How is your marketing going?

Leduc Womanition Connect Group - Inaugural luncheon

Do you feel like you’ve been dragged into online marketing “kicking and screaming”?

Have you been wondering how to get more clients on a “$0” budget?

Womanition is all about helping professional women in business connect with other professional women in business, to help eachother get clients. Dorothy Briggs, founder of Womanition Magazine, has provided the networking tools for us to use, all we have to do is grab hold and run with them.

She says, “Showing up will set you apart from your competition. When the client needs your services they will think of you first and only if you are top of mind. Please take advantage of these networking opportunities. A lot of effort goes into these meetings to make them beneficial for your growth.”

Womanition is an awesome networking tool for women in business. The Leduc Womanition Connect Group luncheons are being held once a month in Leduc at the Best Western on 50^th Ave., the second Wednesday of the month.

We will be holding our first meeting on Wednesday, February 11th at 11:30am to 1:30pm.

You can register and pre-pay your lunch at:  Leduc Womanition Connect Group

Immediately following the luncheon, there will be an optional 2 hour LinkedIn workshop for those women who want to learn how to use LinkedIn for business. The Womanition member entrance for these workshop is $37 per person.

Womanition is all about empowering women through networking. The Leduc Womantion Connect Group will concentrate on helping women with their online presence and work to help them make the online connections that they need for business… and give these women a venue to bring their online connections to a face-to-face.

There are 6 Womanition Meet-ups in the province. Parkland Womanition Connect Group, Sherwood Park Womanition Connect Group, Edmonton Womanition Connect Group, Camrose Womanition Connect Group, Leduc Womanition Connect Group & Calgary Womanition Connect Group.

There are activities during each meeting that challenges our thinking and other activities that are just plain fun. The group is very positive, supportive, and professional. Each month we have a special up-beat speaker. February we will be entertained and educated by Zandra Bell, writer, comedian, and motivational speaker, demonstrating how to use humour in the workplace.

Love to have you and other professional business women attend.

Go to:  Leduc Womanition Connect Group  and register to save your seat.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Make it an awesome weekend!

Best regards,

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

Organizer

780-904-9557

marketingmentress@gmail.com

Dragged into Social Media Kicking and Screaming!

Social media was becoming a big craze in the early 2000’s. I was receiving invitations to join Facebook every day. What on earth was this? So I searched the platform for their “Terms of Use” and read the entire document. When I read about the fact that FB reserved the rights to everything you posted on your profile or business page, including your pictures, I was shocked, so I procrastinated accepting the invitations. It just did not seem right to me.

Then in 2009 when I was director of sales and marketing for a senior care organization, I discovered that their research showed that their target market was the children of the seniors, usually the gals. Where were these gals in the middle of the day when I was giving a presentation at a senior center?

They were at work! How was I ever going to reach them?

I digress to explain the next bit.

I have two sons who are computer experts. That’s right, they are geeks, but I love them just the same. My oldest son had started a podcast show and it was becoming very popular with his target audience, so he suggested that I start one of my own. He helped me get it all set up, and I became the “Elder Care Specialist” with a show called “Elder Care 911”.

The very first time I posted an interview on my new show, I had a response from a gal on Facebook who said, “Oh my gosh! I had no idea that there was something like this available to help me with my 95 year old Dad!” It proved that FB is where the gals are. I continued this show until I left there in January 2011.

Back to reaching my target audience.

My wise son suggested that FB would be where the gals are hanging out in the evenings after work, and they were also online searching for solutions to ease their pain of being sandwiched between aging parents and their careers and families. It was my son who explained how important it was for me to have a FB page.

I was literally “dragged into social media kicking and screaming!”

So if you feel this way, I can totally relate.

Here is something else that I discovered about social media…it’s FREE! You can set up a profile and business page on LinkedIn and FB and Twitter for free.

This leads to another thing that I have discovered about people and small businesses. Most of them have no budget to market themselves with. So whatever they can do for free is bonus!

I have been blessed because I have a son who coached me with my social media in the beginning. I would never have started any online marketing if I did not have a coach to help me. It was all so foreign to me that I needed to have someone who was patient and could understand me.

I owe “being dragged kicking and screaming into social media” to my son. J

Watch for more of my story in “Discovering A New World”.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557

How to Sell Yourself with Social Media.

Do you have a blog? No! What? I don’t believe it! Then why are you in business?

Think about it. When someone asks you to tell them about what inspired you to start doing what you do, what do you say? Am I right in assuming that you could go on and on telling stories of why you started your own business? That is what you would do in a face-to-face situation, perhaps a networking meeting.

Do you think that telling stories about your business would be any different if you were telling it to your connections online?

Here’s how it works online.

Your blog is the center of your entire marketing program. Yes, your personal story is the center of your marketing program.

Think of a wagon wheel. The center is your blog. Then each pie shape between the spokes is your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Website, etc. If your website also has your blog site, that’s a bonus because then people are brought to your website every time they come to read your blog.

There are some great bloggers I have met in my online lifetime, and every one of them has become very successful in business. Those who read your blog will gain an understanding of your “why” and “who you are”, because the way you write shows people a lot about you. You don’t even have to be a great writer!

You know your topic better than anyone. Why not share that knowledge through short stories?

The most successful people in any business online or offline all have a blog that they write in some way.

Here is what happened to me:

When I left my senior care sales position, I started my Marketing Mentress podcast show. I would find people on LinkedIn and through networking that I wanted to interview on my show. Then I would polish up the interview and write a short blog about the person and their business or book. These would be published on my two websites and sent instantly out to my social media network. I was sometimes doing as many as 7 blog posts a week!

I was getting comments and reviews and people sharing my posts. People would comment on my latest podcast when I met with them. Little did I know that inadvertently, I had a blog at the center of all my online marketing. How important it was to have a blog at the center of my marketing became evident as I attended marketing workshops to expand my knowledge of social media marketing.

Who’d-a-thunk-it! Me a blogger!?

Once you have all your basic platforms all set up and running, including your blog site/website, you are set to rock and roll.

Write a blog post and send the URL to each blog post out to your social media. Be quick to respond to comments about your posts, and remember always be positive with what you say both in your blog and in your online responses to comments. It is all part of how you sell yourself.

Watch for more of my story in “Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Social Media”.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557

Do You Like Sales?

Tell me, do you like sales? If you do not like sales, what have you done throughout your life? Did you know that like it or not, we are all in sales from the day we are born? We sell ourselves to the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, our spouses, children, in-laws, every single person we meet every waking moment of our lives.

We learn at a very early age how to “pull the strings” of those around us. We learn how and when to smile and make certain noises. It is by those responses to our tiny being that we very quickly develop how and when to appeal for the things we need and want. These responses are built in. They are our inborn survival responses.

The thing is that as we grow older, life gives us mixed messages and it is by those outside responses to us that we begin to develop our “sales” profile. If we receive negative responses to our appeals for the things we want, we instinctively make changes in the way we make our appeal. Sometimes when we are overwhelmed with negative responses, we choose to become a “wall flower”.

Without entering into an entire psychological analogy, simply put, our individual life experiences shape us into the people we are as adults. This is established by the time we are eight years old.

Did you know that?

By extension, our entrepreneurial spirit is established by the time we are eight years old. It is not necessarily our own families that influence us. Take Robert Kiyosaki for instance. He has a rich Dad and a poor Dad. He saw what lifestyle his poor Dad had from working for wages all his life and he saw what his rich Dad had as an entrepreneur. Who do you think was the better salesman? Why do you think that is? He saw that he could have more of what he wanted and needed with the way his rich Dad worked.

Think about it. Are you a “wall flower” or a “dancer”? It is all about how you make your customers feel.

A major part of what makes people like Robert Kiyosaki wealthy is the way they sell themselves and their “stuff”. So how do you think that he makes his customers feel?

Still don’t like sales? Do you have a job? Having a job can do either of two things. 1. A job can lull us into a settled for lifestyle where the house we live in is dictated to us by our income. Or 2. A job can motivate us to get rid of that job as soon as possible so we can buy our dream home.

Here is how sales works with online marketing:

It is all about how you make your connections feel through your “why” and “who you are”. People want to do business with the people they know, like and trust. It doesn’t matter whether you begin the relationship online or not. Whatever the modus operandi, people will buy from you if they like you and trust you.

In my previous blog, “Are You A Wall Flower?” We touched on what it means to be a “Wall Flower” with social media and online marketing tools. Our success depends on how we make our connections feel.

A small child learns quickly what our “tells” are, and how to push our buttons for the responses they need and want. When one way stops working, they quickly switch to a new tact. Have you noticed?

Since we are all in sales, think about how you are using other people’s “tells” to achieve your end result. –Or are you content to be lulled into being a “wall flower”?

Watch for more of my story in “How to Sell Yourself with Social Media”.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557

Are You A Wall Flower?

Remember the days? Those high school dances? –Sitting on the sidelines waiting for some dashing young man to ask you to dance? Maybe this was not you. Perhaps you were up dancing the entire evening and never were a “wall flower”.

What do you think the difference was between the “dancers” and the “wall flowers”?

Was it a bubbly personality? Was it something to do with being more attractive? Perhaps it was being a great dancer?

Well, if they received more dance invitations because they were great dancers…makes sense…they had more practice! Know what? It wasn’t because they were more attractive. It wasn’t because they were great conversationalists. No matter how we look at it, it all boiled down to how the gals made the guys feel!

Have you ever thought about that? How do you make people feel when they are around you? Do you leave them feeling better about themselves? This is what social media is all about. It is all about “them” not about “you”.

When you connect with someone, do you actually send them a message thanking them for joining your network? Do you ask them how you can help them in some way, either through your network, or yourself? Do you ask them to share more about themselves…what inspired them to do what they do?

Building online relationships is the same as what we do in a live networking event.

Have you connected with someone online and then received a 2 page expose’ about what they do and how they do it, and if you sign up today, you get their super special offer…and on and on it goes.

How did that make you feel? Did you feel like you were just slapped in the face?

People will buy into your “why” and “who you are” long before they will buy into your “how & what”.

So as you reflect back to being a “wall Flower”. How did you make the guys feel when they finally mustered up the courage to ask you for that long awaited dance? Were you so wrapped up in yourself and your own nervousness that you barely smiled or said a peep? 

How did you make the guys feel…really?

Conversely with your social media…how do you make your connections feel when they muster up the courage to trust you enough to click “connect”?

Know what the big secret is to your success with online marketing of any sort? It’s bring the connection from the online relationship to a face-to-face. Face-to-face is where real business gets done. Social media is your means to an end.

Watch for more of my story in “Do You Like Sales?”.

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557

Still Stuck in Peanut Butter?

Remember what it feels like when you get too much peanut butter in your mouth at one time? Your tongue gets stuck and you cannot seem to clear the stuff from the roof of your mouth! It takes time…and patience…and lots of “spit juice”.

Without this combination, the peanut butter would never move and your tongue would be stuck…forever!

Well…maybe not, but it sure would feel that way.

For this reason many of us dislike peanut butter with a passion, and vow never to go near the stuff again.

Could this be you with your LinkedIn?

Over the years I’ve noticed that over 70% of my followers on LinkedIn are male.  It made me wonder why that is? After all, LinkedIn is the biggest and best online platform for business on the internet. It was a puzzle to me why more business women were not using it.

Here is what I discovered:

1.     Women are busy, very busy juggling their business, careers, family and aging parents.

2.     When women get on LinkedIn and start setting up a profile, they realize that it is going to take some time, which they feel they do not have enough of in the first place, and they leave, never to return.

3.     Many women leave the platform feeling frustrated, thinking they don’t have time for this, and plan to revisit it sometime soon…which often never happens.

4.     Many get all set up with their profile and don’t know how to use it effectively, get frustrated and leave it.

5.     Others just leave their LinkedIn profile sitting there, waiting for someone to find them.

For these reasons, I have discovered many women, and a few men, wonder why LinkedIn is not working for them.

It’s like the peanut butter. Without the “spit juice” and patience we will never conquer it.

Please reference my previous blog post, “Why Should I Connect with You?”

Watch for more of my story in “How to Avoid Being a Wall Flower.”

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Fired at Fifty: Stop Looking For Work and Discover What You Were Meant to Do.

http://bit.ly/FiredatFiftyKindle

Got a LinkedIn question? Feel free to email me and I will answer it in my next blog.

Christine Till

The LinkedIn Marketing Mentress

www.marketingmentress.com

marketingmentress@gmail.com

1-780-904-9557