Archive for the ‘Personal Branding’ Category

Last month I attended Carbon Copy Pro’s seventh PRO Master Marketing Event in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Arizona Grand Resort was the perfect setting for such an event – spacious enough for privacy if one needed it and intimate enough for some powerhouse networking or simple gatherings of friends and fellow marketers alike.

The day before was my birthday and my mentor and close friend Lena and her husband Sam, arranged a road-trip for her team and mine to visit the spectacular Grand Canyon.

Two van loads of Pro’s top marketers masterminded their way to one of America’s most
beautiful locations.

The trip seemed to fly by as we exchanged strategies and poked fun at each other on our way to the canyon.

No amount of pictures of video can prepare you for the spectacular view at the Grand Canyon. It literally took my breath away.

What followed was a fun surprise – Lena had stashed 2 beautiful birthday cakes, one for me and one for fellow marketer Ida Berg, who shares the same birthday.

Lena even had party hats, plates, and pink tiaras for the birthday girls. What a day!

Our team assembled for the conference at the hotel early the next morning and took seats at the front. Many of our newest team members sat with eager anticipation as the Vice President of PR Leadership Mr. John Jackson took to the stage and got the ball rolling on what has become known as the BEST Pro Master Marketing event in history.

The marketing training was exceptional as one by one the company’s longest standing top performers opened their play books as it were and revealed their top online marketing strategies to a room full of marketers from around the world.

These marketers, among the very best in the world each presented the newest cutting edge strategies for generating volume traffic online. They covered lead generation at length but also defined the importance of converting that traffic to high ticket back end sales and the importance of calculating one’s return on investment and running a profitable online business.

The training was a game changer for all the marketers in attendance! I sat watching with one of my business partners, Helene Thituson and co-founder of iPROsynergy ( a marketing team we founded in December 2010) .

Although some of our members were unable to attend due to prior commitments, Helene and I were watching as Jay Kubassek, CEO and Founder of Carbon Copy Pro announced that he had 3 Master Marketing Awards to hand out.

What we didn’t realize at that moment was that iPROsynergy were about to be the recipients of one of the prestigious awards!! This was an exhilarating moment!! The success that had once been a belief now acted on and visualized had become a reality.

Previously, after attending my first Master Marketing event and seeing marketers receive awards, I had an inner determination that one day soon I too would be in their place. Now in iPROsynergy’s 6th month operating as a team here we were! And the best part about it is that we had so many of our team there with us at the event.

After returning home to Jamaica in the last week of May, a few days later Mr. John Jackson, (affectionately known as “JJ”) the VP of Leadership, phoned to announce that I had been selected as Pro’s Spotlight Member of the Month for June 2011. I was speechless – what a month May had been, and now this! Here is a link to my story on the CCPro website.

http://carboncopypro.com/memberspotlight.php

As June comes to a close ( I can hardly belief that it has been a month already) I thought I’d share this with you.

If you want to find out more about iPROsynergy and how we are helping entrepreneurs make their dreams become a reality, click HERE

The harder I work, the luckier I get.

The difference between a dream and a goal is a date.

 
 
The way forward in todays rapidly evolving internet marketing world is to have your own product!
 
Surviving in Google absolutely requires it. Your product can take many forms: you can do a video series, an email series, a report or an E-book.
 

An E-book is a great way to present your own product, whether free as a means to get opt-ins or paid.
 

There are 2 formats in which this can be done.
 

PDF: Portable Document Format and
EXE: A directly executable format
 

There are pros and cons to each.
 
 
 
 

There are a range of PDF softwares to select from, most of which do not generally accomodate
hyperlinks (these are clickable links), or video.
 

There are 3 paid versions:
 

Adobe Acrobat Standard 9 $270.54
Adobe Acrobat Professional 9 $378.00
Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended $529.00
 

Naturally the higher the cost, the more you get in terms of functionality.Click this link for a product
comparison http://www.adobe.com/mena/products/acrobat/matrix.html
 

The idea behind offering a product up front is to allow you to give value in your excellent content
which will generate leads (traffic). You can then pre-sell your leads and ultimately monetize your list.
A great resource that outlines this is “Make Your Knowledge Sell” http://myks.sitesell.com
 

An E-book is the absolute easiest way to produce a professional quality digital product….with no programming
knowledge (PDF).
 

PDF is perceived as being more professional as it tends to look the same on all computers regardless of the
screen size, resolution and operating system.
 

One method is to use “Creative Commons”. This is a third party branding software. People can share your content but they must give you credit.
 

A main concern among creators of E-books is that their product will go viral BUT that they will not be paid.
Initially I thought that this was the main reason to go with the EXE version as opposed to PDF. I have
found that it is possible to use a version in PDF that can be hyperlinked and can accomodate video and can also be password protected. However, when I dug into this I found that a designer had used a number of different platforms combined to make this happen…so this may be something you would rather outsource.
 

You can create an E-book in Google docs, however there is a limited file size. I have also seen some positive
comments on Primo PDF.
 

The EXE version (E-book compiler) turns the E-book into a password protected website. Here you will create the E-book in the form of web pages using HTML. It is important to remember that although the EXE supports flash and video, you must keep your file size down to minimize download time.
 

It is advised that you copyright your work. To do so, you can go to the US Copyright Office’s website at
http: ( http://www.copyright.gov/ )
 

You will also need PayPal to accept payment for your E-book. Also you can get shopping cart at
http://E-junkie.com for a flat rate of $5/m regardless of the number of books you sell. Simply register, upload and get your buy now button.
 
You will also get a URL for affiliates!
 

I have tried to condense this information in order to give you a brief overview of the facts.
 

If you are interested in obtaining more detailed information you may wish to consult the following sites:
 

Free PDF Maker http://www.ezau.com/latest/articles/0415.shtml
 

Self Publishing http://www.lulu.com/en
 

Create a professional e-book free http://www.learnhomebusiness.com/download_paid/globupgrade/section1.htm
 

I hope this helps..Looking forward to seeing your amazing content “out there”.
 
Please feel free to comment and add to this information if you think it will help others
 

 

One thing that is clear about trust, is that it takes time to develop. Trust is a gift that human beings share. There can be no close without trust!

So, how do we earn the trust of our prospects?

There are some important aspects in a good online business, or any form of business for that matter, these include, innovation, persistence, leadership and follow through.

However, the most valuable and rare gift is that of trust.

In a world where the norm is for people to be pitched at, marketed and sold to, there is a tendency to focus more on ourselves and what’s in it for us. However if we exist for mutual benefit we gain far more satisfaction from this and reap far greater reward.

We often give gifts to friends and loved ones on their birthdays and other special occasions. But one of the greatest gifts that we as human beings share is that of trust.

In the rapid world of online marketing, there has developed a level of skepticism among potential prospects. They have been pitched at so many times that they are jaded and trust is harder to come by.

There is nothing more likely to result in a lack of trust than a slick sales pitch.

Be real, be yourself and make sure that you are promoting a business model that you are passionate about and that you know will bring success for your prospect.

If for example, on your landing page, you make an offer to your prospect, then be certain to over deliver on your thank you page.

In your auto responder emails, give value but also be personal. Remember, people follow people, and they buy from people they trust! This comes from a sense of knowing you and what you stand for.

It is far more difficult to gain the trust of your prospect if you are promoting a company replicated site with absolutely no personal touch.

Finally, if you really care about the success of your prospects, this will shine through throughout your sales funnel.

I always maintain that giving without want is the precursor to massive success!

Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands.

In the online world, personal branding is something that is developed and built over time. It is otherwise known as “building a presence on the internet”.

I have found that the fastest tool to utilize in personal branding is video. It is the most personal method of communicating with others on the internet. Look into the eyes of your listeners. Gain their respect and trust through the integrity of your words, your attitude and your posture.

Posture, in this instance is not necessarily sitting up straight, although that would be advised. Posture on the other hand refers to positioning yourself as the leader and expert in your field that you are (and in some cases are becoming).

Impart the knowledge that you have, with an air of authority. If you doubt yourself, people will detect it and lose interest.

Be passionate – dull and boring is just that … dull and boring.

Be unique – your personality will attract a whole different set of people than your colleagues will. Do not be a me too marketer. Each individual has his or her own pull.

Remember, you can’t say the wrong thing to the right person.

Give value, value, value! Educate yourself and offer help to others who may not be as knowledgeable as you are. Do not be arrogant but also do not be weak.

Building a powerful online presence takes time. You can outsource some of it, for example articles. I personally prefer to write my own as no one has my personality but me.

However, if you want to outsource some of your content building, you can seek the help of odesk and elance for this.

Be positive about what you are doing and NEVER waver! Never give up!

There are times when things may not look the way that you want them to, but success comes from pressing through times such as these.

Create a blog and post regularly to it. Leverage your efforts by doing an article that can double as a post. Ezine articles are an excellent place to post articles as their site ranks very highly with Google. As a result of this, it becomes far easier to have your article rank highly for the terms you target in the organic search.

Be sure to use a pleasant, yet professional picture of yourself, and use the same picture in all of your social media profiles.

This will quickly resonate with people as they begin to see you, “all over the web”.

Be consistent in your opinion on matters of importance. If you take a stance, stand by it.

Steadily and consistently, your brand will be developed and recognized.