Got Your Pink Spoon?

"Making Website Visitors An Irresistible Offer"

Speaking of starting movements and building communities, if you have a website, do you have a highly successful strategy for converting your web visitors into subscribers to your mailing list and then into paying clients and customers?

I know some business owners who routinely get 100s of new subscribers to their list every week. But they don't just have a boring "Sign up for my newsletter" offer on their site. They use what some call "Pink Spoon Marketing," a phrase coined by Andrea J. Lee, which means they offer an enticing free sample of something that visitors simply can't pass up.

Coming up with the "right" free offer is tricky because you don't want it to cost more of your time (remember, you want 100s and 1000s of new subscribers each week) and it has to be something irresistible to your target market.

I've seen this method work for coaches as well as dentists, accountants, and insurance agents. Please don't write this concept off as something that "won't work for me."

Two marketing communications experts I greatly respect, Linda Claire Puig, of Ready2GoArticles.com, and Linda Dessau, of YouTalk-IWrite.com, have put together a course called the Pink Spoon Telecamp to help you learn all about pink spoons and how to use them to market yourself.

The best part, though, is that during the course, they'll also help you create your own pink spoon so that by the end of it, you'll have yours ready to put into place to attract your ideal clients and prospects!

They are offering tons of resources and perks. I particularly like the fact that they provide fill-in-the-blanks worksheets so you don't have start completely from scratch.

Some important details:

=> The course starts next week.
=> You'll also receive everything on CD and DVD.
=> They are currently offering $100 off but that ends TODAY.

Click here to read all about it...

My suggestion: Whether you decide to take their course or not, register on this page to listen to the free training that Linda and Linda gave recently. It's called "Help! My Website's Not Working!" and it's full of meaty content. Plus it's a great example of how Pink Spoon Marketing works.

To read all about it and save $100 today only, click here.

How to Start A Movement

If you were a conscious adult in the 1980s then you might be all too familiar with the term NIMBY which stands for "not in my back yard." Although there are a lot of negative connotations associated with that acronym, I generally like to think of it as a symbol for community activism, which can often be a very good thing.

(You might recall I mentioned in an earlier issue that I went to UC Berkeley, well known for being the site of some notable protests including the Free Speech Movement in the 60s. Plus, I worked for the publishing house of Sierra Club in San Francisco, another organization known for bringing people together to take a stand.)

Rallying around a cause do several things for your business:

1. Stir up emotions: Think about some of the most effective marketing campaigns you have ever experienced, whether it was a TV commercial, magazine ad, or billboard.

What made it memorable for you? Was it the funniest thing you ever saw? Or the most bittersweet or controversial? What do you feel right now when recalling that moment? YouTube is a great place to witness silly, bizarre, or super cool marketing videos that go viral quickly because they make an impact and get passed around.

Generally, the stronger the emotions, the more memorable the experience. The last thing you want is for your message to be bland or tepid.

2. Polarize your audience: When you convey a strong message or point of view, prospective members will find it easy to love you or hate you (and that's a very good thing--see point #1).

3. Bond members of the community together: When you start connecting people together and cultivate a sense of family, a wonderful thing happens...members start bringing more members to you and people stay longer because they have a sense of belonging.

   • What do I stand for?

   • What does my business stand for?

   • What cause do I already help advance with my clients and customers?

   • What specific topic needs an advocate to advance the cause?

   • Who's already in my community?

   • Who needs to stay and who needs to be kicked out?

   • Moving forward, what's the purpose of my community?

   • With whom do I want to surround myself?

   • What sort of environment do I want to experience?

   • What sort of environment do the members of my community want to experience that they currently can't get anywhere else?

   • Who's going to lead this community? (Will it be me or somebody else?)

   • How can I be of service to my community?

   I'm going to cover some of these points in more depth over time. But a good place to start cultivating your own community right now that is also directly related to supporting and growing your business is via social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter.

   These sites are great places to do research to see how others lead their tribes as well as experiment with and receive instant feedback about your message.

   If you're trying to be funny, are your messages landing the right way? Do people naturally gravitate towards your movement or is that the sound of crickets that you hear when you get up on your soapbox?

   A great example of effective social networking leadership is the highly profitable group that my colleague, Donna Kozik, created on Facebook. I recently interviewed her about how she created her group on a whim and how she then turned it into a vibrant community with members who asked her how they could pay her to lead them further. How cool is that?

   To gain access to this interview as well as receive the complete transcripts and my personal Success On Facebook Cheat Sheet, click here.

   Think about the questions in this article and understand that you already have a community of some sort.

   The trick lies in taking responsibility for purposely evolving that community into a network that supports you and your business instead of waiting for someone else to take a stand or hoping a spontaneous movement for your business will spark on its own.

What Can You Change Today?

Being the owner of your own business means you have to be the master of change because business isn't static. The needs of your market change, the economic environment changes, the trends change...and you need to respond.

More than being a master of change, I want to encourage you to be a leader in both business and in life.

To commemorate Martin Luther King day here in the States, I'm sharing this short video that states a beautiful call to action and, I hope, an inspiration to stand up and do something today to effect positive change in your world.

Check out the video at The King Center.

What's Your Contingency Plan?

This topic has popped up a lot lately...in conversations with my clients, in my coaching group, and most recently, this morning in my Business Network International (BNI) meeting. And let me tell you, it's surprising how few business owners have back-up plans in case of an emergency!

Do you safeguard against a computer crash or theft? I know a photographer who lost portrait photos that he had downloaded for his clients when his laptop was stolen out of his office in broad daylight. Lost forever. And a lot of explaining to do to an angry client.

What happens if you misplace your schedule or leave your cell phone at home?

What happens if the power goes out?

Can you still run your business?

Something to think about....Identify the worst case scenarios that can literally put you out of business, at least temporarily. And then design a plan to save the day.

Risk Management is something we'll be working on at the Results Mastery Club in the near future.

An E-Myth Moment: What Is the Franchise Prototype?

According the Michael E. Gerber in his book, The E-Myth Revisited, our Back-to-School featured book of the month, the Franchise Prototype model follows 6 main guidelines:

1. The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees, suppliers, and lenders, beyond what they expect.
2. The model will be operated by people with the lowest possible skill level.
3. The model will stand out as a place of impeccable order.
4. All work in the model will be documented in Operations Manuals.
5. The model will provide a uniformly predictable service to the customer.
6. The model will utilize color, dress, and facilities code.

Even if you aren't remotely interested in duplicating your business and selling it as a franchise, pay close attention to numbers 2 and 4 above. If you ever desire to step away from your business without it falling apart, say for a vacation, business trip, or an emergency, you will need to have written rules to pass along to someone else.

If you are unwilling to get it all out of your head and onto paper, be prepared to stay chained to your business for life. Is that why you got into business in the first place? To actually have less time off to live your life?

Get the book. Hire a consultant or a coach. But whatever you do, get it in writing in such a way that anyone can understand it.