Work at Home Blog

Launching Your Network Marketing Business Like a Boss: The Who (Con't)

7/4/2017

If you missed the first part of this post, you can find it here

Remembering can take a little effort, though. It’s worth the time it will take to go back in your mind and write down what your situation was like. What’s your story? What did you feel? What did you dream about? What did you fear? What was preventing you from having it? What happened that made you decide once and for all that you were going to go for it? What problems did you come against when you first started your journey to where you are now? How did you struggle? How did you overcome those things? What do you have at this point that makes the struggle worth it? In what ways have you changed that you didn’t expect? What will you have in the future as you continue to go forward?
Does that sound a little bit like a movie? It’s an age-old story formula called The Hero’s Journey and it’s the foundation for almost every epic story (I actually can’t think of any that don’t use this formula in one way or another, if you think of any, leave a comment). It’s Romeo and Juliet, it’s Star Wars, it’s The Odyssey, it’s timeless because it’s wildly compelling. We are hard-wired for story. Brain research has proven that when we listen to someone’s story, our brains react as if we had actually experienced it.
I’ll go into more detail about storytelling in a later post, but for right now, grab a pen or open up your laptop and start capturing your story. Once you know your story, you’ll know your tribe.
The more you share your story, the better it gets and the more people you will attract to your tribe. Telling your story may even attract some of your friends and family, but since you aren’t desperately chasing them, they’ll become willing members of your tribe and far more open to hearing about what you offer.
Once you have the first iteration of your story written, go through and make a list of characteristics in it, you’ll probably find a lot of adjectives. Those adjectives describe your tribe members and offer great clues about keywords to use to find them.
Coming up next time: Building home for your tribe. We’ll go into to setting up your web properties in a way that attracts your tribe and makes them feel at home.

Selling Yourself to Clients through Persuasion

8/22/2016

Know the complicated modern selling field

In the modern age, customers can choose where, who they want to do their business with. They have a choice as to what they want exactly. The modern customer needs to be persuaded to select your product or service rather than that of the competitors. Products and services are customizable to suit the various customers. As an entrepreneur, or a business person, one must know their customer well. The business person needs to know their customers’, needs as well. The business person now needs to help customers to identify market opportunities. They also need to assist the customer to interpret market opportunities. The business person needs to help the customer to make decisions along the way.

Customers also consider, the seller’s other non financial offerings such as ethics or environmental or their corporate social responsibilities. This is over and above the sales price of a seller’s offering. Customers may also demand to see a business’s competitive strength. A business must be able to show these to the customer as well as other benefits.

A business must be able to add more value other than supplying the goods or providing a service. The business must be able to add extra value by providing things such as education, after sales assistance, expertise and many other things. A businessperson in the course of selling may now have to deal with his customer’s needs. This may include even their customer’s suppliers or their other partners.

The selling process requires a business person to go beyond and above the role of just selling. Much more is required to make a sale. The entire process is no longer simple.   There is serious competition which is stiff and intense. The competition is also trying to make their customers happy.

Use persuasion

Persuasion is important, in that you understand the customer’s point of view. At the same time the customer is provided with the information about benefits offered by a seller. In persuading   customers, there is a need to focus on how a customer will benefit from your product or service. The business must avoid focusing on the features of their offering only.

Persuasion is a way of looking at customers that enables you to convince them you can give them your best service. In persuading the customer, emphasis should be put the product’s benefits.

4 Key Persuasion tips

Demonstrate that you understand the customer

You can put yourself into the customer’s shoes to see how the customer would do things. This allows you to visualize what the customer faces and needs. This allows you to focus on finding and giving the best solution for the customer’s needs. You should emphasize that the interaction is about the customer. You need to ask questions that show that you are knowledgeable about your customer’s business needs. In this way you can then show how you can help the customer to succeed in their business.

Create a warm environment

You must create a friendly, environment that is responsive to the customer needs. The environment must be warm to the client. It involves having a good attitude when working with the customer. You need to be able to meet their needs. You should be in a position to handle all their requests. The ability to handle requests is preferred by customers. Responding quickly is also appreciated by customers. Customers also prefer sellers that can meet their expectations. Such things can help sway the customer when deciding from whom to buy from. One good trick is to promise less, but then deliver more to customers. This demonstrates exceptional customer service and will make the customer want more.

Provide proof

You should be able to demonstrate to the customer that you, and your product or service is the best fit for the customer. You should explain exactly how the customer will benefit from you. Show the customer that you can do more than what the others can do for the customer. You can present proof in the form of references or testimonials. You can also show them, the scenarios before you dealt with these customers. You should also show them the after you dealt scenarios. These can then prove how you can make a difference to your customer. You are able to fully back up all your claims.


Prove your expertise

You need to show and prove that the customer that you understand what you are selling or presenting to them. Give to the customer, relevant, and useful information. Give them relevant information that shows you know their field. Keep them updated with the most recent happening in their field.   You can also share with them the problems that their industry faces. By showing all this you will be establishing yourself as an expert. Instilling confidence in the client makes them to want to work with you.

Image
www.pixabay.com

Bio
The article was written By Zvidzayi Raphael,a freelance writer, who provides services such as ghostwriting, blog posts, copywriting, guest posts, etc . You can find him at www.zrwriting.co.za

Five Essential Questions to Ask Your Estate Lawyer

8/9/2016

Mortality is something most people would not like to discuss; however, the issue of how one's assets are passed down to beneficiaries necessitates obtaining the service of an estate lawyer. Here are five basic questions one should ask their estate agent.

1. I do not own much in real estate, do I need to hire an estate lawyer?
It does not necessarily need one to own much in real estate to hire an estate lawyer. Regardless of financial power, everyone requires using the services of an estate attorney. Everybody needs to make a Will, Power of Attorney, Advance Directive or Medical Authorization at some point. These documents allow you to give someone power to handle financial or medical decisions on your behalf in life or after you have passed on.

2. What will happen when I die without making a will?
In case you die without a will, your assets will be passed on to your beneficiaries. In the event where you have no beneficiaries, your assets will be liable to a probate. A professional lawyer is the only one who can help you determine who inherits your assets.

3. How do I choose a person to make decisions for me when I cannot make them myself?
Your estate lawyer will be there to help you in reaching this decision. The most suitable person should be one with a sound financial record in managing his finances. In the case of choosing one to handle medical decisions, he should be one who is willing to do what you wish regarding your end of life decisions.

4. Can I register online for my estate planning?
It is possible to register for estate planning online. However, there are some important issues which you can only get answers for in a face to face interaction with your estate attorney. A meeting with your estate lawyer will result in you getting answers to specific queries concerning estate planning.

5. What do I do with my original documents and am I allowed to review them?
You are strongly advised to keep your original documents in a safe place. It can be either a fireproof location within your home or in a safe deposit box. It is important that your estate lawyer knows where you keep these documents.

Every three to five years, you are allowed to do reviews to your documents. To cover major events, that may occur in your life. For example getting married, divorce, producing children or getting grandchildren.

The role of your estate lawyer is to help you mitigate all the eventualities which may arise owing to poor estate planning.

Sebuufu Dennis is a professional writer from Uganda, specializing in articles, eBooks, ghostwriting, blog posts, and SEO. He can be contacted for freelance work at www.seocopywritr.com

Do You Make These Social Media Mistakes?

5/13/2015

Are You Making These Costly Social Media Marketing Mistakes?

Social media is a ripe ground for making connections, as well as for offending and creating enemies. Knowing what you shouldn’t do in relation to social media is almost as vital as understanding what you should be doing. Here are several social media mistakes to avoid like the plague!

Jokes in poor taste – It ought to be obvious, but you must put on your thinking cap before you tweet, update or post. And above all, don't try and benefit from someone else’s catastrophe as a way to promote your products or services. While a celebrity death or embarrassment may seem like easy pickings for trending traffic, you might end up alienating more people than you attract!

Offensive statements and political rants – Closely connected is the temptation to broadcast your preferences political, social or otherwise, which may have the misfortune of NOT aligning with your your clients and customers. Don’t go there! Try to keep from sharing anything that might be misunderstood, or you’ll end up scrambling for cover! Once trust is broken, it’s very difficult to rebuild.

Not making business only accounts – An account solely devoted to your company has not only a much better chance of being found in the search engine results, it projects an altogether more professional image for your business.

No social media buttons on your website – These are readily available for all social media platforms, and you’re shooting yourself in the foot if they are inaccessible on your homepage and every post you make. This will make it easy for your readers to share your posts and in doing so help promote your business.

Not using your social media profiles to link back to your site – You’ve gone to all the effort to set up and use these social sites, why not take the free, authoritative link they’re offering back to you! Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google all permit you to link back to your website. There’s five great links to your site, and a great chance for your (hopefully) many followers to end up on your site.

Who Needs Online Reputation Management? You Do!!!

3/16/2013

How to Manage your Online Reputation

You might think that online reputation management isn’t something you need concern yourself with. I would implore you to reconsider that thought!

According to eMarketer 83% of consumers claim that online reviews influence their opinions about a particular company, and 8 of 10 of these individuals added that a damaging entry on the internet has caused them to change their opinion. One poor review, whether true or untrue, can thwart all of your best efforts if you don’t have an online reputation strategy in place. With that in mind, we would like to offer five strategies your business can implement to monitor and strengthen your online reputation management.

Monitoring your brand names – Listening what’s being said about you and your company is of vital importance. There are a number wonderful free tools to help in this regard. Take a look at Google Alerts, Hootsuite, and Social Mention among others.
Claim all your social properties – Unclaimed social media sites can be utilized by your rivals for nefarious exploits. Be sure you claim all social sites that apply to your brand.
Own as much of page one of Google as you can – One proactive way to make sure what people read about you when they Google you is to own most if not all of Google page one for your brand names. This makes it much harder for flyby attacks to have much if any impact.
Go after customer reviews – Customer reviews aren’t just going to appear on your website: you have to ask for them. Don’t be shy about asking for reviews. Quite often, your clients are going to be flattered you asked. And of course if you offer incentives, make it clear that you’re not trying to bribe them or manipulate their review!
Engage with your people – Interacting with those writing comments, Facebook posts and tweets is an excellent way to head off any damage from the get-go. Don’t participate in mud-slinging however, regardless of how justified you're feeling! Thank them for their contribution to the discussion, and politely disagree, standing up for yourself. (If they’re not right, of course!)

Online reputation management is incredibly crucial today, when customers can tweet, post or video form wherever they are. Don’t forget this one!

A Beauty Break

3/14/2013

From time to time, we just need to take a minute and enjoy watching pure beauty unfold.

What GooglePlus can do for Your Business

3/10/2013

Here’s how Google+ can enhance your content strategy

Google+ has thus far not been taken overly serious by businesses looking to market their products and services. This is swiftly changing! Google+ has now positioned itself nicely to challenge Facebook as a primary social network for business. Websites using the +1 Button increase page traffic by 350%, and more than 925,000 people join Google+ every day! Mix together all the functionality of your Google account, and massive search engine benefits, you have something we can get serious about.

Seven Tips for Utilizing Your Google+ Page

Confused about how to use Google+? Don't worry – use these to get going!

Your Google+ profile – Complete it. Do this with a little thought. Be sure you use engaging photos and images, and link out to your other social media profiles.
List your key information – Especially business hours, contact information, along with maps and directions.
Link to your blog or site – You should definitely link to your main business blog or site. This will result in added traffic plus a great link.
Create a business page – Showcase your small business where it matters. This has direct benefits for search results as well as for people that find you on Google+.
Link out to your content –Doing this will have several benefits, first of all getting them indexed nearly instantly, along with a several other search engine advantages. You can even use your Google+ page to create posts, complete with multimedia which can link out to your posts elsewhere.
Utilize the Direct Connect feature – This Google+ tool permits people to add you to circles once they come across you in search. Similar to a Facebook “Like”.
Use video chat in Google+ Hangouts – This one is incredibly useful. Any time you conduct a video chat, Google+ streams it, records it, and sends you the recording via email. After that you can upload to YouTube, thus creating more useful content. One terrific method to use these is to make impromptu product demos.

This is only the start of what’s possible with Google+. To find even more strategies plus a very cool infographic on the subject see this post on CopyBlogger.

What Big Business Doesn't Want Small Business to Know...

3/2/2013

5 Marketing Strategies Big Business Doesn't Want Small Business to Know About

Mobile marking is a goldmine!

But you wouldn’t realize it looking at the marketing activities of many local businesses…

The age of the smart phone is here but many small local business owners are still in the dark ages. They're playing catch up with their clients and their behavior. An interesting Web.com survey showed of 500 small business owners showed on 26 percent of respondents invested time and money in optimizing their website for mobile devices! What does this mean for small businesses? It means this is a excellent time to stand out from the crowd. The mobile customers are ripe for the taking and you're in prime position to reap the rewards!

Since we are now seeing over half of all searches happening on a mobile device of some sort, now is the time to take advantage of this. Listed below are five proven ways mobile marketing can help small businesses on a budget.

Mobile Optimized Site – Making sure that the site is optimized properly for mobile is step one, and without it almost everything else doesn’t matter. Make sure it is designed with mobile in mind, and is available on all platforms. According to a survey from Google, 61 percent of consumers will leave a website if it’s not optimized for mobile.
Look into Mobile Ads – Mobile ads are cheap and effective. This may sound surprising but at the moment lots of the inventory goes unsold every month and this keeps the prices down. This makes it an excellent time for you to jump in and explore mobile advertising.
SMS and Push Notifications – SMS messages have several great advantages. First and foremost; they get opened. A lot. According to Frost and Sullivan, SMS messages offer an astounding 95 percent open rate! Push notifications are a great way to connect with your customer base.
Using Mobile with Your Social Media – Having the capability to connect real-time with your social networks and send links to coupons, specials, events or a link to your latest YouTube video is a surefire way to not only increase traffic and buzz, but also to help your site’s search engine ranking. Google hangouts are also now becoming a new and exciting way to reach potential customers in real-time.
Location Based Marketing and Passbook – Your small business needs to be found on the web. In the past, it meant Foursquare and Yelp. While this still applies, you also have to start investigating new technology like Passbook also. Passbook is a great new app that allows its user to save all kinds of things like boarding passes, gift cards, coupons, store cards, coupons and all sorts of mobile payments.

The most critical thing for local businesses is to gather knowledge and always keep learning. Remember, it doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to be extravagant. You just need to start where you are and never stop learning.

You're Using LinkedIn, Right?

2/22/2013

Hey Small Business Owners: You’re Using LinkedIn, Right?

LinkedIn is the Rodney Dangerfield of social media: in spite of 200 million highly influential subscribers, it gets no respect. Even though it is consistently ranked among the social giants Facebook and Twitter, it doesn’t seem to get as much buzz in the mainstream media. But as a tool for marketing your small business, it provides a huge edge over its more popular peers. Because unlike Facebook and Twitter, which often swap cat photos, inane one-liners and political rants from loco uncles, LinkedIn is all business.

How smart companies are using LinkedIn

You run a business. Your time is scarce. So just why should you worry about LinkedIn? Here are some ways your peers (there are 1.3 million small-business owners on the network) are using it to their advantage:

Sharing wins: As a small business owner, you work hard. Why not share your success stories? Promoting your successes is just good marketing. And with 2 million C-level executives making use of the site, you might suddenly find yourself with a few deep-pocketed suitors.
Getting referrals: LinkedIn makes it simplallows you to get peer and client endorsements for the work you do. Best part? When someone endorses you or writes a testimonial, everyone in your network sees it in his or her activity feed. This kind of social proof is the BEST way of getting new business.
Finding new talent: Growing? LinkedIn is a great place—scratch that, it’s the BEST place—to locate new A players to add to your roster. It’s the largest directory of working professionals on the internet.
Promoting events: LinkedIn’s event feature is a game changer! It has never been easier to spread your message and boost attendance for upcoming events. You can even use their service directory to find a caterer for your gathering. Simple.
Boosting website traffic: Here’s a little-known secret about LinkedIn: it’s very influential with Google, if you have a presence on LinkedIn, you’re likely to see a bump in search engine visibility, too. More eyeballs, more customers.
Getting answers: LinkedIn is a goldmine for advice on running a successful business. You are able to uncover great advice from a number of the savviest business minds in the world in LinkedIn Answers and Groups. There are over 2000 groups focused on small-business-related topics.
Finding investors, vendors and partners: It’s a networker’s paradise. Whether you want some capital, a new accounting firm, or even a business partner, you’re not going to find a better source than LinkedIn.

We’re just scratching the surface here, folks. The rewards don’t stop there. Go to LinkedIn, set up a page for your business and see for yourself. I know your time is limited, but trust me, it’s worth it.

Are You Using Pinterest Yet??? You Should Be!!!!

2/10/2013

Are You Using Pinterest Yet? (You Should Be)

I know, I know. You don’t have the time for another social network. Nevertheless I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t chat up Pinterest, as this image-centric social network is now an incredible place for businesses to:

Connect with customers
Drive website traffic
Promote word of mouth
Increase sales activity

What makes this visual social network so appealing to users and businesses? Let’s take a look:

Visually appealing! Less whining!

Instead of being a platform for tedious updates about what people ate in the morning or ALL CAPS rants from your bizarre uncle, Pinterest is about bringing people together who have common preferences, whether it’s fashion, art, food, crafts, architecture, photography, cocktail recipes, interior design..you name it. Copyblogger contributor Beth Hayden sums up Pinterest wonderfully with this quote: “Pinterest is visually appealing, positive, and unlike Facebook, there isn’t any whining.” Can I get an amen?!

Why are marketers so fired up about Pinterest?

For starters, the website is incredibly well-liked. Just last year, in a five month span, Pinterest rocketed to a jaw-dropping 10 million users. No one was expecting it. Even social media watchers were caught off guard. Virtually overnight Pinterest became a MAJOR driver of website traffic. Get this: Pinterest drives more traffic than YouTube, Google and LinkedIn—combined. Here’s another thing: users love Pinterest. They can’t get enough of it. It’s addictive. According to comScore data Pinterest users average 89 minutes per month on the site and Google users average just 3 minutes each month.

What does this mean for local businesses?

Now let’s tackle one of the most fundamental questions: Why should businesses care about Pinterest? It’s pretty simple. For starters, it’s a great, noninvasive approach to meet prospects who share an interest in that which you have to offer. This built-in permission can help you quickly build rapport and create new relationships with buyers within your target audience. Secondly, brands already are having great results making use of the site to showcase their goods and services, stay top of mind and drive website visitors. Just set up an account. You’ll see all kinds of businesses engaging with their customers:

Florists

Farmers markets

Furniture makers

Fly fishing guides

Fitness clubs

Fashion consultants

The list is just about endless.

Ready, set, pin!

Most businesses tend to quickly think of explanations why they shouldn’t use social media—but the fact is, many sell themselves short and don’t get involved simply because they don’t think they have a natural place in a certain network. Now, if you run an accounting business, maybe Pinterest isn’t the perfect fit, but then again, it’s entirely possible that you could be a trailblazer and use Pinterest to market your business and have great success. Hey, if a plumbing franchise in Waco, Texas can make Pinterest help their business, you can too! It’s just too easy to sell yourself short and come up with reasons to stay on the sidelines!

CLICK the IMAGE!! Let's Connect on Pinterest!!!