The information technology age has enabled me and countless others to start businesses and create great careers for ourselves. Publishing and broadcasting are no longer the exclusive realms of big business, requiring large amounts of capital. The internet has leveled the playing field for anyone with an interesting or worthwhile message to compete with major media networks for audience attention.

Thankfully for my business, this includes advertising and public relations. I want to make clear that I’m extremely grateful for what technology has enabled me to do; create a job I love and serve more people every day.

I prefer the desktop experience when working, but lately, I’m using my phone more out of efficiency and convenience. If I can do something easily and quickly on my phone to serve a client, I’m all in! However, I’m human and prone to instant gratification like everyone else. That’s where the smartphone can be dangerous to productivity and progress.

Beware of The Enemy Smartphone!

I often find myself picking up my phone because I know what it can do and because it’s there. For no reason at all, I can pull myself away from an important task to get an update on… I don’t know… There must be something new and cool going on somewhere in my network or the world, right? Why do I rob my myself and others of this valuable time? Because I’ve been conditioned by our culture to “be connected 24/7.”

Now I’m working hard to counter that bad influence! I’m training myself to ignore the amazing shiny object that beckons me with audio-visual notifications.

The do-not-disturb setting or off button can work wonders. And it’s amazing how people move on with their lives after texting or emailing you if you don’t respond right away. Of course, “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” However, when I hear my phone ring, I try to pick it up immediately because people making the effort to speak with me usually deserve a returned effort and who knows what opportunity might spring from a real live conversation?

A Touch Too Much!

My new phone is amazing with all its dazzling color brilliance and crisp graphics. Everything on it calls for my fingers to activate it by the slightest touch. In fact, my phone is always ready to open an app and order something online if I simply touch it the wrong way. For example, a travel insurance policy order was placed on my phone apparently by an inadvertent screen touch on some Google ad that I didn’t notice was open. I had to spend significant time on the phone to cancel the order! That’s dangerous in addition to time-wasting. Touch screens tend to be a touch too touchy, in my opinion.

Check it less and reduce your stress!

Technology has, unfortunately, shown us it’s power to diminish happiness as much as enhance it. There is a whole class of addiction surrounding the socially-fueled highs people get from interactions on their devices. At least one of Facebook’s founders even admitted that they designed the platform to hook people on instant social recognition, and they have been successful in that quest.

Oftentimes, the “conversations” that go on in social media will tend criss-cross, with no direct human presence, and lead to anger and stressed out feelings. Just not worth it! People can certainly abuse communication technology and I for one am attempting to align it with my goals and values.

It’s really all about making sensible choices. What tools will provide the most leverage for the task at hand? Are you using the tools to produce or just be amused?

When it comes to business communications, I’ve found nothing works quite like the telephone. Sometimes, keys in the ignition and some road time is what it takes to leverage your business relationships.

Learn From an Expert

My friend and colleague Carol Phillips of Health Design wrote a great article that inspired me to think about how I’m using technology to communicate and get work done. I’m trying to avoid the useless entertainment and chatter that often lead to stress and regret. You may want to read Carol’s excellent article about a more balanced approach for using technology to enhance life rather than detract from it.

Finally, I invite you to call my smartphone at 603-345-7223 if you have questions about using technology – in a good way of course – for your marketing communications.

The post Use Technology Right: Stick to Your Business! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

You need to have your own name and hopefully links on other great websites, and we’re not talking about social media pages. We’re talking about your credentials, independently validated and promoted by respected organizations and companies.

For example, a custom builder of a featured home in an architectural magazine’s website is contacted directly by a wealthy prospect looking for artisans capable of creating similar features in her dream home. A link to the builder’s website further demonstrates to the prospect that she’s found the right construction partner.

Build up the flanks to bolster your online marketing campaigns!

I had the recent experience of noticing a slowdown of new business leads. On that very day I received an email from someone who found me through her online research. I was first found by this person on my faculty page through my affiliation with Plymouth State University. She had to read through my CV before finding my business name and then Google searching for my website, which further demonstrated our professional work. It’s a nice new opportunity for my business and we have a kick off meeting scheduled very soon.

Believe it or not, there are people who research and thoroughly read things on the internet, and take what they read seriously. If you’ve been written about on a site with much higher traffic than your own, well, that’s good right? Then get your name out there in some juicy, high traffic places like universities, respected media outlets, trade associations, established customers and the like.

Hitch your star to some high up wagons and make sure your own website experience is great when people link off the affiliate site to yours.

Specialize to better affiliate.

Developing a niche or sub-specialty in a specific industry is a great way to affiliate your brand name nationally or globally with industry leaders. People from every business category are always looking for the best quality, or that perfect-fit vendor. So I’ll close with one more example.

A local promotions company I’m familiar with took themselves out of the advertising specialties (commodity) business and positioned the brand in a couple of niche industries that happen to be easily penetrable. The product focus is very specific and now they are known nationally as leaders in this field, even though any of their thousands of competitors could readily produce the same products. Thanks to their affiliations in these industries, they are the nationally recommended suppliers and their corporate sales soar above their generalist local competitors.

If you’re really great at something, team up with the people, businesses and other organizations that you can help most. Then work reciprocally in your affiliation links to help users of your products and services find the very best of what they’re searching for.

The post Affiliations get you found online! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Marketing and selling on LinkedIn is a big deal for business today. Just about everyone in business is now on LinkedIn (over 300 million users) and most are staring at their screens thinking, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Salespeople who have moved away from cold calling are turning to LinkedIn as a new opportunity for canvassing their markets. It’s a fine prospecting tool for certain, but LinkedIn will not work as a “target rich” environment to pick off prospects. People on LinkedIn are just like you. They want to sell, not get picked off!

I’ll offer you in this article what I’ve experienced using LinkedIn since about 2006. A visit to my profile will inform you of my content, connections and online resume. LinkedIn calls me an “All Star” for whatever that’s worth, and I only have a free account.

My professional network on LinkedIn is among my most precious business assets. I’m connected with most of my identifiable business prospects in my market. LinkedIn is the perfect searchable Rolodex, and when I need to contact someone for any business inquiry, that’s where I go. There’s tip number one! Make LinkedIn your interactive business connection database. Okay, but then what?

How do you grow your business and earn more money on LinkedIn? 

The answer is simply this: Use all of LinkedIn’s features for searching, connecting, networking, branding and publishing. Do you want some bullets? Here they are:

• Brand
• Profile depth
• Content value
• Connections – quality and volume
• Presence and interaction

LinkedIn does its job very well. In fact, it will continually prompt you to be a better user. The rest is up to you. How interesting are your messages to your connections?

Humans behave pretty much the same online, no matter where they are. For example what gets more likes, comments and shares on Facebook? It’s usually family and personal drama, controversial topics, frivolous musings, cool pictures and videos. That’s what gets them buzzing.

People want to be entertained no matter what, and on LinkedIn, some even want to be educated. These are your LinkedIn watchwords for post content: Wise, Fresh, New, Bold, Disruptive and Valuable.

Asking a timely and baffling question will get you more interaction than a technical blog post or sharing a typical business article.

Writing a controversial LinkedIn Pulse post will get people commenting and direct messaging you while sharing your latest newsletter will simply be another brand impression.

It’s fine to post something relevant to your business audience every day and those impressions will only fortify your personal and company branding. Don’t expect the floodgates to be opened, but rather a gradual rise to “top-of-mind” status within your LinkedIn network.

Use LinkedIn like I do and trust me, your messages will be seen and noticed by hundreds and potentially thousands every week! Your brand will be reinforced and you’ll be short listed by your connections when they have a requisition and budget for your services.

Your quality professional network will keep growing as long as you stay active on LinkedIn. You will begin to form relationships inside the minds and hearts of your wider online network without even knowing it.

There’s bad news for those thinking of LinkedIn as a replacement for the telephone which was once a fairly effective “dialing for dollars” machine. Social media including LinkedIn discourage spammy or unsolicited sales messages. Connecting socially and fostering relationships online is the purpose for LinkedIn and other social media.

Look at LinkedIn from the relationship, not sales perspective! Get acquainted with fellow professionals and make friends just as you would on Facebook. Just be authentic about it and remember to keep the tone professional, even when using humor.

LinkedIn is actually a very sociable platform. It’s just dressed for professional life instead of a back yard barbecue. Once you have someone in your network, it will be natural to contact them with relevant, valuable business information. An invitation to lunch through a LinkedIn direct message is more likely to be accepted than a meeting request from an unexpected phone call.

Continuous thoughtful updates and interactions with your LinkedIn Groups and Connections will improve your business development results, without question. It’s not a matter of IF it will work, it’s a matter of spending the time and doing the work to actually generate the results.

The post LinkedIn Does its Job. What about you? appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

You may not realize it but you are a brand manager. If you’ve experienced any kind of success in business and professional life it’s because you’ve managed your brands by  communicating with people in a way that supports what your business stands for and why it’s valuable to your customers. Your company brand, product brand and personal brand all work congruently in the market. People know you and your company the way you want them to know you. Your Brand is first in the Fortuitous Foursome.

Your LinkedIn profile is up to date and your online connections are growing. You regularly post comments, share links and participate in LinkedIn Group discussions. People in your network regularly see those posts and gain more awareness of your brand. As you develop more business relationships, you include more of those folks as Facebook Friends. You directly message someone in Facebook after you’ve had trouble reaching them by phone or email. The response is friendly and instantaneous. You start to notice that people are favoriting and retweeting your Twitter posts and you start getting business inquiries from around the country and the world. Your blog posts are increasing search visibility for your website and more quality traffic generates conversions and new business. Free Online Marketing is the third player in the Fortuitous Foursome.

The post The Fortuitous Foursome of Professional Success appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Engaging your audience is easy when you know what motivates them. You can grab their attention, hold it and then persuade them to take action with more ease if you use one or more of The Six E’s of Audience Action.

Way back during the dawn of social media marketing development (like around 2010) I worked for a marketing agency that talked about the “3 E’s of social media engagement.” They were Ego, Entertainment and Education. I knew there was more to it than those 3 things so I’ve been striving to come up with a short yet comprehensive list of motivators that would cover all or most of what moves us humans to take action, and maybe even buy things.

Striving for simplicity, so I can understand my own concepts, I wanted a simple guide or formula that could make business communications resonate with target audiences. I wanted a set of guiding principles which work across a broad spectrum of constituencies and media. Serendipitously, the 6 best keywords I considered happened to start with E. Therein is the simplicity of my new guide to audience engagement.

When you examine each of the motivating factors that move people to action, you’ll see that each one fulfills a strong human desire or need. Beyond basic survival (food, clothing, shelter) these motivators are all part of our instinctual nature. In a manner of speaking, we were born to respond to them, and so they are very effective when used for strategic communications. Let’s take a look at the 6 E’s:

Ego

Empathy

Education

Enrichment

Enthusiasm

Entertainment

These are not in any particular order other than making a word pyramid, but Ego being at the top is actually quite helpful. We all have an ego! To discount it’s power over the individual would be remiss. Everyone loves to be recognized and we love hearing our own name called out in a positive way.

So, let’s look briefly at all 6E’s of Audience Action:

1. Ego – You make it happen. Thank you!
2. Empathy – I totally identify with you and know exactly how you feel.
3. Education – Understanding this material is the key to your success.
4. Enrichment – This will bring you security, comfort, fun and enjoyment.
5. Enthusiasm – You are delighted by my energy and excitement.
6. Entertainment – You will enjoy passing the time this way for hours.

• Egos aren’t stroked by manipulation.
• Empathy can’t be faked. You have it or you don’t.
• Education should edify or it’s meaningless.
• Enrichment can’t be given if you don’t have value to offer.
• Enthusiasm can’t be put on or faked because it’s an internal gift.
• Entertainment is the result of real talent, creativity and skill.

The post Motivate Your Audience with E’s appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

It can be the very best idea you ever had; one that will change everything and lead to fortunes… And it’s gone, probably forever!

This article is not what I had in mind to write about earlier this week. A flash of brilliance hit me while driving and I was so excited to write an article about it. It was perfect for the audience. It was an extremely important and valuable message. I had a list of instructions to include and I couldn’t wait to write the article so people could begin to benefit from it. That’s as much as I remember about it. Now it’s gone. GONE!

I intended to record the idea, got distracted and figured it could wait because there was no way I’d forget an idea that good. Well, I didn’t pull over to write it down nor otherwise safely record the idea. Now, no matter how hard I try to recall, it’s a total blank. This has happened to me before and it won’t happen again!

Writing about forgetfulness is the last thing I had in mind this week. This exercise, however, is good for me and it’s good for you too. The very act of drilling this notion so deeply into my subconscious by writing about it will help assure  that I act on my future good ideas.  This reminder about the importance of keeping a journal or recording device with you always will help you remember to catalog those great ideas that can help your customers and improve your business.

Some of our most creative and useful ideas occur to us when it’s least convenient to stop and record them. These situations include:

• The shower – ideas go right down the drain.
• In bed – ideas vanish like forgotten dreams.
• While driving alone – ideas go out the window and get run over in traffic.
• While jogging, biking or working out – ideas get weaker as your body gets stronger.

Figure out a way to record your good ideas in all of these situations and make it a habit to keep a journal with you always. Recording ALL of your good ideas the very moment they occur is the only way they have a chance at being implemented.

Some people are like elephants when it comes to memory and they can mentally index and classify ideas for recall when needed. Those people are rare exceptions in the population. As for you and me, lets’ make a pact right now to start writing down every good idea so more of them will be implemented for a better world.

And just think, when I start practicing this habit of recording ideas and keeping a journal, you’ll have more interesting articles to read and better tactics to implement for your business. Please stay tuned…

The post The best ideas are sometimes forgotten. appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

The law of sowing and reaping is old, really old, and it won’t go away. The biblical metaphor of the farmer who persistently and patiently keeps sowing good seeds always reaps rewards, eventually, no matter what. The late Jim Rohn made a fortune telling this story many times as his own way of sowing, and his business grew internationally making him among the most respected (and richest) business motivators of the last century.

There are beaten paths, rocky roads, choking weeds and all manner of hazards, some of of our making, that interfere with the growth of the crop (business) we’re trying to plant and raise. It’s easy to plant the seeds of business development and then quit after the first few plantings fail to yield. We can easily be convinced the seeds are just no good or we’re not cut out for the business we happen to be in. Giving up too early is tragic when all that is needed for success is a patch of fertile soil, and the world is filled with such patches even if they’re temporarily hidden.

There is a lesson in persistence here but there is so much more to the parable – story – metaphor. There are many different kinds of thieves – some internal, some external – that rob us of faith and steal our motivation to press on. These thieves are cunning and baffling.

So often have I been experiencing direct success from a sales or marketing activity when at the same time someone is telling me they tried it and it doesn’t work. They signed up and made the team but quit when they missed their first shot on goal. It’s easy to be convinced it won’t work if it doesn’t succeed after one or two tries. Don’t fall for the lies of self deception and beware of the other naysayers out there!

The first quarter of 2014 is gone forever!

Now is the time! Spring is the season of rebirth and renewal, bla bla bla… See, there goes my little demon telling me that positive messages like this are trite; that I need toget my head out of the clouds and look more at scientific metrics. But you know what? I’m going to keep on keeping on: sowing seeds in the form of publishing newsletters, attending business events, public relations, sponsorships, social media networking, online marketing and, yes, even good old sales calls!

We have good seeds to sow and as we keep sowing, some is bound to land on fertile ground. If you know where that ground is, great! Stay there an nurture it. No matter what, keep sowing wherever you’re going. If you happen to find the seed of a good idea in any of our newsletter/blog content, would you please plant it in the mind of another?

The post The wealthy sower – so old he’s new! appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

On March 20, you can learn to save a ton of money for your business! Learn what free marketing is all about.

• Learn how to build a brand…
• Market a company…
• Increase sales…
• All using free tools and methods!

Come to the hands-on single day course: Social Media & Free Online Marketing at Manchester Community College on March 20th!

Register here with CRN # 20774 and Course # NCTD055.

If you have questions about how to register, reply to this email or call me at 603-345-7223.

The post Spend a day, then don’t spend another dime. appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

3/27/14  |  11:45 AM – 1:00 PM

Eastpoint Executive Center, 264 South River Road, Bedford, NH 03113

Register FREE

Meet Kevin personally and hear him speak on how to sell more in today’s changing markets. Email me if you have questions chuck@chucksink.com

The post Learn to master sales in 2014 appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.

Sometimes this blog brings some hands-on marketing technique information to readers such as better SEO practices, how to use Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. But it focuses mostly on building skills that help business owners, marketing directors and salespeople do their jobs better. Let’s look at just a few key skills that will help you in your business, whatever category you’re in; professional services, manufacturing, construction, business services, retail, legal, real estate… you name it.

3 skills every business person needs to succeed:

1.  Networking & Building Relationships:  If you can’t listen well and carry on a mutually pleasing conversation with someone you may as well go back to your cubicle and fight carpal tunnel syndrome. That may be fine if you program or crunch numbers better than anyone else but chances are you’ll always work for someone else or need someone else to help you grow your business. There is no substitute for people doing business face to face. Clients and customers gravitate to people they enjoy being around and prefer to do business with people they like.

2.  Consistency:  Stay focused on what you do best. The jack of all trades is master of none and today’s customers want the best that’s out there. If you try to be all things to all people, you will be known for nothing. None of us can be best-in-class in more than one or two specialties. Resist the temptation to position your brand as an expert generalist. There’s really no such thing and customers know it. Business owners often fear they will miss out on opportunities unless they cast the broadest net. It may work in politics but not business. When you carefully develop your business strategy and clearly communicate your brand positioning by being known well for one thing, customers from all over the place will be attracted to that message because they want that one thing from the best in the business.

3.  Customize experiences:  Do your homework! “When you walk in empty headed, you’ll walk out empty handed.” There’s another brilliant quip from Jeffrey Gitomer. It means preparing for every unique customer interaction. If you have an appointment with a prospect or new customer, go in knowing about them and what makes them tick. How can your product or service experienced be customized to fit them like a comfortable glove? This takes research. It takes extra time and work on your part. Do the extra work and you’ll stand up head and shoulders above your competition. Your genuine confident smile will set your clients at ease and let them know they made the right choice when they called you.

We subtitled this “3 skills…” but here’s your bonus: Believe and have faith in the power that is greater than you – from whence all success is derived. Whatever your understanding of this power, know this. It exists and it isn’t you. I choose to call Him God. All of your skills and talents are given life to serve others and you are the instrument through which they are carried out in service. The most precious habit you can nurture is prayer and meditation to start your day – every day.

The post Soft Skills that Deliver Hard Assets appeared first on Chuck Sink Link.