Selling is always about the customer.  Your job is to help them get to know you, to see if they can trust you, and understand how you can help solve their problem or enhance their life by using your product or service.

One way to turn on the rocket boosters and increase your sales is to infuse your story and expertise into the sales conversation. 

The first step is to identify your ideal customer. 

Pick one of your favorites and make a short list of their characteristics. Example: my customer is well-educated, upwardly mobile, has a great start to her business, but she is unable to grow it.

The second step is to list their complaints or pain points.

Answer the question about where they are struggling.  Example: Her results are not matching her efforts.  Running her business has become a struggle and she is exhausted and unhappy.

The third step is to know what end-result or desired outcome your product/service produces.

There is a heart-felt reason why you created your business and chances are good you solved your own problem. 

As a result of solving that problem for yourself, you were able to create some specific and measurable results.  What were those?  Example: What I know to be true is that when someone uses my product/service, they are able to find the freedom to move forward, make more money, and do it more easily.

The fourth step is put this list together and create a conversation out of it. 

Example of what I might say to my customer: 

“You are obviously smart and well educated so working this hard with little to no gain must be painful for you, right?(empathise with them)  Well I know from my own experience you cannot do it all alone and we don’t come into this world pre-programmed with all of the answers. (demonstrate leadership) That is where I come in and with my system, we create a results-oriented plan that works efficiently and effectively while also maintaining your work-life balance. (state the end-result/payoff)  If you knew how to do this on your own, which I didn’t – which is why I created this system – then you would have already done it. (establish trust)  So what do you think, have you had enough of this and ready to get help?” (ask them for the opportunity to serve)

I hope this was helpful for you.  I would love to hear your feedback or answer any questions.

Julie Steelman www.juliesteelman.com

The latest must-have key to success: Mastermind Groups.

Being an entrepreneur can be lonely and frustrating. What if you could create your own Personal Board of Directors?

The popularity of mastermind groups is growing as people just like you are finding the success they want through brainstorming with others, creating and implementing action plans, holding each other accountable, and encouraging a positive mental attitude.

Come learn how creating and offering mastermind groups will enhance your business and your life.

You will learn:

• The extraordinary benefits of mastermind groups
• How to choose a niche for your mastermind group
• How to determine the optimal number of people for your group
• How to screen participants to create a successful, enduring group
• How to create agendas for the mastermind group meetings

Karyn Greenstreet is a small business coach and a mastermind groups facilitator, and the owner of The Success Alliance, a website devoted to helping people start and grow their own mastermind groups. She has been creating and running mastermind groups since 1994 and is the author of How To Create a For-Profit Mastermind Group. She also teaches a series of classes on starting and running mastermind groups.

Visit her website at www.TheSuccessAlliance.com

Join us for the **FREE**  LIVE teleclass on

Tuesday, March 30th at 1:00pm (est), 9am (pst)

Sages going back to Socrates have offered advice on how to be happy, but only now are scientists beginning to address this question with systematic, controlled research. Although many of the new studies reaffirm time-honored wisdom (“Do what you love,” “To thine own self be true”), they also add a number of fresh twists and insights. We canvassed the leading experts on what happy people have in common—and why it’s worth trying to become one of them.

1. They find their most golden self. 
Picture happiness. What do you see? A peaceful soul sitting in a field of daisies appreciating the moment? That kind of passive, pleasure-oriented—hedonic—contentment is definitely a component of overall happiness. But researchers now believe that eudaimonic well-being may be more important. Cobbled from the Greek eu (“good”) and daimon (“spirit” or “deity”), eudaimonia means striving toward excellence based on one’s unique talents and potential—Aristotle considered it to be the noblest goal in life. In his time, the Greeks believed that each child was blessed at birth with a personal daimon embodying the highest possible expression of his or her nature. One way they envisioned the daimon was as a golden figurine that would be revealed by cracking away an outer layer of cheap pottery (the person’s baser exterior). The effort to know and realize one’s most golden self—”personal growth,” in today’s lingo—is now the central concept of eudaimonia, which has also come to include continually taking on new challenges and fulfilling one’s sense of purpose in life.

“Eudaimonic well-being is much more robust and satisfying than hedonic happiness, and it engages different parts of the brain,” says Richard J. Davidson, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “The positive emotion accompanying thoughts that are directed toward meaningful goals is one of the most enduring components of well-being.” Eudaimonia is also good for the body. Women who scored high on psychological tests for it (they were purposefully engaged in life, pursued self-development) weighed less, slept better, and had fewer stress hormones and markers for heart disease than others—including those reporting hedonic happiness—according to a study led by Carol Ryff, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 
2. They design their lives to bring in joy. 
It may seem obvious, but “people don’t devote enough time to thinking seriously about how they spend their life and how much of it they actually enjoy,” says David Schkade, PhD, a psychologist and professor of management at the University of California San Diego. In a recent study, Schkade and colleagues asked more than 900 working women to write down everything they’d done the day before. Afterward, they reviewed their diaries and evaluated how they felt at each point. When the women saw how much time they spent on activities they didn’t like, “some people had tears in their eyes,” Schkade says. “They didn’t realize their happiness was something they could design and have control over.”

Analyzing one’s life isn’t necessarily easy and may require questioning long-held assumptions. A high-powered career might, in fact, turn out to be unfulfilling; a committed relationship once longed for could end up being irritating with all the compromising that comes with having a partner. Dreams can be hard to abandon, even when they’ve turned sour.

Fortunately, changes don’t have to be big ones to tip the joy in your favor. Schkade says that if you transfer even an hour of your day from an activity you hate (commuting, scrubbing the bathroom) to one you like (reading, spending time with friends), you should see a significant improvement in your overall happiness. Taking action is key. Another recent study, at the University of Missouri, compared college students who made intentional changes (joining a club, upgrading their study habits) with others who passively experienced positive turns in their circumstances (receiving a scholarship, being relieved of a bad roommate). All the students were happier in the short term, but only the group who made deliberate changes stayed that way.

3.  They avoid “if only” fantasies. 
If only I get a better job…find a man…lose the weight…life will be perfect. Happy people don’t buy into this kind of thinking.

The latest research shows that we’re surprisingly bad at predicting what will make us happy. People also tend to misjudge their contentment when zeroing in on a single aspect of their life—it’s called the focusing illusion. In one study, single subjects were asked, “How happy are you with your life in general?” and “How many dates did you have last month?” When the dating question was asked first, their romantic life weighed more heavily into how they rated their overall happiness than when the questions were reversed.
 
The other argument against “if only” fantasies has to do with “hedonic adaptation”—the brain’s natural dimming effect, which guarantees that a new house won’t generate the same pleasure a year after its purchase and the thrill of having a boyfriend will ebb as you get used to being part of a couple. Happy people are wise to this, which is why they keep their lives full of novelty, even if it’s just trying a new activity (diving, yoga) or putting a new spin on an old favorite (kundalini instead of vinyasa).

4.  They put best friends first. 
It’s no surprise that social engagement is one of the most important contributors to happiness. What’s news is that the nature of the relationship counts. Compared with dashing around chatting with acquaintances, you get more joy from spending longer periods of time with a close friend, according to research by Meliksah Demir, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at Northern Arizona University. And the best-friend benefit doesn’t necessarily come from delving into heavy discussions. One of the most essential pleasures of close friendship, Demir found, is simple companionship, “just hanging out,” as he says, hitting the mall or going to the movies together and eating popcorn in the dark.

The quality of your audio really matters.  If you get your audio wrong, the perceived quality of your video will be lower than if you had reasonable audio but poor video! Here are some basics you ought to know to get the best quality audio possible.

1. Don’t use a 3.5mm jack-plug el-cheapo mic.  The 3.5mm mic is analogue, the sound is sampled inside your computer and typically electrical noise from the motherboard is introduced into the audio.  This raises the background noise level which lowers the audio’s perceived quality.  Also – cheap mic typically have poor-quality microphone components which distort your voice

2. Do use a USB mic or more expensive specialist hardware.  $60 USB microphones are far superior to 3.5mm mics.  My Microphone cost me $100 and it is much, much better than my first one that cost $29.

3. Only record in a quiet room.  Background noise like birds, traffic, rain can’t really be removed.  You can try with a tool like Audacity but the general rule is that you should always start with the cleanest audio recording you can.

4. Practice your script beforehand – this way you’ll avoid ‘ums’, ‘uhs’ etc.

5. Do some practice recordings to check for plosives (the popping sound you hear when you say the letters “p” or “b” to close to the mic)   You can edit these out with an audio editor but generally you want to practice moving your mic so the source recording has the fewest number of problems . If the plosives (above) are a problem, you can try using a pop filter.

One of my first problems when starting recording screencasts was knowing just how ‘good’ a mic could be.  Over at TechSmith (the makers of Camtasia) they have recorded the same voice to 6 microphones of varying quality.  Now you can easily hear how a better mic really improves the voice recording. These are the microphones they used

• Samson C03U – $210.00
• Lapel Microphone – $49.95
• Logitech QuickCam Communicate Deluxe Webcam – $79.99
• Blue Snowball – $99.00
• Logitech Headset – $39.99 
• Audio-Technica AT2020USB – $249.00

I use the Audio Technica AT2020 and got it for about $100 on Amazon. 

FYI-I make professional screencasts (see my portfolio) and also offer Camtasia classes (LearnCamtasiaFast.com) The next Camtasia class is starting on March 15. Make sure you sign up for my list below or to the right to get notified.

Michelle Schoen (pronounced Shane) is a full-time Multimedia Specialist with over 10 years of experience in Designing E-learning, Creating Video Tutorials, coaching on Virtual Event creation (Webinars and Teleseminars) and Website Design. She has two Masters Degrees; one in Instructional Design and one in Project Management. Before becoming a multimeida Specialist her career included six years as a Website Designer and E-learning Specialist with AT&T and four years as a Project Manager of an Instructional Technology team at IBM. The last two years has been spent coaching and training Virtual Assistants to add these skills to the services they provide their clients.  You can learn more about Michelle by visiting: http://www.vademogirl.com

Make Your Bio Better at These Upcoming Events!

Check out these “live” and online events coming up next week to guide you to the rock star bio you’ve been craving to get known as an expert, invite quality leads, and attract quality media attention to you and your business now.  These are engaging, content-driven workshops that help you tell your story so the right people will listen.  Whether you enjoy listening to the radio, tuning into a teleclass, or showing up live and in person, there is something to suit your preference next week as I celebrate my 9-year business anniversary with valuable insights to support your bio writing and business success.

Rock Your Genius Radio Show with Amber Singleton Riviere – FREE
Friday, February 26
Here is the link to learn more.  (And, if you think you have insights to add value to Amber’s show, get in touch with Amber and share your show idea.)

Alliance of Online Entrepreneurs Teleclass – FREE
March 2 at 9 a.m. PST
How to Say Say Bye-Bye to Your Boring Bio and Why You Should!
Here is the link with all the details for this FREE call.

BizEnrich “Live” Event – FREE
Nancy Workshops Three Bios “Live” to Showcase What Works Best
March 5 from 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.

RSVP to Berry@bizenrich.com, and learn more about Berry’s BizEnrich company and how it can support your success as an independent business professional at this link.

Patrick Snow’s Best Seller Publishing Institute
Nancy Delivers the Publici-Tea™ Express “Live” on March 16.
This is a three-day event packed with value as Patrick Shows You How to Get That Book in Your Head on Paper
March 16 – 18, 2010
Bainbridge Island, WA
Learn more and register at this link.  Be sure to mention “Nancy Juetten” when you register to enjoy preferred pricing.

ThinkSpace “Live” Event – Redmond, WA – FREE
Nancy Workshops Three Bios “Live” to Showcase What Works Best
April 14 at 3:30 p.m.
RSVP Alyssa Magnotti at alyssa@thinkspace.com

These events are part of my company’s 9-year business anniversary celebration, so join in and benefit from these quality events. Space is limited, so act quickly to confirm your place online or in person at the event(s) that suit your needs best.

You have probably heard that its important to publish an online newsletter (or ezine) to attract and nurture a relationship with your potential clients so that when they ARE ready to buy or hire, YOU are top of mind. Yet a LOT of people find publishing their ezine to be very time-consuming—often overwhelming—and they give up.

In this teleclass, newsletter marketing expert Linda Claire Puig will share some of her secrets for making ezines MUCH easier so that you can reap the benefits of a regular, consistent newsletter, such as: more clients, more income, more attention, more opportunity.

During this FREE teleclass, you’ll learn:

• Why ezines work to bring you more business.
• The biggest mistakes people make with their newsletters.
• A quick way to brainstorm dozens of article ideas your readers will love.
• The #1 newsletter success tool and how to make it work for you.
• How to get started and then keep up your newsletter easily, so that it continues to help you grow your business.

Linda Claire Puig is a newsletter marketing expert whose company, Claire Communications, provides busy coaches and personal development professionals with high-quality, education-based content and newsletters to grow their businesses. She also teaches unique, action-oriented programs on how to create newsletters and use them to make more money. An award-winning writer since 1983, Linda’s articles have appeared in newspapers, magazines and newsletters throughout the world. She has produced newsletters for small businesses and professionals since 1990 and has trained thousands of individuals in “the way of the newsletter.” For a free copy of her special report, “75 Best Newsletter Success Strategies,” click here.

Join us for the **FREE**  LIVE teleclass on

Thursday, March 18th at 12noon (est), 9am (pst)

Jennifer Goldman, CFP® and founder of My Virtual COO™, has been active in advising businesses in the areas of client acquisition, business strategy and operations for over 20 years. Her expertise has evolved through many years spent in the service-oriented industries and in various capacities ranging from sales to finance. Roles she held were: Division Coordinator for PSA Financial’s Wealth Division, Operations Coordinator for Sullivan Billie P.C.’s subsidiary, WMA, LLC , Certified Planner for Tanager Financial’s business owner clientele, Entrepreneur in $22 million start-up service business and Quality Control manager at M&T Bank’s Consumer Lending Division in Buffalo, NY. Her graduate degree in Financial Planning was obtained at Boston University, her MBA classes in Finance and Operations were obtained at University of Buffalo and Quantitative studies at Boston College. She has held board positions such as Director of Events and Board Member for NAWBO, New England FPA (1,200 members) , MetroWest Property Owners Association , and Events committee member of Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce and Education/Events Committee co-chair for FPA Maryland. She and her husband reside in Baltimore, Maryland, with their two children.

During this informative teleclass you will learn:

• What is a Virtual COO
• What a Virtual COO can do for your Company.
• What is the typical cost of hiring a Virtual COO.
• What are the processes that need to be in place in order to make this a successful partnership.
• How you, as the Company owner can maintain control.

and so…much more!

This event is over. Learn more about our attractive Membership package by visiting: www.aoeconnect.com/benefits

Every independent business owner needs to tell her story in a manner that connects her with her ideal customer so she can do more of what she loves and get on with her life’s work fast.

• This FREE LIVE teleclass will showcase real stories from business owners who have used the winning recipe in the Bye Bye Boring Bio Action Guide to get the mission accomplished. In doing so, you will understand the winning recipe and be able to apply it to your own fabulous, client-attracting bios.Everyone can have a rock star bio that invites fame, attracts fans, and creates the right kind of noise. The key is getting into action. By participating in this teleclass, you will learn the nuts and bolts and be in great position to tell your story so the right people will listen.

You will learn:

• The importance of offering multiple bios to suit a variety or purposes on your websites, blogs, social networking profiles, speaker sheets, book jackets, speaker introductions, and more.
• The value of sharing your information to showcase stunning results, sassy sound bites, succinct stories, and social information to help ideal clients better connect.
• Real stories from independent business owners just like you who started out with a blank sheet of paper and moved through the exercises to create winning bios that have them beaming with pride and welcoming more of the right opportunities.

Publicity Expert Nancy Juetten is fiercely committed to helping business owners everywhere quickly get up-to-speed on the best ways to use do-it-yourself publicity to share their messages in the traditional, online, and social media. Guiding you to achieve winning results for your products, services, ideas or cause with time-tested, proven, and easy-to-learn tips — without spending a fortune or spinning your wheels — is her passion and commitment. Nancy is a work-in-the-trenches publicist, “Media Savvy” newspaper columnist, DIY publicity blogger, an inspiring speaker, and the creator of the DIY Publicity Success System and the NEW Bye-Bye Boring Bio Action Guide that have earned raves from business owners and publicity experts from all around the USA. She is also a Publici-Tea™ workshop trainer who inspires business owners to take control of their media opportunities through consistent, winning actions every day. Visit Nancy at: www.mainstreetmediasavvy.com

This event is over. Learn more about our attractive Membership package by visiting: www.aoeconnect.com/benefits

Looking to drive traffic to your Online Business? Discover ten ways to get other people to send you their traffic…

1. Be a Guest Blogger

Some bloggers solicit guest articles, in which case you can create a blog post and submit it for consideration. However, even those that don’t advertise accepting guest articles may be open to the idea if you give them a reason why they should.

For example, you can:

•  Trade articles with the blogger (so that they get to post an article on your blog too).

•  Use the blog owner’s affiliates links in your article, so that they make money when their readers buy a product.

•  Offer something else attractive in trade, such as an endorsement in your newsletter.

2. Recruit Them to Your Affiliate Program

One quick and easy way to sell more products using other peoples’ traffic is by asking them to join your affiliate program.

If you’re selling digital products, you should offer at least a 50% commission rate to affiliates, and even higher for “super affiliates” (those who can send you a lot of traffic and sales). You may even offer additional perks, such as bonuses or discounts for their customers.

Tip: You can quickly and easily set up an affiliate program for your digital products using Clickbank.com (which is also a payment processor).

3. Trade Blog Links

Instead of trading content, you can trade blog links with other people in your niche (AKA “blogrolling”).

The first benefit is that it’s visible for a long period of time, as usually these links are permanently placed on the front page of the blog.

Secondly, you can also get a search engine optimization benefit if the blog has a high Google Page Rank (and if you use your keywords as the anchor text for your link).

4. Trade Newsletter Articles

If you like the idea of trading content, then consider trading newsletter articles with other people in your niche.

Tip: Look for those who also post their newsletter issues on their blogs, as then you’ll get the benefit of a backlink and ongoing traffic!

5. Co-Promote On Your Download Pages

If you have products or services that are closely related to another marketer’s products, then you may agree to trade product links on your thank you/download pages.

Alternatively, you can ask the marketer to use his affiliate link to point to your product sales page.

Either way, this tends to be responsive traffic, since they’re customers who just bought something (and thus they’re in the buying mood).

6. Swap Links On Your Subscription Confirmation Pages

Another place you can trade links is on your newsletter subscription confirmation pages. You may even agree to trade endorsements in the welcoming emails that you send to your new subscribers.

7. Do Joint Mailings

If you ship physical products, then seek out other marketers who’re selling physical products in your niche. Then ask these people to send out a flyer advertising your products in every shipment they send, and you’ll do the same for them.

Tip: Look on eBay® to find marketers in your niche who’re selling a high volume of physical products.

8. Ask to Interview Them

The biggest marketers in your niche might not be open to some of the other suggestions we’ve talked about so far, such as content swaps (especially if you’re relatively unknown and don’t have a busy blog yet). However, they may be open to you interviewing them, perhaps on a teleseminar. And if so, then they’ll also likely help you advertise the call, which means you get free traffic.

At the Alliance of Online Entrepreneurs, on of the strategies that we teach to build your business is to engage in public speaking.  This is a great way to quickly get your name out there,  build a following and ultimately impact your List Building efforts.  Unfortunately, fear of public speaking stops many Entrepreneurs from tapping into this great strategy.

Here are some tips to help ease the anxiety of public speaking:

1. Know your material. Pick a topic you are interested in. Know more about it than you include in your speech. Use humor, personal stories and conversational language – that way you won’t easily forget what to say.

2.  Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all equipment you plan on using. Revise as necessary. Work to control filler words; Practice, pause and breathe. Practice with a timer and allow time for the unexpected.

3.  Know the audience. Greet some of the audience members as they arrive. It’s easier to speak to a group of friends than to strangers.

4.  Know the room. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.

5.  Relax. Begin by addressing the audience. It buys you time and calms your nerves. Pause, smile and count to three before saying anything. (“One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand. Pause. Begin.) Transform nervous energy into enthusiasm.

6.  Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear and confident. Visualize the audience clapping – it will boost your confidence.

7.  Realize that people want you to succeed. Audiences want you to be interesting, stimulating, informative and entertaining. They’re rooting for you.

8.  Don’t apologize for any nervousness or problem – the audience probably never noticed it.

9.  Concentrate on the message – not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties and concentrate on your message and your audience.

10. Gain experience. Mainly, your speech should represent you — as an authority and as a person. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking.