Crystal Darby – The Communication CoachEffective communication is the key to success

Five Low-Cost Marketing Solutions

§ June 19th, 2010 § Filed under communication, marketing, small business, training, writing § Tagged blog, branding, business communication, business writing, communication, communication coaching, marketing, newsletter, non-profit, promotions, publicity, samples, small business, teaching § No Comments

If you are a small business owner, you know how difficult it is to get publicity in order to let your potential customers know you are available. One of the ways you can jump-start your marketing efforts is to brand yourself as an expert in your field. Help people discover that you are the one to come to when they need your type of service. Here are some suggestions to show off your abilities in your particular area of expertise:

Teach a class. Offer your topics to the community education department at your local school district. These classes usually don’t pay much to the instructor, but the exposure may be perfect for your business. The trick here is to offer some real help or information, not just market your business. One coffee shop owner offered a class on the different types of coffee drinks, providing participants with samples of espressos, lattés, Café Americanos, etc. A website design company can offer a class on search engine optimization. Find something your company does well and teach people the basics. They will come to you for the more difficult tasks.

Donate your services. No matter what your area of expertise, there is a non-profit that can benefit from your help. Provide your service free of charge in return for using the non-profit as a reference.

Provide a sample. Samples give prospective customers an idea of the quality of your work and help them see how they can benefit from your services. One desktop publisher received a newsletter from a real estate agent. She created a mock-up of a redesigned newsletter and showed it to the agent. He loved the first page, but when he turned it over the flip side was blank. She explained, with a grin, “If you want the rest, you’ll have to pay for it.” As a result, the agent became a long-term customer. Give potential clients samples of your work and let them know how to obtain more of your products or services.

Do a newsletter. Include short articles related to your area of expertise and send the newsletter out to your email or postal mailing list. If you need help writing or don’t know how to put a newsletter together, contract with a writer, desktop publisher or communication coach. Send it out once a month or once every other month. The focus needs to be on helpful information, not on selling, although highlighting current sales can be a portion of the content.

Write articles or start a blog. If you don’t want to commit to a regular newsletter, pitch your article ideas to a local newspaper or webzine. Associated Content is a great place to start. You might also want to start a blog. Again, the focus needs to be on information that is helpful to the reader, not sales copy. If you don’t have time or don’t feel comfortable writing, hire a communication coach or writer to do it for you.

Consider the time and money you spend on these activities part of your advertising budget. You’ll find they pay off in ways you never anticipated.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

§ June 3rd, 2010 § Filed under communication, small business, writing § Tagged business writing, communication, communication coaching, creativity, writer's block, writing § No Comments

Suffering from writer’s block? Have a proposal to do and can’t quite get it started? Here’s a tip that works for me, especially when the work is creative in nature. I give myself a request before I go to sleep at night. For instance, if I’m trying to come up with a marketing idea for a client, or a logo design, or a newsletter concept, I ask myself for the idea right before I go to bed. I tell myself, “I’ll have the idea when I wake up tomorrow morning.” The trick here is to believe that you will be able to do it, and getting a good night’s sleep doesn’t hurt.

Anyone who does sales for a living will tell you that believing you will get the sale is an important part of the process. It doesn’t make up for knowledge about the product or service you are selling and doing research on your prospective customer. However, nothing can end your prospects faster than not believing you will get the sale.

Writing is similar. You still need the basic skills, but the ideas come largely because you believe they will. I’m not sure why this works. My guess is that stress makes it difficult to think creatively. Once you have convinced yourself that you will have the skills and the ideas necessary to complete your project or make your sale, you relieve the stress and allow the ideas to flow.

Try it the next time you have a big project. You may just find a winning solution. After all, how do you think I got the idea for this post?

Error-Free Business Correspondence

§ June 2nd, 2010 § Filed under communication, small business, writing § Tagged business letters, business writing, communication, communication coaching, editing, emails, error-free, grammar, professional, proofreading, writing § No Comments

Want your email to be error-free? Here are some suggestions.

Do you have a tendency to forget to include important pieces of information in your emails or business letters? If so, answer the “5 Ws and an H” as you write:

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

Not every email has to answer all of these questions, but if you’re inviting someone to an event or explaining something important, running through these questions will help you cover all the necessary points.

Read it out loud

Once you have finished your email or business letter, read the whole thing out loud. We are all in such a hurry these days that it is normal to leave a word out or say something that doesn’t put across what we intended. Reading out loud forces you to slow down and check for errors. It’s also a good way to check for repetition or phrases that cause the reader to lose concentration.

Find an extra set of eyes

If you have the time, have someone else read over your more important correspondence. An extra set of eyes can give your text a fresh look and find errors that you are too close to see.

If you make a mistake, your reader will probably be able to figure out what you meant. Remember, though, that being clear and error-free makes you look more professional and makes your reader feel he or she was important enough to receive your best effort.