I hear from so many people who have a business who don’t see the results they want. Some do have websites, and many are on social media in some form. Some even have newsletters. But the majority of the wellness professionals I speak to don’t consider it all a package, so they incorporate a lot of online strategies NOT as actual strategies, but as a lot of hit-and-miss pieces.

What if you want YOUR wellness business to really BUZZ online? Then these three things are essential:

1. Yes, you do need a website.

It’s fine to do it yourself if you’re just starting out and can’t afford to have someone else develop it for you, it’s not that hard to create your own website. HOWEVER (and this is important): It’s critical that you find a platform that will support autoresponders and shopping carts and you’re able to create ‘web forms’ for people to opt in for offers you make on the site.

There are two essentials that must be part of any serious online presence: Offering a regular newsletter and presenting visitors, from a spot at the top right of your site, with a free goodie that they’d love to have. In exchange for providing you with their name and email address. Instead of your form saying ‘sign up for my newsletter’, which no one does, today, it should say ‘get your free tip sheet on….’ and below the form, say that your regular “X” newsletter will be provided as a bonus.

When I say provide your newsletter on a regular basis, I’m serious. You can’t write one every few months and expect your followers to pay attention. Even once a month is not enough to remind them you’re around. It should be no LESS than twice a month. And in every newsletter, there should be at least one offer. And that offer should coincide with what you have planned in your marketing calendar.

2. Blog… regularly.

Everyone seems to be familiar with blogging, but are you blogging with a plan in mind? And, are you blogging regularly? My social media VA says it has to be at least twice a week, consistently. Trust me; this IS a challenge for most of us! It sure is for me!

But what do I mean by a plan? You have to create a plan, from which you then will develop your marketing calendar. When you look at your calendar, you would consider what the current promotion is and the topics of your blog during that promotion would relate to that topic.

As an example, if you are offering a year-long weight loss program, and in February you are doing a big promotion to talk to people about it, you might want to blog about the importance of having long-term support for permanent weight loss success.

The actual blog is NOT just a big advertisement! But it does seed the idea in your reader that “yea, I need that!” After you sign your name at the bottom, though, THEN give your call to action for what you are promoting. You literally can see this in action in my own blogs!

3. Social media is essential.

Today you need to be EVERYWHERE! Not just Facebook. Not just Twitter. Not just LinkedIn! In fact, today you need to have a presence on YouTube, too! And, yea, it again needs to be part of your main plan. What it is you’re promoting that week or that month? Be consistent, so that you are leading people to a consistent action for the month.

You can set up posts to go out automatically; my social media VA does this for me. But then you also need to network. That’s why it’s called “networking”! However, this is where it’s critical that you watch your time, so you don’t waste hours, days or weeks. Five minutes a day on each should be fine.

These are the three main essentials for a compelling online presence for your wellness business. If you consider it a packaged plan, you will find your presence compelling people to come to you, hear what you say, and hire your services!

Let me know how it goes!

Margie

Do you struggle with how to create an e-newsletter? Then come join us for this no-cost interview with Kaveri Sohnfoster, where she will discuss “Why E-Newsletters Are A Money Magnet Marketing Tool And How They Grow Your List & Sell Your Services Generating Consistent Income” Sign up, now, and ask YOUR questions, live!

Do you feel you are missing something because you’re not real clear about your niche? You know how important it is, but just aren’t sure how to find it!

Your niche isn’t just who you work with, but it’s what you do for the people you most love working with. It’s the combination of who you serve, the problem you help them solve, and your own system of how you help them. This blog will only address the client, not how to create your own branded system.

Actually, identifying your niche is quite easy. Here are the steps you should take to clarify what your niche is:

Step 1: Clarify what you’re all about.
Determine what business you’re really in. What makes you tick? Why are you in business when you consider the BIG picture? No matter who you would work with, what is the over-reaching thing you do?

Step 2: Who do you like to work with?
Identify the population of people you would most love to work with. When I work with people in my Niche Breakthrough process, they come up with several populations and are able to work through the brainstorming process to determine who they like and understand, and who they don’t really like or understand. It’s important to be excited and passionate about who you work with.

Step 3: Get to know your clients.
Identify what problems they struggle with, what solutions they’d like to see instead, what it is they need to know, what they ultimately want, and why that’s important to them. If you can speak their language and speak to their problems, they will listen. This is the key to successful marketing.

Step 4: Test them.
It’s one thing to pick a population that you would love to work with, but will they buy what you have to offer? Is this audience one who will invest with you, and do you love them? If so, great! If not, reconsider. You also want to research to see if this population buys similar things to what you have to offer.

Clarifying your niche will help cut down the amount of time you need to spend on marketing, and will allow you to reach your target market easier than when you’re trying to please everyone. One thing I often tell my clients is if you don’t really ‘see’ your ideal client, and speak to him/her, then you’re speaking to “Generic Everyone” and no one will hear your message!

Let me know how you do with identifying your niche.

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do you still struggle with your niche? Sign up now for the Teleseminar series.

It takes a team to make a successful wellness business buzz.

One of the most valuable things that has led to my success is working with a mentor on a regular basis, as well as having a team of people who are experts in what they do.

Helping clients learn how to create their team and how to delegate is part of this year’s Prosperity Secrets Platinum program.

If your wellness business is already up and running, who do you have on YOUR team? Here are the basic minimum needs for a wellness business to really get it up and buzzing with financial success.

1 – An assistant.
You should NOT be setting up your own newsletters, updating your website, or scheduling clients. Doing these tasks are costing you money! Be very clear what your needs are and what type of personality and strengths that person should have.

2 – A website designer.
Sure, when you start, doing it yourself is probably the easiest way to keep costs down. But as your business picks up, spending hours on what a website designer can do in minutes again costs you money. You want to find someone you can grow with, who learns to understand your vision and your services.

3 – A social media expert.
Today you can’t ignore blogging, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Add to that, now, Google+ and YouTube. And even as I type, there’s more! Not showing up on these sites means not showing up, and missing a LOT of opportunity to draw traffic to your website. Sure, it can be your assistant, but that takes away what the assistant has time to do. Finding someone specifically dedicated to this area can really increase your stats and your list.

4 – A Bookkeeper.
I’m not going to include an accountant, because that should be someone added to your team long ago. But the reason I mention a bookkeeper is because otherwise you find yourself trying to keep your financial books in order on your own, and this again costs you money. Your time should be spent on what you do, not what someone else does.

5 – A mentor/coach.
Although I have listed this last, this does NOT mean it’s least-important. It’s actually over-reaching, above all the support mentioned. A good mentor not only shows you how you can best incorporate all the strategies and business models that are out there, but also provides coaching to push you out of your comfort zone, and push you over the walls you build to hold you back. I have worked with coaches/mentors for over seven years, and I have to admit that I wouldn’t be earning a six-figure income if it wasn’t for that support.

Get your team in place, so you can take your business to the next level.

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do you want to take YOUR business to the next level, and don’t want to waste time making it happen? If you have an existing business, you might qualify for a single spot to work with Margie on an unlimited basis for the year. To sign up for a Diamond Strategy Session, click here.

Do you ever wonder how people achieve their dreams, against all logical odds? However do they do that? It’s really several things: they can visualize it, they believe they can make it happen (with a few question marks), they set big goals, and they ask for help.

I watched the movie “The Secret” again tonight, and even though I am pretty much eternally positive, it still helped remind me that we really can create a state of reality that helps propel us into success. I continue to do it, myself, but we always need reminders, in order to push to take that next step.

How do we make that happen that will keep us from dropping away from that state of success?

1. Dream
   Yes, you DO have to dream. But you don’t always have to keep the dreams safe and ‘realistic’; allow yourself to dream REALLY BIG! Usually we won’t dream big because we’re not sure how we’ll make them happen. But think about this: How DO people make big dreams happen? They FIRST dream. Then they go about living as if it IS going to happen.

   How do you do it? Put your dream down on paper as if it’s happened.

2. Set milestones
   When you have milestones, you then have a way to check how on track you are for achieving your goals. It gives you short-term goals to strive for, and helps keep the dream real.

   How do you do it? Write out specific milestones. What would you like to achieve in a year from now? Six months? 30-60 days?

3. Plan
   My strength for my clients is to help them focus and then help them plan, so they can achieve the goals they set when they focus. Creating the plans turn the big dreams into reality.

   How do you do it? Look at your milestones, starting with the shortest-term one, and ask yourself what you have to do to make it happen.

4. Share what you want
   Tell the world what you want. Ask for it. Ask for help. Business success is just like weight loss success; when you share what you are striving for with others, you can’t hide. And when you can’t hide, you don’t give up. Telling the world what you want, even when you don’t know how you’re going to get it, helps achieve your success.

   How do you do it? Pick several close people to share with, and then determine who you will bring into your sphere to help you get what you want.

Let me know how things go and here’s to your success!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc

Do you want to simplify the journey to making your business dreams come true? Imagine having a business coach and consultant at your fingertips, and schedule your 30-minute Diamond Discovery Session with me today to start making that dream come true!

I remember the first way I used to create marketing plans. In fact, in my book, “Just Jump” I walk readers through a great process that results in very clearly identified plans and action steps for achieving their marketing goals!

Today I have a more creative process, but this blog isn’t how to do it. I address that in an earlier blog. Today I’m going to address WHY you want to have a calendar with all your plans mapped out for you.

• Reason #1 – I know you’ve heard this: Failure to plan is a plan for failure.
  Like I said elsewhere, you wouldn’t drive across the country without a road map. So, why would you take your business forward without a plan for how to do it? How will you know where you’re going if you haven’t come up with goals?
• Reason #2 – It frees you up!
  Every single person who walks through my Marketing Plan in a Day coaching program walks away with a sense of freedom! No longer do they have to spend wasted hours, day after day, coming to the office and trying to figure out what they need to do that day or that week. It’s already all spelled out for them! Then they can be more productive, complete their day faster, and have more free time.
• Reason #3 – The calendar is your key to success.
  Once you’ve created your Success Calendar, it prompts you to create HOW you will accomplish the goals you’ve indicated on there! Even if you’re not successful with what you’ve mapped out 100%, you’re still going to be more successful, and certainly happier, than you were without it!

Put your Success Calendar together now. It’s still January, so don’t let the opportunities waiting for you slip by. This is a hot time for wellness professionals, and your success is just a calendar (or 12) away.

Let me know how things go!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do YOU struggle with putting your marketing and promotional plans together for your amazing 2012? If you haven’t done it, yet, I suspect the answer is YES! Imagine really defining all your products, programs and services for the year, mapping out when you want to offer them, and then creating your marketing promotional plan, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do each month! Check out the Marketing Plan in a Day private coaching session by clicking here.

Last time I talked about the three easy steps for planning for success for your wellness business. This time we want to dig into Step 3, where you create your promotional plan.

First, what IS a promotional plan? It literally is how you are going to market what you have to offer! Simple as that.

Second, how do you create it? This is how:

Part 1 – Determine when you want to launch each item.
Assuming you already have your services and products clearly defined, and all of your trips, conferences, and other activities indicated on your calendar for the year, you are now ready to start creating how you will promote what you have to offer.The first step is to determine WHEN you want to launch what you have to offer. When is the first date you want people to start working with you or purchasing what you offer?

Part 2 – Come up with timing and pricing strategies.
This can get quite involved, so I’m going to stick with assuming you have something simple, like a 3-part workshop (let’s say virtual). You want to create some early-bird pricing, regular pricing and last-minute pricing. You then want to determine when you’ll want to offer each variation of your pricing. We won’t address the actual pricing strategy or when you will determine these break-offs here, but you get the point. Basically, you’re going to backtrack from your launch date in order to determine this.

Part 3 – Decide if there is anything else you want to offer or promote.
Sometimes people will do something like a free ‘preview call’ in order to generate interest in the series (still using the virtual workshop series as an example). Other ideas include a series of videos or audios. Anything works.

Part 4 – Create your promotional text.
Now it’s time to create all of your promotions. This includes your emails, tweets, Facebook post, blogs, and your web page for the workshop series. If it’s a live event, you’ll want to include some strategies for reaching people in the target geographical location.

Part 5 – Plan the timing of your promotions.
This basically means pull out your calendar and create your timing strategy for when you will put your each email, blog, social media post, etc.

You are on your way! Let me know how you do with this, and enjoy your successful 2012!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do YOU struggle with putting your marketing and promotional plans together for your amazing 2012? If you haven’t done it, yet, I suspect the answer is YES! Imagine really defining all your products, programs and services for the year, mapping out when you want to offer them, and then creating your marketing promotional plan, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do each month! Check out the Marketing Plan in a Day private coaching session by clicking here.

They say you can’t get there if you don’t know where “There” is. And in my book, “Just Jump”, when I discuss planning, I mention that if you were to drive across the country, you would pull out maps and plan your route. However, many wellness professionals just run their business by the seat of their pants, without any set goals or milestones, or any strategy planned out for how they will get there!

So, it comes back to where is “There”?

Here are 3 easy steps to start figuring out where “There” is:

• Step 1 – Look at everything you have to offer right now.
  How will that look moving into the New Year? Do you want to make any changes? You might want to start with what you know, but expand into other services. You might want to write a book or ebook, or offer some classes, live or virtual. Write it all down.
• Step 2 – Evaluate your pricing strategies with all you have to offer.
  How do people start interacting with you? Usually it’s as a result of something you offer them from your home page, like a free tip sheet. Then you can stay in touch with them on a regular basis, sharing when you have promotions coming up. (See my blog on 5 Parts to creating a Promotional Plan.)
• Step 3 – Decide how many people you want to sign up or purchase what you have to offer.
  This is your projections for the year! Granted, then you need to create your plan for how you’ll make that happen, but this will at least get you started.

That’s it! Let me know what you come up with, and here’s to an amazing 2012 for your wellness business!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do YOU struggle with putting your marketing and promotional plans together for your amazing 2012? If you haven’t done it, yet, I suspect the answer is YES! Imagine really defining all your products, programs and services for the year, mapping out when you want to offer them, and then creating your marketing promotional plan, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do each month! Check out the Marketing Plan in a Day private coaching session by clicking here.

What does it really mean to plan for success for your wellness business?

Many health and wellness professionals sort of cringe when they think of planning for success. They know they need to do it, and they feel lost without it. But they’re not really sure HOW to do it.

When I wrote my book, “Just Jump“, I walked people through a very thorough process of planning. And it works like a charm! But what if you don’t want to create a ‘traditional’ plan for marketing?

Here are three simple steps you can take right now to start YOUR planning for the New Year:

• Step 1 – Determine all the products and services you want to offer and how many people you want to sign up for each.
• Step 2 – Pull out your calendar and enter everything you have going on for the year, so you know when you won’t be available, or when it’s a good time to roll out a particular service or program.
• Step 3 – Create your promotional plan!

That’s it!

Now, if you feel there are details missing, next time I’ll talk more about your promotional plan and what that really means. But, meanwhile, you definitely can do Step 1 and Step 2! In fact, I’d love to hear how that goes!

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do YOU struggle with putting your plans together for your amazing 2012? If you haven’t done it, yet, I suspect the answer is YES! Imagine really defining all your products, programs and services for the year, mapping out when you want to offer them, and then creating your marketing promotional plan, so you know EXACTLY what you need to do each month! Check out the Marketing Plan in a Day private coaching session by clicking here.

You want to start a business. You have dreamed of this for years, ever since graduating or starting school. So what’s been holding you back?

Do this: Close your eyes and imagine you are at the edge of a huge cliff. You are looking over the Grand Canyon. There is a huge expanse of air in front of you and below you. And I am asking you to jump, spread your wings, and know that you can fly! Can you? Only YOU can answer that question. You really can do anything you want to do. It just takes will and planning.

Many times I hear from people who tell me they will contact me for help in starting up their business ‘when I’m ready’. There have also been times when these same people finally call out of desperation: Their need to ‘just do it’ has become stronger than waiting for that ‘perfect time’. And they are able to create their dream business, afterall.

Does this sound like you? Are you waiting until things are just perfect before you seriously start working on creating the business of your dreams? You have every certification you can think you might ever need. You attend every educational seminar on every topic you think people might ask you about. You’re sure there is something you are missing, however.

But what is really holding you back? Is it fear of failure? Many people are petrified that they will step up, or jump from that cliff, and fall flat on their face. They will look like a fool and feel like a failure, but imagine the regret they live with as they look back on their life and didn’t even give it a try. You will never look back and wish you had NOT taken action to live your dream. Many people do think about the things they did NOT do, however.

Yes, it is true that over 50% of the 600,000 new businesses that start each year fail in the first year. What is more important to know, however, is that many of those failed businesses didn’t even start with a serious plan before they opened their doors! No wonder they failed! Have you heard the phrase, ‘failing to plan is a plan for failure’? This means that if you don’t know where you’re going, you are unlikely to get there. Would you plan a cross-country trip without mapping out your plan? Then why would anyone consider starting a business without setting up goals, objectives and action steps to make it happen?

Fear of failure is the most often sited reason for hesitation to starting up a business. But, what people seldom talk about, which is a much more real concern is the fear of success! What if your business grows and becomes more than you ever imagined? What does THAT mean? Many people find that more frightening than failing. If they fail, they can at least go back to what was safe and easy. If they succeed, they will experience even more challenges as their business grows and becomes more than just ‘them’.

Margie
MEG Enterprises

Do YOU struggle with the planning to make your success happen? If so, let me help you set your entire 2012 plan up, which includes what you have to offer and how you will promote it. We can do this in the “Marketing Plan in a Day” VIP intensive coaching session. To learn more, click here.

You have been accepted to speak at a professional conference and the organization wants your materials and slides in 2 months. You have added this task into your marketing calendar and today you will start working on it. And – business is booming! In fact, you just heard from a potential client who has decided that she would like to start working with you next month. This means she needs your welcome packet and invoice. And you received a notice while checking email that one person bought your book and another person purchased some materials from your website. You realize that you need to take care of these things immediately, so instead of working on your materials, you take care of these items.

Stopping to handle product fulfillment, client management and accounting are HUGE time zaps! Not only can they disrupt working on projects that will bring in money for the company, but are actually costing you money! How is this so, you ask? If you consider what you charge, you have to realize that that is what you are spending for your OWN work. So, if you charge $100/hour and spend 3 hours on the tasks above, you have just cost the company $300.

Hire it out
When growing a new business, it is scary to consider hiring people, but when you consider the savings AND that this then frees you up to make MORE money, it’s almost a no-brainer (I didn’t say it’s not scary, though!).

If you find an assistant who can not only answer the phone, but also do your entire client billing and scheduling, what is that worth to you? Many assistants might charge between $20-45/hour, so you again are saving money if you had to pay your assistant for 3 hours for them to take care of these tasks, while you write your speech and work on other programs, services and products for your clients. And today that assistant can either be right there in your town, or across the country!

There also comes a time when you will be ready for a bookkeeper to handle all of the accounting for your company. If your business is NOT accounting/bookkeeping, this is another task that can be hired out. Imagine not having to ever go into your accounting software, again! The same thing is so with an accountant, which, if you are already in business, you should have, anyway. Take advantage of the expertise that these people have to help you grow your business.

Using technology
The final important aspect of managing your time is taking advantage of the technology that is available, today. Examples include:

• Autoresponders
• Shopping carts

Assuming you already have a website, just as essential is an autoresponder. The LAST thing you want to spend your time on is manually sending out emails when someone buys from you or signs up for your newsletter! And this is not what you want to be paying your assistant to do, either. An autoresponder is a program that automatically sets up to send particular people emails. When you sign up for a newsletter, or you purchase something online, if you receive an email, that usually has been generated by an autoresponder. Most assistants today can set up autoresponders.

Although it’s free and easy to set up a PayPal account and generate ‘buy now’ buttons for your website, once you offer more than one item on your site, it’s time for a shopping cart. A shopping cart works much like a shopping cart in a grocery store: If you want to buy more than one item, you put it in the shopping cart, and when you’re ready to buy, you ‘check out’, thus pay for all the items at once.

What is important to know about shopping carts is they must coordinate with your merchant account. Again, this is where a knowledgeable assistant can be INVALUABLE. Not only can they perform tasks that would take you hours or days to learn, but while they’re setting up such systems for your company, you are again making more money by seeing clients or working on new products and services.

Margie
MEG Enterprises, Inc.

Do you struggle with getting things done? Do you have a vision for your business, but are unclear how to make it happen? Come join us for the Prosperity Secrets Platinum for 2012 and move from chaos and analysis paralysis to balance, clarity, structure and prosperity.