It took me years of working unnecessarily hard in and on my business – and some timely and wise words from a mentor – to understand this.

I had a successful corporate career before moving to Australia and setting up my own businesses. I was a project manager and as such worked in a heavily systemised way, within a large infrastructure and support system. I loved my job but something was missing and I left to see the world (another story for another day).

Freedom

Freedom is one of my core values, so when it came to running my own business I was full of dreamy optimism about how amazing it was going to be, to have total control over my time, my actions, my work. In reality I came to discover that having too much freedom (by which I mean lack of structures, system and accountability) actually has the opposite effect: it can make you feel trapped.

Feeling Trapped

You feel trapped because keeping all those plates spinning in your business can make you feel out of control and overwhelmed. Clarity on what to do now, what to do next, when to do what – all this can start to creep up on you and cause confusion and paralysis. Your results suffer when you operate in a structural vacuum. Especially if you’re a sole practitioner working from home.

Organisation vs Chaos

A mentor helped me realise not long ago that whilst I had been getting results in my business, they were coming at too high a price of time, effort and stress. He helped me understand that what I was missing was the systems and structure that I’d taken for granted back in my corporate days. I had always been super-organised at work, yet super-chaotic at home. Now the two worlds had combined and chaos was winning!

Systems don’t have to be large scale or scary: sometimes the very simplest of processes can make the biggest difference to your business.

When it comes to your marketing, you need to have a strategy and structure otherwise you’ll be operating from a place of chaos, and your results will be at best sporadic.

There are two very simple systems I encourage all my clients to use to keep them feeling on track, in control and enjoying a consistent flow of leads and sales:

Marketing Calendar

Head down to OfficeWorks and buy yourself a laminated full year wall planner and a set of coloured stickers. If you can’t find one, get the biggest sheet of paper you can find and map out the year with a ruler and a marker pen. This needs to go on your wall and act as your central point of reference.

Make a list of every marketing activity you complete, or plan to complete, in an average year.  Allocate every activity a coloured sticker and then map them out across your Marketing Calendar.

For example:

• large scale promotions
• new product and service launches
• direct mail campaigns
• ppc campaigns
• live events
• social media campaigns
• customer relationship management
• joint ventures

Ensure that your activities are evenly and logically spaced out, and that there is connection between them that ensures that you remain on-message and don’t confuse your market.

Communications Schedule

Content marketing and consistent, on-message communication is the most powerful way to win business in this age of information-overload and social media visibility.

The job of our marketing is to build trust and relationships with our prospects, to position ourselves as a credible expert in our field, so that making a sale becomes simply a matter of invitation and everyone feels comfortable with the transaction.

Once that prospect has become a client, our role then shifts to one where we’re not only fulfilling the promises made in our marketing, but also exceeding their expectations through added value so that they remain a client and refer us to their friends, family and colleagues.

When you create for yourself a ‘rhythm’ of content creation, and syndicating that content out to your market, you not only achieve all of the above goals – you also find yourself with a valuable bank of intellectual property which you can use over and over again.
First, make a list of all the content that you create and publish. For example:

• blog posts
• videos
• articles
• facebook and twitter updates
• webinars
• podcasts
• autoresponders
• newsletters
• phone calls

Next, print out a ‘week to a page’ view from your online calendar and write down on each day what communications you will send out to your market, your leads and to your customers.

Align this with your yearly Marketing Calendar and you’ll find yourself with a marketing system that practically runs itself.

Looking Forward

If you were to create your Marketing Calendar and Communications Schedule, and then work through each marketing activity also creating a documented, step-by-step system, not only would you find yourself empowered by this level of structure and organisation, with a huge bank of quality intellectual property, but you will also be perfectly positioned to outsource these activities as and when you are ready to grow.

Systems don’t curtail our creativity. They don’t repress us and constrain us – they set us free.

One of my primary marketing and positioning tools in 2012 is the ebook.

But not random collections of PDFs cobbled together and scattered around the interwebs.

These ebooks sell on Kindle and iTunes, but more importantly – they are powerful positioning and marketing tools which sell my courses and programs for me.

Here’s how I do it:

1. Know your outcome. This particular ebook is going to be sold on Kindle and iTunes. It’s a marketing and positioning tool.

2. Choose 12 Chapters, an Introduction, Action Plan and Conclusion.

3. Each chapter is also written to form a ‘Viral PDF’ in its own right (a lead magnet used on a landing page which people are encouraged to share).

4. The 12 Chapters also match the curriculum of an online membership I’m taking live in April.

5. I’ll also record and podcast them (you can do this the other way round to save time: record them as podcasts and get them transcribed).

6. I’ve done keyword research before choosing the names of the ebook and each of the viral pdfs, as well as competitor research on what’s already out there in my niche.

It’s all about the strategy – and about creating content once that you can use forever.

Write smart, sell more!

In your Expert Practice, content is, has always been, and always will be KING.

Most Experts find themselves challenged with content creation in the following ways:

• when will I have time to create my content?
• what should I write/talk about?
• what media should I use?
• what do I do when I’ve created it?

I’ve put together a brief guide to get clear on all of these, get traction in your content creation, and start seeing your IP library grow with high-quality, multimedia content that powers your marketing and positions you as the leading Expert in your industry.

You can download the Content Creation System Guide HERE.

Let me know how you go…

There will be massive getting done of stuff.

So if your year so far has been less exciting than an airline salad, strap in and get on board.

[details coming soon...]

For those of you unfamiliar with Frank, he set the benchmark for internet marketing back in the day, having several multi-million dollar launches and establishing ‘guru status’ in the marketing community. With traditional internet marketing on the wane, he’s now reinventing himself. The State of The Internet Address forms part of this reinvention.

I’ve followed and studied Frank for years, because he was the best at what he did. I respect and admire him. But while the rest of the community fell to their knees in awe at what he covered in the Address, I was left underwhelmed and slightly irked.

You can watch the whole video here (apply your critical faculty to the carefully contrived positioning, from the blazer to the hairstyle to the showcased Rolex and new wedding ring to the Bruce Lee image…) but the main crux of his message forms three ‘pillars’:

1. Technology

2. Marketing

3. Magic Bullet

The third pillar, the ‘Magic Bullet’, refers to your product and/or service. Frank’s message is – have a great product or service, and then build the technology and the marketing around this.

I’m gobsmacked that this information should be received by the business community as a stroke of genius. What’s everyone been doing all this time if they don’t have a great product or service? Why would you even bother starting out in business if you don’t believe 100% that what you’re selling is awesome?

Now Frank of course is a very smart guy, so perhaps he’s simply naming the elephant in the room: with the advent of web 2.0 and the increasing ease of entry into the online marketing world, there is an almost infinite amount of crap out there on the internet for sale, hidden behind schmick marketing and technology.

What irks me is how many voices from the Expert community have come forward to review the Address with shock and awe at its brilliance.

Do you DARE to call yourself an Expert and yet express surprise that having an exceptional product or service might be something you should consider before you market your business?

Here at the Agency, I have a policy of politely turning away any potential client if I don’t believe that what they offer is awesome. If someone comes to me without their product or service clearly defined, but with obvious passion, authenticity and expertise – I help them shape their intellectual property, create their content roadmap and get their products and services ready to market and sell.

So my message to you is this: first, be awesome. Second, find people to help. Third, exceed their expectations. You might be able to make a quick buck on the internet flogging some crappy ebook you put together over the weekend, but there is neither heart nor longevity in this.

I also encourage you not to take everything you read, watch and hear at face value. An Expert tirelessly researches, and then applies her unique interpretation to the information uncovered. No genius was ever untapped without questioning the status quo. (Hint: the earth is NOT flat.)

Marketing and selling is the easy part. Finding your unique message and the right people to share it with takes time and effort.

Go be awesome.