The Fortuitous Foursome of Professional Success

By Chuck Sink

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.

If you’ve chosen a career path, chances are you know a few things about a unique product or service that certain people value and need. Your expertise may be more sought after than you think. You also probably know some of the key players in your industry and who the major influencers are. Undoubtedly, much of your success has been the result of networking. The broad category of networking includes membership and participation in trade organizations, attending various business and nonprofit events, giving speeches at those events, and helping other people in the market connect and do business. Chambers of commerce, BNI, Toastmasters and myriad other networking opportunities abound in and around every city. Your participation can open up lots of public relations and positive publicity opportunities. Networking is the second key element 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.

All those business cards you collect at networking events and your various association membership lists, complete with email addresses, have made it into your prospecting database. All the email addresses and names go into your email marketing database. Of course all your customers are already in there. You realize that “out of sight, out of mind” applies to everyone and that you need to stay in touch with everyone in your business network on a regular basis. Email is the least expensive and most efficient way to do that. You realize, however that email marketing is a privilege and must be managed as such. That means your are very careful to deliver valuable and welcomed information in every eblast you send.   Email Marketing is the fourth powerful tool in the FF.

The great thing about these effective business generating tools is they are all free and available for everyone. In many situations, marketing success can be achieved with little or no money spend on media services. This little business started out with zero funding; nothing but an email list, a maxed out credit card and a few friends in the market. It is growing significantly going into its fourth year thanks to working with my buddies in the Fortuitous Foursome. It’s really you I have to thank! Perhaps one or more or the FF got to you at some point. Thanks for responding!