Let’s start with the authors. As you regular readers know, I’m a big fan of Chris‘.  He truly is all about the human connection, and he teaches readers how to focus on the human element in this book. Julien, I’m less familiar with. Still he’s in good company, and from what I glean, he’s more about the technical side of connecting people. Combining these two elements makes this book perfect (and all the awards it’s won are a testament to that).

This is already starting to sound like a sponsored review. But it’s not. Let’s just clear that up. I’m just a big fan.

Trust Agents talks about how to really interact with people in an era where we’ve got thousands of connections through social media. I know I’ve had trouble connecting. I already blogged about the 150 concept they discuss (and I’m not attributing it to them solely; if it’s been talked about in previous books, great. I just read it here first).  Chris and Julien encourage you to develop stronger relationships with a select few of your network rather than shallow ones with thousands.

They talk about making connections, and how being a part of multiple groups and networks helps you become what they call a trust agent. A trust agent is a person who shares and connects, is helpful simply because he should be, and delivers value without asking for anything.  I like that. I like to think I do that with this blog, which is designed to help entrepreneurs navigate their way through marketing on their own.

There’s just so much good stuff in this book. You’ll have to read it yourself. Here are a few takeaways:

• Be human. People would rather buy from a person than a company.
• Ask questions. Get to know people.
• Bury your agenda. If people see you as a trust agent, the sales and business partnerships will come.
• Give. Give. Give.
• Connect other people that can provide value to one another.

Hmm. This sounds a bit like Buddhism. Do good because it’s the right thing to do, not to seek a reward. I like it!

Have you read the book? How can you apply the idea of being a trust agent to your business?

Until recently, I used BaseCamp to manage my projects for Egg Marketing. It was great, and I didn’t have a negative reason for switching…other than price. I came across Projecturf, and for the opportunity to save $10 to $20 a month, I thought it was worth looking at.

Projecturf is great if you’ve got multiple things going on (and who doesn’t?). You might think, “Project management? That’s not what I do.” Think again. If you’re an entrepreneur, you likely handle:

• Payroll
• Hiring
• Product design or supply
• Expenses
• Internet efforts
• Marketing
• Cleaning the toilet

So don’t tell me you don’t manage projects! I often have trouble keeping up with what needs to be done next. I have freelancers working on projects, and honestly, sometimes I forget to check back with them. Projecturf makes it easy. You can manage different projects, upload files, create to-do lists and manage milestones. You can communicate with employees in one place and manage their time cards.

Let me give you a demonstration. Before I used project management applications, I would have a task that needed doing. I would decide which employee could do it. I would email her (yes, we’re all chicks) and give her the description and ask if she could do it. Sometimes I’d write out further instructions on a Word doc. Sometimes I used Google docs. I was inconsistent and unorganized. Here’s that same process on Projecturf.

As you can see, it’s a lot faster to use Projecturf!

In the book, the guys talk about it being difficult to maintain authentic relationships with more than 150 people. I can attest to that. I’ve got over 4,000 followers on Twitter and 1,000 friends on Facebook. After scanning the streams, I feel like I know less about all these people rather than more.

So I decided to make my 150 list. It’s going to have 150 of the people I want to interact with regularly. That might mean checking in on their blogs once a week, sending a Facebook message, paying attention to their Tweets. And that’s not to say I won’t pay attention to anyone else. But I want to make an effort to really listen to these 150.

So where am I with my list? I have about 40-50 so far. It’s harder than I thought. For each person in my contact database and Facebook friends list (I haven’t even hit Twitter yet) I ask, “Is this someone I want to pay extra attention to?” I want to pay attention to everyone but the real question comes down to: will I benefit from listening to this person? Will they benefit from listening to me?

I will make my list flexible. I can switch out people as my interests change. I used to read ProBlogger much more than I do now when I was starting out blogging, but these days I’m less about the how-to of blogging and more about developing solid content. That’s not to say Darren Rowse isn’t worth listening to; I’m just knee-deep in other areas right now.

My goal in this is to cut through the noise. Hearing so many virtual voices in my head is starting to be a deterrent from my work, and it’s keeping me from building really good relationships with the people I do care about.

What about you? Could you stand to focus on a few less people? Who would be in your 150?

Right now we’ve got two courses and will be adding more (we’re also looking for instructors so if you want to teach something marketing related contact me):

How to Set Up a Facebook Page for Your Business

How to Build Media Relationships

I hope you’ll sign up and start your marketing education today. The classes start at $10 each. You can’t beat that!

Want a different topic? Feel free to suggest it!

Let’s get started. Here’s your first lesson. Repeat after me:

I will not sell my product/service at a conference.

Say it again. Go ahead, I’m waiting.

Conferences and networking meetings are designed to expose you to a lot of people. You’re surrounded by hundreds of other people and lots of noise so you get about 60 seconds to make any kind of impression. Take a business card and make a note of how you can build that relationship.

Some relationships will bear fruit. Others won’t. I have contacts I met last year that are only now coming into fruition.

The key is to go into networking with the attitude that you want to find new people to pay attention to. You can then go home and connect on Twitter, Facebook, their blog, Whrrl, etc. As you see fit, leave comments and send notes to the people you met. Keep the fire burning. When the time is right, you’ll find a way to work together.

Am I being harsh? Does this bother you that I’m telling you to spend hundreds of dollars to attend a convention only to not come away with ROI? Think about how you’d feel if you met someone and 30 seconds in, they’re pitching their product. You’d be turned off. But take that same person, let him hand you his card and walk away. Curious, you follow him on all the channels. Turns out you’re both into baseball. There’s a conversation starter. You talk through Twitter for months when suddenly you need what he has. He’s the one you’ll go to, right?

Now you get it.

So if you’re networking with the mindset of getting something out of it, shift your thinking. You’ll reap even more benefits if you do.

His charge is pretty nominal, at least in the early months of the year: he charges his fee based on what day of the year it is (Jan 1 is $1 while December 31 is $365).

He is sold out for the rest of this year.

Now I think this guy is damn smart. He took an idea and ran with it. He didn’t need talent to wear shirts, though he did need smarts to figure out people would pay for this.  He created a niche where there was nothing before. Those businesses that now advertise with him didn’t think to themselves last year, boy, we really need to find a guy to wear our shirts around town. But now that he’s here, the need has arisen.

So how can YOU create a need where there’s not one right now?

• Think smart. Don’t think like everyone else. Look for solutions in what you do every day. This guy puts on a shirt every day. And he probably didn’t like paying for them. And he wanted money. Throw that in a pot, stir it for a while, and voila. An idea.
• Look at the solutions that are already out there and find better solutions. Ebooks are a better solution for books for people who are on the go. A cell phone is a better solution for communicating than a walkie talkie.
• Get out. I get my best ideas away from my desk. Walking. Doing yoga. Driving. Eating. Find inspiration where you wouldn’t normally look for it.
• Make a list of any and all your ideas. None are dumb. Simmer them a while, show them to your friends, and see where it gets you.

And so I wrote another book. Go me!

If you are an entrepreneur (as many of you are) and want the quick and easy way to start marketing your business and seeing results soon, buy the book. I provide (just as I do on this blog) step by step instructions to make it brain-dead simple to do your own marketing.

Get your free sneak peek of the first chapter here. This is a cool tool called Book Buzz that lets you view pages of a book for free.

If, after you read Internet Marketing for Entrepreneurs, you have questions about any of the content, I’m happy to answer them for you.

And I’d love your feedback on the book!

Huh.

That phrase has stuck with me all day. And I’m not thinking about yoga. I’m thinking about my business. Consider this another article on Egg’s rebranding, because I’m going to delve into my company’s history to explain.

Do not try this at home...unless you have the strength.

Early on, too early, really, I tried to be flexible. Press releases? Sure we write ‘em. Resumes? Um, okay, we can do those too. Ghostwrite your book? Sure! I need the money. But all the additional services I added on quickly crumbled as i realized my strength did not lie in party planning, ghostwriting, and booking events. Maybe one day I’ll have the staff to help me do all these things, but trying to bend in too many directions caused more problems than it was worth.

So I could have used that “strength first, flexibility later” advice back then. It’s not too late, though. Over the years, I’ve carefully culled the types of work I really don’t want to do or don’t have resources to make it happen easily. I’ve turned projects away. And as much as that hurts, I know it’s only helping to strengthen me and my business.

Once I’m strong, I am better able to take on more flexibility and different projects!

So what about you? Are you strong enough for flexibility, or are you bending your business in directions it doesn’t want to go? Here are my suggestions:

• Make a list of the things your company does well
• Make a list of the things it does, but with some effort
• Figure out where your profit lies
• Trim some services or products and focus on the good stuff
• Read this blog post on the 80/20 rule and SIMPLIFY!

For most businesses, cutting back on marketing means We just don’t do any marketing. This frustrates me! You can cut back on marketing spending quite easily without actually cutting back on your marketing efforts.

Let’s say you spend $5,000 a year on advertising in a publication. $10,000 on television commercials. We’ll use this as a simplified example. So you no longer have $15,000 to spend on this stuff for the results you’re getting. Great. Slash it. But replace it with something more affordable and still effective. Maybe that’s monthly press releases sent out via PRWeb and to editors. Maybe it’s creating an effective social media strategy. Maybe it’s an email campaign. Whichever you choose, you will spend a fraction of the money you were spending on advertising, and I guarantee the results will be better, in spite of the economy.

If you’re a solopreneur, or the one doing just about everything in your business, I can see that you wouldn’t want to take on more work. But if you want to have any work to do at all when we come out of this recession, YOU HAVE TO DO MARKETING. Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. I just hate it when businesses think marketing isn’t one of the top 3 things they need to do to survive. It’s like running your nails down a chalkboard for marketers. Uggggh.

Ok, so how do you do that?

• Dedicate 1 hour a day to research how to do your own marketing.
• Read ebooks, listen to podcasts, read blogs on how to DIY marketing.
• Ask colleagues what tools they’re using to market their businesses.
• Find a Small Business Development Center, SCORE or other entrepreneur resource in your town to help you.
• Hire an intern for $7 an hour from your local college’s marketing department. She might know more about social media marketing than you do!
• Buy ebooks on DIY Press Releases, Email Marketing or Social Media from The Marketing Eggspert Library! (sorry, had to get that one in; but seriously: for less than $20 you can’t get a better deal!)

Readers, any other ideas on how to get started doing your own marketing? Let’s hear them!

That being said, I want to share 5 lessons I and my partners learned from this failure.

1.  Don’t be afraid of failure. I once was afraid of failure. What would it say about me? What would people think? When we tell people that Marble Slab closed, we get that look of sympathy. “Ooh,” it says, “well maybe you weren’t cut out for running a restaurant.” And maybe I wasn’t. But I know that we tried our hardest to make that place work (heck, I did all the marketing!) and it still failed. And that’s ok.

2. Stick to what you know. I live, breathe, eat and sleep marketing. I love it. I’d do it even if I didn’t get paid for it. Ice cream, well, I like it a lot. My first job was at Baskin Robbins. But I was never passionate about running that business. Strike two.

3. Go into partnerships with friends veeery carefully. Our relationship with our long-time friend turned business partner is ok…but strained. My husband and I feel responsible for bringing him into what turned out to be a bad deal. We’ll probably need a break from one another when this is over.

4. Have extra capital. We bought the business from a (thought-to-be) friend and just assumed the loan. What we should have done, given that this was 7 months ago and banks would still give you a loan, was take out extra to use for expenses like when every single piece of equipment broke down within two months. Or when things were slow and it was hard to make payroll.

5. Life goes on. I’m not crying in my pillow about this situation. If you’re an entrepreneur,  you’ll have more than one success and more than one failure. We’ve had a few (”where is that oh-so-lucrative gift basket company you started in college, Susan” you ask) failures, and this is just one more. Life goes on.

So now that you’ve had full disclosure from me, share your failures. Come on, don’t be shy. We learn from one another. After all, isn’t that why you’re here?

Stephanie Chandler, author of From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur, does a great job of helping you understand ways you can add new streams of revenue to what you’re currently doing by creating ebooks, books and information products. She simplifies the process of writing and promoting your product, and motivates you to get going on your next project.

As many of you know, I have several ebooks out (see end of post). I’d just hobbled along as best I could until I read this book. I cleaned up my websites, added instant download capability and saw a huge spike in sales.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, “She’s not talking to me. I have no business writing an ebook. What would I write about?”

I say to you skeptics: what are you an expert in? If you’re a dog groomer, you could write an ebook called “10 Tips on Keeping Your Dog Clean Between Groomings.” If you’re a real estate agent, you could write “Braving the Storm: What to Do When You Can’t Sell Your Home.” The list goes on and on. The point is, there are people who want what you know. It’s up to you to read this book and give them your knowledge (and make money doing it).

Here are my ebook links: Check them out.

DIY Press Releases

DIY Email Marketing

Eating Cereal with a Fork: Maximize Marketing in a Recession

Zen and the Art of Being an Entrepreneur by Wendy Piersall

Advice on Running Your Business from a Chinese Master by Dawud Miracle

Great advice we entrepreneurs could all stand to follow. I’m going to meditate now.

Truly I felt the same about a franchise business as a whole. I built Egg Marketing & Public Relations from the keyboard up, and a “turnkey solution” just never appealed to my entrepreneur spirit.

Enter my husband. Entrepreneur, lover of all opportunities, big or small. He convinced me to buy a Marble Slab Creamery near our home (not really: 20 minute commute) in Orlando. I was skeptical, but I love ice cream, so hey, how bad could it be? And since I am a Marketing Eggspert, I would handle the take-out-of-the-box marketing.

Except it was more than that. Sure, the franchise company provides us with instructions and posters for each promotion (which is actually refreshing: we don’t have to hire a graphic artist to handle each promotion!). They walk us step-by-step through when to hang the posters and how to make the most out of it.

But then there are so many other ways we can market. We can take cakes to local businesses as a means of introduction (trust me: that gets me a smile and half off a massage at the Massage Envy in our shopping area!). We can put coupons in the apartment complex newsletters. We can send the schools free coupons and tell them about our fundraising. The possibilities make me dizzy with marketing fever.

So here are the lessons I’ve learned about franchise marketing:

1. You are not restricted by franchise marketing rules (well, they discourage you from posing nude with the ice cream, but beyond that, it’s fair game).

2. You are only limited by your own creativity.

3. Free ice cream goes a long way. (Thanks for lunch every day, Panera!)

4. Be open to partnerships with other businesses, and your marketing will go even further.

5. Listen to employee ideas (maybe not the Karaoke night one, though).

6. Utilize your resources. The franchise firm is there to provide you with marketing assistance. In fact, you’re paying for it, so use it!

7. Everybody loves ice cream.

8. After a hard day’s work in marketing, nothing hits the spot like Coffee ice cream with Heath and caramel in a waffle bowl!

I’d love to hear from you! Do you own a franchise? How do you market outside that box?

As loyal readers noticed, I was away last week on a well deserved vacation. Everyone asks where I went. Nowhere, actually. My mother came to visit, and rather than trying to pretend I was fully functional as a business (answering phone calls and emails) I decided, gulp, to turn off my email and cover my phone so the blinking message light wouldn’t drive me crazy. I work from home, so completely leaving the office is never possible.

Why didn’t I do this before? I don’t know, I guess I worried a client would have a marketing emergency or would feel I wasn’t giving enough of my services. But you know what? No one complained. Everyone wished me a happy vacation. Nothing burned up or fell apart.

I had 258 emails waiting for me. About 10 were important. I overinflated my value to the point of not ever wanting to be completely off of work, and taking a week off showed me it’s been unnecessary.

Entrepreneurs are essentially businesses. And businesses close. I think we feel so emotionally connected to our businesses, it’s a bit like leaving a baby alone for a week. What if it starves? What if it breaks everything? We’d never forgive ourselves.

I learned that it’s a good idea to treat your business as such: a business. It has hours and it’s not necessary that you be there 24/7. It’s actually refreshing to not check email every 20 minutes, and a good vacation can make you a better entrepreneur.

Now that that’s off my plate, talk to me. Do you find it hard to get away?
-Susan

PS Next week we have some huge, exciting things happening. The Marketing Eggspert will be moving to the Sparkplugging Blog network (formerly eMomsatHome), which thrills me to no end.

Additionally, it will be the first birthday of my baby, this blog! Let me wipe the tears away. It’s been an amazing journey, and one I never could have predicted. I can’t wait to share it all with you.

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Even I, lover of all things marketing, get overwhelmed with so many options out there. Press releases. Blogs. Social Networking. Podcasts. SEO. Email marketing.

Not all of it is for everyone. Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends wrote a great post on American Express’ OPEN Forum about targeting in on your best results when it comes to marketing.

Check it out. And think about where you’re wasting more time than you are generating results.

-Susan

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As a college student, I began using MySpace and Facebook my Freshman year in college. I find it very helpful to interact with classmates, stay in constant contact with old friends, and find useful information with the advertisements that are displayed.

As a consumer, I have found businesses marketing to me:
-Some advertisements have linked me to helpful websites for school such as dictionary.com.
-I have come across ads that display new trendy clothing. For example, advertisements for Victoria’s Secret pop up, and their ads have led me to their website where I purchased clothing.
-I have also clicked on ads about new movies premiering and even the best deal for flights.

There are, however, some things that annoy me about these ads on networking sites. On MySpace, a large number of businesses and bands send out hundreds of friends requests each day and try to advertise their products/services. For example, I just received a friends request from a new restaurant in town and a band that is located across the country. This may be a good advertising concept, but better targeting could keep these businesses from annoying social network users.

Susan
Advertising on social networking sites can be effective if your buyers:
*Are 12-25
*Can buy your products online
*Are tech savvy

Local businesses can have success marketing on social networking sites, but to avoid the annoyance Natalie mentions, these campaigns should be carefully targeted. No one outside a 30 mile radius will come see your punk show or your bake sale. So don’t be annoying and mass add friends or contacts just for the sake of having a wider audience.

It’s like I say about email contacts: better to have 50 highly targeted contacts than 50,000 people that you annoy regularly.

Get creative! Marketing on these sites doesn’t have to be paid advertising. My client BabysHere has a FaceBook profile that has drawn a fair amount of traffic and new customers.

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Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends has released her free ebook, 101 Marketing Secrets. This ebook is chock-full of great tips on social media, selling, relationship marketing and more. Look for tips from the top marketers and bloggers in the industry, including Seth Godin, Brian Clark of Copyblogger and…lil’ ole me!

Get your free copy now!
-Susan

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Used to be everyone was struggling to keep up with competitors just by having a website. Now if you don’t have a blog you’re behind. Forget for a moment that you’re not web-savvy, if that’s true, and look at the benefits of blogs over websites. I’ll borrow from Suzanne’s list and add my own.

-Blogs are easier to update. Sites like WordPress make it simple to upload posts instantly, so as soon as you think of a topic, you can write it and post it within minutes. With websites, you likely have to call your IT or web design guy to get anything changed.

-Blogs help you identify your market. Because you’ll blog on many different topics within your niche (for me, I cover press releases, marketing online and blogging for business and can easily track which are the most popular topics) you can see what gets the most hits. Once you know that, play up to it or offer services or products on that topic.

-Blogs get noticed more frequently than websites. Spiders that crawl for search engines like ever-changing content, and since that’s a characteristic of a blog, you’ll be up, running and noticed sooner than your website will.

All this being said, a blog shouldn’t take the place of your website. The two can work together in perfect harmony. Link to your blog from your website and vice versa. Refer to your company website in your blog posts. Whatever you do, just don’t underestimate the potential a blog has for getting you new business.

-Susan

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The post says press releases for online distribution should be shorter. You, as a reader of online material, can appreciate articles and news releases that are short and to the point. No need to ramble. Do we need a new format altogether?

And then this post talks about how PRWeb, a distribution service I happen to use, is cracking down on releases it deems not acceptable. The release in question had more of a salesy approach that PRWeb didn’t approve of.

But it brings up the question: what is acceptable for a press release? We are rapidly moving away from the old standards of PR and media, so how can we continue to base our rules on the old school methods? Shouldn’t PRWeb be more flexible in what it accepts? Can we redefine what a press release is?

These are interesting questions, and ones that should provoke thought and conversation. What do you have to say?

-Susan

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People and sites you should know and love
Boca Beth
Wendy Piersall of eMomsatHome
Coach Rhonda
Liz Strauss at Successful Blog
Diana Lin Design (you’ve GOT to get a pillow)
Lifetips (publisher of my book and fun site)

So now you know a little about what I like. Share your favorite links!
-Susan

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