One great strategy for ATTRACTING clients to you is to establish yourself as an expert in your niche.

It goes without saying that you need to have expertise to establish yourself as an expert. For example, with no background in accounting it would be just silly for me to try to establish myself as an expert in accounting. I am however, an expert in getting clients, so that is where my focus on “establishing myself as the expert” lays.

So, how do you establish yourself as an expert?

Live it! You need to believe in yourself. Know you are the expert. Own it. If you don’t believe you are the expert, no one else will either.

Be authentic. You’re the real deal.

Tout your education. Do you have any Credentials? A certification? Specialized Education?

Understand and solve your client’s struggles. Have a clear understanding of the BENEFITS of working with you and let your clients know you understand.

Write, write and write some more. Blog on your topic, write articles or even a book! Publish a newsletter or e-zine.

Offer assistance. Answer questions, share your expert knowledge with your (online and offline) networks.

Build a portfolio of your work. Can you show off what you do? A picture is worth a thousand words.

Get testimonials. Ask your happy clients to write a testimonial on what you have done for them.

Here’s a simple way you can use video to interact with people on your Facebook page. Embed a video from your fan page into your blog. To see how it works, just watch the video below. Be sure to click on the Facebook logo to visit the TVS fan page and get more tips and hints about using online marketing to get more clients for your business.

Here’s a really simple plan you can easily complete in about 20 minutes a day. By following this plan consistently, you can brand yourself as The Expert in your field, your niche, your topic. It incorporates 5 sites (one of which is your own/your blog), because the more places you’re seen on, the faster you’re expert reputation will grow.

Now, just a quick note, as mentioned this is a simple plan. There’s so much more you can do – but if it’s a choice between doing something on a smaller scale or doing nothing – then it’s better to do the simple/smaller plan than to do nothing at all.

You don’t even need to follow this plan daily. Pick 2 or 3 days a week you’re going to commit to following the plan, and those days you’ll just follow the process. Easy peasy! So let’s get started:

Site 1: YouTube

1. Create a video.
2. Upload video to Youtube.
3. View & comment on applicable videos for your topic/market.
4. Post video to other video feed platforms.
5. Embed video on blog/Facebook/Twitter, etc.

Site 2: Your Blog

1. Create blog post (1-3 times/wk).
2. Respond to comments on your posts.
3. Comment on other people’s blogs.
4. Pull blog post onto other social media sites (this can be automated).

Site 3: Twitter

1. Post tweets (setup through Hootsuite or a similar app).
2. Re-tweet other applicable Tweets.
3. Thank those who have re-tweeted your posts or mentioned you.
4. Send personal thank you to new followers.
5. Follow new followers, if appropriate.
6. Respond to any relevant direct messages.

Site 4: Facebook

1. Search for new friends & invite (quality over quantity!).
2. Accept new friend requests.
3. Post thank you for connecting on new friends’ walls.
4. Review and respond to any messages.
5. Respond to those who’ve commented on wall/tagged you (relevant comments and tags only).
6. Review & comment on friends’ statuses, updates, birthday’s, etc.
7. Check business page for comments/posts and reply back.

Site 5: LinkedIn

1. Search for new connections and invite to connect.
2. Accept any new invitations.
3. Review and respond to any new messages.
4. Search and join new groups.
5. Review groups, comment, and/or start new discussions as appropriate.
6. Review Answers and respond where appropriate.

So that’s your plan. Now schedule in your calendar the days you can commit to spending about 20 minutes, and just get started. Let me know how it works out for you. I’d love to hear about it!

Before you even begin to dive into the world of online marketing and social media, it’s so important to get very clear on what your goals are. What do you expect to happen as a result of your online marketing efforts? Is it to get more clients? Is it to become known as an expert? Is it to promote a new book you’re releasing? Is it just to provide even better customer service and connect with the customers you already have? What is the reason you want to get involved online?

This is such an important process to go through, because it’s going to lay the entire foundation for how you run your online marketing campaign. Along with knowing who your ideal client is, your overall goal is going to be the driving force behind where and how you market yourself and your company.

I equate it to deciding you want to go for a drive today. But you have no idea where you’re going or how to get there. So of course, you’re just going to drive around aimlessly, and you might end up somewhere fun or you could end up somewhere you really don’t want to be.

Now, what if you knew exactly where you wanted to end up, maybe you heard about this great restaurant, but you don’t have directions. OK, better than your last drive, at least you have an end target, but you’re still probably not going to end up at your intended target because you don’t know how to get there.

So, of course, your best scenario is you know you want to get to this restaurant, and you googled it, you have your map, and you get there and have a great meal. You knew where you wanted to end up, you had clear directions on how to get there, and you took action on those directions to get what you wanted.

So you can see where I’m going with this, right? If you don’t know where you want to end up AND you don’t have an overall map laid out of how you’re going to get there, how are you going to know where you’re going or if you’ve even arrived?  Start by asking yourself some basic questions:

1.       What are your goals regarding social networking?

2.       What results are you hoping to achieve?

3.       Who are you looking to connect with?

Let’s take a look at each of these questions. You want to get very clear on the answers before you start your online campaign.

Question #1 – What goals have you set for your online marketing? How will you know when you’ve reached those goals?

Many times when I ask someone what their goal is, they’ll tell me “To get more clients, of course.” Your ultimate goal might be to get new clients, but you won’t have much success if you’re trying to convert people into clients the first time you make contact with them, especially when you’re marketing through online methods. Usually before someone invests their time and/or money with you, you’re going to have to build a relationship with that connection before they trust you and believe you enough to become your client or customer.

I recommend to my clients that they concentrate their online marketing efforts towards building up their list, offering a free opt-in which will allow them to gather website visitors’ contact information.  Then you can keep in touch with those prospects, offering them information and resources, and building up your “know, like, trust” factor until they see the benefit of working with you.

Question #2 – What results are you looking for?

Your answer to this question will probably be different from somebody else’s answer, because it’s going to depend on what you’re trying to accomplish with your online marketing. You might start out with expecting increased traffic to your website, or maybe you want to get more people to subscribe to your newsletter.  It might be that you want people to sign up for a group class you’re offering, or a free teleseminar you’re conducting. Maybe the results you want are to get 5 new clients in the next 4 months. Take some time and just like your goals, get very clear on what they are. Don’t forget to set up a tracking system, so you’ll know when you’ve reached those results.

Question #3 – Who do you want to connect with?

Well number one is probably your ideal client, your niche, your target market – or however you want to refer to those people you really want to do business with. (Not sure what I’m talking about here? Then take a look at this post about defining your target market.)

But let’s talk about some other people you might want to reach out to.

You may also want to connect with and build relationships with your peers. Other business owners who target the same group you do, or provide the same service but they have a different niche. Think of ways you can build a mutually beneficial relationship with other professionals in your field, or a field that’s complimentary to yours. This can also be a great opportunity for future joint ventures.

Another group of people you might want to build relationships with are your mentors. People who you can learn from, who maybe have more experience or have been in business longer. Follow their tweets, join their fan pages. Learn from them, ask them questions, connect with them. It’s a great way to expand your knowledge, be constantly evolving and to add new skills and ideas to your business.

By having a clearly defined goal, you can then set up a strategy based on that goal and the results you want to achieve. And then you can set up a tracking system to measure your path towards that goal. But it all starts with the goal.

Any questions? Feel free to ask or add any comments below.

Have a great day!

I’m sure you’ve heard it before. Get a niche. Who’s your ideal client? Who’s your target market? Why is this so important and why do so many people spend so much time on it? Why do you need to figure out who your specific target market is before you start marketing online?

The whole point of online marketing, whether it’s tweeting or promoting your latest blog post, is to attract people to your home base – your website and/or blog. So if you’re spending all this time and energy trying to get people back to your website, don’t you want to make sure you’re pulling the right people to it?

So who is the right “person?” That’s going to depend on your product or service that you offer. Your target market are those people who have a problem, a pain, a struggle that your service or product will address. Your product will help them fix their problem. And of course, you want to connect with the people who not only need or want your product, but who also can pay for it.

You need to be able to easily identify them and also to be able to make contact with them. You’re not going to make any sales if you can find them, but then you can’t actually make them aware of you and your services.

Be specific when trying to determine your ideal client. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. You’re not going to be able to create one message that’s going to be broad enough to speak to everyone in a way that’s going to attract them to your website.  By narrowing down your market, you’re going to be able to figure out what their particular issues are, why they have those particular problems, and how your product or service can solve those problems.

One quick way to identify your ideal client is by looking at your current clients or customers. Start thinking about your favorite ones.  Or your favorite past customers. Why were they your favorite? Think about the qualities they possessed that made them such great clients. Maybe it’s their age, their personality, the type of company they owned, the service they provided. Exactly what is it about them that made it enjoyable to work with them?

Once you’ve figured out who your ideal client is, start thinking about what they struggle with, their problem – whatever it is that your product or service is going to take care of for them. Take some time and research your target market.

Maybe you have prior expertise in a field, and you already know what someone in that field struggles with or wants fixed. For example, if you’re working as a virtual assistant, and you’ve worked with lots of coaches, you’ll have a good idea of why they’re using your service.

You really want to find answers to these questions that your ideal client has. Think about the questions in relation to how your service/product could be a solution to your ideal client’s answers.

1. What is their biggest struggle during their daily interactions?

2. What is the biggest obstacle they face?

3. What is one goal that might seem unobtainable?

4. What improvements would they make to their life/their business?

5. What is the one problem that they would pay anything or do anything for?

Now that you’ve figured out who your ideal client is, what their problem is, and how you can fix it – you need to make sure that you can easily “reach” them as a group. Again, ask yourself:  Can you find them without too much trouble? Is there a “list” somewhere you can gain access to? Is there enough of this type of client to make your business successful? Can they pay you what your product or service is worth? Are they willing to pay you that amount in order to fix their problem?

So to recap – you want to be sure you’ve gotten very clear on who you’re trying to reach, what their common problem is that your service can solve for them, and that it is a viable, reachable target.

Now, take some time and figure out who that perfect client or customer is for you, and then take some more time to research where the best places would be to find that perfect client. You’ll now know where to focus your marketing efforts, because what’s the point of spending all this time getting your message out there if it doesn’t get seen by the right person. A person who wants and can pay for your services – your ideal client.

I know some people struggle with defining their target market, so please feel free to comment below with any questions or comments you might have about this topic.

I ran across this article at dumblittleman.com last week with some great tips about how to plan out your day and hit the ground running. As an entrepreneur myself, I know it’s easy to get behind or off plan very soon after getting started. So here’s some good ideas about how you can really get your day going the right way. Enjoy!

Some days are just golden right from the start. You get up bright and early, you have a good breakfast, your coffee is perfect, and you get through your most important work first. By lunchtime, you’re feeling great: you’ve covered significant ground and you want to push yourself to get even more done during the afternoon.

Other days don’t go quite like that. In fact, for many people, these days are the more typical ones: You hit snooze repeatedly and get up late. You rush breakfast (or worse, skip it altogether), and you spend the first hour of your workday trying to find that really important file, or answering emails. By lunchtime, you feel as though you’ve not accomplished anything – and you can’t see the afternoon getting any better.

If your morning goes well, the rest of the day is probably going to be a success too: once you begin to build momentum, it’s easy to keep going. So here’s how to start your morning as you mean to go on:

1. Get Up On Time
   I won’t say “get up early” – because we’re not all morning people. Getting up on time means setting your alarm early enough that you don’t feel rushed right at the start of your day. Often, just getting out of bed ten or fifteen minutes earlier transforms a stressed, harried morning into a much more relaxed one.

   The best way I’ve found to get up on time is to go to bed on time. Yes, it’s obvious – but it’s surprising how often we seem to forget it! Many people need more sleep: are you one of them?

2. Eat a Healthy Breakfast
   We all know that it’s important to eat breakfast, though many of us don’t – or if we do, we eat all the wrong things. If you’re trying to lose weight (and a staggering two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese), then eating breakfast will help you do so.

   Even if your weight isn’t a concern, you still need to give your brain some fuel first thing in the morning … so eat a healthy breakfast that’ll give you the energy you need for your work. Good options are wholegrain cereals with skim milk, wholewheat toast with eggs, or oatmeal.

3. Plan Your Day
   When you arrive in the office (or, if you work from home, when you sit down at your desk) – resist the temptation to check your emails. Unless you work in tech support, it’s very unlikely that anyone needs a reply at 8.30am.

   Instead, spend just five minutes planning out your day. What major projects do you want to make progress on? This is what you should work on for at least the first hour of the day. What small but urgent tasks need to be done today? Batch these together and knock them out in a bunch – or get them done during those “gaps” in the day, like when you’re waiting for someone to phone you back.

4. Minimize Interruptions
   When you’re working on something that’s mission-critical – like that mail-out to new customers – do you really want to keep stopping to deal with trivia? Let your calls go to voice-mail, leave your email program closed, and shut your office door.

   It takes several minutes to refocus on what you’re doing after an interruption, so you’re wasting a lot of time if you’re constantly stopping to deal with people’s queries.

5. Stay On Track
   Productivity can become a positive spiral if you stay focused: the more work you get through, the more energized you’ll feel. You’ll be encouraged to keep achieving and to keep doing meaningful work (rather than busy work or low-value tasks).

   To stay on track, learn to recognize and control your impulses. Don’t give in to distractions like Twitter, Facebook and other socializing websites – save these for your lunch break or for after work. If you find yourself losing focus on a task, take a five minute break from your computer – then get straight back to it. In many cases, mono-tasking is more effective than multi-tasking.

Do you find that your day goes better if your morning starts well? How do you make sure you get your day off to a great start?