This is a good subject for start-ups and very small businesses who don’t have a large budget to work with..

The first free marketing method is networking. Go to as many meetings as possible, particularly the free events or those that don’t require a big entrance fee. But to make these successful you must arm yourself with a good pitch, both 10 and 60 second versions, the first to grab attention to yourself, and the second if you get a chance to address the whole room. If you can create something that is different, easily understandable, poignant and relevant to your listeners’ needs, then you have a head start above many others.

It is important to get yourself as visible as possible in the business world. There are two possibilities: blogging and social networking group pages. It is very easy to create a free blog, and social networking sites allow you to create groups or fanpages which you can devote to your business.  In these you must regularly post up information about your business, and then, as with the blog, use RSS feeds to inform your followers of your new posts, or email through the social networking system to your followers that you have recently contributed new material for them to read.

And then there’s Twitter, equally free, which is an excellent way to promote your business, not forgetting that you can feed your blog to it, and now your posts can be automatically replicated on your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

Writing articles and publishing them around the net is another way to spread your expertise. Make sure the resource boxes direct the reader back to your website, blog or social networking profile pages, so they can find out more about you.  Take advantage of keywords to improve your search engine optimisation, and careful attention to the headlines and first paragraph will increase the likelihood of a response.

If you do have a website, get as many links back to it as possible from other websites and web directories. The more high profile the link source, the more respect search engines give your website, not to mention providing more portals for the spiders to crawl over your site and report back pages for indexing.

Create a good signature for your emails, to publicise your website, blog and social networking profiles. Don’t forget that the space at the bottom of your communication is just waiting to be filled with promotional written material and links, and everybody you write to will get a chance to see them.

This week, when I attended a talk by the ‘top dogs’ who featured in the BBC programme last spring, I was ready for an evening of entertainment. What I did not realise is just how fired up I would feel afterwards.

On stage were Ranulph Fiennes not only a famous polar explorer, but a man who completed 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents, months after a triple by-pass operation, and Robin Knox-Johnston the first man to sail single handed non-stop around the world.

That would be enough for anyone, but what really struck me was their unfailing determination to succeed, no matter how long or how gruelling the journey. As a result the former became the first pensioner in reaching the top of Everest, the later the first pensioner to go sail alone around the world. Neither were defeated by set backs or discouraged by the length of time it took, the constant battle to secure funds, their age or any such like menial distractions.

If they can, so can I. At a time when business is challenging for most, if not all independents, when times are lean and doubt starts to creep in, I will remember what they achieved against all the odds, pick myself of the floor and keep going.

I had an IT crisis a few weeks ago when not just one thing went wrong! From broadband problems to my laptop crashing and lots of other things in-between, I was feeling challenged and had to approach my work in completely new ways so that my productivity wouldn’t go totally out of the window.

The one thing that helped me work smarter during this time was grouping (or batching) different tasks, and applying this technique consistently. Grouping or batching tasks makes so much sense as you end up being quicker, having fewer distractions and less temptation to multi-task!

For example, as I had lots of internet down time I was forced to plan my online and offline time separately. Carrying out my online tasks remotely once a day encouraged me to batch them and also to group offline tasks, to be carried out during the rest of the day.

So let’s assume your to-do list says you should do some invoicing, emailing and filing. Let’s think of invoicing as task 1, emailing as task 2, and filing as task 3.

If you were working on three different client projects (A, B & C), would you prefer to do emailing, filing and invoicing for project A first, then the same for project B and C?

If your preference is to work this way, imagine you are cooking a meal. Let’s say you cooked a starter and a main course that both included onions. Would you slice the onions for the starter first, then complete that dish and then slice the onions for the main course?
I always get out all the ingredients that are needed to prepare the whole meal. I then prepare all vegetables and fruit in one go, which is so much faster overall!

All it requires is a little more forethought by imagining the final meal, its courses and their relevant preparation times. You then put them in order – not necessarily as they are eaten, but as they are prepared, with the goal of minimising effort and preparation time.

The same applies to your work projects. When working on 3 different projects (A, B & C), don’t be tempted to do filing and invoicing for project A first, before tackling project B and C!

It is far more efficient to group all emailing tasks (1), all invoicing (2) and all filing tasks (3) as in ‘A1, B1, C1’ followed by ‘A2, B2, C2’ and so on….

When you approach all your work projects in this way, even downtime on the internet can have its advantages!

By Ute Wieczorek-King, copyright November 2009

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor, business coach and facilitator who specialises in business and career development, time management and personal effectiveness. As an expert in balancing lots of different commitments, she enjoys helping other busy women achieve more in less time, with less stress. She also supports women via Success Network, a not-for-profit business community which can be found at http://www.successnetwork.org.uk

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the natural or organic method of getting your website placed higher in the search engines, as opposed to paying for online advertising.

As a result it is a task that is never ending, always requiring you to be one step ahead of your competitors, and any successes tend to be short lived, as Google responds to all new material that is posted online, and it is always the latest contributions that are indexed at the top.

But it is a process that should not be ignored. Even if your website or latest blog post reaches its desired placing for a short time, it has got there, and who knows will look at it or read it while it resides in its lofty position. The more times you manage to attain this prize, the higher the chances of recognition, acknowledgement and conversion through response.

To explain simply, SEO work on three main elements: new content, links and keywords. I know all SEO experts out there will be saying ‘Oh, but you’ve forgotten this element’, and of course they’re right, as experts they should have many tricks up their sleeves to attain the final goal: get as high as you can in Google. But if you understand these three elements, there is no reason why anybody can’t give it a try.

New Content: search engines rely on their spiders: mathematically driven robots that ‘crawl’ the net looking for new material that has been posted. Once found, they feed greedily on it before passing it onto their master, the search engine, to be indexed. If your website or blog, especially the blog, has regularly published new content, it stands a better chance of being placed higher than any old material from your competitors.

Links: spiders need to have a method of entering and leaving your website or blog. Think of links being the doors or portals spiders use to find new content. Incoming links allow spiders to enter and feed, and outgoing links (especially if they are relevant to the content and final destination) will enable them to leave and visit other suitable sites, giving you brownie points as they do so.

Keywords: relevance is vital for spiders to work effectively. Keywords should be relevant to the content, destinations of links, and popularity of searches, eg what people are searching for at that moment. It would be wise therefore to properly research suitable keywords that are not only popular but truly reflect your new material and business. It’s simply like a game of snap, and the best results are attained through correct recognition of a match!

Now that you know these three elements, take them into consideration next time you post up something new on the net.

The business is going well and now it’s time to consider taking on your first employee. Before actually recruiting, it’s worth spending just a little more time on ‘who’ and ‘what’ here. Recruitment can be expensive and it does take time to set up and interview people, so it is important to get it right. Getting it wrong can be a big expense too! So here are my tips to help you with the process.

Tip No 1 – Write a job description

Let’s start with the job itself. What is the job? Yes, you are probably aware of the content, well roughly anyway. Tip No 1 – Write it down. Write down the content of the ‘Job description’. Too many small businesses keep a lot of this information ‘in their heads’ where it’s not easily accessible! What are the main responsibilities of the job? To whom will the new recruit report? What are the main requirements of the job? What needs to happen now that it not happening already in this role? Has the role grown that it is no longer capable of being managed by one person – YOU – possibility, hence the reason you are considering recruiting more manpower.

A job description or job spec will help to clarify the new role. Write down the purpose of the job. Is the new job required to ‘assist’ you with your role? Perhaps you are recruiting someone to ‘fulfil’ part of the job that is not part of your skill set? You are after all developing the business and you need to think about additional skills. Be wary of recruiting a ‘cloned you’! Writing a job description will allow you to think more clearly about what additional help you need for the business right now and in the future too. Take time and be clear about this for your business. Preparation for recruitment can be a sound investment.

Tip No 2 – Write a person specification

Think about the person you need to do the job and again write it down. Consider what it is you will require from this person who is interviewing. What is your requirement? You know after all what it takes to do this job. What are the attributes you are looking for now, may include attention to detail, accuracy, flexibility, ability to speak a particular language? The person specification may be written in terms of ‘essential’ and ‘preferable’ requirements. If you are recruiting a finance person then it may be ‘essential’ for them to have a specific finance qualification. It may be ‘essential’ for them to be able to use all Microsoft packages? It may be ‘preferable’ for them to be conversant with e.g. Quick Books, but not essential as this is something you can train them on if required within the business.

By writing a person specification, it provides the opportunity to think about skills and attributes. It enables you to make a more informed decision for recruitment. It’s also helpful for when you are preparing your interview questions too. Further along the line, the person specification may help when you are job matching for further positions. It helps to have a template in place rather than starting from scratch all over again.

By taking the time to plan your recruitment, write a job description for the role and a person specification for the ideal candidate, you will be more confident about who and what you require for your business. Also, this exercise will be good discipline and practice for you. You are after all ‘investing’ in new people; you are paying the new person to do a job for which they will require payment. You will be required to assess the role and the person from time to time, so it is important to have a set of criteria to work with too. Yu may find that the job description and person specification changes and that’s okay. It is not something that is set in stone! As your company grows and develops you and your people will do too.

If you would like a template for a job description and personal specification, please contact me at Fraser HR. Email mary@fraserhr.co.uk and write Job Description in the subject line.

Mary Fraser is an experienced HR professional with a passion for learning and development. She set up Fraser HR in 2002 to help small and medium sized organisations by providing an external HR support service.  Mary is a keen advocate of personal development and offers coaching and mentoring to individuals and organisations as part of their development strategy. In 2005 she co-founded Success Network for business women with colleague Ute Wieczorek-King. More about Fraser HR can be found at www.fraserhr.co.uk

Here’s just a small visual e-course I quickly compiled to demonstrate how easy it is to submit articles into groups in LinkedIn:

How to submit articles and news into LinkedIn groups

Let me know if it helps to make it easier for you to contribute.

I know this is related to the Business in Berkshire LinkedIn group, but this can also be used with the new group Success Network has set up in LinkedIn. It’s important that there should be lots of activity in this group, as the more information there is to read, the more promotion members can make, the more new material there is for the internet spiders, plus more interaction from members, this all contributes towards search engine optimisation and therefore gets you noticed on the web.

So how about it – go on, give it a go! What have you got to lose?

This all depends on what caught your eye out of the usual selection of brown or white envelopes.

OK, to get your publication noticed above all the others, it needs to stand out. It needs to be different, crying out “I’m what you’ve been looking for!” and entice you to pull it first out of the pile.

To do this you will need: colour, quality and individuality.

What’s wrong with a different coloured envelope? A bright green or ferocious orange will certain draw attention to itself. Having a peculiar or out of the ordinary size won’t cut the chase, and it usually ends up requiring higher postage, but if you had an image or a bright flash of colour, of course reflecting your corporate branding, then this inevitably catches the reader’s eye.

But if you want to be conventional, use a high-quality envelope, beautifully written in calligraphy script using a real ink pen. This shows you care, have taken pains regarding presentation, and the reader isn’t just another one on a list.

And you don’t want your beautifully produced brochure to be overlooked just because it was sent in a rubbish package.

And sometimes you don’t even need to have an envelope! Postcards are ideal because your message is more likely to be read immediately because there is nothing to open up first.  Just think – your carefully composed and compelling headline hits the reader between the eyes even before he has thought about opening the post. The well thought-through image will capture the interest it deserves by stimulating the reader’s desire to find out more or understand its meaning.

And of course the remainder of the postcard will spread its magic powers through appropriate bullet points and a poignant and relevant call to action. After all, the main reason for the postcard would be to drive traffic to a squeeze page on your website leading to capturing potential customers’ details for more communication at a later date, all in exchange for a free special report. Or perhaps you have some other intention in mind…?

Don’t get seduced by a potential customer with a fat, bulging wallet. Remember the old saying: “all that glitters is not gold”.

My husband is working on a tender for a job in the Far East. Of course the businessmen concerned are rich, and want large, expensive work to be done, which adds to the attraction of the job, but they are proving to be nightmare clients.

Why so? Well, these particular kind of businesses are used to asking for things to be done immediately, which is generally accomplished for them because of their financial power. As long as the job is completed within the requested time, then they’re happy. Trouble is, to get the work done within such a time frame, it usually is rushed and of poor quality. Then another commission is made for a repair job to rectify the first one, and again it needs to be done now! So the same thing happens again.

Now if proper attention was made from the beginning to properly analyse the job needed, with appropriate materials and an adequate time span, then everything would be completed in less time and with fewer expenses. Ideas should be fully discussed, and understood, even starting as jottings on the back of an envelope right up to fully developed proposals put out to tender. If all the details are not fully explained, don’t then wonder why your workers haven’t completed your commission to your expected standards.

To have an idea and then click your fingers towards a likely candidate isn’t the answer: careful consideration and well thought out procedures put into place will save money as well as time later. Don’t wear out your task-force by expecting them to drop everything and produce at short notice. Respect your workers and how they operate, be mindful of their needs and understand why certain things are ‘not possible at the moment’.

I know this is hard, but if you find you are out of your depth, sometimes it’s better to say ‘No’ to a such a client if you want to keep your sanity (and in some cases your business) rather than to run yourself ragged trying to fulfill a job that isn’t possible. This is especially prevalent during a recession when there isn’t a lot of money around, and it is usually desperation that causes bad decisions to be made.

And especially be aware of the client hasn’t coughed up yet, in spite of all their supposed wealth! – remember to get a deposit first to prove their good intentions. If they don’t show good will through a down payment, then leave them well alone. You’ll be saving yourself from a huge amount of hassle later on.

Following on from yesterday’s blog about ‘Multitasking not being the key to higher productivity’, here now are 9 Tips to help busy business women under pressure to keep up with the different demands on their time.

These 9 tips will help you ‘maxi-task’ rather than multi-task:

1. Accept that multitasking may not be good for you -or your brain – it’s a start!

2. Work with your natural biorhythm. Whether you are a morning or evening person, do your most important work tasks when you are most focused and productive.

3. Stop reacting to everything that happens. Responding appropriately may not mean having to jump straight into action just because something has landed on your desk or in your inbox, or because you ‘should’ be carrying out certain tasks at specific times.

4. Always do the most important thing first; this can take the pressure off you later, and also help with concentration.

5. When concentrating intensely during important tasks, it pays to have a break after about 90 minutes. This allows your brain to have a rest, as you continue with some less intense tasks. These may include answering e-mail or returning calls. Having a hot drink at this point may then also help you return to more intense ‘focus time’.

6. During your ‘focus time’, avoid distraction from browser windows that don’t need to be open, like any social networks you may use. Turn email reminders off, in fact why not close your inbox and even put your mobile on silent. Reducing other external noise (if possible) can help too, since your brain may thank you for not having to deal with interruptions, and you don’t lose the adjustment time your brain needs to help you switch between tasks.

7. Set a timer for social networking tasks, or for reading articles (whether this is part of your work or not). Decide on a length of time before you start- just 15 minutes of totally focused time can be very effective.

8. If you are stressed by too much to do, it helps to write everything down. Particularly at night, when people often lie awake, feeling overwhelmed and anxious, taking notes of your concerns or writing a list can relieve your brain of some of the ‘weight’ and allow you to get the sleep that you need.

9. Read a useful article about writing effective to-do lists and how to prioritise tasks at http://www.successnetwork.org.uk/articles.htm

So, by using the old adage of ‘more haste less speed’ you will actually be improving your effectiveness and you may even find your overall work performance increasing.

By Ute Wieczorek-King, copyright May 2009

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor, business coach and facilitator who specialises in
business and career development, time management and personal effectiveness. As an expert in
balancing lots of different commitments, she enjoys helping other busy women achieve more in less time,
with less stress. She also supports women via Success Network, a not-for-profit business community which
can be found at http://www.successnetwork.org.uk

Are you a busy woman who is an expert at multitasking and who can juggle a million and one things? Women, who run a business from home, tend to view their ability to multitask as a requirement to help them try and fit in everything that needs to be done. But is it actually helpful, or a hindrance to productivity?

Mothers often seem to have a built-in ability and a need to complete several tasks at once. It may be a long time ago now, but I can still remember tending to a teething baby whilst keeping an eye on her toddler sister and overseeing the 7-year-old’s homework, all the while thinking about what to have for dinner… and often preparing it as well! Add the phone call that interrupts all this activity and we may even manage that too.

Nowadays, we have clever technology to save us time and help us work better. Our smartphones, for example, enable us to access and pass on information whilst making coffee. When using instant online chat and voice over internet calls, it may be tempting to take part in a conference call with one person, and write email or instant messages to someone else, at the same time. After all, is this any harder than listening to the car radio whilst driving, or using driving time to catch up with colleagues or family via a hands-free mobile?

Multitasking may not be the key to higher productivity!

Fitting in multiple tasks seems to be our modern-day reaction to our need to achieve more in less time. However, we may not be working as optimally as we think – according to scientists, the brain doesn’t process multiple tasks simultaneously in the way we think it does.

If I am writing this article in my office whilst listening to background music and people chatting in another room, it may seem to me that I am doing all this at the same time. However what really happens is that the brain is rapidly switching between the different tasks, rather than simultaneously processing them.

According to research, when doing more than one task, the brain orders them and decides which one to do at any one time. American Psychology professor, David E Meyer, claims that multitasking can slow us down, as the more complex activities a person takes on, the more time they actually take in the long run. And therefore, it may be difficult to perform several tasks together and each at an optimum level! By choosing to work in this way we risk compromising the quality of our work and increasing the number of errors we make. We may even experience short-term memory problems or difficulties with concentration.

How many times have you rushed juggling two tasks, when something goes wrong and you suddenly find yourself with a third recovery task on your hand? So whilst multitasking anything other than very simple, automated or routine tasks, it seems we are compromising our efficiency!

—–

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor and business coach who specialises in career & business development, time management & personal effectiveness for women in business.

Over the last few weeks I notice I have been successful in recommending people I know, passed details on, when a specific opportunity has arisen. Isn’t that what networking is all about I hear you say? You are quite right, nothing new here except…

 I noticed that, when reading a request, instantly only one or two people, out of the hundreds I know, popped into my head. So I stopped and looked at why and found out two reasons: firstly they were people I knew, trusted and felt very confident recommending. The second and probably most interesting to me was that I had total clarity about what they offered, the field in which they operated: one was related to customer service, the other to book writing.

 What I have learnt from that is what I know already; the clearer you are about who you are and what you offer, the easier you make it for others to spot opportunities to recommend you. Building a good rapport will help you achieve the second stage.

 Because I want to increase my chances of success, my next task is to be ruthless in reviewing how clear I am about what I offer so I can give others a chance to recommend my services where appropriate.

“OK, I give up… No I don’t…. Yes I do” ….. And I did!

About a year ago, I got hopelessly lost trying to attend a business event in Bracknell.
For some reason I always find it challenging to find my way round Bracknell, whatever navigation system I use. However my regular readers may know that I do enjoy navigating by using maps rather than SAT NAV, as I have written about ‘finding your way’ before.

Having planned my journey and checked locations and directions before I left, I felt the best thing to do was to ask someone for help, once I was lost. After stopping at two garages and asking three different people for directions, I found that they were all in a hurry -it was rush hour- and tried to send me in completely different directions.

When I ‘crept’ home again, after having fought the above internal battle to persist without giving up, I felt defeated and upset with myself for having wasted my own time.

I then tried to figure out why I wasn’t meant to find the location I had been looking for.

What was going on?

Then, all of a sudden, it occurred to me that I had agreed to attend an event that wasn’t really important at all!

What had been my reasons for attending? Hmm…

Would having been there, been time well spent? And when thinking about it, I had to honestly say- NO!

It was a perfect example of how being unfocused and not having clarity can trip you up!
I had allowed myself to be too busy and non-attentive to consider the benefits of attending this event and, had I thought about it first, I would have realised that I could have done much better things with my time!

The moral of the story?

It is so easy to slip up when you allow yourself to be busy without being clear about your priorities, AND how precious your time is.

Being indiscriminately busy never equates with being efficient!

—–

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor and business coach who specialises in career & business development, time management & personal effectiveness for women in business.

Yesterday, we woke up to the news that Boyzone’s Stephen Gately had died suddenly, at the age of 33. 

When young people die, it is always shocking but particularly so when it is unexpected.  It is not so much the reminder that we are mortal or that life is short – we all know that don’t we? – but the realization that this was not in their immediate plan.  Like Michael Jackson earlier in the year, Stephen was on the verge of a world tour.  Dying wasn’t on his agenda just like it isn’t on mine.  It’s the thought that I could pop out for milk and never drink that cup of tea on the worktop that I find particularly chilling.

Poignantly, Stephen’s last Twitter update read:

“still busy – lots going on. Focussing (sic) on finishing my book next so may be quiet here.”

I have no doubt that his book will be finished and on the shelves in time for Christmas but as for the rest of us, how many of us will shuffle off never having said or written the things we wanted to?

For many people, writing is something we can put off until we’re older; a bit like finding God, we’ll do it when we’ve got a bit more time on our hands!  I’m no different – although I write for a living, like many people, I still find it difficult to find time to write for myself.

When I need motivation, however, I don’t need to look any further than my two teenage diaries which documented a few months each of 1984 and 1987.  Although they were brief, I still managed to chart such events as Marvin Gaye’s murder, the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise and my flirtation with a loveable rogue called Jason!  These diaries remind me that by keeping a diary now then when (or if!) I’m older, I will be able to recall my children’s early lives in similarly vivid detail and not have to rely on a jumble of vague memories.

The challenge for many of us is finding time to write, on top of working, raising our families and doing our best to fend off the grim reaper!  The answer is, I believe, to start small.  And the fact is that anyone who posts the occasional update to an online networking service or forum has already done so.

So if you struggle to find the time to write every day but do manage to get onto Facebook or Twitter, why not turn your online updates into a diary?  As you get into the habit of keeping your diary up-to-date, you will probably start to add clarifying details and, before you know it, updating your diary will have become a part of your daily routine.

Catherine Osborn is a freelance writer who helps to take the pain out of creating well-written, compelling copy.  Find out more at catherineosborn.wordpress.com.

On 23 July 2009 my website was hacked into.

An internet spider is a robot that crawls around the world wide web. They are also sometimes called crawlers. They use an algorithmic programme that follows links throughout the net searching for new content. This then fetches the new webpages and adds them to the search engine indexes. Google is a crawler-based search engine, as it relies on spiders to automatically create its listings.

Some spiders have even been given names, such as Mozilla for Netscape, Scooter for Alta Vista and Slurp for Hotbot. They leave evidence of their visits just like human surfers in analytics, code and stats.

Spiders enter and leave websites through links, which act as portals throughout the net. That’s why it’s important to have lots of incoming links to your website to encourage spider activity. If you provide lots of new content for spiders to feed on, they will remember to visit your site more frequently.

Spiders only see text on the webpages, therefore pictures and Flash programmes are invisible to them. You can add alt tags to your pictures which are written descriptions behind them, enabling spiders to understand your images.

Spiders are programmed to look for new content with links, tags and keywords. They particularly relish appropriately selected keywords combined with extremely relevant links and their destinations.  They don’t like hidden or invisible keywords, as they think they’re being fooled. If your site’s navigation is complete, spiders will visit every page, indexing anything that’s new. If you treat spiders well, they are more likely to return.

Spider top tips

• provide lots of new content for spiders to feed on
• remember to put alt tags behind your pictures
• gather as many relevant inbound links as you can for spiders to enter
• remember to add your tags within your blog posts
• create contextual links (linked key-phrases) for maximum effect
• make sure your links go to relevant destinations
• blogs are visited hourly by spiders, unlike websites who may not be visited for several weeks

I have always loved locks especially old ones. They seem to have a beauty of their own and carry memories of days/people gone by. Many are worn dripping with the effort of restraining water.

 But I particularly like what they are and what they do. At first sight they are an end; they block the way forward. Yet, with a little time and practice, they allow change; close the gate on what had been, and the water level can rise or drop allowing the opening of the next stage in your journey.

 Most of us face locks as we travel through life: no focus, no motivation, no confidence… they stop us in our tracks. Just imagine if there was a way to open the gate to let uncertainty drain away and energy, motivation flood in; what possibilities would lie ahead?

Hélène is a successful accredited business coach-mentor who used her experience to create the FunShop a fun and empowering way to move forward in the face of change www.thefunshopway.co.uk

Networking seems to be the theme for us this autumn! We recently held another successful Slow Speed Networking event at Kinnarps in Reading, where we introduced a new bite-size training slot about elevator speeches.

Our ‘Elevator Recipe’ is so simple that we would like to share it here too! So if you too would like to make a bigger impact when networking, especially in a short space of time, just try introducing yourself in this way:

Ø Describe your name and company,
Ø followed by your typical client or customer,
Ø their problem or ’pain’,
Ø your solution,
Ø and finish with the results or benefits!

You’ll find this recipe not only simple to use, but very effective!

N.b. A full length article by Ute Wieczorek-King – “How To Add some Zing To Your Elevator Speech” can be downloaded from the Success Network website

Established business owners know that networking and being seen is a must in business. But not everyone likes the term ‘networking’ or the pressure they may feel under when promoting their business to a bunch of strangers….

However networking is not necessarily about delivering a sales pitch and meeting new customers. It’s more about building relationships and increasing your circle of business contacts.

Here are 3 simple tips to help anyone who would like to make their networking more effective and build better business relationships:

1. Ask people open questions and be really interested in them.
2. Listen carefully and take time to understand or clarify their answers
3. Be clear about what your business provides – practice a short overview beforehand so you don’t suffer from “stage fright”

Success Network provides a leaflet with “Top 10 Networking Tips” which can be downloaded free from http://www.successnetwork.org.uk

How does your online marketing hold up? Even if you have a system in place, are you sure its actions are focused on the correct direction?