Nowadays, a 30-second elevator pitch is way toooo long! Worse, our prospects, referral partners, and centers of influence can barely remember all of it. Even worse, we rarely can remember our whole 30-second “elevator pitch.” And when we do, it sounds too canned!
Rather, by perfecting our catchphrase, we’ll have a Short, Memorable, Appealing, Repeatable, and Timely one-liner or headline that our targets will use to recommend us. A catchphrase headline then becomes the predominant theme tying together all of your marketing collaterals, including your business card, 1-pagers, tri-folds, websites, and conversation starters.
In this live video with over 50 lawyers, real estate professionals, accountants, bankers, and financial advisors, I walk you through Perfecting Your Catchphrase.
The audio-book Sales Momentum goes into more background why it works and how you can use your Catchphrase to close more deals, more quickly.
CLICK THE “E-BOOK” LINK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THE .PDF WORKSHEET FOR THE VIDEO SEMINAR.
I AM BACK! Yes, there is a big gap between the last post and this one… nearly 2 months. I took the month of March off (from my practice and from blogging) to tour the Philippines, on behalf of the Rotary Club Foundation (its Group Study Exchange for young professionals). It was wonderful to see how the Rotarians are improving the extreme disparity.
While over there, I did 2 impromptu seminars: 1, for their largest privately-held real estate development & management firm, Century Properties (owned by their Ambassador to China, Mr. Jose Antonio - who recited my bio from memory).
My 2nd seminar in March was for Philamlife, aka AIG Philippines, their largest insurance agency (SGA). I addressed over 21 MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table) qualifiers, and 30 aspirants at their first team meeting; Philamlife CEO, Mr. Jose L. Cuisia, Jr. was in attendance. I sold dozens of books, and expect to return to do more business in the near future… BUT NOW ONTO MORE PRACTICE MARKETING THUMB-RULES:
A big area of interest (and focus) for my clients with firms, and especially for the agency managers and broker-dealers that I work with is RECRUITING.
I am in the process of developing 2 recruitment programs, based on our Personal Brand Marketing Model™. My column on this topic is featured in the free version of Personal Branding magazine. You can get a copy at PersonalBrandingSample.com.
While the issue is really dedicated to “being recruited,” as the e-zine’s Entrepreneurship Branding columnist, I focused my article on “recruiting others.” Here’s a quick video featuring the publisher:
For the past few weeks I haven’t been blogging much. Like any other habits, it waxes and wanes; yet the consistency should be maintained. So I’ll be returning to professional blogging in a month from now.
For the next month, I’ll be travelogging:
The Rotary Club foundation is sending me for a month-long trip to the Philippines. I’ve been chosen to get to know their business community and meet their VIPs, including Rotarians.
Originally blogs were chronological logs of personal lives, much like Gulliver’s travelogue. In the past few years, this 21st century soapbox has become the best way for experts to establish, build, grow, and communicate their personal brands.
Blogs are powerful for how interactive they can be. They are more one-way than a forum, but can also enable conversations like a message board or forum. And these grew out of the Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) of the 1980s & ’90s.
As the World Wide Web took shape, these types of websites became weblogs. And now, my clients know how much I believe in its power.
Marketing is everywhere. We are always marketing ourselves. And we are always being marketed to. So for the next month, I’ll let you know how they do it on the other side of the world… which isn’t that far away anymore.
Yesterday I attended the Marcy Neumann’s product launch at I AM books where I had my own book launch 2 weeks ago. The topic of “googling oneself” came up… and naturally, I chimed in. It just so happens that an interview with the Google guys about Personal Branding is the featured cover article of Issue #3 of Personal Branding magazine (which came out last week). You can sample it here, and view the Editor-in-Chief, Dan Schawbel, in th video below. I write the Entrepreneur Brand column for it; my topic was on “Making Money while Marketing Yourself… through knowledge products.”
Yesterday, I was invited to be a guest instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where I’ve taught classes before. It was a general audience of aspiring entrepreneurs, and they were wrapping up a series of classes on the topic. Mine was obviously marketing… here’s a quick podcast of the top 14 marketing questions.
How many of them can you answer effectively? How many of the answers have you written down??
Folks in my workshops answer YES! … Now, you can too.
Last night, I attended an awesome networking event with some of the most influential leaders of Long Island. Luckily, it was my book release party (and 30th birthday). It was the biggest event the bookstore (I AM Books in Huntington, NY) ever had; and my book sold out. (This is bitter-sweet since I don’t have books for my speaking engagement on Friday; or for a real estate trade party on Tuesday; back-of-the-room sales is a Thumb-rule; this is a faux-pas.)
My main intention of the event was of course to drive book sales… but not only to sell out the room, but to promote the book as an awesome gift: 100% of my book sale profits from last night is being donated to the Cross Island YMCA Strong Kids campaign, which grants memberships to lower-income families. I’m the campaign chair for 2008, so it seemed natural to me. We raised over $1500 last night for Long Island youth. PLUS, those who purchased more than 2 books got my audio-book(s) for free. Now they have an extra copy - hopefully autographed - to give as a gift to a “stranger.” My colleagues will pollinate future orders.
I have achieved my January “book sales quota,” and I now working on February. But this success isn’t luck… And while it’s based on strategic design, I know there’s a greater power at play.
I wanted to invoke my spiritual beliefs to bless the success of my book. I invited my aunt, Geetha, to perform a short pooja (Hindu blessing ceremony). It was only fitting that I have my immediate family in the room, including my grandmother. As one of my colleagues mentioned as he was leaving, “It was like I attended a family event.” I responded, “It is.” My network was introduced not only to my family, my culture, my beliefs, and my intentional personal brand. Unfortunately, the video of the ceremony has been lost to the Universe!
Words cannot fully express how grateful I am for the wonderful reception I felt last night… while the cupcakes weren’t fully appreciated, folks ate up the snacks and my sense of style (4-button peach suit and deep purple shirt). I nurtured the success and am grateful for the forces that coalesce to continue the book’s phenomenal success.
We must plant the right seeds at the right time in the right soil. We must water appropriate and tend to the weeds. But still, we cannot grow the fruit. I believe God does the Growing in response to our successful Strategic Habits. Together, everyone achieves this TEAM.
The moments of appreciation, reminiscence, and forethought are the gifts we give ourselves during this season. It is the dawn of a new year, and our resolutions need not be fleeting. There’s no preaching here. Instead, let’s consider practicing some rules of thumb that can help change the world.
Often, many of us feel “stuck.” We all know the clichés and bumper stickers to change the world, but can’t seem to find the time, the money, the people, or the energy to do much about it. We want to “be the change we want to see” … but we gotta do what we gotta do to just keep up with everyday life. First off, if we’re meeting our obligations, we must be proud of that. No guilt. But oftentimes we’d like to do more good.
We can judge ourselves by how we handle our calendar and our cash flow; it shows us what’s really important to us. It may be easier said than done, but we must make the time to take the time. What are we choosing to do with our time and money? Don’t worry about what others are doing right now. Let’s become aware of what we’re choosing.
From resolutions to goals to habits to achievement.
In order to sustain a 365 personal brand, we must schedule in our Action Goals in order to achieve our Result Goals. And of course, today is the first day of the rest of your life. It also feels apropos given the season…
You won’t have the time. You won’t find the time. You have to make the time.
What’s your Vision for 2008? My clients know that I make goal setting a very simple process… with 5 cascading goals:
1000 days (2 - 3 years from now)
300 days (1 year from now)
200 days (six months from now)
100 days (3 months from now)
30 days (1 month from now)
Progressively, it becomes more short-term (in alignment with the long-term), more tactical, more practical, and more action-oriented. The more we achieve our day-to-day action goals, the more will achieve our Vision for 2008!
The SMARTest goal setting process is simply ____what____ BY _____when_____. This goal-setting formula will keep it specific, measurable, results-oriented, resource-focused, and time-bound, in a simple, one-liner.
The most important daily action-goal: Smile, with a deep breath, and affirm your goals!
I’ve gone around town (and now on YouTube) for saying “the most popular blogs are by bloggers who blog about blogging.”
And yet again, Forbes’ Web Celeb 25confirms my conjecture (vast majority fit my bill, especially the Near Misses). How many do you know without clicking their names?
Email it
Luckily, it was my book release party (and 30th birthday). It was the biggest event the bookstore (I AM Books in Huntington, NY) ever had; and my book sold out. (This is bitter-sweet since I don’t have books for my speaking engagement on Friday; or for a real estate trade party on Tuesday; back-of-the-room sales is a Thumb-rule; this is a faux-pas.)
