This post is all about me, Kristen, walking my walk, practicing what I preach and all that jazz.  You see, I’ve been doing some serious soul searching and some business development.  I’m sure you know how that can bring about some major changes.  Well it certainly has brought some major changes for me!  As a result, you might start to notice some changes on this blog.  The biggest of which will be a discussion around trust marketing (building trust with potential clients and your community).

When it comes to maintaining trust with your community, it’s important to keep them informed.  So, here I am informing my community of the changes that are taking place on this blog and in my business.

With the help of a mastermind group, I discovered that I have completely removed myself from my business and I have no focused “expertise” that I’m known for.  Hmmmmm….how can I be a consultant without an expertise? So I’ve spent the last 8 weeks learning what makes me (specifically me) special in my industry.  In the process I discovered that everything I do and have done in my business (I mean EVERYTHING) goes back to trust marketing.  All the processes I’ve set up for my team to follow, all the little details I focus on with my clients.  It all leads back to building trust with their potential clients.  It’s just something I automatically do.  Not something I was ever aware of.  Now that it’s been pointed out to me, I totally see how it’s what I’m all about.

So, I’m standing up and owning the expertise I’ve had all along.  I’m owning my differentiation and I’m standing on a platform that finally feels like I belong here.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to veer away from internet marketing tips for coaches.  In fact, the internet is a great way to build trust with your community.  So, I’m going to continue to give technical and strategical tips on internet marketing for coaches.  I’m just going to be adding in the piece about how to build trust with it.  As I go back and look at my past blog posts, all of them can be connected to building trust with potential clients…I just didn’t point out how.  Now I’ll be pointing out how.

So things around here are changing for the better.  I just wanted you to know so you aren’t surprised when the content of this blog has a new slant to it that it never had before.  I want to keep your trust.

I would love to hear your comments, thoughts and/or questions.

Kristen Beireis, Trust Marketing Expert for the personal transformation industry

I actually enjoy football.  Hubby and I enjoy watching games together, so we watched the superbowl on Sunday.  It’s usually a great game, so I was excited to see what happened this year.  As with every year, I’m always excited to see what creative ideas come through in the commercials too.  I’m a marketing expert, how can I not?!

To be perfectly honest, as a woman, I felt very alienated by the commercials this year.  Yeah, that sounds like my “stuff” coming up, but did you pay attention to the content of the commercials?  Now, I know it’s a mans game and I expect to see very masculine commercials.  That’s not a big deal!   I see them all the time during the season.  This year, I would say 75% of the commercials either made fun of women or degraded them.  Am I the only one who saw this?

From a pure marketing standpoint, I get what they were after.  The target market for the commercials is men.  So, they created masculine commercials that appealed to men.  I get that. That makes sense.  Did it go too far?  It’s a major social event each year, a lot of women DO tune in to watch the superbowl.   Many of them watch FOR the commercials even.  Then there are those women, like me, who watch their favorite team throughout the season that still enjoy the final championship game.  So, I would say the audience watching the commercials during the game could be 30-40% women. Oh, and studies have shown that women still make the majority of the buying decisions in the household.  Hmm….so, why would you alienate us?

This is where I think things got mixed up.  The commercials did a great job of appealing to their target market of men.  At the same time too many didn’t consider a large part of the audience that would be watching those commercials.  Here’s where some balance is needed.  Yes, we always want to create marketing that appeals to our target market.  In fact, those are the people we want in our business the most.  At the same time, we need to consider who is going to be stumbling upon our marketing and make sure we don’t alienate them…especially if they are part of the decision making process.  You can be considerate to one group at the same time you are being attractive to another, right?  YES!  That’s the goal.

Think about it like this.  As someone in the life changing field, you need to build a HUGE amount of trust with your audience before they buy from you.  Will they trust you if you alienate their counterpart?  Up front, maybe…but once they go to making a decision and they bring that counterpart into the decision-making process, it’s a whole new ball game.  So, be aware of who you are speaking to and who might be an integral part of the decision making.  Make sure you don’t alienate in your marketing.  Be considerate and you build trust.

What are your thoughts on this?

Do you think about who you connect with on LinkedIn? I’m really picky as to who I connect with on LinkedIn.  Maybe it’s just me, but I think this network requires that you be picky.  Have you noticed what your options are when you get a connection request?  You don’t have the option to “ignore”, but you can say you don’t know them.  To me, this says don’t accept people you don’t know.   That’s point one.

Point two?  LinkedIn is a professional network. It’s not a “social” social network.  It’s not about weekend trips and games with your Hubby or dinner with your friends.  In my mind that kind of chatter is actually distracting on LinkedIn.  The conversation on LinkedIn needs to be a professional one.  More like going to a networking meeting and discussing your job or business.  Anything else is distracting and annoying, to be blunt.

Here’s my philosophy on LinkedIn.

1)  I connect with people I know and people who might be a client only. If you think you can offer services to my clients, I want to know who you are first.  People know me as a marketing manager and implementer for life changers.  I get web designers/developers, social media experts etc… trying to connect with me all the time on LinkedIn.  I see my network on LinkedIn as a way to recommend people.  I don’t recommend people I don’t know.  If you want to be a potential JV partner or referral partner, connect on my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter and help me get to know you.  Once I know you and I’m confident you can help my network, then I’ll be happy to connect on LinkedIn, as well.

2)  Automation is not recommended 100% of the time. I’ve noticed that some people have their twitter stream feeding into their LinkedIn status updates.  This seems like a great idea, doesn’t it?  Think about it.  On Twitter, you can talk about any kind of topic.  If you connect your catch all (this is all about me, my life, and my business) twitter stream with your LinkedIn account, it’s not in integrity with what the network is about.  Now, if you have a business only twitter account, then, yes, by all means connect that one up with your LinkedIn status updates.

I’ve just recently noticed that http://ping.fm allows you to create “groups”.  This makes it easy!  I have a personal group, a business group, and a few others.  I can post to all my networks at once if I want.  For business stuff I do that, including LinkedIn.

3)  Be aware of the conversation. One of the great features (that I don’t take advantage of enough yet) are the groups on LinkedIn.  There are some really great groups that are having amazing conversations.  So, check them out and sign up for a few.  At the same time, be aware of the converstiaon.  I see way too many people just throwing up promos left and right, without participating in discussion.  Remember Yahoo groups?  Same thing was/is happening there too.  Stick to the topic.  Put your promos in your signature, unless there is a specified way to send promos to the group.  Ask the administrator if you don’t know.

So, what are your thoughts on LinkedIn?  Do you agree that it should be professional conversation only?  What is your philosophy?

As you reflect on your year and plan the next one, are you looking at your marketing?  It’s easy to look at business goals, but one of the main ways to reach your business goals is going to be marketing.  So, it’s important to make sure you investigate that side of your business too (along with customer service and a few others).

I’d like to propose a way of looking at your marketing that you may not have considered before. Get your journal, a notebook or a few pieces of paper out and get ready to write (don’t Ugh me!!  You want to be as successful or more successful next year, right?  Then write this stuff down!).

Start with a big picture view of your business from this year.

What was your big accomplishment this year?

What was your favorite part about working in your business this year?

Write any thoughts that come to your head down…no need to sensor, everything you write is RIGHT!

Now, break it down into smaller parts.

What goals did you reach or exceed this year?

What specific tasks, events, or projects allowed you to reach those goals?

What marketing did you do to support reaching those goals?

Which parts did you enjoy the most?

Write it down…remember, everything you write is RIGHT.

Gotta take the negative with the positive.

It would be nice to continue on with all the things that went right this year, but stopping to look at what went wrong can help you shape things for the next time.  So…

What didn’t go so well for you this year?

If you had it to do all over again, what would you do differently?

What marketing tasks would you skip or add this time?

Now, take all of this and apply it to next year.

Success usually means whatever you did worked!  So, use it again and tweak it so that it works even better next time.  Use what you learned from the projects that didn’t go so well and use it to beef up what DID go well.  Also, focus on the successful strategies that you enjoy doing (you are most likely to follow through if you enjoy it!).

What business goals would you like to reach in 2010?

What marketing strategies from this year are going to support you in reaching those goals?  (make  a list)

What new marketing strategies do you want to add in? (add to the list above)

What do you need to do to make each marketing strategy successful?  (make a list for each strategy, including answers to the below questions)

Who do you need to help you?

What materials do you need?

What systems need to be in place?

What technology do you need?

Finally, calendar it all out.

Get a marketing calendar.  Put all your ongoing marketing tasks in first.  Put the date you need to have materials/content created, then when you expect to have the final completed.

Then add any one time projects you want to do.  Mark a “start date” and a “launch date” or “finish date”.  You may want to have several other milestones in there mapped out, depending on the project.

Now you have your year of marketing planned out and ready to go. As you go through your year, go back to your notes from this exercise and check in to make sure you are keeping in mind those things that WERE successful in 2009.  You may want to make notes about these things as you go through 2010, so you have it when you are ready to plan 2011.

Get creative if you want with sticky notes, colored highlighters or whatever you want to play with…get your crayons out if you want.  It might just make things more fun!

So, what do you think?  Are you going to do this?  Let us know how this method works for you in a comment.

Have you seen it?  The Federal Trade Commission (the FTC) has made new regulations specifically for marketing on the internet.  The new regulations take effect today, so you may want to consider paying attention if you haven’t been already.

What’s the big deal?

The BIG deal is your testimonials, claims about effectiveness, affiliate marketing and programs may not be up to snuff with the new regulations.  Now, I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t really speak to what you need to do in order to be in compliance with the new regulations.  However, I can point you in the direction of some resources that will help you get there.  You may want to contact your lawyer to be certain, but these resources will get you started.

1)  The official FTC announcement - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

2)  Blog post by Kevin Houchin (who IS a lawyer), explaining the basics. - http://houchinlaw.com/?p=468

3)  Interview with Kevin Houchin about it. - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/askjamesholmes/2009/11/10/internet-business-blueprint-with-james-holmes

4)  FTC Toolkit, with checklists and step-by-step info. on what you need to do, created by Kevin Houchin and Joel Comm (internet marketer) - https://www.sitecompliant.com/

If you are not yet compliant, don’t panic!!

They aren’t going to go down a list alphabetically and start fining people $11,000 immediately.  They don’t have that kind of time.  There are A LOT of USA websites out there.  I read one article that predicted (not fact!) that they most likely won’t come after you unless there are certain amount of complaints against you.  So, you don’t have to fix it all right this minute!  However, I do suggest you get yourself into compliance as soon as you humanly can.  That way you aren’t at risk anymore.

I think these new regulations are a great thing for internet marketing.

They are going to hold all of us accountable for being transparent.  They will also promote honest marketing, which has been lacking in several internet arenas.  So, I’m all for these new regulations.  Like you, I need to get into compliance myself and I’ll be working on that this month.

What are your thoughts?  Are you in favor of these regulations?