Sandra Martini's Success Strategies

What My Shepherd Taught Me About Live Events

The above is a picture of my shepherd Sheba (and our two cats Junior and Eggie with her). She looks beautiful and calm here.

Not so when there's thunder.  She can hear it a half hour before I can and turns into a 75lb shaking ball of nerves who's determined to sit in my lap.  It's really not pretty.

Not thinking, I bought a relaxation CD to fall asleep by a few months ago -- it's "electrifying thunderstorms" (I obviously love storms).

Looking to increase your credibility? Do these!

If you run any type of online business, chances are, you're looking to increase your credibility with your target audience.

Here are a few simple, yet sadly, often overlooked, ways you can do that:

5 Secrets to Write Your Book in a Weekend F.R.E.E. Teleclass

It's TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY, September 16th

YES - really, you can write a book in a weekend! You will not want to miss this hour of teaching as Sandra and Donna discuss taking massive action and getting your book done fast and easy.

During this teleclass on September 16th at 2pm Eastern (yep. . .we will record it so you can listen again and again!) Donna will share how to go about writing your book in a weekend to use as a "big business card" for you and your business, including:

• Insight into WHY you want to move "get book done" to the top of your priority list (pronto!).
• What to tackle first: title, subject or something else entirely (This info alone will save you from wasting hours & hours & HOURS of your time!).
• How to select a book topic that guarantees your book will be read--and remembered.
• The book-writing and -publishing secret well- known speakers & online entrepreneurs are using to grow their audiences and lead lists by the 1000s.

Click here to learn more and join us for this information-packed call. . .

Credibility GONE – Are you risking yours by doing this?

Click here to listen...

Imagine your excitement: You just gave up your credit card info and plunked down money on a product from someone you've been following for a while, maybe even someone you've bought from before and really admire.

You're enjoying that instant post-purchase euphoria -- after all, THIS is the product you've been waiting for.

A week goes by. . .no product.

"It's okay", you tell yourself, "there's a reason they call it 'snail mail' after all".

Two weeks. . .no product.

"It will be here any day", you tell yourself, excitement starting to wane just a little.

A month. . .still no product.

Now you're getting worried. You email the company who tells you that it's not quite finished or is at the printer's and will ship in 2 weeks.

Another month goes by. . .no product and no communication.

Now you ask yourself: "Is there even a product?"

Another email to the company and another promise that it will ship in "2 weeks".

Another month and still no product, no communication.

At some point, you start to lose faith. All the good will that this company/entrepreneur has built up through their ezine, Twitter and Facebook connecting, f'ree teleseminars, etc. is quickly dwindling.

All because someone didn't plan properly (I'm assuming that when this happens, it's not malicious and is simply a case of poor planning).

As a consumer, your options are simple:

1. Ask for a refund or
2. Write the company owner and ask for an update then decide whether to stick it out or ask for a refund
3. Decide how this will affect your relationship with the company going forward

As the business owner who created the product, you have a lot more work to do:

1. Start to repair the damage done to your, and your company's, reputation by PERSONALLY emailing everyone affected with an apology and update (it's the least you can do).
2. Offer your clients something for their inconvenience -- a bonus product, a 15-minute call, whatever you feel is appropriate for the situation.
3. Ship the darn product -- move Heaven and Earth to get that product priority mailed, at a minimum, immediately and with a note of apology.
4. Figure out what went wrong and fix it so it doesn't happen again. . .ever! After all, you've spent countless hours building your reputation and now you need to repair it.

Many business owners frequently sell products before they're finished -- after all, it helps with the production and marketing costs and lets them know how much inventory to order.

Whether or not I agree with this practice, doesn't matter.

What does matter is that if you choose to do this, you want to be sure you know the ACTUAL date of shipment and stay in frequent communication with your clients so they know what's going on.

Make It Real -- My Request to You

There's so much talk about business owners being "authentic" and "in integrity" and that's great -- it makes us all feel warm and fuzzy inside.

However, there are times when the reality differs from the intent, no matter how good the intention was.

My request to you is to PLAN and remember Murphy's Law and plan some time in for mishaps, delays, etc.

Practicing Extreme Client Care(tm) means underpromising and overdelivering whenever possible and it's this which will gain you the love and trust of your clients.

Twitter Suspension of Accounts -- Were You Prepared?

Twitter was all a tweeting with the unexpected suspension of thousands of accounts yesterday -- it was a human error and has since been fixed, but leads me to a larger question. . .

Were you prepared for it to happen? Is your marketing diversified?

Much the way we prepare for disaster by backing up our computers and having health, home and car insurance, we need to be prepared for any one of our visibility and marketing tools to hiccup.

There are thousands of ways to get the word out about your business (a.k.a. "market it"), many of them low cost and high impact.  It's imperative to the success of your business that you don't put all your eggs into one basket -- even if the basket is big and includes all of social media.

Here are several ideas of ways you can get the word out about your business:

[SmarTini Tip] Expert Credibility: How to let your clients give it to you

If you've been around the "online world" a while, you know that "content is king" -- after all, it's generally expected that you should:

* publish a weekly/biweekly email newsletter

* "touch" your clients in offline ways

* post 2-3 times a week to your blog

* host your own teleseminars and be guests on others

* contribute daily to Facebook and Twitter

and the above is all *at a minimum* and we haven't even discussed videos.

Assuming you're here to connect and build relationships with others in a true and meaningful way (and if you're not, you may as well stop reading now) and aren't in it for the "quick sale", where do you find all the information to post/send out?

After all, the quickest way to build your expert credibility is to share "expert" information with others.

So how do you "know what you know" in order to share it with others who are looking for that very info?

Here's one of my favorite strategies. . .

Facebook Profile -- be sure to get your name

Facebook opened up their system last night to let us create our own Facebook profile URL.

 

Rather than the former hideous URL which looked something like:

 

www.facebook.com/people/yourname/123456789  (this isn't a real URL, just an example of what Facebook profiles looked like -- not the prettiest URL I've ever seen!)

However, now you can have www.facebook.com/yourname

I set mine to be www.facebook.com/sandramartiniso it's consistent with my Twitter name (@sandramartini) and website URL (www.SandraMartini.com)

To get your own Facebook profile name, go to http://www.facebook.com/username

You will see a form that will give you several suggested usernames, and the ability to choose your own. Either choose one of the names suggested or type in your own.

Now here is NOT the time to get creative.  After all, you want people to be able to find you without having to search and wonder what you may have come up with in a creative moment.

The goal is to make it EASY for everyone -- when it comes to branding your business, consistency is key.

You may choose to use your name, your business name, your title, etc., but know this. . .once chosen, you can't change it.  Facebook doesn't allow changes or edits so be sure to choose well and double check spelling before confirming.

And, if we're not yet friends, I'd love to connect with you:

http://www.facebook.com/sandramartini or @sandramartini (Twitter)

What do John Cena & Wrestling have to do with your business?

My 15-year-old nephew is a fan of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and of John Cena (one of their stars) in particular. 

This weekend, while flipping through stations, I kept seeing an ad for WWE's Extreme Rules pay-per-view and pictures of Cena wearing a t-shirt with "HLR" on it.  So last night, when WWE was coming on, I hopped over to see what the "HLR" was for.

Turns out it's for Hustle - Loyalty - Respect -- these are the tenets by which John Cena's character lives.

Think about that for a second: Hustle, Loyalty and Respect.

Pretty good, wouldn't you agree?

While I never would have thought my business had anything to do with wrestling, it absolutely does.

Here's how I incorporate those words into my business and life:

Hustle -- Implement and take action quickly, as if your life depends on it because, quite frankly, your business life DOES depend on it.

Loyalty -- Remain loyal to your business by remembering that YOU are its owner and responsibility for its success or failure rests with you and remain loyal to your clients and customers by treating them with the utmost...

Respect -- Your clients are people, not a tribe, not a herd, and not dollar signs.  They are real people who each have a unique gift and your *job* is to help them fully impact the world by using YOUR gift.

So how will you incorporate H-L-R into your life, starting today? 

Increase the Professionalism of Your Constant Contact Ezine With This Simple Change

Chances are, if you're using Constant Contact for your ezine, you have THEIR logo with a little "try it free" phrase on the bottom right of your ezine.

Want to increase the professionalism (and appearance) of your ezine?

Simply email their support (from within the Help & Support menu) and ask them to remove the logo from your account. 

After all, you want your ezine to brand YOU, not your ezine service provider.  :-)