Business development

Review your professional life to help improve satisfaction, performance

by

Now that we’re about seven weeks into the new year, it’s a good time to take stock in where you are professionally. Review facets of your life to see if any tweaking is needed. Some areas to consider include:

Professional goals Review your life goals for this year. To what extent are you where you should be at this stage? Have you accomplished what you should have? Why, or why not? Don’t be too rough on yourself. There’s time to get back on track. Also, perhaps certain goals were too aggressive. Consider adjusting those goals.

Much like with a diet, your goals must be realistic. You should be commended for setting lofty goals, but make sure they are reasonable. Otherwise you’ll give up, and that’s worse than not trying at all.

Read more

Hosting a webinar? These suggestions will help ensure smooth sailing

by

Having attended and hosted a number of webinars in recent weeks, I’ve developed a number of suggestions on how to host a webinar successfully.

This is an abbreviated list. I’m focusing on some of the mechanical or logistical aspects of the  webinar. For a more thorough discussion, see “Create a successful webinar.”

1. Test the webinar platform, even if you’ve used that webinar service before. Deliver a short, say three-minute, test webinar. Essentially a dry run, it gives you the chance to familiarize yourself with the features. Watch the recording. Are any changes or corrections needed?

I use Anymeeting.com, and felt up until recently that I knew it pretty well. Anymeeting changed some facets late last year. As I was preparing for a webinar in January, I realized the changes affected how the program worked. It took me several tests to become acclimated to the changes. Give yourself time to become comfortable with the platform before hosting a webinar.

Read more

Tim Erway: How to succeed in your network marketing business

by

During the Info-Marketing Blueprint conference last Friday, we were treated to some great advice and insight from Tim Erway, one of Mike Dillard’s colleagues at Magnetic Sponsoring. Tim spoke for an hour or so. By scribbling madly, I managed to record many of the points he offered that afternoon. The following is taken from my notes. While the sentences may not flow like perfect prose, I think you’ll still be able to glean the wisdom that Tim Erway offered.

We network marketers tend to undervalue ourselves, and refrain from bringing content to the marketplace because we feel it’s not worthy.

Not sure what to write about or produce? Ask yourself:
– What is your passion?
– What are you good at? How did you get good at it?

By learning, we are increasing our value. By putting that into practice, we are creating experience. We create value by implementing what we learned. “The more value we share, the wealthier we become,” he says.

Value of events like this one (Info-Marketing Blueprint): You meet people. Plus, you never know who you will be introduced to later. [From me: It’s a take on the old saying, “It’s not who you know, but who knows you.”]

Read more

Adding to my collection of professional development materials

by

Seasoned business people from all industries know that professional development never stops. You never know all; there’s always more to be gleaned from others in your field. Whether you are a network marketer, professional speaker, sales person…heck just about any position, you should be constantly in learning mode. Books and audio materials are popular platforms … Read more

Conferences are an important part of marketing efforts

by

In these difficult times, business owners are constantly looking for ways to cut expenses. That’s understandable. We need to remain cognizant of the bottom line in order to stay in business. The other  important component, of course, is generating additional income through new sales.

Sadly, one area that tends to get cut during tough times is marketing. While some tweaking is probably in order, too often businesses make wholesale cuts in their marketing budgets. Why is that? They’re cutting out a major component in their business development efforts. (I heard of a firm years ago that cut all but one of its salespeople. Wow.)

Like most newer network marketers, my path has been bumpy. Coming from an advertising / marketing background, I assumed that it would take time to build sales. I’m introducing myself to the marketplace in a whole new way, and am entering a rather crowded field. A lot of folks are involved in network marketing/home-based businesses. Each of us is trying to carve out a niche. All of us are trying to position ourselves against our competitors – just like traditional businesses do – and grow from there.

Read more