Be interesting and people will remember

When you are in the business of selling your self, you need to give yourself some character. You will notice in movies and television you rarely see ordinary average people. They are not all above average either, in fact they are memorable. Having character is about setting yourself apart from the herd. It is often not nessecary to be the best at something to be the expert, just like you do not need to be the most successful person in your field to have character that makes people remember you.

You need to keep in mind you are your own brand. People may like the company you own or work for, they might even remember its name, but none of these is as powerful as your name, your face, and your personality. Every person in marketing should be their own brand to them selfs.

A good example is Tyco Electronics. A great company, but I do not remember their logo, their branding materials. I remember a great guy named Lee who works as a contract training developer. It is his unique personality that I remember, and this is how my brain relates to this large company with thousands of employees.

If you work with the public you need people to think of you when they think of your profession. This will have value even if you are in a stable job and are not a sales person. It is the power of networking that can solidify your future in your industry before you are aware of it. If you become a name brand you will have value in your own name.

Some ways to stand out

Develop unique professional branding. This is not nessecary for standing out, but being taken seriousely is a big part of being remembered.

Develop your own writing and speaking styles. Just as if you were a best selling author, you need to find your own voice. This is especially true if you write for the public.

Develop some style. There is a man in my own community that sells radio spots. He also wears a bowtie. I could never pull it off, but he does quite well. You better believe I can remember him.

Think outside your industry box. I know it has been said to many times and in to many ways, but innovation is a powerful thing. To many people copy the rest of the crowd, not enough people are willing to find their own way. If I see one more billboard with a real estate agents face on it.. I will throw up.. Find a new way to brand. The truth is that real innovation often happens durring the relationship you have with people. Treating your relationships in a different way than your peers is often the best way to stand out in your industry.

People will remember you because of your interaction and your personality,  not your advertising.

This is understandable, and I would agree that even I hate to speak with a person on the other side of the world for help.. that is unless they are employed by myself!

Most americans will never discover the joy of VA’s (Virtual Assistants). The absolute feeling of personal victory that comes over you when you realize that the last minute proposal you were going to finish up is being handled for you at 4am by someone who is working dilligently while you sleep. This feeling is absolutely powerful in nature.

I recently started outsourcing pieces of my life at the suggestion of a friend who is doing the same. He was able to cut down his morning business calls by 20 hours per week, and he is paying less than $400 per month for that benefit! If you count the cost in time he would have spent working, to time he now has to live and enjoy his life that is not only cheap, its a revolution in his personal life.

You can get virtual assistants to  do just about anthing you can do using the intenet and a phone. If you need someone to call and reserve theatre tickets, deal with unwanted hassles, or even accomplish work for you while you sleep it is all possible with personal outsourcing.

This is a miracle braught to the modern world by the fact that in parts of Asia people make between $2 and $8 daily on average. If a VA can work for a few hours and make $15-$30 he is in the upper crust of his local community.

Many americans would hate this idea claiming that it takes jobs from US workers.. but hey at even part time rates who can afford to take on a personal assistant for this kind of work? The anwser is not many. With on-demand virtual assistant services you can pay for only the hours they work when you need them. You can have a team of helpful educated english speaking experts at your becon call to do everything from your budget, to your taxes for an affordable fee.

The other fact is that you as a professional can not help our economy by working more, but by working smarter. The more effective and successful you are the more your local community and national economy will benefit from your success. You can’t support your local starbucks barista, or even your local church if you are unable to pay your mortgage. The way you help your economy is by helping yourself! You are not sending jobs overseas you are increasing your effisciency and making yourself more of a pleasure to be around.

My company manages over a dozen va’s in countries around the world. We can help the busy professional find the exact help he needs by sifting through the jumble of unreliable and unprofessional would be outsourcers. Let us help you find the help you need and take back your free time.

The personal approach

Many gurus of social network marketing would tell you to become personal with your public. Publicity is powerful when it is personal. They would tell you to personally use these tools to develop deep and meaningful relationships with people you only know through social media. They would champion the idea of developing relationships meaningful enough to add new contacts to your network. These people would teach you that brick and mortar goals can be achieved by the development of these relatonships to fruition.

The Auto-Spammer

The autospammer would use the”black hat” approach to these tools to manufacture personal connections through automated systems. Auto-responders and friend finding tools would be employed to funnel new contacts to simulated personal pages that really sold product through personal stories. They would try to manufacture some initial trust in others in order to capitalize on it enough to make a sale, contact, or deal. This is the same group that has been black hat spamming the search engines for years.

The difference between the two methods is really not in their moral value. The difference is in the actual goal they aim to achieve. This is importand because as a twitter user you should examine why you are using twitter.

Many people use twitter as a tool for staying more connected with the people they already know. This like any other method of networking it can be used to meet new people and expand an existing network. So what kind of person should be using twitter to connect with people on a personal level? People who need relationships. This might include business professionals such as real estate agents, tax professionals, and those who run service based businesses. This might also include business executives who need to be more visible with thier peers. This is an even greater tool of communication for a church pastor or a community leader. This however is not the case all the time. Not everyone needs to acheive these goals.

Many of the twitter users on twitter are not individual people at all. For instance a cause, organization or company is not an individual. These entities have different goals than an individual, and should be treated as such. If your goal is not to connect but to inform, sell, or spread an idea you should probably think more like a black hat.

My personal stance is that everyone should think a little more like a black hat on a tool like twitter. For instance if I responded to every twitter follower personaly it would simply be a waste of my time. This is not because I don’t care.. but I dont have time to write 700 personal notes in 3 days. I would have no time left to connect with the real members of my network. Instead I can introduce who I am to 700 people, inform them through my blog and websites, and connect with people who send me messages directly.

At the same time I want to think black hat, I want to build real relationships. This means I want to auto-follow everyone who follows me. I want to connect with anyone who does in fact want to connect with me. I want to build new and lasting partnerships.. but to do that I need to be introduced to enough opportunities to make that happen.

The key is in finding the balance. Spam has its place, but its not a goal I would need to accomplish. Instead I can use these wonderful social tools in ways they were never planned for, while stil keeping my end brick and mortar goals in mind. Just being social is pointless for my purposes.. but being social with a purpose is going to grow my network and my public voice.

Why are you using social media? can you be personal and inventive at the same time?

One of the barometers we can use to understand this transition is the number of upper level corporate executives now using them.

When people  Michael Hyatt (CEO Thomas Nelson publishing), Jonathan Schwartz (CEO of Sun Systems), Barry Judge (CMO Best Buy), and Richard Branson (CEO Virgin) are using twitter it says a lot about social media.

The world has changed, and the internet is breaking down the six degrees of seperation and allowing us all to be connected to the people we want to connect with.

Many people immediately see the opportunity to run a home based business and assume it is a mountain they will never climb over. They see only the amount of effort needed to create a home based business, and sink back into their semi-comfortable work chairs behind the desk they are destined to remain married to. These people have it worste of all. They are truelly comfortable with where they are at. Sure if you asked them “would you like to travel?, Would you like to make more money? Would you enjoy more personal freedom and free time?” they will all anwser a resounding yes. Most people would love those things, and sadly most people will never know they can have them, and more.

The true crime of our society is not the poverty that forces people to climb the social ladder, it is not the education system which burdens people with debt in return for a higher starting salary. The true crime of our society is complacency. People who are sold into the slavery of the mundane. These people with average jobs, and average lives will never experience the thrill of really living. But I do not blame them, because no one every told them it was ok to really dream.

I never dreampt of a masters degree, school loans, and a “good” job that will keep me in a work prison 95% of the time when I am young and able….until I am old and know nothing other than work. I never had a dream to become semi-successful. I had an even worse dream, I had a dream of riches in the form of a gigantic company that I started from the ground up. A monster of work piling up on my shoulders until the machine I was building would provide the finer things in life. The only exchange for these massive sums of cold hard cash would be 70 hours of my weeks until I was able to break free. It took a lot for me to know that there would never be a breaking free point. I could build a monster of a company, and even when I was wealthy beyond my imagination I would still be a slave to the master of my creation.

So why choose to own a home based business? Because you can escape. You can build something that lives and breathes on its own. You can take long vacations (I mean months not weeks). You can dedicate your time to your dreams (not your computer screens, printouts, and endless calls and emails). I overcame the idea of trading time for money. I am just simply not going to do it.. and I hope I can help you do the same. Your time is worth more money than any man could ever make.

What is the cost of your inaction? What is the toll of your willingness to work like a slave to your profession (even if you like it). How old will you be when you are done with all of this. Can you even imagine being that age? Are you already aproaching that age with no end in sight?

Most people will work a solid 500 months of hard labor to find their million dollars of retirement saving will yeild them only half of what they make now. With inflation and increased living expenses of age and health care most retired people fall far short of living their dreams.

Are you going to be 65 when you first visit that dream location? Switzerland, Ireland, Egypt, Hawaii? Are you even going to be capable of doing what it is you dream of by the time you are “financially free”?

So why choose to build a home based business? That is the real question you need to find.. that great big WHY. That is the key to your freedom. That will give you the motivate to spend 1-5 years building wealth instead of spending 30+ years building for your senior years.

The real test should be in comparing your life as it is going now to your dreams. It will not get better on its own. There will be no magic day when that pay raise comes and things are just better. Not as long as you trade your time (the most valuable asset you have) for money. You can always make more money, billionars that work like dogs have more money, and they are still time slaves to their profession. Even with more expensive things they do not always live their dreams. Most of them never live their dreams, because their dreams were only to have more money, be more successful, and that train of thought never stops.

Working in a home based business is about making a clear decision to break from the pack and go after your dreams. It is work that can be enjoyed when a person realizes that the pot at the end of the rainbow should be freed up time, and money to live your dreams.

I would content that the money to live your dreams is less than you think. I would wager that it is so much less than you think in your current situation that if you knew how easy it was going to be to DO what it is you DREAM of doing.. you would not hesitate.

For instance, 3000 of residual income monthly is not a “lot of money” in many peoples books. But when it does not require a great deal of your time it can be more valuable than one million dollars a day. If you can spend that $3000 living your dreams like a king in south america, or europe for months at a time… that three thousand is more valuable than a million dollars a day when you must spend 12 hours of each day tied to a professional position that you do not LOVE.

$3000 per month is a very modest goal, and it is not my goal.. mine is much bigger.. but thats because my dreams are more expensive than some peoples. How much does your dream life actually cost to live? That is how much you could make working for yourself with complete freedom of location, and a schedule you create. Find that dollar ammount, that is how much your dream costs.That is how much you need to earn.

I am not suggesting you quit your job. You can stay as long as you want.. or until the money from your home based venture is more than your monthly pay checks.

I am not suggesting you invest a lot of money. My home based business cost me less than $50.. and will never costs more than $200 per month in overhead if I don’t want it to. In fact I can start at $0 in overhead per month if I am strapped for cash.

I have found my why.. when you find yours and are ready to take action let me know. I will be ready to coach you through the process.. and I would love to be here cheering you on when you reach your goals!

You can do it today, in fact you can start right now, and its all becuase of a site called twitter.

If you already have a twitter account than you know how great twitter can be. If you are new to micro-blogging than you should jump right in at twitter.com and find out what your missing out on. You can stay up to date with friends, get advice instantly from the rest of the blogoverse, and start building your brand awareness amongts new people. All this magic happens on http://www.twitter.com.

So after you have a twitter account, and you have all your friends using twitter with you, and you even met a few new twitter friends how do you expand that? Why do 1000 people follow a person they don’t even know? Why are there people who only follow friends and have whole crowds following them? Its simple, they have something to say people want to hear. This is the first step in building your brand. You need to say something worth listening to. Just hearing about your grocery shopping is not going to build your twitter following, you need to say something novel, something new, or at least say it better than those around you.

The real secret to twitter is in the following. Following strangers can be powerful, especially when you consider that twitter is a very friendly place. Many people have a brand, idea, or personality to share, and twitter can be a great tool for connecting with your public.

Start your following by searching twitter for words that you find interesting. http://search.twitter.com/ If you are into network marketing, type that phrase into twitter search and find some new people. The real key is not finding a few people, but finding a twitter hub. A person who is in your target industry that is a possible competitor. Find someone who already has the following you are looking for, and then follow every single person in that list. This can be accomplished very quickly, and with the great environment of friendly following in twitter, many people will follow you back.

When I followed 1000 people, I had 500 new followers in hours. That means one out of two people that I followed, followed me back.

Before you go off and follow 50,000 people you need to know a couple things. Twitter doesn’t like new accounts following more than 2000 people. I don’t know when you are considered an older account and can follow more than 2000 but I would not try it before you have posted 500 updates, and had an account for a couple months to be safe. People get banned from twitter all the time for spam like activity. So make sure you really do connect, post updates, and direct message people. Don’t be a spammer, no one likes them!

In order to thank every person who follows you automation is needed. You need a tool like http://socialtoo.com. Social Too will automatically reply with a message to each new follower you get. You can send a sentance thanking your new follower and explaining what you do, how you might offer help, or link to a website. I link to my about page of this blog.

So that is a very brief technique I use to find people that might enjoy my services, and join my network marketing business, but its free, its quick, and it works.. happy tweeting!