What do dairy cows, alphabet soup and Ghost Busters have to do with marketing your business? You have to read to find out.

I haven’t written anything for me, for my blog, in a while. I write all the time for other people – witty, insightful, educational, need-to-know information. I’m also terrible with my own business’ social media, but I dazzle when posting for my clients. I guess I’m like a doctor who’s unhealthy, a librarian who doesn’t read (is there such a thing?) or a house cleaner with her own messy house. I live it in my work, so it’s hard to get motivated to do it for myself.

So, on this occasion when I woke with a spark of an idea that made me want to run and get it all down on proverbial paper before it wisps away in my head, rather than my normal roll-over-and-hope-I’ll-remember my brilliant thought later in the day, I decided boot up the screen, don my blue-light glasses and exercise my typing fingers to write something I hope you will find memorable.

A prospective client provided the seed for my story that blossomed overnight. As a long-time insurance professional, she has made it her mission to make insurance interesting – even fun. Ok, let’s be real. While we all know we need insurance, it’s really something we wish could just go away. Think of all the fun things you could spend money on if you didn’t have to pay for insurance…beach vacations, a convertible, the (insert your favorite dream product) you’ve been eyeing…I digress.

Now, this savvy woman knows all this. But she also knows that when you’re facing jaw-droppingly expensive surgery or your aching tooth is begging for a root canal, you are going to want that insurance to pay for everything it possibly can. It’s her job to make sure you a) have the right coverage, b) you understand it and c) it darn well performs when it needs to. But, she needs you to remember that she’s the one who can help with all those things when you really don’t want to think about insurance at all.
​
I work with a number of companies who their line of business is necessary, but if they try telling people what they do, inevitably eyes will either start to glaze over or dart furtively around the room, rapidly seeking the nearest exit. My job is to take these experts in their field and make them memorable. Make people want to work with them.

​Take my wealth advisor client. They spend their days analyzing returns and charts. Their clients love them when their account balances are rising, but don’t we all know that isn’t always the case. Their business is also highly regulated in what they can and can’t do on social media. For a long time they believed they couldn’t have a social media presence because of the compliance risks. I convinced them to change the narrative. Today, their posts don’t offer anything in the way of investment advice, but they do sprinkle in wisdom and fun facts with a hint of financial education blended in. People like their posts. They could work with other wealth advisors, but along with the promise of better returns, their clients like the fun and human side that we promote. It attracts and retains clients. Here are a couple of example posts:

​Another client is a Third Party Administrator. They are the people who pay your FSA or HSA claims. Or, you pay them your COBRA premiums if you are in between jobs. They deal with a lot of acronyms and a lot of complicated compliance work. Not fun, right? But, if you own a business, chances are you need someone like my client who is an expert at such things because not having them can get expensive if you’re getting penalized for non-compliance. We call them the Alphabet Soup Experts. Their monthly newsletter is “The Soup Scoop.” Their blog has become a library of articles that explain what people need to know about these alphabet-souped, federally-regulated programs. To make these articles more approachable, we use fun images and catchy titles to entice people to read something that normally they just might skip over. And it works.

Honestly, I had trouble picking which posts to feature, we have so many of them. These are an example of another one of my long-held beliefs:

So, back to my now-new client. In our conversation about things she could do to build her brand, I brought up blogging (if that word makes you want to scream, insert “writing articles” instead and keep reading). Like my TPA client, she has a wealth of information and education she could provide people. I suggested she start compiling a list of stories with examples of where she helped people, or pitfalls people can avoid and add her own anecdotal humor to them. She liked that idea.

We started to trade stories. She told me about a benefits enrollment meeting where she handed out a memo and information to a group of employees. She ended the memo with “Who you gonna call?” (she’s lucky enough her name rhymes close-enough with Ghost Busters). A participant called the next week and told her he remembered almost nothing about the meeting, but he knew who needed to call with questions. Repeat after me. It’s how you say it.

Side-ish story. Having been in the benefits industry myself many moons ago, the conversation about enrollment meetings took me back to my very first one. I was so nervous and eager to impress. I dressed to the nines in all my mid-90s finest business attire – my shoulder-padded suit and pointy-toed pumps – my mind’s eye can picture exactly what I wore down to the red bow on my kitten heels. My client at the time was a dairy farm. I vividly remember the look on my client’s face when I walked in the office door. She took one sideways look at me and said dryly “well, I guess we’ll head out to the barn. Be careful in the mud.” I presented my first of dozens of enrollment meetings in a barn where there were way more cows than people. Oh, the memories and stories our conversation evoked.
​
All these examples lead me to:

For marketing to be effective, it needs to be memorable. It doesn’t matter what your business does. It doesn’t matter if it is sexy and cool. It matters that people remember what you do at a time they need what you do.

Most of us won’t own the company that released the hottest new video game, or produced the “go-to” gift gadget of the year. Some of us sell malpractice insurance to doctors who work in prisons or extrude the plastic that makes the window inserts on planes (real businesses and former clients of mine). But the one thing all businesses have in common is they need customers to stay in business. And they to get those customers, they need memorable, likeable marketing to point potential customers in their direction.
​
I have many beliefs beyond just these three (I steadfastly believe it takes both a village and a vineyard to raise children, for example), but these are my foundational beliefs for marketing. So, the next time you are checking out your website, typing up a post for social media or introducing yourself and your business to someone new, stop and ask yourself if what you are presenting is being said in a way that will make you memorable, interesting and approachable. If not, I implore you to revisit the narrative and get a little more creative - you've got it in you (or if you really don't, call me!). You may be surprised what sparking a memory can do for your bottom line.

Do you get asked for professional advice? Recently, I've been pressed to share my thoughts with younger women, and it got me thinking about my own career path. Here's the advice I would give myself if I could go back in time.

​This article came across my news feed recently: “I Asked Women What They'd Tell Their Younger Working Selves. Here's What They Had to Say.” I was drawn to it because lately I seem to be inundated with requests from college-age women asking me for advice relating to how they can prepare themselves to get a job in marketing after graduation.

At first, I wasn’t sure I was the right person to be offering advice. My career path was circuitous and rooted in my love of writing, but in college I never considered marketing as a vocation. In fact, I was an international political science and economics major who was set on working with “international business.” How vague is that? When “international business” translated to a job as an import/export clerk in the real world, well, I began pursuing other opportunities. This ultimately led me to marketing – a career I’ve held for more than 25 years.

During the ensuing decades, marketing itself has morphed significantly. At the beginning of my career, print-based collateral was king. Basic word processing was about as digital as we got – and often we vied for time on a shared computer. Analytics monitoring the effectiveness of our marketing efforts were hard to come by and not a huge factor in developing overall strategy. Not to say marketing was easier then, it was just very different.
As times changed, my career had to change with it. Over time, I became a marketing jack-of-all-trades. I have had the luxury, driven by necessity, to learn many aspects of my craft. Writing is still my primary love, but as needs and times have dictated, I have dabbled in web and graphic design. I’m well-versed in social media management. I pour through Google Analytics and review open rates and click throughs on email campaigns. I have adapted. I have learned. I have grown in my profession.

So, faced with giving advice to women seeking to “be me” 25 years in their future, it seemed important to me to look back at my past and ask, given what I know now, what advice would I give my younger self?

As I mentioned, a marketing job today barely resembles the marketing job of my youth. Today, marketing departments are more specialized. You’ll see that in the job titles: Digital Marketing Expert, Social Media Manager, UX Designer, Content Marketing Specialist, Web Developer, Marketing Data Analyst, Product Marketing Manager, Brand Specialist…I could go on and on. This tendency toward specialization might lead you to believe that my advice would be to pick a specialty and hone in on it. If you love graphic design, work on digital arts. If your passion is writing, focus on content. If numbers and analysis is your thing, focus on data. And, initially, that was my thought too, but then I thought harder about my own experience.

​And, here is the advice I ultimately gave to my young friends.

1. Create a personal brand and market yourself first. You will be more marketable to a company looking to hire a college graduate if you already have practical marketing experience and, luckily in this day and age, you don’t have to have a paying job to do it. Maintain a blog about a topic you feel passionate about. One young woman I spoke with is interested in a career in cosmetics. I suggested she start a blog about make up and skin care trends. Keep a wide variety of social media profiles active and creative – and make sure you are staying up to date with the latest en vogue platforms. Monitor what types of posts you make that garner more engagement. Find a look and feel to your pages and posts that supports your brand.
2. Even though you don’t want to be a programmer – and it sounds scary -- learn some basic coding languages like css and html. It took me a long time to accept the fact that I needed to up my technology skills to keep progressing. And, I will never be an expert, but I cannot tell you how much time and headache I have saved by being able to go in and tweak code to get something simple changed or updated. I wasn’t relegated to waiting on IT or the web team to make a fix. An employer will appreciate this.
3. And, to this end, yes, you can have a specialty or a position you want to pursue (my friend who wants a job in cosmetics has expressed interest in digital marketing) but be versed in other areas of marketing as well. As a young person starting out, “the” job you want might not be open at the moment you are seeking employment, but “the” company you want to work for may be hiring in other areas. The more experience you have in areas other than the one you want to specialize in, the more likely you will get hired by a preferred company and ultimately earn the right to move into your specialty.
4. Don’t expect college to teach you everything. If you are pursuing a degree in graphic arts, as my niece is, you may not have time in your schedule to take analytics classes, for example. But, the world wide web is full of online resources you can tap to improve your skills in areas that you are unable to study in a classroom setting.

And lastly: Be prepared to pivot (and I don’t mean Excel pivot tables…although you should probably know how to do that too). You may find, once you land your dream job, that it isn’t everything you had hoped it would be. That was certainly true in my case and it’s even still true with college graduates today. That’s ok. If you have taken my advice points 1 – 4, you will be prime for pursuing new challenges and can more easily slide into a new position.

As I think about it, with the exception of point #1 (although I would argue that the ability to marketing yourself is valuable for any college graduate), I’d give this advice to any college student or someone looking to improve their job prospects. Best of luck to all the marketing up-and-comers out there. In 25 years, you’ll be the ones giving advice!

Many companies spend thousands, even millions, of dollars on market research, influencers and advertising. But, even big-name brands like Starbucks and Nike, who need reach many millions of customers (and spend big bucks to do it) leverage their own internal marketing army.

Who knows your company’s strengths better than your own employees? Who has more to gain from your success? Yet, mysteriously, many companies fail to see and/or take advantage of this “free” form of advertising or evangelism.
I’m not suggesting you subject all your employees to sales training or make them practice an elevator speech until they can say it in their sleep. I am here to suggest a few simple ways you can encourage your employees to participate in your company’s marketing efforts – and you may find that you not only increase your sales, but your employee retention too.

Start with the basics
Today, a personal LinkedIn profile is standard operating practice for many. One simple way your employees can easily promote your company is for them to be connected your company’s corporate LinkedIn page. To that end, you want to make sure your corporate page is kept up to date, engaging and informative. Your job is to be active, consistently posting product and service announcements, company achievements and relevant industry news so that anyone visiting your page (ideally after clicking on an employee’s LinkedIn profile) can understand your corporate offerings and get a sense of why you are the best at what you do.

While recognizing that an employee’s LinkedIn profile is their own, you might even suggest language they can use when describing their position within your company and provide coaching on profile best practices.

Encourage sharing
Undoubtedly, each employee has their own preferred social media scene – as do your customers. So, even though your products/services may not seem appropriate for a specific social media platform (maybe Instagram or SnapChat), your employees/customers may be active on them. I suggest a survey of employees to identify the platforms it makes sense to focus on. Once identified, like the LinkedIn suggestion above, commit yourself to propagating these platforms with quality posts and information – then encourage your employees to share your corporate posts as appropriate.
This instinct to share may not occur naturally, so some tips I recommend are reminders at staff meetings, in a company newsletter, via email or by sharing the information on your own personal social media profiles. Be a little more creative than just instructing employees to share. Add your own flair by saying something like “we’ve just added this new product that sets the world on fire and we’ve posted it to Facebook…YouTube…Twitter... You might want to share it with your friends…” OK, not those words, but you get the idea.

Take it up a notch
Valuable content is one of the biggest challenges in successful social media marketing. But, in your employees, you could have a built-in source. As I mentioned before, your employees know your company’s strengths better than anyone. They may have an alternate perspective, a creative use for your products/services or customer success story they could share. Encourage them to submit articles for your blog (if you don’t have one, that’s a topic for another post…oh, wait, see here). If yours isn’t a particularly photogenic industry as is required for Instagram, encourage employees to submit photos or tag your company page of them performing community outreach work or pictures of them working with customers – a video for your YouTube Channel would be awesome! Human nature says people choose to do business with companies they like. Personal interactions personalize your company and make you more likeable. Give yourself that competitive edge.

Practice what you preach
If you’ve gone to all this effort, you need to drink your own Kool-Aid. Your C-Suite and marketing/sales teams need to share on their own personal social media profiles. If an employee who you happen to be connected or friends with is an integral part of the shared post, tag them. The goal is to increase your organic reach; if you tag them, their friends will see your posts as well.

Why would you do this?
Like it or not, despite the rumors of its impending demise, social is still king of outreach. These statistics contradict news reports that Facebook is passé and Twitter is on death’s door. Follow this logic. Literally billions of people spend hours a day on some type of social media platform. Seventy-one percent of people who have a positive experience on your social media platform will recommend your brand. Eighty-three percent of people say they trust recommendations from friends. Those are some pretty convincing numbers.

And, it’s a numbers game, after all. Certainly, you can buy followers, but if you consider that the average employee has 338 friends on Facebook and you have 100 employees. If even half share even half of your weekly posts – well, let’s just do the math: (338 x 100/2) x 26 = 439,400. That’s a lot of potential viewings for your posts. What would it cost you to actively market to those people?

But an added, perhaps intangible, benefit to your inclusive social media strategy is to remind your employees of the value your company brings to your industry, instill some pride and, ultimately, encourage loyalty and longevity. I have no hard statistics to suggest this is true. I’m just again going back to human nature. People will stay places longer if they believe in the mission and they like it there. Oh, and if the company’s profits are increasing, it’s logical that salaries will follow.

More logic. One thing I do have statistics on is that happy employees lead to happy customers. And, it stands to reason that a disgruntled or disaffected employee will not go to the effort of sharing your posts. Therefore, if employees are embracing their roles as brand ambassadors, your customers will be happier and your sales will increase. Win-win-win.

A few strong words of caution
Whatever strategy you embark on, it’s important to not overextend yourself, or expect employees to share all your posts. For most small companies, I recommend selecting three social media platforms to actively propagate – maybe 4 – maybe start with fewer and work up to more. Create a plan for:

• how often you will post (at least monthly)
• who is responsible for creating the content (I recommend spreading the love among multiple contributors)
• who will actually post the content (make sure to find eye-catching imagery – that you have license to post)
• who will remind employees to engage/share/comment
• who will monitor engagement and comments

​Give it time
Without millions of dollars to spend, a strong marketing strategy isn’t built in a day. And, this social strategy is focused on “organic reach.” You need to monitor and tweak and reassess. But, be prepared, most likely it will take more than a few months for you to see a highly measurable uptick. Stay the course. Keep encouraging employees to share your content. Note what type of content receives the most engagement. Over time, you’ll have a more loyal customer and employee base.

Everyone likes to hear good things about the choices they are about to make. They comb the internet searching for validation that they are making the right choice.  In fact, these days, with sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, if you don’t have someone saying good things about you, you have people wondering what is wrong with you. ​

As a leader in your field, your customers rely on you for the best service/product available in your industry. Unless a potential client knows you personally, one of the effective (and cheap) things you can do is show them proof from other clients that you know what you are doing and you will take care of them.

All this sounds good, but it’s the rare satisfied customer that is just going to volunteer a testimonial. You need to take the lead.  It starts with asking.

Timing is everything
​The time to ask for the referral is the right time. This may vary from client to client.  For some, if you’ve had a long, arduous, yet successful contract negotiation, it might be right after the proverbial ink is dry, For some, it might be once you've got a few months under your belt displaying the superiority of your product/service. Read the signs and always keep an ear to the ground for the right time to ask.

Tell them what you want
Most happy customers would be happy to talk about their experience, but they might not know what to say. Or, what they say isn’t exactly what you need them to say to make the most of the testimonial.The best way to get valuable testimonials is to point your clients in the right direction.  Give them the questions you’d like them to answer.  Questions like:

1. Why did you choose to work with us?
2. What is the one thing you value most about our product/service?
3. What solutions does our product/service provide to you?
4. Would you refer us to others?  What would you tell them about us?

You may not use the same questions for every client, but providing a list will help guide the most effective testimonials.

Shine the light
Once you have the testimonials in hand, don’t be shy about using them.  Put them front and center on your website. Broadcast them on your social media platforms. Use them in marketing collateral. Customer testimonials have the highest effectiveness rating of any marketing content you can produce.  So, be sure to take advantage of this valuable, inexpensive marketing tool.

Note to readers. I wrote this several years ago - and it has nothing to do with marketing. I came across it when cleaning out some computer folders and caught my eye with it being Valentine's Day and all. I re-read it trying to come up with some angle I could find to relate it to marketing, but anything would have been a stretch and would have taken away from the piece - so I'm posting it as written. It made me smile and think (there's that SMINK again). Hopefully you will too.

From our perch on the sand, we saw them splashing in the waves. Not a sight you see every day, a bride in her wedding dress with groom in tow frolicking as the tide rolled in. No care for her dress as the salt and sand took its toll. Only hopes, dreams and promises for a lifetime ahead.

It moved me, perhaps because I was sitting, watching the sunset and enjoying a glass of wine with my dad.  We found ourselves on that Costa Rican beach celebrating my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary.  It was indeed the spectrum of life around me that made the moment so poignant.  The energy and enthusiasm of youth contrasted by the ease and comfort of a weathered veteran.

This dichotomy leaves me somewhere in the middle, recalling my own early days of wedded bliss nearly 20 years ago now.  And caused me to wonder, as I gazed at the newlyweds, will their marriage stand the test of time?  And, then, what is it that allows a marriage to last 50 years or more?  It’s rare.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 6% of marriages last 50 years.

Is there a secret?
In the lead up to this golden anniversary, my parents have been peppered with questions about their secret for longevity.  I know firsthand it hasn’t always been easy.  Financial challenges, career choices, health issues, sometimes poor decisions…life has intervened at multiple times along the way.  There were a number of times I worried if they would pull through.
​
I won’t speak for mom and dad, but from my front-row seat, I’ll share with you my observations.  Why I think they have been able to weather the storms where others have capsized.  Pass along some of the wisdom that I have applied to my own marriage.

1. Forget the fairy tale.  Marriage is hard work.  You have to both want it to last. You have to appreciate each other as individuals. After all, you came into this marriage with different life views and experiences. So, you will not always agree. Heck, you won’t always like each other.  And, it is in these times, when you are frustrated and maybe can barely stand to look at each other, you need to remember what drew you together in the first place.  The way you felt at the best times of your lives together…your first date, the proposal, the birth of your child.  
2. Equal opportunity. You came into the marriage as equals, you must treat each other as such and bring equal commitment to each other.  That means compromise and picking battles and not always getting your own way.  It means respect and trust and give and take.  And, appreciating when you know he is doing something he would rather not do, but does it anyway just because it would make you happy. Say thank you. And reciprocate. 
3. Time together and apart.  Find things you like to do together, but give each other space to pursue individual interests.  For my parents, the togetherness has been travel, the theater and attending nearly every grandkid’s sporting or life event.  But, mom has volunteered with hospice and as a mother’s helper, while dad likes to keep his hand in work projects and checking books off his reading list. 
4. Balance the load.  Running a home and family, along with a career, is challenging.  Understand that one person can’t do it all, so, divvy up the work based on who is the most skilled and efficient at the task.  My husband handles long-term budgeting, while I take care of the day-to-day cash flow.  It may sound sexist, but the reality is, he knows way more about cars than I do, so that is his domain.  I’m a planner, so I manage the family calendar and plan vacations.    Give and take.  Sharing the work. In the past few weeks, I often think of that couple on the beach.  I wonder what the future holds for them?  Can they treat each other as equals, share the load, but appreciate their individuality? Do they have what it takes to get them through the tough times?  Will they find themselves back on that beach 50 years from now celebrating a successful life and marriage? 

​At the end of the day, or a decade, or a lifetime, there is no magic pill.  What works for one couple, may not work for another.  You may be reading this and think “my marriage is a fairy tale!”…if so, I salute you (and I want to know how you did it!)  But, if you are more like me and my husband and my parents, and, I suspect, the majority of us out there who work at it, what is the secret to your marital success?

I saw a caption the other day.  “Sometimes life throws you a curve ball…” next to the image of twins?  Yup.  That was me 18 years ago. Boys, no less. For this girly girl, the thought was terrifying. Now, on top of planning for one child, I had two of everything to consider…cribs…high chairs…double strollers. ​

We had the internet back then, but nothing like today. (No Amazon Prime…sigh). You could get reviews, but they weren’t many. No mommy blogs. Babycenter.com existed, but robust, it was not. So, we used the force, trial and error and borrowing. Some stuff worked, some we threw out instantly, other stuff we plum got lucky and in the end we survived.

As the years went by, I remember watching other friends and family through their pregnancies and thinking how lucky they were to have so many more resources and retailers available (I would have killed to have had Target maternity clothes!). Oh, they have it so much easier. That’s what I thought.

Flash forward and my sweet, young cousin finds out she is pregnant, very unexpectedly.  She texts me in a panic that this whole registry thing is way too overwhelming and she breaks into tears just thinking about it.  In steps this sage “old” expert (me): “I’ll handle it,” I say with all the bravado of a women who has been there, reveling at ease that modern technology will afford me this time around.

Ha!  Within minutes, I too was overwhelmed.  How many bottle/nipple types does one society need?  Video on the monitor?  Wireless capabilities?  Even the baby tubs had changed and there were hundreds of them. Don’t get me started on the strollers. There were millions of reviews.  How did I know which ones to believe? 

I did what every smart woman does, I went to an expert.  My sister-in-law was expecting her 2nd.  Together, we put together a list (a novel really…) of things she needed (more of this…less of that), books to read, things to buy now vs. later, advice to shop consignment – your baby doesn’t care if it’s new.  You would be impressed, it was quite the work of art.  My cousin said it saved her sanity. 

I know for a fact that list has made it into the hands of 2 more soon-to-be moms.  Hopefully it saved their sanity as well.  And, my guess is will become the modern version of a tattered old book, with notes in the margins and the wisdom of ages.

Why tell you this story? Presumably, your company is in business because you are an expert at what you do.  Your clients rely on that. As you update your website, your marketing collateral, your user manuals, any place you are taking all the knowledge and advice you have stored up in your head (or in folders on your email) be mindful of the end user and what they need to know. Look at your content from a fresh set of eyes. Even if your clients have been with you for years, it’s likely technology or your products or procedures have changed. Don’t assume that just because they are veterans, your new messaging will make sense to them.
​
Marketing and content creation are classic pillars of business, but take care to make sure your messaging is clear – and give people the information they need. Just maybe it will become a manual for the ages.

​So, with all these wonderful reasons to have a blog, the number one reason I hear from people who haven’t jumped on that bandwagon are: “I don’t know what I’d say.” “It scares me!”
And, to that I say, you just aren’t in the right mindset.

It’s all in your head.

I maintain a handful of blogs for my clients.  They are in varying industries where I am by no means an expert, so while I can help them craft the blog, and occasionally suggest a topic, most of the ideas and “meat” of the posts need to come from them.  Not surprisingly, all of them had the same reaction when we started: “What would I say?” “I can’t write!” “That’s scary!” Guess what? Today, we’re posting regularly.

Wanna know the secret?  As an expert in your field, you are creating blog content every day. When a client asks you a question about your product or service and you respond, that is a potential blog post.  If a new law gets passed related to your industry, or your industry (or company) is featured in a news story and someone asks your opinion, it’s a post. A simple email response to solve a problem can be a blog post.

I tell my clients to create an email folder where they store emails they send responding to any-and-all of the above.  I encourage them to keep a simple spreadsheet where they can quickly input a topic or question and a couple of bullet points for an answer.  All of these can quickly be turned into a post. 
Here are some other tips that might push you to consider a blog:

• Posts don’t have to be long.  In fact, I recommend no more than 1,000 words max. Probably 250 on the short end. This post is about 600 words to give you an idea.
• You don’t have to post a million times a month.  Just make sure it’s “regular.”  Start with once per month.  If you are enjoying yourself, or find you have a lot to say, post more often.
• You do want to share your blog.  So, once it is written, you’ll want to share across your social media accounts.  Ask your friends and connections to share it to their networks if they find it helpful.
• You can ask others to contribute.  Maybe you saw an email from a colleague that was particularly compelling, ask them if you can turn it into a blog, then give them co-author credit.

And, finally, for those of you who think you can’t write, just start typing.  Type it like you would talk it.  Don’t worry about usage and grammar and spelling – even complete sentences or structure - in the first draft (that does need to come later). I think you’ll find that if you get out of your own way, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to put your knowledge down on the proverbial paper.

Of course, you will ask me how to set up a blog and how to get people to subscribe to it.  That is a topic for another day.  For now, start by gathering your ideas and just start writing.  You might find it isn’t scary, it’s fun.

​I teach basic website classes and I always get blank stares when we get to the SEO (search engine optimization) place where we have to add meta titles and meta descriptions.  I usually ask for a show of hands, and if I'm lucky, one person will have a vague notion of what I am talking about. ​​The reality is, you do know what I'm talking about, you just don't know the lingo.  And meta titles and descriptions are details that are increasingly important as our potential clients are spending more and more time searching online. I found this one when I was searching for one of my employee benefits clients:

​Looks familiar right?  It's what pops up in your search - above and below the link.  Did you ever wonder where that text comes from?  Light bulb!  It's your meta title and description - what Google and Bing and all those search engines return when you type in key words.  When you are developing your website, if you don't take the time to type them in, the search engine will generally pull whatever it thinks you might want (tip: don't trust them).  But, the peril comes if you don't pay attention because you could end up with something like this (and this is an actual honest-to-god search I ran):

​Hmm...Someone at the county just might want to fix that.  So, you see, meta titles and descriptions are important. Take a few minutes and think about how you want to be presented when your name/site/company pops up in a web search.  It's quick and easy, especially now that you know what it is...and hopefully it's not blah, blah, blah.

​Competition over collaboration.  If you live in the Seattle area, you probably know someone who works, or has worked, at Amazon. And, you’ve probably heard stories of the hyper-competitive nature of their workplace. So, around here, although the spectacle of the New York Times’ article from a while back created a big buzz elsewhere, its contents to locals may not have been such a surprise.

No offense to Amazon. By all accounts, they are supremely successful – and, I am an avid Prime user. But countless other studies and profitable companies have shown that collaboration can have equally effective results – and feed the human social compact at the same time. Average people, working together, helping one another, to foster new ideas, inventions and promote growth can ultimately make our lives better.

Margaret Heffernan, in a recent TED Talk, points to a Purdue University professor who was studying productivity.  He formed two groups of hens – one of collectively average layers, the other a set of “superchickens” who had a track record of higher egg-producing productivity. The finding?  The average group thrived while the super group disintegrated, literally pecking each other to death. Ms. Heffernan went on to cite other case studies of human collaboration that point to the value of a culture of helpfulness.  “Helpfulness means I don't have to know everything, I just have to work among people who are good at getting and giving help.”

One industry that appears to be embracing this collectiveism, according to a recent article, “Don’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em,” by Entrepreneur, is craft breweries.  These master craftsmen are finding that the best way to compete for shelf space with behemoths like Anheuser Busch is to work together.  Personal case study: John Robertson, a founder of the Bellevue Brewing Company, is a friend of mine and an advocate for craft brewers everywhere.  Their local establishment not only features their own brand of suds, they pour competitors’ brews as well, as a way of promoting the industry as a whole. And, it’s working.  While overall beer sales were flat in 2014, craft beers grew 22%.  Collaboration is generating success.
​
Just think if all of us average people, with our own collective experiences, promoted a culture of helpfulness.  Sharing what we know.  Making life better.  Margaret Heffernan appears to agree, “…we won't solve our problems if we expect it to be solved by a few supermen or superwomen. Now we need everybody, because it is only when we accept that everybody has value that we will liberate the energy and imagination and momentum we need to create the best beyond measure.”

Oh, to walk into a room and hear a resounding "Norm!" And, have that be your name too.

If your company is just starting out, you’re probably quickly learning that there is far more to being successful than hanging your shingle and telling your friends, family and neighbors, “hey, I started my business!”

While word of mouth will definitely be a critical factor in your success, the basic math says that the more people know about you, the more you stay in front of those people, the more sales you will make.  So, here’s your goal.

Marketing Goal:  Be instantly remembered at a time when someone I’ve reached is ready to buy my product or service, or knows someone who is and feels comfortable recommending my company.

As a new new business owner, that’s a lofty goal, but one that will get easier with time.  The key, starting out, is to create visibility and establish credibility. You do that by building a following, and staying in front of them (but not in an annoying way) to remind them you are there. 

Anyone with enough money can blanket the internet, media outlets or postal service with advertising that gets you noticed.  But, since you are just starting out, it’s not a stretch to think you have gone into business to make money, and hope to conserve as much as you can in the beginning stages.  

Here are a 5 inexpensive things you can do to start building your brand:

1. Define your audience/ideal clients.  Are you selling to consumers? What demographic? Is location an issue? Or, are you selling to other businesses? Do you project your service/product will have a long or short term sales cycle? Targeting an audience will help you define your message.
2. Craft a distinct story.  Using your target audience as a guide, develop your "why us" story. While your business itself may be new, ostensibly you have experience in this field that led you to create your business. Share that experience. Tell potential customers what drove you to start your business and why you believe your product/service is better than the ones that have been out there for a while. Once you have crafted this message:  Learn it. Own it. Live it.  It becomes your brand.
3. Build a brand that is unique to you and your message.  Create a catchy (but not kitschy) tag line.  Extra bonus points if the #hashtag is original too.
4. Be consistent.  Weave your message, domain, tag line and hashtags into all your messaging and marketing.  Repetition leads to recognition and remembering.  
5. Fully complete all your social media profiles with your messaging.  Use the same logo. Same cover photo.  It may get old to you, but it's the familiarity that will pay off in the long run.

Building a brand takes time, but investing early will prove itself in success down the road.  Then, before you know it, a business person (this would be you...) walks into a bar (or a store, or school...) and everybody knows your name.