Words That Work

Wabi Sabi Small Business Marketing Ideas

What's holding your business back?  Some days its cranky prospects and customers; occasionally it's employee, supply chain, or financing issues that get out of control -- but some days it's just YOU.  Successful executives, it is sometimes said, are motivated by a grandiose belief in their own abilities;  successful entrepreneurs, by a desire to prove their abilities to themselves and the world. 

Many great entrepreneurs come out of dysfunctional families, UC Berkeley's Lean Launch Pad  professor Steve Blank points out.  Their chaotic childhoods help them learn a resilience that works well in the chaos of a start-up:

Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone, Blank says —investors, customers, friends, family, and employees, to name a few. The founder takes his or her vision of the opportunity—one only he/she may see...to execute against all rational odds ... product development and customer input collide, the facts change, the business model changes, and stuff happens.

Anyone who can’t manage chaos and uncertainty, isn’t totally oriented for action, and has no sense of urgency, is in the wrong business.

via www.inc.comDysfunctional Family? You'd Make a Great Entrepreneur | Inc.com

There's a downside when things start going well, though.  If you are energized by crises and uncertainty, success can seem boring.  You may not even recognize it when you come up with new ideas, or disrupt the smooth flow of your business, because chaos is your comfort zone.  Currently I'm watching one entrepreneur whose genius I've admired completely dissassemble a successful brand and head in a new direction.  In his wake is a tribe of loyal, committed customers scratching their heads wondering what services the company offers now and where do I fit?  A woman who has been extremely successful brokering national media for her organization advertises new services so often it's hard to tell which is what -- creating a paralyzing confusion for prospects and leaving existing subscribers in the dust.  Both are brilliant entrepreneurs who seem to be getting in the way of their own success because they don't think they are good enough, or growing fast enough.  As marketing strategies for small business, they seem disruptive.  Hopefully their brands and messages will get clear before their customers wander off.

Want to look at your own company in this light? Here are some questions to get your thinking started:  Look back at interactions with your employees or contractors -- are you allowing them to do their jobs, or micro-managing and getting in their way?  Do you hire experts to coach or advise you in areas that are not your expertise, then ignore or argue with their advice?  When things are rolling along smoothly, do you tend to come up with a new idea or new direction before your customers, contractors or employees are ready?  You might need a good dose of Wabi Sabi.

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese notion that beauty is not perfect. It is seeing the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete -- modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional... So what is Wabi Sabi for a small business?  Taking a deep breath, recognizing and accepting with humility your own imperfections and those of your team.  Seeing them as the right kind of imperfection, like asymmetry in a bowl that shows the handmade craftsmanship, instead of a perfect, but soul-less, machine-made bowl. Celebrating your successes with the team who helped you achieve them and dialing back on striving for the much more you think you "should" be achieving.  "Sabi" in Japanese, is the kind of beauty that can come only with age, such as the patina on an old bronze statue.  For you it means recognizing that building a business requires time -- 3-5 years say the retired C-level advisors at Score.  Discounting yourself, your support team and your business for not achieving great things within that first five years only drains away your momentum.  Whether you are a sole practitioner, leader of a large organization, or doing small home business marketing, Wabi Sabi is that balance point between keeping your operation energized and getting your anxieties and need to be seen as brilliant out of the way.

 

For more on Wabi Sabi look at:  Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, by Leonard Koren ISBN 1880656124

or http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WabiSabi

 

About the Author:

If you are ready to take your business vision to the next level, let Maggie Anderson Words That Work help you look at all the new media marketing solutions for small business today and become more visible and credible as a leader in your industry.   Maggie Anderson  is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals, coaches and consultants.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal or company brand, stand out and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or Do It Yourself with her Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

 

 

 

No-Brainer Marketing Tip Using Email You Already Send!

  Good for you! You’ve gotten into Social Media, and you are figuring out how to make it work for your business, consulting or coaching practice.  Now make it  easy for people to follow or connect with you!  You send emails every day, I'll bet.  If you do not already leverage every email with a powerful signature that connects prospects, colleagues and clients with you, your products and services, you are missing a great opportunity. 

 Your signature is a way to let people easily connect with you

It reinforces your brand, reminds about your credentials, provides quick links to your products and services, increases your list and simplifies a colleague’s ability to refer business to you.  That’s a lot –- and once you set it up you never have to do it again!!

Every email you send

… should have a signature that promotes you as an industry leader and makes it easy for the recipient to connect with you -- or connect you to someone else they think would be beneficial.  Take a minute to review your own signature to see if you are taking full advantage of this powerful tool!

 You may sign your email something like Warm regards… Bob  But underneath that you want to add your

1. Logo
2. Tag line
3. Name in full followed by your credentials
4. Links to your blog, your book, or anything else that will position you as an industry leader in the recipient’s mind.
5. Web address
6. Phone numbers
7. Quick Social Media links

 Never created an email signature before?  It is not hard and well worth setting aside an hour to complete.

Step 1:  gather what you need

• your logo in .jpg or .png (or another image format your mail program will accept.)
• a tagline that briefly explains what you are marketing and to whom.
• make a list of the social media you want to include in your signature and gather the internet URL (or address) for each.
• If you have a blog, have that URL handy also.
• Have you written a book?  Won an award?  Have a .jpg or .png image and/or very brief copy to mention it and offer a link.
• search Google for Social Media icons.  You will find many styles, and you want to pick one style so all your icons match.
• Download mini icons for free at:  http://www.komodomedia.com/download/#social-media-mini-iconpack

Step 2:  Put it to Work

Go to your email program and click on Preferences.  Look for the menu item for Signatures and click on that.  Either click on a signature you already use, or add a new one.  Now:

• Copy your logo image and paste it in.
• Write in your tag line (keep it succinct, but meaningful!)
• Copy the icons you want to use and paste them in.
• Put your Web address or copy like visit my Website, phone numbers, etc.
  
• Highlight each item one at a time, click on the Edit menu, then add a link.
• A box should pop up where you can input the link that goes with that icon.
• If you wrote in a URL, it won’t become a live link until you also specifically add it as a link.

 

One More Step Before You Are Finished

Close the preferences screen and send yourself an email to test and make sure all your new stuff works.  All email programs are slightly different, so yours may have somewhat different menus or procedure, but it is worth noodling around until you figure it out. Once you do you'll have a powerful assistant to boost your visibility with every email you send.

Send an email to ma@maggieanderson.com when you finish – I’d love to see your results!!  Or leave a comment below and share a tip or let me know how it went for you.

If you are ready for a bigger presence in your market, let us help you develop a strategy and improve your branding, your blog, or revise your Web content to make it work harder for you.   Maggie Anderson Words That Work is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives and professionals.  She helps you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal brand, stand out as a leader in your industry and attract more opportunities using social media, blogs, Internet, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.

Or get the Marketing Kit for Experts that shows you how:

Keywords are Key to Small Business Marketing

  Identifying keywords is the first step in creating a great small business marketing strategy.  Search engines are matchmakers.  When a person searching the internet for something they need types words in the search bar, the search engine trolls through cyberspace looking for the Websites that will be the most useful to them.  What will make Google, Ask or Yahoo put a link to your Website on page one? 

Key Words for small business marketing

There's a lot of mystery to the ever-changing algorithms used, but one thing all the experts point to is the use of keywords in the copy on your Website, blog, articles and Tweets. When search engines identify your site as a suitable match for content, your page ranking will be much higher.   But as an industry insider, the words you use to search for your products or services might be different than what your prospect would put in the search bar.

As you choose Keywords you are looking for two things: 

1. which words and phrases would your target market use to search for what you offer?
2. which ones are the most used on a regular basis, and which are used the least?

Start Your Keyword Search

Step one:  make a list of all your products and services.  Beside each one list some words and phrases that might be used to search for them. 

Step two:  use Google's Keyword Tool (www.googlekeywordtool.com), or another similar one (ie. www.wordstream.com/keywords  or http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html#).

The tool will provide additional words and phrases to consider.  What I like about Google's free tool is that it tells you which keywords are the most searched, and also which are least used by other businesses.  Create a long list of your potential keywords with a mix of some that are heavily searched, and some that are rarely used, but also have less competition.  You should end up with a list of words and phrases you can use in your copy to attract prospects to your site.

Step three:  Group your keywords around topics so you are concentrating on one primary keyword or phrase on any page, blog post, or marketing article you write.  Experts say you can sprinkle similar phrases through the copy, but not competing keywords.  Example:  my primary keyword phrase is "small business marketing."  I might use "marketing ideas for small business" and "small home business marketing" in the same blog post, but I wouldn't use "brand marketing" or "strategic marketing plan" even though those are good keywords for me. 

Caroline Melberg, President and CEO of Small Business Mavericks, outlines these key ways to enhance search engine optimization for small business marketing:

1. Identify the keywords for your small business marketing
2. Determine page rank on Google and look for more keywords that can be used
3. Place keywords strategically on each page

Placement of Keywords for Search Engine Optimization

Placement of those keywords is also essential to a small business marketing strategy.  Where keywords appear helps search engines determine how valuable and relevant your site is for a specific subject. Place your keywords in headings, bullet points, and subheadings with bolded text and links -- it's one of the best ways to attract the attention of a major search engine.

My colleague, Becky Barnett, owner and founder of Dot-to-Dot.com, is the most adept SEO master I know.  Look for a future blog where I ask her to share some of her more sophisticated tips for using metatags and other tricks to enhance your chances of getting to that magical page one on Google!

 

If you are ready for a bigger presence in your market, let us help you develop your blog, revise your Web content to make it work harder for you, or create a new Web site.   Maggie Anderson Words That Work is a communications coach and marketing expert and provides simple, step-by-step programs for small business executives.  We help you find effective communication strategies to develop your personal brand, stand out as a leader in your industry and attract more opportunities using social media strategies, blogs, Web content, speechwriting and presentations, white papers and other effective communication tools.