Archive for strategy

How to Lose Money with Groupon

By Stand Out Results · Comments (0)
Wednesday, May 1st, 2013


If you talk to many of the small businesses who decided to try to Groupon to increase business.  They will tell you that they received a generous spike in sales however, hardly any of them converted into lasting, repeat customers.  The success to making Groupon work for you depends on your follow-up marketing process.   Groupon seems like a great idea at the on start; sign up and receive an influx of customers resulting in higher sales.  However, are they really customers or just one and dones taking your staff away from your current clients and losing money for your business.

Groupon, for many businesses, is an exercise in bending over to pick up a $1 and dropping $5 out of your pocket.

If you want to lose money while using Groupon, then continue down the “no customer conversion strategy” path.  However, if you’re interested in making Groupon work for you, increase your sales and create lasting clients; then read on.

Strategy Before Tactics

If you’ve been reading my blogs, heard me speak or had a conversation with me, you know that I preach “Strategy Before Tactics” endlessly…and for good reason! – The above is a prime example.  If you have no plan, you have no path.  Without a path, you have not opportunity to obtain the end goal.  I’ve outlined an effective Groupon marketing strategy for you so your next campaign can be both a spike in sales and a lasting, consistent influx in customers.

  • Decide what you are looking to achieve with your Groupon campaign.
  • Understand who your target market is and what type of people come from Groupon campaigns. – This will give you insight into what they value.
  • Create an educational experience for your Groupon prospects. – This includes educating them on what you do, how you do it and what benefits they value that you can provide.
  • Determine what your next stage TRY is going to be for your Groupon redeemers – Groupon is great for getting people to KNOW & LIKE you but they are still trying to build TRUST with your business.  By offering another, longer TRY package, such as “Groupon redeemers only – Sign up today for an unlimited drop-in month pass” or “Sign up today for six additional sessions”, will allow them to gain that familiarity with your company even further.
  • Develop your final offer to fully convert your Groupon prospects into full fledged clients.  - You already have packages that your loyal customers partake in, make sure to let your Grouponers know about them.  Remember to explain the solutions that you are providing for their desires and frustrations so they remember it’s about them.
  • Work with a professional Marketing Consultant and Graphic Artist to create your package flyers so they accurately reflect your company brand so that your business continues to build authentic credibility consistently across every touch (employees, phone message, showroom, website, logo, business sign, cards, etc.).  Remember:  Nothing erodes sales faster than eroded trust and when a brand isn’t consistent, you loose trust extremely quick.
  • Train your team. – If your employees don’t understand the end goal and the strategy attached, they won’t follow the plan you’ve created.  Help them get on board by including them with the process, training them on how to use each step and offer an incentive for each Groupon prospect they convert.
  • Follow through when the Grouponers use your service.  - It’s easy to create the plan and marketing pieces but if you don’t follow through, it was wasted effort.
  • Listen.  - Listen to your employees on the reasons why the prospects didn’t move to the next stage, re-evaluate and adjust accordingly.
  • Track your conversions. – To determine if Groupon is a viable lead generation for your business, you need to track the conversions.  Within your CRM system, mark your Groupon prospects and analyze how far within the conversion process they got.

That’s it!  By adapting a marketing strategy, I know you can make your next Groupon campaign really work for your company and bring in more lasting clients.  And, I want to hear about it!  Share with us how your Groupon strategy resulted in more loyal customers and continued increased profits.

Stand Out Results

About Vicki James

Stand Out Results collaborates with their clients in the small to medium size professional industries to stand out from their competition by creating strategic, systemize marketing processes for more qualified lead generation resulting in higher sales and profits. Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Partner at Stand Out Results, is an expert in internal and external branding, strategic marketing and customer experience. Working for local and national companies ranging from family owned to corporations for over twenty years she has developed an unique collaborative consulting style guiding her clients through a cohesive marketing system that results in clear messages and higher sales. When she's not sharing her knowledge about marketing, Vicki is sharing her passion of being socially conscious serving on the YWCA Empowering Women Luncheon Committee and the Rochester Women's Network (RWN) Executive Board where she represents the Marketing Committee as the VP and Chair.

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Two Words: Fast Follower – Is It For Your Business?

By Stand Out Results · Comments (0)
Friday, April 12th, 2013
Stand Out Results Marketing Strategy Fast Follower

 News flash!  No one cares if you thought of the idea first.

The public is more interested in who is doing it better.  This is why so many companies take the “fast follower” business and marketing approach.

A fast follower company will pick a successful brand and model themselves similarly against it benefiting from the model company’s research, education and brand awareness dollars, all while swooping in and taking some of the main company’s market share by doing virtually the same thing.

For example, Wendy’s fast Marketing Fast Follower, Wendy’s, riding on McDonald’s site location heels food chains position themselves within a half mile, or most often across the street, from a McDonald’s.  Look at Lowe’s and Home Depot, they do the same thing, allowing the one to scout the market and area and then quickly follow with a location of their own in the same vicinity.  This type of market strategy is often seen by generic beauty products.  The name brand invested in the research of the product development, creating the overall brand value and created a demand for the product.  The generic brands, borrow all knowledge, package the product so similar to the original that many consumers don’t notice the difference and undercut the price allowing for more sales at very little acquisition costs.

Completely giving all your marketing strategy up to your competition to fast follow will result in disaster.

However, here is the note of caution.  Completely giving all your marketing strategy up to your competition to fast follow will result in disaster.  Think of this: Wendy’s positions themselves locally near McDonald’s because they share the same general target market.  However, that’s where the similarities end.  Wendy’s are looking to attract a more influential client that is looking for a more sophisticated taste and healthier food choices.  McDonald’s is about selling food fast and cheap for the consumer on the go.  This distinction is why narrowing your target market so severely is imperative in creating a successful business.  If they both were targeting the same exact market, their advertising and message would be so similar that the consumer wouldn’t be able to identify the difference between the two providers and loyalty would drop and price wars would ensue as that would be the only criteria that the customer would have to compare the two brands.

What’s your takeaway?  It’s OK to track and study your competitors but it’s more important for you to narrow your target market as much as possible and create a marketing strategy that fits within the market and your differentiation.  To find out more, download our FREE ebook, 7 Steps to Marketing Success.  Or if you want to learn how create an effective and successful lead generation marketing plan with a professional, call or email Vicki@Stand-Out-Results.com us today.

Stand Out Results

About Vicki James

Stand Out Results collaborates with their clients in the small to medium size professional industries to stand out from their competition by creating strategic, systemize marketing processes for more qualified lead generation resulting in higher sales and profits. Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Partner at Stand Out Results, is an expert in internal and external branding, strategic marketing and customer experience. Working for local and national companies ranging from family owned to corporations for over twenty years she has developed an unique collaborative consulting style guiding her clients through a cohesive marketing system that results in clear messages and higher sales. When she's not sharing her knowledge about marketing, Vicki is sharing her passion of being socially conscious serving on the YWCA Empowering Women Luncheon Committee and the Rochester Women's Network (RWN) Executive Board where she represents the Marketing Committee as the VP and Chair.

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Trouble Finding Investors or Prospects? Maybe It’s Your Marketing Strategy Message

By Stand Out Results · Comments (0)
Friday, January 11th, 2013

Trust is the number one motivator in getting prospects and investors to take action with your business.  However, how do you build that trust?  And once you have the trust, how do you retain it?  The subject of trust really resonated with me this past week through two separate instances.  The first was at a networking event where I met for the first time, a software developer of a six year start-up company.  While he rambled on about how his business was different from the other companies that I had heard of doing the same thing, he couldn’t complete in a short ten word statement what his benefit was and the core differentiators.  Since software is by far my strong suit, I grasped at the few phrases that made sense in my world and then tried to make it fit to the information I already knew.  All the while, missing important key information because we weren’t talking the same language.  Now, you are probably wondering why the title of this post isn’t about networking, branding, unique selling proposition or core differentiation.  And those all are at the root problem of the message from the person I was connecting with but, the bigger issue was that he shared they were having trouble securing investors.  ”OOOHHH”, I thought, “I completely understand why.”  Investors were having the same trouble I was, we couldn’t understand the key factor of what they were doing that made them unique.  This is a trust issue.  When the message of your differentiation isn’t clear, concise and valuable in the eyes of your ideal client; you’ve lost the sale and become white noise among all the other businesses marketing to the masses.

Stand Out Results helps you grow your business through marketing strategy and brand awareness

So, as a “give to gain” philosopher, I asked this connection if they had a marketing person on staff or working with strategic marketing partner.  His reply was that the CEO did all the marketing and could present the product much better.  However, that’s the crutch with the situation and reason for this blog post!  This connection was the one out and about networking, talking to the public about the company and handing out cards.  It is just as imperative that he was able to explain in a short, ten word statement what his benefits are as it is from the marketing CEO or brochures that they had created.  EVERYONE in your business must be able to clearly and concisely communicate your unique selling proposition.  When they can’t, the trust factor erodes immediately.  So, if a client accidentally dials the wrong extension and receives the staff accountant on the line and said accountant isn’t living and breathing the brand identity created by the marketing, advertising and sales professionals, the experience quickly

resembles a rouse with the “man behind the curtain”.  Clients start to wonder which experience is the true one.  And allowing them to doubt for one minute that your marketing strategy wasn’t sincere, costs you residual sales and additional clients, ultimately resulting in a significant revenue loss.What happens when the entire company is living and breathing the brand identity, expressing the core differentiation in the same language as the people listening and utilizing the marketing strategy?  Trust occurs.  And when trust happens, money flows and referrals are recommended.  Why?  Well, because when an investor or prospect trusts what your business is offering, they don’t question the price it’s offered at and you can even afford to offer it at a premium.  In addition, you also stop competing on price with your competitors because now you stand out among the crowded marketplace.  Lastly, clients and investors want to spend money with people they know, like and trust and when they have found that, it’s almost an innate need to share the information with others that they are centers of influence (COI) with.  And here lies the second instant where trust became a factor for me last week.  My computer had a virus, come to find out several nasty viruses.  I needed an expert to quickly and

completely eradicate these viruses.  I contacted a trusted center of influence and asked if they knew of anyone that I should call.  Low and behold, they still do this type of work .  Yippee!  Now I have someone to take care of my frustration that I know, like and trusted.  In addition, whatever they were going to charge me was going to be okay because I knew them, trusted them and felt that they would take care of me and my problem with minimal incident at the maximum efficiency.  This expectation is the epitome of trust.In closing, if you notice that you aren’t closing any proposals or landing any investors, review your message to ensure you are communicating in a way that builds trust at every level of your business.  Once you have this solidified, the sales and money will follow.

Stand Out Results blog posts are written by:  Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Marketing Strategy Partner and Duct Tape Marketing Consultant

Stand Out Results

About Vicki James

Stand Out Results collaborates with their clients in the small to medium size professional industries to stand out from their competition by creating strategic, systemize marketing processes for more qualified lead generation resulting in higher sales and profits. Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Partner at Stand Out Results, is an expert in internal and external branding, strategic marketing and customer experience. Working for local and national companies ranging from family owned to corporations for over twenty years she has developed an unique collaborative consulting style guiding her clients through a cohesive marketing system that results in clear messages and higher sales. When she's not sharing her knowledge about marketing, Vicki is sharing her passion of being socially conscious serving on the YWCA Empowering Women Luncheon Committee and the Rochester Women's Network (RWN) Executive Board where she represents the Marketing Committee as the VP and Chair.

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Is Your Differentiation Really Different or Just an Expectation?

By Stand Out Results · Comments (0)
Friday, December 14th, 2012

While supporting Small Business Saturday this weekend, I asked the main street shops what made them different – what was going to compel consumers to shop at their stores rather than the big box ones?  Some had really good differentiation, they catered to special needs children and educational-based toys, others didn’t know and were like everyone else; an orange among many oranges.

Stand Out Results helps their clients stand out from their competition

Since you aren’t truly setting yourself apart from your competition, you are perceived as the same.  Once perceived as the same from your competition, the prospect and customer immediately finds ways to differentiate you on their own and usually price is top on the list.  If you want to be viewed and regarded as the professional industry expert it is imperative that you find a valuable and compelling reason that you are different from everyone else in the marketplace who is doing the exact same thing as your business.  I like to call this the “Janet Jackson Factor”.  As in, “What have you done for me?”.  When looking to find your differentiator within marketing your business you need to look at your business through your client’s eyes and often getting your current clients involved is the best way to move from expectation to true unique core difference.

By interviewing your current “A” ranked clients; those that you enjoy working with, value your services, pays on time and refers you, on why they started to work with you in the first place you gain immeasurable insight to what makes your business different.  Ask them what you do better than anyone else like you and what they say to friends and colleagues when they refer you.  Once completed, you’ll quickly notice the commonality of the responses and understand who you are to them and how your business helps their core frustrations.  You can now, create your true core differentiation and unique selling proposition (USP), positioning your company brand to stand out among your competition and allowing you to charge a premium for you services and products.   Let me warn you however, what you find out may not sound unique or sexy.  Often, it’s a company’s way of delivering an experience; the people, guarantees offered, packaging , brand promotion or special touches.  It’s how the company positions its business to solve a problem that everybody in the industry is having that motivates people to buy.   A good friend of mine, on the first time we met, told me about her commercial janitorial company.  The unique differentiator that stuck in my mind was their philosophy of cleaning the bathroom; if you had to get sick at work, you wouldn’t mind laying on the tiles.  Now THAT is commitment to extreme cleaning and a true testament to what they stand for and the quality of work they provide beyond what all the other commercial janitorial companies are offering.

In conclusion, my challenge to you is to really look at your business with a critical eye and determine if you core differentiation is truly something that is unique or simply an expectation.  Decide if your unique selling proposition is the apple among the oranges to stand out within your crowded market place.  Ask you clients, power partners and employees what you do best.  Remember, as John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing guru best put it, “while it’s very logical to try to find your point of differentiation from a product, package or price feature, some of the greatest marketing strategies reside in tapping the underlying culture of the organization itself.”

Stand Out Results

About Vicki James

Stand Out Results collaborates with their clients in the small to medium size professional industries to stand out from their competition by creating strategic, systemize marketing processes for more qualified lead generation resulting in higher sales and profits. Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Partner at Stand Out Results, is an expert in internal and external branding, strategic marketing and customer experience. Working for local and national companies ranging from family owned to corporations for over twenty years she has developed an unique collaborative consulting style guiding her clients through a cohesive marketing system that results in clear messages and higher sales. When she's not sharing her knowledge about marketing, Vicki is sharing her passion of being socially conscious serving on the YWCA Empowering Women Luncheon Committee and the Rochester Women's Network (RWN) Executive Board where she represents the Marketing Committee as the VP and Chair.

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What Strategies Are You Changing Now to Make 2013 More Profitable?

By Stand Out Results · Comments (0)
Monday, December 10th, 2012

I know you don’t want to face it, but 2013 is much closer than you think.  Have you created your goals and strategies for the new year yet?  Have you decided the next level you want to take your business?  How are you going to get there?  How are you going to get there with the least amount of work and the highest amount of return in profit?

Strategy through planning Stand Out Results

Strategy before tactics will provide the highest amount of profit with the least amount of work

This week’s post is designed for you to be more reflective and create that strategy plan you think about producing every year but never dedicate the time to complete.  I also encourage you to include several levels within your organization to enable you to have the most robust view and highest by-in by all that are involved.  When you have actualized a plan with strategy in mind, keep it out on your desk where you can view it everyday and communicate it with your staff in a way they can be reminded of where you’re looking to take the business; this approach will raise the probability of implementation and success.

Take a look at every aspect of your business and determine what is working and what needs to be tweaked.  Are you carrying more inventory than needed; can you move to a just-in-time process?  Are your employees happy and engaged with their work responsibilities; is the culture one that reflects your brand and core values?  Is your billing process as tight as it could be; are you making it extremely easy for your clients to pay you on time, every time?  Are you trusted advisers helping you grow you business; are they at the next level you’re looking to move towards?  Is your sales cycle easy for your prospects to sell themselves; have you educated your clients on how to refer more qualified business to you?  Do you have a marketing plan in place with strategy before tactics; are you educating through the Marketing Hourglass™ rather than shoving them through the sales funnel?

How you determine to grow your business for 2013 will result on how well you can reflect on what went well and what didn’t in 2012.  Allow your company and staff to be flexible to make the needed changes to provide the profitable success you’re looking for to take your business to the next level in 2013.

Stand Out Results

About Vicki James

Stand Out Results collaborates with their clients in the small to medium size professional industries to stand out from their competition by creating strategic, systemize marketing processes for more qualified lead generation resulting in higher sales and profits. Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Partner at Stand Out Results, is an expert in internal and external branding, strategic marketing and customer experience. Working for local and national companies ranging from family owned to corporations for over twenty years she has developed an unique collaborative consulting style guiding her clients through a cohesive marketing system that results in clear messages and higher sales. When she's not sharing her knowledge about marketing, Vicki is sharing her passion of being socially conscious serving on the YWCA Empowering Women Luncheon Committee and the Rochester Women's Network (RWN) Executive Board where she represents the Marketing Committee as the VP and Chair.

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How Does Your World See Your Business?

By Joe Costantino · Comments (0)
Friday, November 2nd, 2012

How is your business perceived in the marketplace? Do you even know? You need to care!

If you’re having trouble getting your prospects and customers to understand what makes you valuable, unique and the best choice among your competitors, then you may be having trouble getting your Inside Realty to match your Outside Perception.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, there are two parts to your business . . . the Inside Realty and the Outside Perception. The Inside Realty is all the the important things you do to bring value to the marketplace. Your Inside Realty is based on your products or services, your quality, your people, your systems, etc. A great Inside Reality can be developed by anticipating customer wants and needs and developing your business to meet them.

Your Outside Perception, on the other hand, is the way your business is viewed by your prospects and customers. Your Outside Perception is formed by your marketing communications which includes your ads, website, articles, blog posts, etc.

Here’s the problem; in most businesses, the Inside Realty doesn’t match the Outside Perception . . . . there’s a gap and this is a significant problem for the business owner. Why? Because, unless your marketing communications are clearly educating your prospects and customers about what makes you different, special, unique and the company that can solve your customer’s challenges, then you and your business will get lumped in the sea of sameness or the company that is just like all other companies that do what you do. And this is a bad position to be in.

Why does this happen? It is the result of not effectively communicating who you are or your company does and then powerfully making the case as to what makes you valuable, unique and able to solve the problems your ideal target market experiences better than anyone else in your industry. So let me explain this a bit further.

So, how can you make sure your Inside Realty matches your Outside Perception? By developing great content that educates (not sells) your customers about the important things they need to know about your particular industry and including this content in all your marketing communications. The next step is to demonstrate through the results you have achieved for your clients how your company does the the very things that are most important when choosing a provider of your type of business. This is called education-based marketing. I will explore education-based marketing in my next post, but the key with this approach is to replace sales-driven messages with messages that capture your target market earlier in the sales process and position the business owner as the expert for their particular industry.

To your marketing success,

Joe

Joe Costantino

About Joe Costantino

Joe Costantino is the founder of Business Marketing Success, Inc. and is President and Managing Partner of Duct Tape Marketing Coaching, LLC. Joe Costantino help coaches, consultants, and independent business professionals turn their professional expertise into money, magnificence and meaning. He does this by packaging their expertise, properly positioning them in the marketplace and utilizing the best tools to attract more qualified leads and turning those leads into paying clients.

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Categories : Lead Generation, Uncategorized
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The Power of Solution-Based Strategies

By Cidnee · Comments (0)
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012

As small business owners, we tend to avoid a deep dive into strategy at the best of times.  Face it, we are usually too busy fighting the day to day fires, keeping up with communications,  and managing the finances. Yet the time always comes when we need to put down the fire extinguisher long enough to take a hard look on HOW we are going to take our businesses to a new level.

This process usually begins with scouring over the financials, reviewing actual results against projected goals, and gauging client satisfaction.  While data and analysis are sound approaches to strategy, this approach doesn’t allow for a ton of creative, out of the box thinking.

Henry Ford said that if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Ford certainly wasn’t focused on his company data, to find a faster solution to get around.

Do you want to be more innovative in your business?  Then try this solution-based strategic approach complements of the co-authors of Playing to Win!

Create Choices – There is always multiple ways to reach the end goal.  Create completely different ways to get you to the same result.

Specify Conditions – Once a list of possibilities has been established, review each one independently as a viable strategy.  Ask your team what conditions would need to be in place for that possibility to be successful?  Note you aren’t asking if these conditions exist already.

Identify Barriers – Now that the conditions have been identified, review each one and decide which of these are the highest risk of coming to fruition.

Design and Conduct Tests – Look at research, or conduct surveys to see if there are ways to reduce the risk of these identified barriers.  This is where data can be very helpful.

Make Your Choice based upon the solution that has the highest chance of succeeding.

Maybe you won’t be as famous as Henry Ford, but this approach has certainly helped many businesses get out of the rut of status quo and positively impact the direction of their company.

 

Cidnee

About Cidnee Stephen

Cidnee is a sought after speaker and Duct Tape Marketing consultant on the elements of small business marketing. Popular topics include “Branding on a Budget ” and “7 Steps to Marketing Success”. She is also a regular columnist for magazines and corporate newsletters and launched her blog Cidnee.com in 2008. She publishes the popular biweekly marketing ezine, the Marketing Excel-erator and will be finishing her new book in 2011 "If You Aren't Getting the Business, You Don't Deserve It" MOST IMPORTANTLY - Cidnee is an avid skier, golfer, traveler, and her son David’s biggest fan.

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The Engine For Your Pitch

By Salomon Wancier · Comments (0)
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Public relations does not have to be complicated, and perhaps no other PR tool is as easy to use as PitchEngine – a favorite for business owners, content marketers and PR pros alike. This platform makes it easy to construct and share your message efficiently.

First, a little background on this affordable, easy-to-use tool. PitchEngine was created as a publishing platform for the “social media release” – which all press releases should now be, by the way. The need for an evolution from press release to social release became evident as we moved into a 2.0 world several years ago. The idea of the social media release, or what PitchEngine calls a “Pitch,” is to have a single page with useful content – your news, as well as images, video, facts, quotes and tags – that is as valuable to a journalist or blogger packaging a story as it is to your customer who gets the information in a tweet or Facebook post. Therein lies the beauty of PitchEngine – anyone can be a publisher targeting the audiences that matter most to your brand with this inventive tool.

PitchEngine has gone through its own evolution since starting in 2009, adding new features and functionality. Currently, you can publish your Pitch to search engines with back links to your site. Share your message with anyone via easy-to-use social buttons or even automatically. Email to your media contacts, customers, prospects or partners with a few clicks. An RSS feed is also available. Did we mention it’s easy?

Tips for crafting a strong “Pitch”

One of the most important things to keep in mind when writing a news release or Pitch is that you are a resource – make it easy for others to care about and retell your story, and everything else falls into place. Here are a few tips we suggest for making the most of your content on PitchEngine.

1. Write an interesting headline. Steer clear of the boring in favor of attention-grabbing. Does it entice the reader to want more? If the answer is no, try again. Use a hook, draw them in.

2. Answer the “so what?” question. Craft your news or story in a way that tells your audience why they should care. Convey how your news is useful, different, fresh or interesting. Make people want to share your message. Use a quote to add some color or context to the facts of your release (this is also a good place to editorialize a bit if needed).

3. Keep the target audience in mind. This is closely related to “so what?”…if you are launching a new product, how does it make the customer’s life easier or how will they benefit? Make sure it’s relevant to your target. Put yourself in their shoes for a message that’s heavier on benefits than on features. It’s not about you, it’s about them!

4. Add a visual. This platform makes it so easy to add an image or embed a video. Use this to your advantage AND add a good caption that mentions your brand.

5. Use facts and the tweet to your advantage. Think like a journalist or blogger here. The “Twitter Pitch” is your intriguing headline. The “Quick Facts” are just that – the most important three to five points of your message. If someone reads only these elements, they should get the gist of your story and whether it is of interest to them. Make sure to add tags as well – think SEO, search terms, subject lines.

One more thing – the boilerplate, links to your brand’s website and other social media pages are set up at the brand level on PitchEngine. Set up your brand profile before creating any pitches. This is where you add your logo, company info, contact info – all the standard details.

Happy Pitching!

Salomon Wancier

About Salomon Wancier

Salomon is an accomplished, creative senior executive with a 17-year record of directing marketing initiatives. He’s worked with non-profit organizations, as well as companies ranging from start-up to national industry leaders to international corporations, managing Fortune 1000 accounts and building strong cross-functional teams. Salomon’s vision and execution-focused leadership give him the ability to deliver strategies and programs that capture customer needs and impact the bottom line. He earned an MBA from the University of Miami, is fluent in Spanish and is an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Consultant.

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Plan your Career and Life, Like you Plan your Vacation

By Stand Out Results · Comments (0)
Friday, October 19th, 2012

In general, people spend more time planning their family vacation than they do their lives.  It seems that, for the most part, we just allow our careers and relationships to form around us and we adapt to what the outside world wills us to become.  Imagine if you lived a life that wasn’t “put off until…” (the kids move out, when I get the promotion, when I have X amount of money, etc.).

Most people think of starting anew in January but in my house, Fall has always been reserved for new beginnings.  Which is why I’m creating my annual Life Map, from www.inventuregroup.com, now; which includes my personal and professional purpose for the year, what I see as my vision and what I’m going to hold as particular values to work on and towards and finally specific goals within the four quadrants of our lives; work, relationship, personal and financial.

When creating your map, use words and visuals such as cutouts from magazines or pictures from the internet, pasting them to each of the quadrants.  By doing this we can see what we want to achieve, putting it within our mindset and creating the manifest to obtain the desired goal.

The real key to this exercise is to keep your map with you, ALL the time.  It should be a constant reminder of what your goals are so that you can achieve them and reap in the rewards of accomplishment.  Have a copy hanging in your office and take a picture of it to keep with your PDA or paper calendar.  As you achieve each goal, mark with a smiley face, check mark or some other positive mark to visibly display each triumph.  At the end of your Life Map fiscal year, review what you attained, reflect on your accomplishment and give yourself the permission to accept and move unachieved goals to the next year.

Stand Out Results

About Vicki James

Stand Out Results collaborates with their clients in the small to medium size professional industries to stand out from their competition by creating strategic, systemize marketing processes for more qualified lead generation resulting in higher sales and profits. Vicki M James, Growth and Accountability Partner at Stand Out Results, is an expert in internal and external branding, strategic marketing and customer experience. Working for local and national companies ranging from family owned to corporations for over twenty years she has developed an unique collaborative consulting style guiding her clients through a cohesive marketing system that results in clear messages and higher sales. When she's not sharing her knowledge about marketing, Vicki is sharing her passion of being socially conscious serving on the YWCA Empowering Women Luncheon Committee and the Rochester Women's Network (RWN) Executive Board where she represents the Marketing Committee as the VP and Chair.

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Duct Tape Marketing Consultant
1800 Central Street, Ste 203
Kansas City, MO 64108
866-DUC-TAPE (382-8273)
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