Procrastinate?!? Not me, not ever !
We all procrastinate. I do. I procrastinated about buying a pair of dress shoes that fit me better. I’ve continued to procrastinate for about 3 months now while continuing to wear the ill-fitting shoes. Right now I’m procrastinating about calling the podiatrist. My feet have been hurting lately. But I start to imagine all the machinations I’ll have to go through to get there, get examined, get treated, get billed and then go back. I’m hoping my feet will get better. They won’t. I’m hoping the shoes will stretch out. They won’t. But still I procrastinate.

I also procrastinate about picking up the cleaning, starting my tax returns, and cleaning my desk.

Do you procrastinate about anything? Of course. Do you procrastinate about marketing? If you are anything like the hundreds of clients I’ve worked with you put off some or all of the following:

• Getting focused - creating a strategy
• Writing marketing materials
• Writing articles
• Joining networking groups
• Asking for referrals
• Setting up speaking engagements
• Preparing a presentation
• Calling past clients
• Developing a sales approach
• Creating a database
• Sending thank-you notes

Sound familiar? Have you ever asked yourself why you put things off you know you should do? Of course you have. But if you ask yourself why, your subconscious will leap up in defense and create all kinds of rationalizations to answer that why. The validation usually goes like this. “I must be putting off my marketing because I’m just not a marketing type” or “These things won’t work anyway so why bother.” You just reinforce your old beliefs.

Instead, ask yourself empowering questions: “How can I find a way to do this” or “what could I gain by moving forward with this?” or “who knows how to do this better than I do who could give me some ideas where to start?”

All of these questions work to move you into action, which is a whole lot better than moping around feeling bad about not doing your marketing.

So let’s try to answer some of your new and empowering questions.

“How can I find a way to write some marketing materials?”

Start collecting the promotional pieces others send you. Read what the content says, pay attention to the layout of pieces. Keep everything whether it’s a piece that you like or not. Now make a list of the attributes that appeal to you and that you think will appeal to your target audience and a list of those attributes that don’t.

“I know that I should keep in touch with previous clients. What could I gain by moving forward with this?”

Calling past clients and sending thank-you notes is a powerful way to maintain your relationships. I know, I know, you’re thinking that it would take you too many weeks to phone everyone with whom you’ve previously worked. And you’re right but who says you have to do it all at once? Try phoning just 5 folks a day. We all have time to phone 5 people. The same with cards and letters. Send thank you notes to people with whom you’ve just worked and a personal letter to those with whom you’d like to work again. Just 5 a day. Just 5 a day means that 1250 people will hear from you this year that didn’t last year.

“How can I find the time to write an article?”

Writing articles can be a terrific marketing tool. When I suggest this to my non-writing clients they always tell me the same thing. I just stare at my computer and it just stares back. If you fit this category try talking your way through it. Find a topic that interests you. Then, while speaking into a recorder, talk to your associate, your spouse, or dog on the subject. Use the tape to create your article outline and viola! No more blank stare!

Natalie J. Armstrong is the Founder and Managing Director of Golden Media, a marketing and consulting firm dedicated to promoting resolution industry. She is the author of The Essential Guide to Marketing Your ADR Practice and speaks internationally on business developement and the successful marketing strategies of the conflict resolution industry. More ADR Practice Development articles and information about Ms. Armstrong and Golden Media can be found at www.MarketingMediation.com.

While shopping at my corner drug store over the weekend, I had an opportunity to witness a common marketing mistake. During the course of my browsing I could hear the store’s phone ringing persistently, rarely being answered. Shopping finished, I proceeded to the check out counter where once again the phone rang. The clerk let the phone ring six times before she cursed Dammit I’m busy! then grudgingly answered the phone. I can just imagine how she sounded to the caller.

This attitudinal error probably occurs a million times a day in every imaginable type of business, as the incoming call interrupts the important work. Don’t let this attitude overrun your business and marketing efforts.

Remember that if the phone rings at all, the marketing investments you’ve made are paying off. Be thankful that the phone rings and let THAT attitude pervade your tone and the content you provide to the potential client.

Natalie J. Armstrong is the Founder and Managing Director of Golden Media, a marketing and consulting firm dedicated to promoting resolution industry. She is the author of The Essential Guide to Marketing Your ADR Practice and speaks internationally on business developement and the successful marketing strategies of the conflict resolution industry. More ADR Practice Development articles and information about Ms. Armstrong and Golden Media can be found at www.MarketingMediation.com.

 : MarketingMediation.com Glossary of Marketing Terms

Whatever you do, DO NOT miss out on the Visual Thesaurus. Whenever you sit down to write, be it an article, website copy, or something of the like, this is one of the single, most powerful tools you can possibly utilize. Take a look: Visual Thesaurus.

Created in PDF format for you to download and incorporate into your marketing materials. Special thanks to Natalie for bringing this one to the table.  You’ll need Adobe Acrobat to view the PDF. 

: MarketingMediation.com Glossary of Marketing Words that Sell

Whatever you do, DO NOT miss out on the Visual Thesaurus. Whenever you sit down to write, be it an article, website copy, or something of the like, this is one of the single, most powerful tools you can possibly utilize. Take a look: Visual Thesaurus.

 Good Luck!

(Continued Reading)

The longer we analyze the current ways of operating, the further we fend off that awesome day when we will have to change something. Analysis becomes a defensive maneuver to avoid making fundamental change.”
–Michael Hammer and Steven Stanton

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
–Lord Chesterfield

Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
–Henry Ford

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
–Walter Bagehot

You have a zero percent scoring average on shots you don’t take.”
–Wayne Gretzky

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
–Marcus Aurelius

The next time you sit down to rework your website content or draft a sales letter weigh in on our Sales Copy Videos or download a copy of our:

Glossary of Words That Sell.

Glossary of Marketing Terms

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

Don’t fight the battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.”
– George S. Patton

Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”
– Albert Szent-Gyorgi

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things.”
– Niccolo Machiavelli

You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures.”
– Charles C. Noble

Every year a new crop of fresh mediators is turned out to the field. A once open range of market potential is now crowded with new players bringing new ideas to mediation practice development and a ton of energy to bode. Let’s be honest, our industry is rapidly changing and new faces are showing up at the same industry conferences more frequently. There’s an old quote that says “differentiate or die”…ok that may be a bit on the extreme, when a simple self-evaluation of strategic planning will do. If you need help, contact us. We’ll walk you through the paces and develop a prescription for you to implement. But in the meantime, regardless of your political party, whether you’re red, blue, pink, or green, consider this wonderful and appropriate story about former President Lyndon B. Johnson from Robert Green’s The 33 Strategies of War.
ENDING AS BEGINNING

As a young man, Lyndon B. Johnson had just one dream: to climb the ladder of politics and become president. When Johnson was in his mid-twenties, the goal was starting to seem unreachable. A job as the secretary of a Texas Congressman had allowed him to meet and make an impression on President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had named him the Texas Director of the National Youth Administration a post promising excellent political connections. But Texas voters were extremely loyal, often returning congressman to their seats for decades, or until they died. Johnson urgently wanted a seat in Congress. If he did not get one soon enough, he would be too old to climb the ladder and he burned with ambition.

On February 22, 1937, out of the blue, the chance of a lifetime opened up: the Texas congressman James Buchanan suddenly died. The seat he left empty, that Texas’ Tenth District, was a rare opportunity, and the state’s eligible political heavyweights immediately threw their hat in the ring. The many contenders included Sam Stone, a popular county judge; Shelton Polk, an ambitious young Austin attorney; any C.N. Aver, Buchanan’s former campaign manager, the favorite to win. Avery had the support of Tom Miller, mayor of Austin, the Tenth District’s only large city. With Miller’s backing he could count on almost enough votes to win the election.

Johnson was faced with a terrible predicament. If he entered the race, the odds would be absurdly against him: he was young- only twenty-eight- and in the district he was unknown and poorly connected. A bad loss would damage his reputation and set him far back on the road to his long-term goal. If he chose not to run, on the other hand, he might wait ten years for another chance. With all this in mind, he threw caution to the winds and entered the race.

Johnson’s first step was to call to his side the dozens of young men and women whom he had helped or hired over the years. His campaign strategy was simple: he would separate himself from the other contenders by presenting himself as Roosevelt’s staunchest supporter. A vote for Johnson was a vote for the president, the popular architect of the New Deal. And since Johnson could not compete in Austin, he decided to aim his army of volunteers at the countryside, the sparsely populated Hill County. This was the district’s poorest area, a place where the candidates rarely ventured. Johnson wanted to meet every last farmer and sharecropper, shake every possible hand, win the votes of the people who had never voted before. It was the strategy of a desperate man who recognized that this was hi best and only chance for victory.

One of Johnson’s mist loyal followers was Carroll Keach, who would server as his chauffeur. Together the two men drove every square mile of Hill County, tracing every dirt path and cow trail. Spotting some out-of-the-way farmhouse, Johnson would get out of the car, walk to the door, introduce himself to the startled inhabitants, listen patiently to their problems, then leave with a hearty handshake and a gentle plea for their vote. Convening meetings in dusty towns consisting mainly of a church and a gas station, he would deliver his speech, then mingle with the audience and spend the last few minutes with everyone present. He had an incredible memory for faces and names: if he happened to meet the same person twice, he could recall everything he or she had said the first time around, and often impressed strangers by knowing someone who knew them. He listened intensely and was always careful to leave people with the feeling that they would see him again, and if he won they would finally have someone looking out for their interests in Washing. In bars, grocery stores, and gas stations all through Hill County he would talk with the locals as if he had nothing else to do. On leaving he make sure to buy something- candy, groceries, gasoline- a gesture they appreciated. He had the gift of creating a connection.

As the race ran on, Johnson went days without sleep, his voice turning hoarse, his eyes drooping. As Keach drove the length of the district, he would listen in amazement as the exhausted candidate in the car muttered to himself about the people he had just met, the impression he had made, what he could have done better. Johnson never wanted to seem desperate or patronizing. It was that last handshake and look in the eye that mattered.

The polls were deceptive: the continued to show Johnson behind, but he knew he hand won votes that no poll would register. And in any case he was slowly catching up- by the last week he had crept into third place. Now, suddenly, the other candidate took notice. The election turned nasty: Johnson was attacked for his youth, for his blind support of Roosevelt, anything that could be dug up. Trying to win a few votes in Austin, Johnson came up against the political machine of Mayor Miller, who disliked him and did everything possible to sabotage his campaign. Undeterred, Johnson personally visited the mayor several times in the last week to broker some kind of truce. But Miller saw right through his charm. His personal appeal might have won over the district’s poorest voters, but the other candidates saw a differed side of him: he was ruthless and capable of slinging mud. As he rose in the polls, he made more and more enemies.

On Election Day, Johnson pulled off one of the greatest upsets in American Political history, outdistancing his nearest rival by three thousand votes. Exhausted by the grueling pace that he had set, he was hospitalized, but the day after his victory he was back at work- he had something extremely important to do. From his hospital bed, Johnson dictated letters to his rivals in the race. He congratulated them for running a great campaign; he also described his own victory as a fluke, a vote for Roosevelt more than himself. Learning that Miller was visiting Washington, Johnson telegraphed his connections in the city to chaperone the mayor and treat him like royalty. As soon as Johnson left the hospital, he paid visits to his rivals and acted with almost embarrassing humility. He even befriended Polk’s brother, driving him around town on errands.

A mere eighteen months later, Johnson had to stand for reelection, and these onetime opponents and bitter enemies suddenly turned into the most ferverent Johnson believers, donating money, even campaigning on his behalf. And Mayor Miller, the one man who had hated Johnson the most, now became his strongest supported and remained so for years.
Andrew Golden is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Golden Media, a marketing and consulting firm dedicated to promoting the resolution industry. He speaks internationally on business development and the successful marketing strategies of the conflict resolution industry. More ADR Practice Development articles and information about Golden Media can be found at www.MarketingMediation.com.

Downloadble PDF for you available here:
Rules of Conduct for Mediators in Court-Connected Mediations

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
–Dwight D. Eisenhower

Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.”
–Arnold Toynbee

If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.”
–Mother Teresa

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.”
–Emily Chartier

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.”
–Eugene McCarthy

Andrew Golden

Marketing Myths
By Jay Levinson

Myth #1:
Sell the sizzle and not the steak.

Truth #1:
Sell the solution and not the sizzle. The easiest way to sell a product is to offer it as the solution to a problem. If you tend to look for the sizzle rather than the problem, you are looking in the wrong direction. Your prospects might appreciate the sizzle, but they’ll write a check for the solution. Do all in your power to identify problems that your prospects have then position your product or service as the best solution to that problem.

If you think solutions, you’ll market solutions. If you think sizzle, you’ll sell sizzle. These days, people love sizzle as much as ever. But given a choice of purchasing sizzle or a solution with their discretionary income, customers will put their money on the solution every time.

When you present your offering as a solution, you follow the path of least resistance to the sale. With little resistance, your attack succeeds.
Myth #2:
Great marketing works instantly.

Truth #2:
Great discount sales work instantly. Great limited-time offers work instantly. But great marketing is not made up of price-off sales and repeated limited-time offers alone.

Great marketing is made up of creating a desire for your offering in the minds of qualified prospects. It often is peppered with price-off sales and limited-time offers. But when a greedy marketer embarks on a program of such fast-buck schemes, he or she quickly learns that the public makes a purchase, then waits for the next sale. If you don’t have one, they don’t buy.

Myth #3:
Marketing should be changed every few years to keep it fresh and new.

Truth #3:
The longer great marketing promotes a product or service, the better. Successful marketers create marketing strategies with which they can live for five to ten years, even longer. How long do you suppose the Green Giant has been jolly? How long have people been in good hands with Allstate? Do you think these firms would have been more successful if they kept changing their marketing around to keep it fresh and new? I think not.

Myth #4:
Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.

Truth #4:
Bad publicity is bad for your business. No publicity is a lot healthier for you. People love to gossip, especially about businesses that have done something so bad that it got written up in the paper or exposed on the TV news. That’s why bad word of mouth spreads so rapidly.
Perhaps for a no-name politician seeking any kind of publicity, bad publicity is better than none – simply for the sake of name recognition. But I’m not too sure about that. I am sure, though, that bad publicity is something that gives no joy to any self-respecting marketer.

Did you know…..?

On average, a positive recommendation will made only 10 times and a negative recommendation will be made 50 times.

Myth #5:
Word-of-mouth marketing is all a great business needs.

Truth #5:
Amazingly, some otherwise well-informed business people believe this myth to be true. Here and now, I implore you to understand that it is hardly ever true.

How will the great business get people to spread the word in the first place? Marketing is the answer. How will people hear of the small business when it is new? Marketing is how. Where will the people come from – those who will make al the referrals? They will come from compelling marketing.

It is true that great marketing can attract so many people to a great business that word-of-mouth marketing is active and effective. But that takes time. It takes coddling of customer, customers who came in because of marketing. And anyhow, that customer coddling is marketing.

I have had a few clients who were able to discontinue their marketing because they reached the limits of their growth. But I have witnessed others who thought they could discontinue marketing only to find that a competitor took their customers away from them.
A good marketing attack demands that you offer so much quality and service that word-of-mouth marketing becomes one of your most devastating weapons. It should always be part of your arsenal, and you should do all in your power to encourage and promote it. But I do not recommend that you rely on it solely. The bankruptcy courts are littered with businesses that felt they could save on marketing by leaving everything to word-of-mouth marketing. Life just doesn’t work that way.

Myth #6:
Quality is the main determinant in influencing sales.

Truth #6:
Quality is second most important determinant in influencing sales. Confidence in the business is the main determinant. Nobody wants to buy the best product if it comes along with the poorest service. People aren’t interested in quality if they have to sacrifice self-esteem. Just as word-of-mouth marketing is an integral part of the marketing attack –but not the only part – quality products and services are also key elements in the attack – but not the only elements. They must be present.

Customer service must also be present. A friendly attitude must be displayed. The customer must be singled out as special. That customer should be provided with a selection, with convenience, with flexibility in paying for the purchase, with the feeling of a good value. Prospects become customers of businesses that offer credibility – in décor, attire, displays, marketing, employees, and especially in their reputation for offering value. Those items plus quality influence sales. Unfortunately, quality alone won’t do the job.
Myth #7:
Repetition of a marketing message is boring.

Truth #7:
It may be boring to you, but it won’t be boring to your prospects and customers. Repetition implants your benefits in the unconscious minds of your prospects, and reaffirms those benefits in the conscious minds of your customers. Repetition does not bore these wonderful people.

Quoted from: Guerrilla Marketing Attack, Jay Levinson; (1989), Houghton Mifflin Co.

The real contest is always between what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing.  You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.”
- Geoffrey Gaberino

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal.  Courage is what counts.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

If you are to be, you must begin by assuming responsibility.  You alone are responsible for every moment of your life, for every one of your acts.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.”
- Cherie Carter-Scott

Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
- Malcolm Forbes

It is impossible to get the measure of what an individual can accomplish unless the responsibility is placed on him.”
–Alfred Sloan, Former General Motors Chairman

Every man’s occupation should be beneficial to his fellow man as well as profitable to himself. All else is vanity and folly.”
–P.T. Barnum, entrepreneur

If you don’t listen you don’t sell anything.”
–Caroline Marland, newspaper executive

Winners are people who have fun - and produce results as a result of their zest.”
–Tom Peters, management consultant

Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Nonperformance can always be exlained away.”
–Harold Geneen, telecommunications executive

The will to concquer is the first condition of victory.”
–Ferdinand Foch, military strategist

Three components make an entrepreneur: the person, the idea, and the resources to make it happen.”
–Anita Roddick, Body Shop Founder

Failures are expected by losers, ignored by winners.”
–Joe Gibbs, football coach

Hope doesn’t come from calculating whether the good news is
winning out over the bad. It’s simply a choice to take action.”
–Anna Lappe, writer

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge
without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
– Samuel Johnson, lexicographer

Fame is vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only
one thing endures, and that is character.”
–Horace Greeley, publisher

Only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only
through gambling can we take advantage of them.”
–Clarence Birdseye, entrepreneur

A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.”
–Epictetus, philosopher

Serve Before You Sell
If you’ve read my book then you know this is a major point I make. It’s such an important point, that it bears repeating.

We are a service industry. We are not the default (the courts). Conflict resolution professionals cannot afford to treat people as though they were still in the court system. People choose our processes and they choose us. We’re in a people industry. We’re in a service industry.

The people who hire us or for whom we volunteer expect from us not just service, but good service. That kind of service starts long before you’re hired for a hearing. Your view of people who hire you may have a powerful effect on the way you treat them and consequently whether or not you get the job.

Consider the definitions of these two words.

Customer: A person who purchases a commodity or service.
Client: A person who is under the protection of another.

Next time you’re at a networking event approach everyone you meet as though they are a client. Provide them the referrals they need, the research avenues you have at your disposal, or industry news that will benefit them. Likewise, the next time your phone rings remind yourself that the person on the other end is a client, not just a customer, and you’ll convene many more cases than ever before.

Serve before you sell. It should be the mantra of every businessperson.

Natalie J. Armstrong is the Founder and Managing Director of Golden Media, a marketing and consulting firm dedicated to promoting the resolution industry. She is the author of The Essential Guide to Marketing Your ADR Practice and speaks internationally on business development and the successful marketing strategies of the conflict resolution industry. More ADR Practice Development articles and information about Ms. Armstrong and Golden Media can be found at www.MarketingMediation.com.

Turning contacts into clients is the goal of networking. Follow these simply commandments and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

1. Have your networking tools with you at all times.
2. Set a goal for the number of people you’ll meet.
3. Act like a host, not a guest.
4. Listen, and ask the five “W “questions: who, what, where, when, and why.
5. Give a lead or referral whenever possible.
6. Describe your service in sixty seconds.
7. Exchange business cards with the people you meet.
8. Spend ten minutes or less with each person you meet.
9. Write comments on the backs of the business cards you collect
10. Follow up with the people you meet.

Quoted from Ivan Misner’s “The World’s Best Known Marketing Secret”
Natalie J. Armstrong is the Founder and Managing Director of Golden Media, a marketing and consulting firm dedicated to promoting the resolution industry. She is the author of The Essential Guide to Marketing Your ADR Practice and speaks internationally on business development and the successful marketing strategies of the conflict resolution industry. More ADR Practice Development articles and information about Ms. Armstrong and Golden Media can be found at www.MarketingMediation.com.