I guess I’m an ice cream daredevil.  When I go to the ice cream parlor, I never ask for a pink spoon taste.  I just go ahead and order what seems good — if it isn’t absolutely scrumptious — it is a risk I’m willing to take (besides I don’t really need to be eating ice cream anyway!!)

Buying an ice cream cone don’t require a huge upfront investment of time or money.  Investing in your business is usually a bigger commitment.  How do you know which product or service is the right fit for you?  On the flip side, how to you convince your customers that you are a wise investment.  Enter the pink spoon.  The pink spoon is a simply delicious taste of your services that you give away for free to potential customers.

The concept of the pink spoon is not new in the online marketing community.  Most websites with a mailing list offer you a “free report and newsletter cock full of invaluable tips (worth $97!).    That’s great — and sometimes enough to give people a taste.   But, people have widely differing learning styles and preferences for taking in information.  For example, I actually hate videos — I usually have them play in a different tab in my computer and just listen.  Some people really hate to read.  What if you offered your pink spoon in a variety of flavors (like video and transcript)  to allow you to connect with potential clients with differing learning styles.   My pink spoon  - a video on coming up with your USP offers a video and worksheet exercises.  The exercises can be used by themselves and you can get a lot from the video without working through the exercises.

Some other easy ways of increasing the number of flavors available to your “taste testers”:

Add interactivity.  In my experience, one of the best ways to build up a strong list is to hold a monthly free teleseminar and promote it like crazy.  My clients hesitate on this because they believe that having free teleseminars devalues their paid events. I have found the opposite is true.  Clients with regular free event build up an engaged following that is willing to pay more for their offerings.  Other ways to add interactivity are specifically continuing conversation from your teleseminars using social media  (see this video on how one guru uses his facebook wall to build community).

Record your content These days it is very easy to create audio content. know you better. Potential clients love to hear your voice and get to  One of the easiest ways is to just record your blog posts into audio segments.  AudioAcrobat makes recording audio as simple as picking up the phone and talking (you can also record your teleseminars to use as a freebie later).  If you have an iphone AudioBoo makes it dead simple to make quick recordings and distribute them via Twitter.  Video recording is also easy enough.  You can record your webinar or use Jing to record quick videos from your computer screen or a Kodak zi8 to record quick “talking head” videos”.

Have something to read Sometimes, when I am in stealth mode (watching TV with my family while working on the computer) – I don’t really appreciate audio and video.  It is easy enough to create something to read. You can have your last teleseminar transcribed (not as expensive as you would think), or you can create companion worksheets that give much of the same information – possibly with the addition of some do at home exercises.

What is your current pink spoon?  How can you increase the number of “flavors” it comes in?  Chime in below and let me know.

My baby is turning 7 today.  Time goes by *so* fast  It honestly seems like just last week,  we were assembling her crib and painting her nursery.  Now Suzanne is a not a baby anymore but a real live full-fledged little girl.

Maybe it is because she is an only child — but my daughter seems very wise for her seven years.  I think I have learned as much from her as she from me.  She has a natural flair for sales, negotiation and marketing.  Here are some lessons about marketing that Suzanne has taught me.

1.  Keep Inviting More People One of the hard things about having a summer birthday is that people are often out of town on your birthday.  School ends early in New Mexico – and the lead time for getting invites out is almost too long.  Suzanne was not daunted by the possible low turn out at her party.  She just kept inviting more people. Her party is tomorrow and I made new invitations this morning.  If  you aren’t getting the sign ups or clients that you want  - just keep asking.

2. Approach People I’m not at all sure where she gets her extroversion — but Suzanne is not afraid to walk up to any kid that she sees and strike up a conversation.  She’ll walk right up and ask to play.  She’s made a lot of friends that way.  I think when we grow up – we become shy in some ways.  When I watch her  - I think — well, what is the harm in being friendly and approaching other people?

3.  Maintain Brand Integrity Suzanne is one of the few 7 year olds I know with a consistent brand.  Suzanne’s brand colors are pink and she is a “princess”.  Princess to her means someone who is kind, caring and smart.  Suzanne is always true to her brand.

4. It Pays To Be Nice Suzanne is probably the only kid in her first grade class who didn’t get in trouble in school.  This is because she was very nice at the beginning of the year.  By the end, I think she “got away” with a little more because she already had a solid reputation for being well behaved.

5.  Ask for A Commitment (Preferably in Writing) Suzanne is great at getting down to brass tacks.  She’ll say — “Mommy, can I go — yes or no… and then present me with a piece of paper with two checkboxes on it — yes and no.  Once the box is checked, the commitment is made.  No wishy washiness in Suzanne’s world.

What marketing lessons have you learned in unexpected places?

“Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think” – John Paul Sartre

I’m not ashamed to admit that I am a Harry Potter fan.  One of my favorite parts of story are the silly faux-Latin spells that the young wizards use to work their magic.

Blogus Postus Writus…

Is the post done?  no?  Too bad Harry Potter spells don’t work for Muggle bloggers…

Spells may not work to magically complete blog posts– but word choice is a very powerful internet marketing tool indeed.

Using the “right” keywords in your posts and on your site can help get your information in front of more of your ideal clients. The more people who see what you are up to – -the better chance you have of making a connection.

When I talk to my clients about keywords, the reaction I usually get is either –”what I do is so unique – I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find keywords”  or “I know I should be paying more attention to keywords – but using them seems too complicated to me”.  There is almost an aura of magic and mystery surrounding the whole keyword concept.

It really isn’t magic — and using keywords doesn’t have to be complicated.

The quickest path to keyword success is to use the words in your content that your potential client types into google to find the solution to their problem.

The trouble is… if you’ve been “doing your thing” for quite a while– it is sometimes hard to know (or remember) how someone who isn’t immersed in your topic would describe what you do.

Here are some tips for finding those magic keywords:

1.  Ask A Question One of the most effective ways I have found to elicit keywords from clients is to include a short “ask me a question survey” as part of my opt-in process.  I put the survey either on the “you need to confirm your e-mail address” page or on the thank you page after they’ve confirmed their address.

2.  Get Social Spend some time on social media (reading people’s blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.) – how are people talking about your subject area?  Those are the same words they will use to find you.

3. Use Internet Marketing Ninja Tricks Since keywords are so important – there are tools to help you find what people are actually searching for.   A very good place to start is google’s free keyword tool.  This tool analyzes your website (or a competitors website) and suggests keywords.  It also gives you an idea of how many people are searching for that particular keyword AND how many people are buying pay per click advertising around the term.

Another great tool is Market Samurai.  Market Samurai can give you a bounty of keyword ideas, tell you which words actually translate to more sales, give you a sense of who your competitors are for given keywords, find affiliate programs for you based on specific keywords and more.  I have used Market Samurai for about 6 months.  I find it to be really helpful – even though I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of all of its features.  Market Samurai offers a 2 week free trial.

In the end, there is no real magic in keywords.  Listen to your customers and use their language to describe your offerings.

I admit I was enthralled with the possibility of being able to get serious client work done from my iphone while waiting for my daughter to finish ice skating, gymnastics, whatever…  Lack of iphone tethering is one of the greatest banes of my existence so morphing my  business to do things that didn’t require a full laptop intrigued me….

I don’t usually buy the products being promoted in these big “so simple a monkey can do it” launches – but I wanted to learn more about social media marketing so I went ahead and purchased Let’s Get Social for a mere $97. (note I am NOT an affiliate — I’m doing this review just to let you know what I think about the course.).

Let’s Get Social is a joint venture between Ryan Deiss (very famous) and Kate Buck (pink haired social media rising star).  Over the past year and a half, Kate has built herself a burgeoning business as a social media virtual assistant (or social media manager – depending on what circles you travel in).  The super-hypey launch materials intimate that if you purchase the course — you too could very quickly be making a full time professional income from your iphone.

Is that true?  Nah… but Kate and Ryan admit that in the first module.  I also suspect that Kate’s phenomenal success is due mostly to Kate’s vivacious personality, ability to teach. business savvy and a good bit of luck.

Is the course worth $97.  Yep.

Let’s get social provides a wealth of information for a very reasonable price.  There are six modules which cover everything from “what the heck is a social media manager” to branding yourself (Kate explains this especially well), finding clients, doing the work and setting up your business.  You also get rights to us the logo — but since self-branding is important – I don’t see this as a huge bonus.  The course also includes a ton of demo videos, checklists, resource links, etc.

To me, the biggest value is the client checklist and suggested packages.  Having a value-added social media package with specific tasks was worth the course price to me.  The demo videos on how to create profiles on the different platforms (twitter, facebook, linked in, and youtube)  were also very helpful.   I am going to incorporate much of this into my service offerings.

I get the feeling though that it might be tough for a beginner to take this course and immediately start a successful social media management business. For someone already doing something similar, this course is a bargain.  I am going to start using the checklists with my current clients tomorrow  – and will make back the $97 this week.

If this were my course — I might split it up even more and do an in depth video module on each platform and then one on how to link them all together.  There are 8 or 9 how to videos within the “doing the work” module — but they seem sort of hidden.  I expected the main focus of the course to be “how to” rather than promotion.

Also, I would include a forum in the membership site section of the course.  It would be great to brainstorm and connect with other soon-to-be social media managers.

I feel lucky to have “met” Kate  signed up for this class in the beginning — I am sure it will be offered again at a higher price point.  I would recommend it to virtual assistants who want to expand their service offerings or to people who are already a little tech savvy.

Has anyone else signed up for Let’s Get Social?  What did you think of it?  What is your favorite training class for aspiring social media assistants?

Is Headway really a better and easier way to put together a Word Press-based website? I recently put the   Headway Theme through its paces constructing a site for one of my clients – India Think Consulting.

India Think is a cross-cultural communication consulting firm that helps Americans navigate the often very muddy cultural waters of doing business in India.  IndiaThinks clients are managers from larger corporations who have a lot at stake in making sure that their projects are successful.

Because of the audience, my client wanted the site to look very professional and to be very SEO friendly.  She basically came up with the layout and asked me to implement it for her.  While I can customize themes on a basic level (changing fonts, colors, getting rid of boxes on themes) – I wouldn’t call myself an “advanced” CSS and PHP coder.  Headway allowed me to easily move boxes around and customize different types of pages.

The theme is SEO friendly out of the box – which made my client happy.   We were also able to easily change the layout based on the feedback my client was getting from friends and potential customers.  We moved the site over and saw an immediate spike in traffic.  So far so good…

But… is Headway – really drag and drop simple?  Unfortunately, no.

Designing a site in Headway is a bit like taking up a new hobby with a whole new vocabulary.  You manage “leafs” and “content boxes.  With the IndiaThink site, I did a lot of CSS customizations.  The inspector feature makes it easy enough to do but learning how to call the different classes takes practice.  The controls aren’t exactly intuitive.  But, on the plus side the support in the Headway forum is very good.

There is one quirk that could make Headway a no-go for users of Mailchimp.  In its current incarnation, the Mailchimp subscription box code conflicts with Headway’s visual editor.  There is a MailChimp subscription box widget – but it only allows you to have a subscription box for one list on your blog at a time.

Overall though,  I enjoyed using Headway and my client and I were both happy with the end result.

What have your experiences with Headway been?  Do you like it?  Does it feel easy for you or dumbed down and clunky?

Ever just decided to go for something out of the blue? I was innocently reading my e-mail yesterday morning and I saw an e-mail from Dave Navarro – The Launch Coach offering his super-well written free e-book on how to make money selling products in three days.. I read it and thought — OK, Meredith — maybe you are making everything *way too complicated*. Any product I ever contemplate releasing is huge, multi-faceted, and complex. And, therefore, I never release any products!

Later that morning, I got another e-mail from Paul Evans with Nicheology challenging us to get something up and running in 24 hours. Hmm… could I do that? Maybe…

Well, finally, I get an e-mail invite  to participate in a half marathon for Team in Training.  The event is  Day of The Tread which is local to me in Albuquerque.   To participate in the race through TNT,  I need to raise $1,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

I have done TNT events before (a century ride and a triathlon)  and it is a good program – and I really want to learn how to walk fast…  But, I also don’t want to rely completely on friends and family for donations again… So, since things happen in threes, and I want to get this new phase in my business started in a “good for all of us” way – I am thrilled to present…

A way for you to reach your goals (by listening to my goal setting workshop), a way for me to reach my goal (of getting a product out), and a way for us to work together to reach an important goal of helping to support cancer research.

To get my 40 minute audio goal-setting workshop  filled with goal setting wisdom (plus worksheets!) all you need to do is click the donate button and make a donation to the Leukemia and Lymphoma society.

How much? Totally up to you… I’m doing a half marathon so $13 would be appropriate. If you give me $50 I’ll write the name of someone of your choosing on my running shirt on race day. No matter what you decide… you’ll be helping yourself AND helping others!

Thanks in advance and I hope you enjoy the audio and reach your goals!

Today is America Recycles Day and I am thankful for all the people who care enough about the future of our planet to recycle – but who also by their actions, inspire others to do what they can for the environment.

Helping preserve our planet is not something that any one person can do.  It is one of those things where millions of tiny, daily actions add up.  And, the tiny daily actions do more than just take really nasty stuff out of our landfills, they change the attitude of whole neighborhoods, cities, states and even countries toward protecting the environment.  According to many, the big war against global warming is going to take place on a national scale with huge economic incentives for developing new energy sources.  I believe that even that shift wouldn’t have happened without the millions of people who think and care about the environment and who lug that little blue bin to the curb every week.

About a decade ago (can it be that long?) – I used to work as the public information officer for the Fairfax County Recycling Program.  I have to (somewhat sheepishly) admit that I wasn’t the best recycler or even an ardent environmentalist when I took the job.  But, the enthusiasm and passion of the people I worked with rubbed off on me.   The group was so creative in finding ways to spread the word and make things easy on people.  This was a decade ago when the economy was better and pre-hurricane Katrina when the incentives for recycling weren’t as obvious.

And, the group wasn’t just made up of starry eyed granola crunching environmentalists.  The recycling coordinator (one of the smartest women I have ever had the pleasure to work with) managed to marry hard science with great public relations.  The other team members were all very hard working and cared about getting our message out.

I really enjoyed being part of that team and feeling like I was really a part of making things better.  So, on this America Recycles Day, I’m thinking of and thanking my former colleagues at the Fairfax County Recycling Program,  I’m really glad I got to work with you.

Today I am very thankful that I have a working car.While the virtual side of my life saves gas — the work at home mom part (with a daughter going to a school 25 minutes away) consumes it. By the end of today I will have spent 3 hours in the car. My 10 year old PT Cruiser is nothing fancy (it *was* fancy – we got one of the first ones) — but it works — and I’m thankful for that.

I’m also thankful that my lifestyle allows me to take are of misc errands like taking the dogs to the vet – so my hubby can use his valuable time off to hang out with me

Yes, I’m a little late to the party… but have a chance to spend the last part of 2010 showing gratitude for all the great things in my life had a certain appeal.  It is not to late to join the over 30 bloggers, tweeters and facebookers taking part… just hope over to http://30daysofthanks.com.  And… thanks to Stacy Brice and Heather Hinson for putting this together.

Today is Veteran’s Day and I am thankful for all the men and women who serve in our armed forces  The dedication they show and the willingness to sacrifice all for our country – makes me feel  safer.