Inspired Marketing 

Marrketing Tips, Tools, and Resources to Build your Business

August,   2011
In This Issue
Featured Article- What Business Tool Are You "Tackling"?
Born To Read Book Review
What Does Smallbizbuilder Do?
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Trudy Van Buskirk, owner of Smallbizbuilder works with boomer women business owners as a marketing coach, trainer, author, writer, and resource (she knows people, books, etc). Trudy has "do-it-yourself" products or can do the marketing she suggests for you.

 

Think About This Question

What one thing do you plan to do for your business?




Follow-up Links


Do you have lots of "organizing ideas" but never get around to designing the forms you'll need to implement them?

I've already done some for you. You can start using them right away!

 

They only cost $9.95 each. Each comes with instructions.  And the best part is that they're either done as spreadsheets in word processine program so you can use them repeatedly.


Check them out at the 
Smallbizbuilder website
Products page
 

  

 

 

 





















































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Greetings!

September is very near! What are doing for YOUR business to get ready for Fall? This is the right time to do many of the things you've put off but "plan" to do. You can develop the tools that will help you be more organized and get more clients this Fall. 

 

Before you begin anything, step back and review your goals. Are they the same as before? Has anything changed? Then you rewrite them, don't you! They're not carved in stone. It's a good idea to examine them at least once or twice a year.

 

Read on to be reminded of what you to work on AND accomplish.

 

Know that you can create these business tools this Fall, too!

What Business Tool(s) Are You "Tackling"? 
No matter what you choose to work on, you have to be sure you know what your vision is before you begin making additions or changes. You may go to a colleague whom you trust and respect or a business that specializes in visioning (as I did) to review your vision with you. Whether this review is paid for or free always do it.

1. WHAT IS YOUR VISION?

Revisiting your vision is VERY helpful and necessary before you begin anything. This past year I felt "stuck". I took my old "Ideal Business" list that I'd written on December 11, 2002 to Judi Hughes at  Your Planning Partners   to see what had changed for me since my strokes in 2005. Surprisingly very little!

She worked with me to revisit this vision and appraise not only my past but my present and what I want to have in the future.

This is helping me redo my website, write my blog posts and everything else.

 

2. REVIEW YOUR MARKETING PLAN.
Notice that I didn't say "Write your marketing plan." I assume you have one :-)

Whether you have one or not, examine it again. What worked best for you and what didn't work at all? Then change it! Do you want to do something new? Add this to your plan and do it.

3. WRITE A CLIENT SURVEY.
Write a survey to ask your clients what they REALLY want. You may be surprised or it may confirm what you already know and are doing.

You may have sent it out in June or July or you may be sending it in September. Do it before you start redoing your website or writing articles, newsletters or your blog.

4. REVIEW YOUR WEBSITE.
Does your website meet the purpose you set for it - get new clients for you, grow your "list", get people to come back more than once to it, have people buy your products or services?

Redo some or all of it.

What are your keywords? Did you use the "right" ones for your website? Do they draw people to your site? Are they in your copy, too?  Ask your web person what keywords s/he used and where s/he sent your website.

5. WRITE YOUR NEWSLETTER(S) Compose newsletters ahead of time. Summer or any time is perfect to write several of these at once so you're ready for when you find yourself very busy with your clients and unable to write them.

6. START A BLOG. 
Do you have one yet? Have you put off writing one because you don't think you know how to do one or don't need one?

If you already have one, and you haven't written for a while because you didn't have time or you procrastinated then write a "bunch" of posts ahead of time. I'm writing them as I think of them in Word and I copy one over to my blog as I need it (the best is to publish three blog posts per week).

7. WRITE ARTICLES.
Write articles you may be using in print (a local newspaper) AND/ OR electronically.

There are many places to send your articles AND some of them even announce you've just done an article in your accounts at facebook, twitter and linked in. This is done by Ezine Articles 

Are you going to a networking event and want to pass something out? Print the article. Are you speaking and want something to give out? Print the article.

8. LEARN/ CHOOSE SOCIAL MEDIA

Learn about not only about how to set up your LinkedIn, twitter or Facebook account but also which one works best for you and the type of business you have.

9. DESIGN AND WRITE A COURSE.

Are you giving a course in the fall? Then you are probably writing this now. And remember that some of this content can become an article, too.

This could be either an in-person course or one given over the internet.


There are probably different projects you've set for yourself (such as writing a book - or at least starting it). These are only some of them. Remember that the text you write in one place like your newsletter article can be lengthened and used as a separate article. And one article could become several blog posts! RECYCLE TEXT, TOO!

Keep learning, and until next time. 

Trudy
Born To Read Book Review 

Happiness = bliss. Can we find the places in the world that are happy? This author set out to look for them! Did he find any? Yes! And reading this book will help you, too. Eric Weiner spent ten years as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio. He's been based in New Delhi, Jerusalem, and Tokyo and has reported from more than 30 countries so he's well qualified to ask this question and try to answer this question.

 

As usual I own the book AND and have read it.  

 

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS. One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner 

 

Weiner visited ten countries looking for the "happiest" country.  One came close - Bhutan. He wrote about the countries where happiness is: a number, boredom, a policy, winning a lottery ticket, failure, somewhere else, not thinking, a work in progress, a contradiction and ... home.

 

Can you guess the country for each? I bet you can't and you'll be surprised as I was.

  

According to Weiner "With our words we conflate geography and happiness. We speak of searching for happiness, of finding contentment, as if these were locations in an atlas ...." Do you? (conflate means to join or merge two or more things into a unified whole).

   

It's not a marketing book but it's very interesting and I couldn't put it down AND I  read it more than once :-) I hope you will, too.  

 

Buy this book, read it and use it ...Buy this book and read it  

Buy this book and rea 

Buy ths book and read i.Buy  

A Quote For You ....
"The thing that's totally different between children and adults is that children have the ability to spontaneously use their imagination to forget what's bothering them and be inspired by every pony, feather, or bug that crosses their path.

It's easy.
- Mike Dooley, Notes from the Universe

Trudy
Phone 416-778-9976 or email me at [email protected]
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