences where we interview experts from across the globe on how to build your brand and expand your professional and personal success.