A lot of folks marketing "strategy" is throwing stuff out into the world and seeing what sticks. Some jump from idea to idea, concept to concept and never make any progress. To me, marketing is like cooking (which I LOVE) and to create real success in your business you need to follow a recipe. One that is customized to your personality, your business and your goals. In this week's episode I teach you how you easily find your recipe and "cook up" delicious success in your business!

If so, then you need a plan to make this happen. Simply showing up and collecting a few business cards, is NOT going to create new money in your business.  

First, you need to research which networking opportunities are the best fit for you. Don’t just go to an event for the sake of going. Look for events, seminars, conferences, workshops, etc., that cater to your ideal client and/or individuals who could be referral partners for you.

To help you keep track of your research, I suggest you setup an account with Evernote. It's completely FREE and you can setup individual Notebooks to keep this information organized and accessible while on the go. Plus it's easy to update on your computer or your smartphone.

You also might look into Highrise,which is FREE (up to 250 contacts) and will allow you to keep track of your interactions with the people you meet. You can take detailed notes on each conversation and set reminders for yourself so that you remember to reach out to them and stay in regular contact. There are other, more sophisticated systems you can use for this purpose such as SalesForce and InfusionSoft, but Highrise is a great place to start.

Last but not least, you need a follow-up system! Your fortune is in the follow-up! When you’re networking, and meet a new person, you’ve established a connection. Your goal is to turn that connection into a mutually beneficial relationship. That means you need to continue the conversation long past the first time you’ve met.

To make sure you do this, don’t unintentionally collect business cards. Develop a system that tells you exactly what to do when you meet a new person. Your system might include:

• Entering the person’s full contact details into your database
• Reviewing their website
• Signing up for their blog - I suggest using Google Reader (It’s FREE!) which will pull all of your feeds into one place that you can read instead of visiting each site individually.
• Connecting with them via social media •Sending a follow-up email or handwritten note
• Scheduling a follow-up appointment
• Scheduling an appointment on your calendar to check in with them a few weeks or months down the line

Have a specific series of steps to follow will make your networking time more worthwhile and get you better results. Most importantly, you will build stronger relationships.

Keeping all of the information you’ve gathered organized is key to your being able to actually use it! And that is how you turn your networking efforts into dollars for your business. I’d love to hear a quick story about how networking and following-up lead to new business for you! Can you share the details with me by leaving a comment below?

I understand that it can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to do to grow your business and keeping to a schedule in actually getting the work done. However, there are a few tricks that will help you.

For a quick dose of clarity, review your business activity over the past 6-12 months, which will give you a clear picture of what's working and not working in your business.

As you review your client list you'll want to ask yourself:

• How were clients introduced to my business?
• What did they buy from me?
• How much revenue did each client relationship generate?

The point is this: all of your clients came from a source. Identifying these will help you focus your marketing efforts on the sources that get you the best results. (Here's a FREE tool to help you with this.)

Once you've gained some insight into your client list, you want to note which marketing strategies you actually implemented in order to engage those clients. Did you do networking, speaking, email marketing, or use social media? Whatever the activity, make sure you write that down and note EXACTLY what you did. Meaning:

• Which networking events provided the best connections and leads?
• Which of your email blasts got the best open rates and generated the most leads?
• Which social networks did you participate in? And where did you get the best response?

Next to each marketing strategy in your list, note how much income you produced from that activity. Organize the items from most income gained to the least amount.

Now the fun begins! After completing this simple analysis, you will see clearly which marketing activities have created the best RE$ULT$ for your business. Going forward, you'll want to do MORE of the activities that earn you the most income. Those that brought in the least amount, either discard them or re-strategize.

You'll want to use this information to do three things:

• Set new S.M.A.R.T. goals for yourself based on what's already worked in the past
• Commit to focusing on JUST the top three (profit-producing) strategies and nothing else
• Create a simple marketing plan to help you stay on track and implementing consistently

This means putting your "blinders" on and not allowing yourself to get distracted by opportunities or marketing strategies that don't specifically support you achieving the goals you've set for yourself. Which makes your marketing easier, less expensive, more fun and MUCH more effective!

Completing this simple analysis will allow you to breakthrough any paralysis you've been facing. There is no need to be confused about what you should do to grow your business. Keep your focus on the marketing strategies that actually earn you money! Which three strategies will you focus on in your business? Please share your thoughts on the blog.

Your Action Plan For This Week:

1. List the marketing strategies that you have implemented.
2. Note next to each strategy how much money you have earned from that activity.
3. Commit to only focusing on the activities that make you money.
4. Get your copy of my "Create Your Money Map" system, which will help you set SMART goals and outline a simple marketing schedule, customized to your business.

When it comes to increasing your profits, you want to focus your attention on the activities that will get you the best results in the shortest amount time possible. The only way you'll know which strategies work the best is if you track where your clients are coming from. (If you would like a FREE copy of our client tracking tool, click here NOW.) By tracking your efforts and completing a quick and easy analysis you will see clearly:

• Who you worked with
• How you connected with them
• How much you earned

This isn't just an intellectual exercise. Now it's time to take this important data and use it to recreate those same results with LESS effort. For your business to reach it's true potential and for you to achieve your goals, you can't keep “throwing stuff against the wall” and praying that something sticks. Instead, stick with what works.

The next step is to get clear on the details regarding the strategies that you actually implemented in order to enroll new clients.

Take the information you gathered using the Client Tracking Tool and make a list of EVERY marketing strategy that you’ve implemented.
Ask yourself more detailed questions about each strategy that attracted a new client, such as:

• Networking (in-person) - Where exactly did you network? What events produced the best results?
• Article marketing - Where did you submit your articles? Which sites/directories pushed the most traffic back to your website?
• Advertising - Which of your ads produced the most leads? When did they run?
• Email marketing - Which of your email campaigns got the best open rate? The most link clicks?
• Teleseminar / Webinar - Which events got the greatest registrations? The best attendance?
• Speaking - Which of your audiences was most engaged? Showed the greatest interest in your products and services?
• Driving traffic to your website - Which sites refer the most traffic to your site? Which pages did visitors stay on the longest?

Do you see how empowering tracking is? Knowing what's actually happening in your business allows you to operate from a place of clarity.  And clarity is priceless. You eliminate the stress of not knowing, feeling unsure and being scared, all of which holds you back and keeps you from enjoying the success you deserve. More importantly, you can see clearly what is working and what's not, which allows you to do more of what's working and tweak (or eliminate) what isn't.

There are at least 93 different things you could do to market your business. However, just because you can doesn't mean you should. Smart Simple Marketing is about choosing 2-3 strategic activities to grow your business and doing them consistently. Staying focused and taking action week in and week out is what gets you RE$ULT$.

Meet me here next Friday as I share with you the final part of this 3 step process and teach you how to create a simple marketing plan that makes you money!

Your Action Plan For This Week:

• List every marketing strategy that you implemented in the past 12 months.
• List the number of clients that you enrolled from each strategy.
• Dig into the details of each strategy to get a clear picture of what you did to create the results you enjoyed.

Success ALWAYS responds to decisive action. So even if an action you take leads to an outcome you didn't expect, it doesn't mean you've made a mistake. The goal is to create results!

Make this easy on yourself! Instead of wasting time and energy worrying about which step to take next, review what you've done in the past to help determine what you should be doing now and into the future.     

There are 3 categories of your marketing strategy that we want to analyze:

• Tracking past results
• Tracking marketing efforts
• Tracking marketing results

Why is tracking so important? It is because you can see clearly what is working and what is not. Thus, you'll know where to focus your time, energy and financial resources so as to get the best results.

Tracking past results

Take a look at the clients that you have worked with over the past 12 months. Then ask yourself, "where did those clients come from?" Let's say, for example, within the past year, you worked with 15 different clients. To get more clients and increase your income, it is imperative that you recognize how those clients were introduced to your business.

For illustrative purposes, let's say the following about your 15 clients:

• 4 clients were referrals.
• 4 clients were repeat customers.
• 3 clients were found through speaking engagements (either in person or virtual).
• 2 clients found you through one of your email promotions.
• 2 clients were met via social media outlets.

What does this tell you?

Development of your referral relationships, staying in touch with past clients and doing speaking engagements have been the most lucrative marketing strategies for you. So you may want to focus more of your attention there and less on email marketing and social media.

• How can you increase the referrals and repeat customers from 4 to 7?
• Have you set up more speaking engagements so that you can turn that 3 into 6?
• What can you do to increase your referrals from 4 to 8?

Let's take our analysis a bit further:

• What products or services did those clients purchase from you?
• Which were most popular?
• What is the total revenue that you earned from serving those 15 clients?

This will show you how much revenue you generated specifically from each marketing strategy you pursued. You can then analyze how to increase the dollar value of each transaction and decrease your expenses. Which, of course, increases your profitability!

To help you conduct this analysis in your own business, CLICK HERE for a FREE tool to help you gather your recent client history. This simple, quick analysis will provide POWERFUL information for your business. You'll see clearly how to adjust your marketing efforts, where you are wasting time and what to focus on going forward so as to achieve your goals.

Make time to complete this exercise TODAY (not "next week" or when you get around to it).

Doing so will help you take a giant leap towards creating more profits in your business.

Your "Take Action" Plan:

• Download the worksheet mentioned above. Look at the last 12 months of your business and write in detail all of the clients that bought from you.
• List what they purchased and how much total revenue you earned.
• Determine which marketing strategies were most profitable for your business.
• Note which clients you are likely to re-engage or upgrade to another level of service.
• If you have lost a client, write down what adjustment you need to make so as to avoid losing clients who may have a similar situation.

One of the most important elements of profitable marketing is often the most difficult for solo service professionals to maintain. That is sharing your solutions consistently. To keep your pipeline filled with ideal clients who happily and readily pay for your solutions, you MUST market your business regularly (meaning EVERY week...YES, that often).

I find though, that many service professionals feel that they don't have time to do so. It can be easy to become so consumed in serving the clients you do have and running your business that your marketing efforts may unintentionally be pushed aside.

If you've ever found yourself having "fallen off the wagon" when it comes to your marketing efforts, you'll be happy to know that a quick and easy tune-up can get you right back on track.

To tune up your marketing systems, you'll first want to do a quick assessment of your business and ask yourself the following questions:

1. What's working great in my business? - Review the activity in your business over the past 6-12 months. Taking stock of what is going well and what you have achieved will boost your confidence and inspire you to put forth the necessary effort to make any needed changes.

2. What marketing strategies have been most effective for connecting me with ideal clients? - Have you gained a number of hot leads from your breakfast networking group? Is your email newsletter generating consistent inquiries about your solutions? Are your blog posts consistently driving traffic to your website? As you determine what has worked particularly well, take steps to increase your efforts in that area.

3. What needs to be improved? - As you come across aspects of your marketing that aren't running as smoothly as you'd like, or aren't generating leads and income, make a list of these and the reasons why. Can these strategies be tweaked or improved in some way? Or is it time to let them go in favor of what's actually working?

4. What's keeping me from marketing my business on a consistent basis? - Be honest here! Is it that you don't manage your priorities as well as you could? Do you not have the know how to pursue a particular strategy? Do you have trouble staying accountable to your commitments? Whatever the reason, don't beat yourself up over it. Acknowledge it! Own it! And make the decision to do things differently from today forward.

5. What limiting beliefs do I have regarding marketing my business? - Do you tell yourself, "marketing is too hard?" Or "I don't have the money to market my services?" Maybe the excuse is, I'm too busy for marketing." Each of us has limiting beliefs that requires effort to breakthrough. Whatever your particular issue happens to be, I can guarantee you two things:

A. You can choose to ignore it and take action in spite of how you may feel. (Successful people take imperfect action and focus on results.)

B. The success you're looking to achieve is right on the other side of that limiting belief.

Remind yourself of these two affirmations the next time a limiting belief steps into your path. Acknowledge the thought, but keep taking action! Remember, we're shooting for consistent effort. Even "small" steps will keep you moving forward towards your goals.

Once you've taken the time to assess your marketing strategy, I would love to hear what you find. Please take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments below!

YOUR "TAKE ACTION" PLAN FOR THIS WEEK:

1. Set aside 30 minutes to complete the aforementioned assessment.
2. Answer each question honestly.
3. Share the results of your assessment with a trusted and supportive family member, friend or colleague.
4. Start brainstorming about the changes you want to make with your marketing efforts and what results you'd like to achieve.

Take Action Notes: 

Take Action Notes:

• Focus and consistency are keys to your success as an entrepreneur.
• You’ll get much better results with your marketing when you focus your efforts on ONE target market and ONE ideal client profile.
• If you’ve struggled with choosing a target market consider these points:
  1. With what group of people have you done your best work?
  2. What opportunities are currently available to you?
  3. What kind of clients do you want to fill your practice with?
• Keep in mind, your choice isn’t forever! Just choose based on the goals you have for your business right NOW (say for the next 30-60 days).
• There is no “right” or “wrong” choice. Just pick one and go with it! Remember, focus and consistency is the key to your success.

What target market are you focused on right now in your business? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Who hasn't purchased from (or at least heard of) Amazon.com? It's one of the most profitable, successful ecommerce sites in the world. More importantly, the site is now providing an opportunity for YOU to monetize your expertise, attract new clients and customers and create massive visibility for your work.

This week, I'm interviewing my friend, Kathleen Gage, The Street Smarts Marketer, on her insider tips to making your first Kindle product a best-seller overnight. Click the PLAY button to listen to the audio now!

Here's the nitty gritty:    

Stumbling into a marketing pitfall can happen even to the most seasoned entrepreneur. The key to avoiding these traps is knowledge. You must know what they are and where they are in order to keep your business out of harms way. Listen to this week's episode to learn 5 pitfalls to avoid as you strive to increase your success as a small business owner.