Recently in Best Practices Category

When I run across an excellent example of branding I want to share it with everyone. And that's just what happened with www.beyondmotherhood.com, the brainchild of Shannon Davis. I stole a few minutes of her time this week to find out how she developed this HR matching site with a twist. Here we go...

Q. Shannon, what are the steps you took to arrive at where you are with your company brand?
A. I had a vision for what I wanted from the beginning. I did the whole research and web tour thing and knew I didn't want to go with a traditional HR "look" with photos of people shaking hands, etc. I knew the colors I liked, I wanted something approachable, grassroots, different than other sites. I found the inspiration for my identity by shopping images at istockphoto.com. I have had great feedback from site visitors and from my printed material.

Q. What print material did you develop to extend your brand offline?
A. We developed business cards, of course, I also created rack cards, bookmarks, and professional posters with tear-off tabs on the bottom. This has been a really great investment and good move, we've gotten alot of mileage from the posters.

Q. What have you learned through launching your site?
A. I think you need to trust the right people and you can't do it alone. When you are working by yourself it's easy to get stuck in your little bubble. I found that working with a board of advisors was really important to help me get out of the bubble. I meet with a couple of them regularly and have informal relationships without at least three more. It has been a tremendous help to me in moving forward, building confidence and believing in the value of my offer. I have also learned to leverage interviews you conduct with experts, i.e. don't ever leave without asking for two or three other names of people you can contact. Often times this is where the mother lode of information lies.

Q. What advice do you have for someone just starting out?
A. Surround yourself with encouragers; don't let other people's negativity drive you down; and stay connected! Join professional groups and associations, there are many virtual organizations to join if you don't have access to many in your community.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, Shannon, and best wishes for continued success.

Check out Shannon's moxie brand by visiting www.beyondmotherhood.com.

Here's some advice about web marketing from a seasoned entrepreneur and one of my favorite authors, C.J. Hayden.

C.J. Hayden, MCC, is a business coach who teaches people to make a better living doing what they love. Her company, Wings Business Coaching, specializes in working with business owners, self-employed professionals, and people in marketing and sales. C.J. is a former corporate productivity consultant with over 25 years experience in business management. She has been a professional trainer since 1978, and a coach since 1992.

Take it away, C.J.!

Beth asks: How important is web marketing as a tool to get new clients?

C.J.'s response: The importance of web marketing to your business really depends on what sort of business you are in and who your clients are. If your business is primarily local and you don't need a high volume of clients to be successful, Internet marketing isn't essential. For example, I know many management consultants, corporate trainers, life coaches, and psychotherapists who maintain a thriving business without even having a website.

But if you want to do business outside your local area or you need a high volume of clients, having a strong web presence becomes much more important. If your business involves filling regular workshops or selling info-products, web marketing is a must.

For any type of business, though, even if web marketing isn't essential for you, I think it makes many aspects of getting clients easier. Having a strong web presence adds substantially to your professional credibility, which can result in more prospects easily converting to clients, higher rates, and more invitations to speak and write. Marketing can become automatic and effortless.

Beth asks: How has web marketing helped you expand your reach as a professional?

C.J.'s response: I rely on web marketing extensively to attract new clients. I publish an ezine and maintain a large mailing list, I write articles for web publication, and I make a lot of valuable resources available online at no charge.

Marketing on the web has allowed me to work with clients from all over the world, offer teleclasses and webinars instead of being limited to live programs, and generate passive income by selling info-products, licenses, and memberships in addition to working with clients one-on-one. My whole business model is based on attracting clients on the web now.

Beth asks: What advice about web marketing would you have for a new service professional?

C.J.'s response: Don't be intimidated by the level of web presence that others have been able to achieve, or by the learning curve to understand new technology. Be willing to start small and learn as you go. My flagship site has well over 100 pages now, and I have six different sites for my different lines of business. But I started out with just one site that had only one page.

Also, don't allow anyone to convince you to start paying for ads or search engine placement right away. Focus first on building a valuable website and publishing an ezine or blog to stay in touch with prospects and let them get to know you. Then branch out to publishing articles online -- they can be the same items you write for your ezine or blog.

Only when you have a site that does a good job at converting prospects to clients AND provides a way to stay in touch with new visitors does it make sense to start paying to attract more traffic. And you may find that if you create a site with valuable content, publish articles online, and do some web-based networking and speaking, you may never need to pay for ads. That's the formula that's worked for me.

Close: Great advice, C.J. Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us.

For more about C.J. Hayden, please visit her website at www.getclientsnow.com.

You're invited to take an energy break next Tuesday, June 26th, and join us for the free Prosperity Blend tele-chat. This is a new thing at The WebServant, I hope you'll drop by. The topic for the first call is autoresponders so gather your burning questions and dial-in. The call is free (regular toll charges apply) but you need to register to attend. Visit my website to sign up. Talk soon!

I know Facebook technically is available for anyone, but should I use it just because it's there?

A woman never tells her age, but let's just say I'm a boomer (a young one though). In the last month I've gotten four Facebook invitations, two from friends and two from business groups. My twenty-something kids use Facebook all the time. When I told them I got invited to Facebook, they gave me that "please-don't-go-on-Facebook" look.

So, I think there's some kind of unwritten code (at least at my house) about what's acceptable in the eyes of Generation Y, regardless of what Facebook or any other social media site (i.e. MySpace) demographics will tell you.

Bottom line is this. Wile accepting a Facebook invitation might put me in the loop, it will most definitely cause eye rolling with my offspring. So until Facebook is normalized - within my four walls anyway - I'll probably not go there.

What do you think? Are you using Facebook or MySpace or LinkedIn or what? Let's talk about it.

Blogging superstar Brian Clark (via Tubetorial) and e-book maven Daryl Grant (via Yaro Starak Podcast) say the same thing when it come to writing an e-book, that is -- feed the hungry.

In other words, you may be tempted to write your e-book based on what you think is interesting and what you think will sell well. Trouble is, if there isn't a hungry audience and/or your e-book doesn't satisfy a need for that audience, it just might end up in e-book heaven (dead as a doornail).

People are looking for answers, 10 step methods, straight forward solutions, and sure-fire fixes. You can deliver, I just know you can. What are you waiting for? Let's go.

On the off-chance that you're not a household name (yet), you might want to consider a domain name that reflects your offer.

The first rule of thumb is to choose a name that reflects what your site is about. Do you speak about change? Try a name like "thechangeexpert.com." Do you specialize in the medical industry? Try "www.healthykeynotes.com.".

You definitely should reserve your name and company name, but if you don't have name recognition in your industry, you'll be better off with a domain name that reflects your offer. You can point multiple url's to the same website so your investment won't go to waste.

When you're searching for the perfect name, remember to consider the hyphenated version, for example, if www.greatkeynotes.com is taken, try www.great-keynotes.com. Even though humans prefer no hyphens, search engines love keyword friendly url's such as this.

You can register your domain name at a bajillion places, for a low-cost alternative try www.slamdunkdomains.com.

For more tips on how to revv-it-up with your web marketing, try my report, More Revvv!, free when you join my update list at www.thewebservant.com.

Thanks for reading. Talk soon.

Yawn. Oh, hello. Pardon me, I must have fallen asleep while reading yet another boring website. Not yours, of course. Definitely someone else's. Or was it yours?

If you think your website might be a snoozer, here are a few tips to Revvv! it up to the next level.

Don't allow your website to look like a million other websites. How can you stand apart from your competitors and from all the other noise on the web if you look like everyone else? If you are offering a service it should look uniquely and uncommonly cool, just like you, eh?

Be sure your site doesn't sound like everyone else. "Welcome to [insert company name here]. We're glad you stopped by our website." Or "We've been in the [insert industry name] business for twenty years and we know everything about everything, blah, blah, blah." This is lazy writing. It's time to step it up a notch and make your content reader centric, not all about you.

Put your site to work for you with the latest in promotional tools. Does your website help you build a customer list? Does it offer products and services? Does it ask for the sale? Does it draw repeat visitors for you? If not, you need to put it to work. Find out how with my free report, "More Revvv!" available at my website at thewebservant.com.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.