In my first post about Pinterest, I provided a basic overview of what Pinterest is and how to use it. In my second post in this series about Pinterest, I gave you some fundamental rules and a few general ideas of how you can use Pinterest to market your business. And last week, in a “hey, this is an interesting topic post,” I talked about ways to protect your content in Pinterest (and all social media, for that matter).

Today, as I complete this series on Pinterest, I want to start out by sharing something interesting that happened as a result of having posted this article series about Pinterest on Pinterest. One of my Pinterest pals asked me, “I have a sign shop and was thinking about doing some type of advertising on Pinterest but I definitely don’t want to turn people off. I’m going to read your pin but I’m just curious if you have some feedback for me.”

I wrote:

“The real key is the same for Pinterest as for all social media: focus on the community, not the advertisement. It’s not about flooding the site with a one-way broadcast, but about engaging in conversation with your audience.

What kinds of things do sign customers want to know? What can you teach them? Post in your blog on those topics. Best practices for signs, what makes a great sign, how to make your sign stand out, etc. Then pin the blog post and tweet about the pin.

I’d also recommend that you create a board dedicated solely to crazy signs. You could also run a contest asking people to create a board with your business name on their accounts and pin weird signs, the weirder the better. Weirdest sign wins…I don’t know, something awesome.”

One thing I really like about social media is that blog posting initially feels a little abstract or isolated…until someone comments and a conversation can begin. Blogging is only the start of the conversation. And sharing this blog post on Pinterest turned a general post into something quite specific. I love that! So I’d like to encourage you to think about how you can write blog posts for your business that can initiate a conversation, once you share the posts in social media, including Pinterest.

Look, Pinterest is cool. It’s fun. It’s addictive. But at the end of the day, it really is just like every other social media platform, in that the rules are the same across the board. Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, G+, and whatever else comes along, the rules are the same. 

So whatever new platforms emerge, while there may be some sort of learning curve associated with the new technology and perhaps some fun and exciting new ways to leverage the specific platform for marketing, the rules of engagement probably won’t change. They won’t change because the rules for social media are the same rules we use in person, and those haven’t changed for eons. We’re talking about things like: When you’re in a room full of people, don’t talk about yourself exclusively. Ask people about themselves. Get to know people. Focus on them and not on you. Build your KLT Factor (know, like, and trust). Engage, converse, discuss. Don’t broadcast or advertise. Deliver value, bring something to the table. Be interesting, but more importantly, be interested.

Break these rules, and you’ll be perceived as obnoxious and your business will suffer. Follow these rules, and you’ll be a welcomed member of the community and you’ll see  a return on your efforts. It’s really just that simple.

I try to keep my personal politics and my faith out of my business. I think these topics are just too… personal, so more often than not, unless there’s something that I simply can’t help speaking out about, you won’t find me talking politics or religion. Make no mistake about it, I love politics. I find it fascinating…but this post is not about politics.

This past Sunday, while watching political commentary, I had a realization: Mitt Romney is teaching us a heck of a lot about business and personal branding right now. In fact, every entrepreneur and small business owner should be watching this guy and looking at exactly what happens when you can’t connect to your target market.

Again, this isn’t about politics. This is about what happens when you, as an entrepreneur, miss the mark with your target audience- when you speak to them in a language they can’t connect with, when they can’t see any way that you can possibly relate to them and their problems, and when, ultimately, you fundamentally fail to help them to build that all-important “KLT Factor.”

What’s the “KLT Factor?” Most entrepreneurs by now have heard that one of the golden rules of doing business is that “people do business with those they know, like, and trust.” Working to build relationships with people so that they can know, like, and trust you is what I call “building your KLT Factor.”

Now, starting with the “K” in the KLT Factor, it’s fundamentally important that your audience knows you. How do you let them know you? By sharing, wisely and strategically, parts of your life and yourself in an authentic way. And as you share more and more with your audience, they develop a mental picture of who you are, a picture that they add detail and color to, the more they get to know you.

Politicians, as a rule, are fairly scripted and calculating about trying to create a picture of who they are for the voters. And while they’re creating these images, their opponents create alternative pictures. Getting to know any candidate in an authentic way is increasingly difficult. Some politicians are able to appear less scripted and more authentic, but as most analysts agree, this is an advantage that Mitt Romney doesn’t really have. And as it’s become more and more apparent, Republicans are increasingly concerned that Romney doesn’t appear to be connecting with the people or letting them in so they can get to know him.

So if we can’t know him very well, what about liking him? This is the “L” in the KLT Factor, and getting your target market to like you means creating a brand that people look at and say, “I’m like the person that brand represents,” “I want to be like the person that brand represents,” or  ”I want to hang out with the person that brand represents.”

Mitt Romney fails to connect with his audience in large part because his net worth has afforded him a certain lifestyle that makes his life experience vastly different from the majority of voting Americans. As a result, few people are likely to look at Mitt Romney and say, “I’m like that guy.” And since much of his wealth was inherited, and Americans generally dislike those they think received their wealth without putting any hard work into it, it’s also unlikely that most people will think, “I want to be like that guy,” when they look at Mitt.

That leaves us with “I want to hang out with that guy” as the only reasonable alternative for Mitt Romney to build the “L” part of his KLT Factor, getting people to like him. One thing that George W. Bush did pretty well was that he seemed like a guy you could go have a beer with. Even if you hated his politics, “W” seemed like he had a sense of humor and like he’d be a little goofy if you were just hanging out with him, shooting the breeze.

Now ask yourself…can you imaging hanging out with Mitt Romney? Or do you get the vibe that he’d be pretty stuffy, perched uncomfortably on his barstool, adjusting his tie, politely waiting for you to finish your beer while he eyed his mug suspiciously, worrying that the glass wasn’t clean?

Finally, how about the “T” in the KLT Factor? Do people trust Mitt Romney? Probably not, now that he’s been portrayed as a “flip flopper” on the major issues.

So, unless I’m misreading virtually everything that’s being said about Mitt Romney, from both the left and the right, his chief failure is to connect and relate to his target market…the one thing every entrepreneur should know is at the very heart of the success of any business.

Lest you think I’m showing my political colors here, let’s look at a brand that handles the KLT Factor brilliantly, Nike.

Do you know what Nike stands for? You sure do. It’s in every single ad and every single commercial. You see those driven, intense, sweaty athletes and you know exactly who those people are.

How about liking them? If you’re one of those athletes, you look at a Nike ad and you think, “Heck, yeah, that’s me!” If you’re not one of those athletes, you most likely look at a Nike ad and you think, “That could be me, if I just got my butt up off the sofa!” And as for trust, well, somehow, you trust that Nike gear is good enough to get your feet on the street, running, sweating, and getting you closer to the goal of being that athlete.

That is what we want to create as entrepreneurs. That’s the kind of connection we want our audiences to feel to our brand, to our products, to us. That’s what draws more people in, makes them want to know more, makes them choose us, choose to buy our products and become our brand ambassadors. It’s always about the connection and the engagement.

Granted, a brand like Nike isn’t exactly the same as the brand of a politician, but they’re not as different as you’d think. And thus far, politics aside, Mitt Romney is giving us a great example to learn from…of exactly how not to build a brand.

Welcome back! Last week we covered the basics of Pinterest, a new social media bookmarking site that’s taking the online world by storm. This week, I’ll cover ways to use Pinterest in your marketing, what to pin, and how to get your stuff into Pinterest without being obnoxious about it.

The first thing I want to address is the issue of how to use Pinterest for business marketing. Marketers have gotten a bad reputation on social media. Plain and simple, there are folks out there who get it wrong and blanket social media with advertisements that feel a lot more like demands than the conversation that social media is intended to be. And that group of marketers have given marketing in general a bad name, because their advertisements and “in your face” commercialism have, at least according to some, ruined sites that others found to be pretty enjoyable on a personal level.

So let’s talk about how to avoid that with Pinterest, because Pinterest is one of the coolest, most enjoyable sites out there right now. Let’s not ruin Pinterest with a bunch of marketing junk! Instead, let’s join together to bring quality content and a higher level conversation to Pinterest that enriches the community, instead of transforming it into a much less-appealing, commercialized marketplace.

1. Don’t be all business. Create boards that are business-oriented, but also create boards that are personal and let people get to know you. Also, bear in mind that Pinterest does not want you using the site for self-promotion, as they tell you in the rules.
2. Don’t be spammy. Whatever you post, post it only once. Don’t repeat-post on Pinterest. See Rule #1.
3. Be a part of the community. Don’t use Pinterest just for marketing and SEO. It’s great for those things, but if that’s the only reason you’re there, you’re missing the point. This holds true for every other social media site, by the way. Join in the conversation. Use the comments field on pins to engage in dialogue with other users.
4. Contribute in multiple ways. Maintain a new pin to old pin ratio of anywhere from 5:1 to 10:1, just make sure you’re both repinning and adding new content.
5. Don’t be the only one pinning from your own site. Make your blog more “pin-worthy” by creating fantastic content, using amazing images in your blog posts, and adding a “Pin It” button on your site (in WordPress, you can use the “Pinterest “Pin It” Button” plug-in, or the “Social Discussions” plug-in, which includes Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.). The “Pin It” buttons make it easier for people to pin your stuff and the quality content makes it more likely they’ll do so.
6. Use the Pinterest-provided “goodies” to let people know you’re on Pinterest. Pinterest provides “follow me” buttons and all kinds of other cool stuff for free here. You can also use plug-ins in WordPress to display your latest pins, which makes it more likely you’ll build a following on Pinterest.
7. Display your pins. You can install the “Super-Simple Pinterest Widget” plug-in in your blog to let people see what you’ve been pinning. This also helps to build your Pinterest following. You can also connect your Facebook presence to Pinterest. Connecting all these social media platforms really helps you to build a tribe. I’ve gotten to know people on Pinterest in a way that I haven’t known them on Facebook or Twitter, and vice versa.
8. Pin first, tweet second. Pin cool stuff to your Pinterest boards, then tweet about the pin. This serves the purpose of expanding your Pinterest following while also delivering your web site or blog content to both social media platforms.
9. Check your web analytics. Pinterest will give you great data. Facebook, not so much, because clicks go through a script filter before heading to your site. On Pinterest, you’ll know exactly what pins sent people to your site. That’s great information!

That’s it for now on the Pinterest front. More next week. Got more ideas about how to use Pinterest? Share ‘em!

Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of today, the day of love, I thought I’d share a few insights into what I’ve learned about business from the one who knows more about love than anyone else: Cupid. Why Cupid? Well, first of all, he’s build an extremely successful personal brand for himself and has been around forever. Second, he’s a cute little baby…and who doesn’t like babies? So here goes…

1. Do what you love, but don’t let passion get the better of you.

Love matters in business, believe it or not. In fact, it’s so important that I made it the first lesson of Mega-Successful Entrepreneurs: Find Your Fervor – find what you love and what you’re really fervent about and that’s the first step to finding success. It’s not the only thing that matters, but if you don’t love what you do, you’ll wake up dreading every day. In contrast, when you do what you love, you wake up excited about what you get to do every day.

However, you don’t want to let passion get the better of you, which is why I try to avoid using that word, “passion,” when I talk about business. I reserve passion for things like my family and personal life, so that I can keep a cool head in business and make decisions from a place of calm.

2. Age is irrelevant to success.

Cupid is a baby and he’s mega-successful. So…why should age matter? It doesn’t matter if you’re young and it doesn’t matter if you’re a senior. You’re not too young and you’re never done. Take a cue from the baby with the arrow and follow your dreams, no matter what your age.

3. Good PR can overcome an ugly history.

Before Geoffrey Chaucer, St. Valentine was a name that actually referred to a few different guys, all of whom were martyred. The head of one of the Valentine’s was even preserved. Seriously, I read it on Wikipedia. Point is, as soon as Chaucer showed up in the High Middle Ages and he and his friends started giving each other candy and flowers, nobody remembered the bloody history of Valentine. Even if you make a few mistakes or don’t get things right at first, history can be pretty forgiving with the right PR.

4. Success in business requires good aim.

If Cupid misses with his bow and arrow, people don’t fall in love. What a sad, lonely, loveless world we’d live in if Cupid had bad aim, right? Likewise, if you have bad aim, you’ll miss your target market and no one will find your products or services or know you exist. Success in business requires good aim- there’s a reason they call it a target market.

5. Sometimes a good thing needs a little nudge.

Love isn’t always easy- sometimes a little help is required to move things along. That’s what Cupid is for. Likewise, business isn’t always easy- sometimes a little help is required to move things along. That’s what coaches and consultants are for. Sometimes you need a little help to create a structured plan for your business growth, to learn new marketing strategies, to gain insight into the ways that mega-successful entrepreneurs become so mega-successful.

Believe it or not, even though I help entrepreneurs to create and grow mega-successful businesses, I have a business coach/consultant of my own who can see the forest of my business when all I can see is the trees. Lovers turn to Cupid when they need a nudge…you can turn to a trusted business coach or consultant.

There are lots more business lessons you can learn from Cupid, I’m sure, but these are the first five I learned. And stay tuned…next month, I’ve heard St. Patrick will be stopping by! Until then, have a very happy Valentine’s Day! May you receive many bouquets of roses and chocolate hearts!!!

Welcome to March, the month that comes in like a lion!

For every month in 2010, I’m focusing on a theme that’s critical to small business success and talking about that theme in my e-zine, No Suits Allowed!, here in my blog, and with my experts in The Experts Series. In January, we talked about planning your year and your small business. In February we focused on finding meaning and purpose and gaining authenticity, and I interviewed Bob Burg, author of Endless Referrals and co-author of The Go-Giver and Go-Givers Sell More in The Experts Series (if you missed that call and want the recording, you can still download it for free here).

This month my attention will turn exclusively to Branding and Positioning. As such, you’ll see articles all month long on branding and positioning your small business, throughout this blog and my No Suits Allowed! e-zine.

I’m also interviewing Jack Trout, author of over thirteen bestsellers about branding, positioning, and marketing. He’s the author of several of my official small business reference books, including Differentiate or Die and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, and I consider Jack to be the father of modern branding and positioning.

When I was interviewing Bob Burg and mentioned my upcoming interview with Jack Trout, Bob said,

“Jack Trout is one of the seminal masters when it comes to positioning, branding, marketing. This is a guy who is so big and has been for so long, for you to have gotten him to appear on your call says a ton about you. And I hope everybody listening will be on that call next month. This guy is a master and just please, make the time to listen to him.”

To sign up for that call, go to The Experts Series.

I’d like to also announce the launch of my updated six-week teleseminar class, 7-Figure Branding Secrets, where I’ll take you through the exact process that I use with my one-on-one clients to create memorable brands with serious moneymaking potential. I’ll include a Q&A during every single class so I can walk you through your own branding process. More details, including dates and specifics, to come later this week!

Stay tuned!

There’s one question I’m asked over and over again from people who seek out my help: “Why isn’t this small business thing working?” It almost always comes as a desperate plea, a cry for help from someone who’s been trying to make things work for a long time, from someone who’s tried everything they can think of to grow their small business and just hasn’t seen results.

So what’s the answer? Why isn’t your small business working the way you want it to? Obviously, the answers are different for everyone. Each business has its own things that need troubleshooting. But here are the things I see that are the most common reasons why small businesses haven’t yet achieved success:

1. Lack of clarity of purpose and lack of clear branding.
This isn’t just about having a clever name. Branding encompasses creating a clear mission for your company and getting clear about what you offer. If you offer too much or you’re too general or broad, your prospects won’t have a good sense of what you bring to the table or know if you can help them. You have to speak to them in their language, and you do that by a) making sure you make it clear what you do and who you do it for, b) reaching them with a corporate identity that resonates with them, and c) making sure you give them what they want with impeccable service.

2. Lack of a professional presence.
It’s okay to start out with a homemade web site or free Vistaprint business cards, but if you’ve been in business for awhile, it’s time to upgrade. Your web site should serve three purposes: 1) showing your potential customers and clients how you can serve their needs, 2) giving them an opportunity to interact with you (either via contacting you or directly buying from you), and 3) acting as a credibility check for your business. Say you’re at a networking function and you give someone your business card. If that person’s interested in doing business with you, they’ll inevitably check your web site when they get back to the office. If you’ve presented yourself in person as a professional, but your web site presents as amateur, you’ve got a credibility problem.

3. Lack of authenticity.
This is something I’ve been talking a lot about lately, because I see more and more people out there offering to teach you things they haven’t yet achieved for themselves: social media experts who don’t have followers on major social media sites, business experts who promise great riches, but haven’t achieved them for themselves…you have to have the goods to back up what you’re offering! And if you don’t, your prospects will see through you. From miles and miles away.

4. Lack of a clear marketing strategy.
Imagine if you were going to take a roadtrip. You know where you want to go, but not how to get there, and you don’t have a map. Would you just get in the car and drive around aimlessly, hoping you hit the right street and end up where you meant to go? No. Likewise, you can’t just start driving around hoping to pick up clients here and there without a clear marketing strategy that’s designed with your target market in mind.

You might be great at what you do, but if you don’t have at least these four pieces in place, you’re going to be missing loads of business and wondering why your business isn’t working. And if you don’t know how to get these four pieces figured out, you need help. It’s good to have a system, it’s great to have a plan mapped out. And even better if you can get an outside perspective, giving you ideas and solutions you might not have thought of on your own.

Want to know the number one way to get more clients? Simple. Have a large list!

When you have a large list, everything changes. When you communicate with your list on a regular basis, share tips and thoughts, you become an integral part of their lives. As you share with them, they see your expertise and feel your passion. So when they’re ready, they know that they need to contact you. When people on your list need your products and services, they immediately think of you! So how do you build a large list of people who want to hear from you?

Why not attend the World’s First ListBuilding TeleSummit for Coaches and find out what works best for some of the leading names in coaching, including me, Susan Baroncini-Moe, plus Andy O’Bryan, Adam Urbanski, MaryPat Kavanagh, and more?

It’s going on now, 2/8/10 thru 2/13/20, and my interview on why branding is critical to building your list is live today!

All you have to do is follow this link and you’ll get the interviews for f.r.e.e:
Listbuilding Telesummit for Coaches 2010

As most of you who’ve been following me for awhile know, I started working with branding and positioning years ago. But until I re-branded my own company, I never really understood how fundamental and powerful branding could be. On Jan. 1, 2009, I re-launched my company as Business in Blue Jeans, and in the first three months of 2009 alone, saw an increase of 500% in my business, just due to branding. Since then, I’ve turned the basic principles of branding into an easy-to-follow, 6-step system that I’ve used with tons of clients. Over and over again, this system yields powerful, profitable brands.

I’ve got a few more clients than my schedule can handle, so I finally decided to teach a class to help people get started re-working their brands. Hence, “5 Simple Secrets to Million Dollar Branding: How to transform your company into a memorable, moneymaking machine!”

Here’s what I’m covering in this class:
1) The #1 thing you need to do to start drawing in clients TODAY!

2) My secrets to finding a niche where clients are absolutely clamoring for what you have to offer, and building a brand that draws them in like bees to honey.

3) Exactly how to examine your competitors, and then, believe it or not, forget they exist! (Most of my clients think I’m nuts until they understand this principle, and that’s when they see the genius of it. And don’t worry…you’ll still stand heads and shoulders above the competition!)

4) My 6-step branding system that will help you create your very own million dollar brand. (These are the exact steps I follow to brands for my own companies, as well as those of my clients)

5) The most important mindset shift you need to make before ever creating your brand. This one shook me to the core– this one simple shift can change everything for you!

The call is Wednesday, 10/22 at 4 PM ET. Even if you can’t make it, sign up anyway and I’ll make sure you get an MP3.

Want to learn more and reserve your seat? Go to http://businessinbluejeans.com/5brandingsecrets.html.

For most businesses, a web site is one of the most important investments you can make. Entrepreneurs are either overspending or underspending on their web sites, and many have no idea what they’re doing or why. So today I’m going to talk about why a good, solid web site really matters to your business, and in the next three weeks, I’ll follow up with articles on the core components your web site needs to work well for you, and how to hire a solid web firm to build your site affordably.

1. Your web site reflects you as a business owner and professional.

If your web site looks professional, your potential clients will think you’re a professional who has enough clients and enough income to have a site built for you. If potential clients visit your web site and it looks half-assed and home-built that’s how they’ll perceive you.

If you’re a web developer, by all means, build your own site, as that will reflect your capabilities. Everyone else, hire a solid company that can do a good job, not just in building your web site, but in getting it seen and in building it wisely to maximize the traffic you’ll get.

2. Your web site can mean extra local business.

Even if you’re primarily brick and mortar, having a solid web site can mean extra business. Local clientele often perform seaches online and find your web site, encouraging them to walk into your store. If they find your competitors and they look more reputable or solid than you (or if they have a web site and you don’t), you’ll lose business, just because of your web site. And, when you’re mentioned in the media or on review sites like Angie’s List, you’ll need a web site to help people find you.

3. Your web site can mean global business.

Did you ever think about getting orders from Australia or Malaysia? Launching a fantastic web site means you’ll instantly become a global business, allowing you to expand your clientele to a much larger audience. Your web site is visible in almost every country around the globe, and that means you expand your potential client base by millions. You’ll still want to keep your target market in mind, but an international audience may still find you appealing.

4. Your web site can generate media interest.

If a journalist is looking for an expert in your field to quote for an article, s/he is more likely to choose the business owner whose web site looks professional and clean than someone who looks like they don’t really know what they’re doing. And as most of you know, a mention in the media can be powerful for your business!

Don’t do your business a disservice by putting up a shoddy web site. Take care and invest wisely in your business web site by hiring someone who knows what they’re doing. Next week I’ll talk about what components you need in your web, then, I’ll cover how to hire a web company, and finally, I’ll talk about how you can help your web design team as a savvy consumer.

Spring Cleaning For Your Business: My most recent article in The Fabulous Woman Magazine