Successful Marketing Through Seminars

By Joe Love One of the best ways for potential clients to find out about you and your company is through public speaking. Free seminars attract potential clients. It is a chance for them to get information straight from you. You are the best marketing tool for your business. Speaking to groups is nothing more than a large conversation. It is powerful and efficient marketing. By making the seminar free, you engender goodwill from your audience. By addressing issues of concern to them, you are validating their perceptions that the topic you are speaking about, is an important one. By offering good, sound, and thorough advice, you establish yourself as an expert. A number of dynamics take place when you are in front of a group of people. First, you are the center of attention. Each member of the audience feels as if your are speaking directly to him or her. Youre not an envelope that goes unopened. Your are not a telemarketing call that comes at dinnertime. Youre not a television commercial that gets clicked off in favor of another channel. Speaking to a group puts you at the forefront of message delivery and effective communication. You are having a conversation with an audience. Sure, members of the audience can walk out of the room, but of those present, you have their undivided attention. As you speak, you are also establishing credibility with the audience. Hopefully, this audience has potential paying clients. If they dont, you shouldnt be speaking to them. You establish yourself as an expert in whatever you are talking about. People like buying from experts. They feel comfortable buying from people they know and trust. Give complete information in conjunction with your self-promotion. Dont hold back, dont offer just enough information to peak their interest. Elaborate on each topic you choose, supplementing theoretical information with case studies or anecdotes. Establish the depth of your knowledge along with your expertise. Its important to understand, that speaking to a group is marketing, not selling. Your speaking should offer something of value, not a direct pitch. Potential speaking topics that are marketing and value oriented are things that are solutions to problems, such as weight loss or money management. You wont get 100% of the attendees to become clients. Some people attend such events out of general interest rather than a particular need. But if you dedicate two or three hours of your time one of two evenings a month to addressing subjects with which you are already very familiar, you will see an increase in your client base that will repay your minimal expense and effort. There are many types of potential audiences. These include community organizations, professional groups, trade associations, and civic groups. Your current prospects and existing customers are also excellent target audiences as well. Heres an example of how you could promote your free seminar. Create an ad or mailing piece announcing a free 90 or 120 minute seminar on a subject of wide general interest. Relate the presentation to your specialty. For example, a medical doctor could talk about breakthrough techniques for overcoming, eliminating, or avoiding cancer or arthritis. Another topic could be ten medically safe methods of losing weight. A financial planner or tax accountant could present a seminar on sheltering income. After a headline announcing the topic, the copy should talk about your credentials, accomplishments, achievements, and any articles that have been written about your practice or specialty. Heres an example of how your copy might read: Dr. Wells is a specialist in this subject. Hes conducted research and hes perfected techniques. He will present a seminar for people interested in the topic but who do not know the facts. This seminar will be held from______ to ______on_______. Admission must be free but people need to have a reserved ticket in advance for admission. To do this simply give them a number to call or a Web address where they can pre-register. By doing this you can capture their names and addresses for future mailings. You could simply collect names at the door, but by having them reserve a ticket in advance it makes it more professional and easier the day of the event to have your attendees just present a ticket to get in. Another way to create an audience for a seminar is to contact business and professional organizations, such as the Rotary Club or the local Chamber of Commerce. Offer to speak on subjects of importance to the group. For example, a medical doctor might speak about stress reduction to businessmen and women. A CPA might offer to speak on loopholes still available to corporations after recent tax changes. A lawyer might talk about how to write non-compete clauses, or how to write contracts, or how to patent or license concepts or ideas. In order for the group to invite its members and to get a good turnout, your topic needs to be of major interest to them. Your seminar should be split into two parts. In the first half, peak their interest with anecdotal information. Then have a short 15 minute break During this break mingle with the audience, distribute your business cards, brochure, or any other information youve put together about your business. In the second half of the seminar, offer some service thats free but designed to capture valuable information. For example, conduct a quick survey of your audience. This survey should be on something of interest to them, such as a personality profile or something else that ties in with the topic youre speaking about. Have them respond to 25 basic questions providing their name, address, telephone, and e-mail on the questionnaire. Then when you get back to your office, tabulate the results and send a brief summary back to them. At the end of the seminar, you will have to establish initial contact for an on-going dialogue. Let them know that youll be following up with mailing, or a phone call to get their feedback on the seminar. Let them know that because of their attendance they will receive a free subscription to your newsletter. Youve captured their names and addresses to add to your prospect list. Dont let the seminar be a one-shot deal. Whether your seminar is successful or unsuccessful, it has residual value if you record or transcribe the text. You can and should make a transcript or recording of your seminar and then make it available to both your prospects and current customers. Send a tape or transcript of your seminar to prospective clients, along with a cover letter telling them that many people who attended your seminar told you that they learned a lot from the presentation. Indicate that youve taken the liberty of sending them the transcript or tape recording of the seminar in its entirety, in hopes that they will benefit as well. Encourage them to read or listen to it and stress that you hope theyll find it useful and informative. If they have any questions, invite them the contact you with no obligation on their part. If they are interested in your services, offer to talk to them in person or by phone to explain your expertise and how your services could benefit them. Provide some case studies. Tell them, since they were unable to attend your seminar, this tape or transcript is the next best thing. And always encourage them to feel free to call or e-mail you with questions. You can use the tape or transcript in several ways. You can use it as a promotional piece to give to other groups who hire speakers. You can use it as part of selected marketing materials. You can use it to generate word-of-mouth marketing and referrals. Offer it prominently on your Web site. Always remember, the more your prospects and customers see your name, the more likely they are to think of you when they need your professional services. The cost of speaking is free. When members of your audience receive something of value from you, even if its information, they are grateful. When someone is grateful, you have the beginning of a great relationship. So, the more you can speak to groups about your services, the more audiences you can touch and start relationships with. And this means more potential business for you. Copyright 2005 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many of Americas largest corporations, on the subjects of leadership, self-esteem, goals, achievement, and success psychology. Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joe_Love http://EzineArticles.com/?Successful-Marketing-Through-Seminars&id=49802 what is ultram prescription
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Nepeta Faassenii 'Kit Kat'

By Alan Summers Finally a Truly Compact Nepeta! As a group, the various forms of Nepeta faassenii, commonly called Catmint, have a lot going for them. They are long-lived, easy-to-grow, drought tolerant and long-blooming. The deer don't like them and the butterflies love them. In fact in some gardens nepeta is the perennial that is most attractive to butterflies, rivaling even the shrub butterfly bush. Nepetas are widely used in English perennial borders massed as a foreground plant, and as an edger. To date nepetas have had one major drawback, they tend to sprawl in a floppy manner. A few years ago a variety called 'Walker's Low' was introduced from England and was quickly heralded as the long sought compact nepeta. When 'Walker's Low' proved to be just as tall-growing and floppy as the other nepetas, it turned out that 'Walker's Low' is the name of a place in England and has nothing to do with the height of the plant. Now with the 2006 introduction of 'Kit Kat', there is finally a compact neater Nepeta faassenii. Add Continual Summer Color to Your Garden 'Kit Kat' will add color to your garden throughout the summer. The leaves are grey-green and are toped with spikes of small clusters of lavender blue flowers from June until August. At 15-18 inches high, it is not only smaller in height, but smaller in all of its parts. 'Kit Kat' has smaller leaves and flowers, but the flowers are much more numerous than other nepetas. It will thrive in sunny, dry areas, but also tolerates light shade, if the drainage is good. 'Kit Kat' is ideal as an edger, especially for an herb garden, as well as for summer color massed in front of shrubbery or to dress down foundation plantings. Planting and Care Plant 24 inches apart in well-drained soil. Shearing the plant back in the springtime will promote even more compact growth. Cutting plants back by half, after each bloom cycle, stimulates additional bloom cycles. Fertilize with Flower-Tone. Hardy in Zones 4-8. Click here to view 'Kit Kat' on the Carroll Gardens website. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alan_Summers http://EzineArticles.com/?Nepeta-Faassenii-Kit-Kat&id=166849 buy drug tramadol
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A Guide In How To Achieve Advertising Brilliance In These Days Of Total Confusion!

By Paul Ashby So youre in Advertising/Marketing. To day, more than ever before your success will depend on how the consumer (who after all is really your customer) will be buying your product. Because of accountability, and the emerging technology, your work will be liable to far more intense scrutiny on performance, than ever before. The problem is, in the past you have been, and are probably now, working far too hard and too long trying to keep abreast of your work load, which, in turn keeps you from spending enough time on your most important asset, your customers! If the truth been know, when your advertising appeared on TV, or wherever, you frankly thought that that you had to move on to the preparation of the next phase of the programme, and gave scant attention to what was happening out there, in consumer land! So here is a checklist as to what we think you should be doing, on a regular basis, to help you achieve advertising breakthrough: One: Believe in and develop total customer involvement and responsiveness. Two: Pursuing and implementing two-way communication utilising existing Media. Three: Create a high degree of flexibility by empowering your customers. Four: Face up to the fact that what went before is over! Five: Acknowledge the fact that interactive advertising is the only appropriate form of advertising. Six: The only thing you must believe in is constant improvement through the implementation of conversations with your customers. Seven: There is no such thing as above the line and below the line those old fashioned stereotypes are goneforever! Gone are the days when grey-suited admen would commute to Waterloo Station from the Surrey suburbs, catch a cab to Charlotte Street, Spend the day concocting clever, feel-good ads, collect 15 percent commissions for placing them with ITV, Channel 5, Sky etc and glossy magazines, and schmooze clients over expensive wine lunches. Today, the centre of gravity has moved, and much of the work is done by twenty somethings in jeans and T-shirts. They earn less and work harder to peddle niche products through a fragmented media market to savvy consumers who tune out messages they find boring or irrelevant. The cushy commissions have been replaced by stingier, cost-plus-fee schedules imposed by numbers-driven corporate marketing officers who care less about the creativity of advertising than its return on investment. None of this happened overnight -- the process began more than 20 years ago. But it's fair to say the industry has recently been through a less-than-golden era, whether measured in profitability, creativity, or the satisfaction level of clients or employees. Recently the global chairman of P & G had this to say,we must understand whats important to our customers and connect with them. We must shift our mindset to truly creating partnerships." Consumers are showing a greater need for making connections with other people and brands, as evidenced by the upsurge in consumer generated media like YouTube, viral marketing and other cabalistic techniques. "Sometimes we need to be more open in bringing that human perspective to our marketing." Trust, too, has become a vital element in marketing. Brands with the highest market share also enjoyed the highest level of trust among consumers. You really do have to do something about the problem of Clutter. We live in an over informed world where people everywhere are turning away from all the meaningless information they are awash with Clutter. That dreadful word that came into vogue in the late 1960s and was applied to the proliferation of advertising messages the consumer could be exposed to during the course of his or her working day. More accurately the term was "commercial clutter", however we much prefer "meaningless noise" Now, if you could sort that little problem then you really would be well on the way to advertising brilliance! Another way of achieving brilliance in advertising is to actively encourage interactive television on current terrestrial TV formats. This form of interactive communication dramatically alters the way the viewers perceive the commercials, instead of being seen as an interruption the commercials now become a meaningful source of information (a form of programming) and thus are watched in a totally different way. Presenting advertising within this format allows the most dramatic evolution of advertising itself. This renaissance in this period of the ongoing history of advertising will be know as advertising by true, accurate, more predictable, instant and measurable results. Clients will pay only by results. The interactive nature of the new technology will allow research to measure the results and present these results as a post-evaluation of their participation. Clients will then pay for participation based upon these evaluations. And thats when you will have achieved advertising brilliance! Paul Ashby pioneered interactive communication to the advertising and marketing communities some twenty-five years ago. The communication issues he addresses have been neglected during the explosive grown of advertising in the 60s, 70s and 80s, these are Cognitive Dissonance, Selective Retention and Selective Exposure. Would you like to discover the incredible results to be attained by using interactive communication? Well these are revealed for FREE at http://effectiveaccountablecommunication.blogspot.com or contact Paul directly on paul.ashby@yahoo.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Ashby http://EzineArticles.com/?A-Guide-In-How-To-Achieve-Advertising-Brilliance-In-These-Days-Of-Total-Confusion!&id=488334 www buy phentermine
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Are Real Estate Agents Going the Way of the Dodo?

By James Christensen Some 30-odd years ago, MLS listings were printed on small cards that fit in shoeboxes, and Realtors were their gatekeepers. Thanks to the Internet, agents as well as consumers have access to all kinds of information.
As a result, real estate firms are changing the way they interact with customers and reevaluating their roles in the age of information. "Whereas before clients depended on Realtors for information, they're now finding their own information and then coming to us for services," explains Chee, CEO of Prudential Locations. "That's meant a lot of changes for the industry and has made the job of a Realtor much, much more complex."
Around 1995, when the Internet first hit real estate, it was the kickoff of consumers getting much more involved in the transaction, because it brought more information to the customers. Discount Brokerages Has all this paved the way for Discount Brokerages to take over, akin to what has happened in the securities business? Discount brokerages offer all the usual services and expertise at a fraction of the cost. Has that forced traditional real estate firms to rethink the way they do business? Will agents become order takers and brokers just the vehicle for executing the real estate transaction? Discount brokerages are not a new phenomenon. They arise every time the market gets hot like this, because there's so much inventory. And then the market switches over, and they disappear. The thing people need to understand when they're working with discount brokerages is Econ 101. Econ 101 like the grilled cheese sandwich that had the Madonna on it and sold on eBay for $33,000. It's an extreme example of how, when you open the market up and have more people see it, you get the highest possible price. In a discount situation, generally speaking, that's not the case. Ask a potential listing client: So what's more important--the commission, or getting the higher price for your house?
Consumer Education=Good Business How are traditional brokerages positioning themselves to remain relevant and important to consumers in this new landscape? What's interesting is that customers feel empowered because they found their house on the Net. But if you think about the real estate purchase, it's something you do once every eight or 10 years. So you don't develop an actual skill set to do it. So the question is, how fast can we enable customers to get up to speed? What's happened is that the market has been dissected into different types of consumers. Some guys say, "Do everything for me." Some say, "I want to be hands on." Before online MLS listings and virtual tours, if you wanted to know something, like how big the yard was, you'd have to call me. Now it's, "I saw this house on the net. It's 10,000 square feet, it's three-bedroom, it looks like what I want. Now what else can you tell me?" So now firms need to decide to include or exclude different ways that customers want to do business. Some companies are accomplishing that by offering services a la carte. A menu of services is a maturing thing, but, at the end of the day, the business that survives is the one that treats its customers the right way, and that might mean more education. When you talk about a la carte, it's not as simple as ordering off a menu, because the individual services are all kind of connected to each other. When you split them up too much, it becomes very complex. So as long as the consumer knows how they're connected, it can work. Is the empowered consumer the main factor behind falling commission rates? Overall commission rates are falling, and have been falling for almost four years across the board, but it's very similar to looking at the statistics for real estate. People say, "Oh, the average price fell by $20,000," but it really didn't, because the composition of the market changed.
Commissions are falling, but the structure of services is also changing. Consumers are getting smarter. So one of the things progressive brokers are doing is getting customers as smart as anybody in the market. The way we do that is by giving them tools that are easy to use. In example, giving them all the solds, all the listings, charts and graphs to get the client smart. Because when they're smart, they're decisive! Written for http://www.e-realestatelicense.com
By James Christensen
Real Estate Expert and educator. Our training site http://www.e-realestatelicense.com offers a valuable service to individuals looking to get into the Real Estate industry. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Christensen http://EzineArticles.com/?Are-Real-Estate-Agents-Going-the-Way-of-the-Dodo?&id=120785 buy xanax online overnight
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Motorola K3 and Motorola Q: Let The Power Of Technology Serenade You

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