Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Break Your Routine and Inspire Yourself

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Looking for ways to free your creativity and generate new ideas? Try breaking out of your daily routine and doing things differently.

Do you always work in the same place? Try a new location. Pack up your laptop and head to the coffee shop, the park or the local library. Or just take a pad and pen with you to jot ideas, sketch, or mind map.

Don’t have time to read? Make time! Pick up a book and dig in. It can be a business book, or it can be the bestseller you have been meaning to read, a biography, or anything that interests you. If you are in the habit of reading, pick up a different kind of book.

Take up a new hobby or take a class. Learn ballroom dancing, quilting, or a new language. You will have fun and meet new people while acquiring a skill. Not only that, there are health benefits. Studies suggest that exercising your brain can help to protect you from the effects of Alzheimer’s and other conditions.

Work a different schedule. Do you keep “normal” hours? Try working noon until 8 p.m. for a day or a week. Do you find that your energy is highest at certain times of the day? Adjust your work schedule to include those hours.

Take a new route to get places. Look for interesting places to explore.

Talk to people. Better yet, listen to people. Ask questions and really listen to the answers. People love to talk about themselves, so they will love you! And you will learn things you didn’t know.

Explore the arts. Attend a play, go to the movies, listen to the symphony, tour the museum or go to a favorite gallery.

Take your time. Don’t rush from one thing to another. Savor experiences and absorb them.

As you open your mind and participate in new experiences, you will find yourself coming up with new ideas. Take it from the Idea Lady!

Marketing Resolutions

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It’s that time again, when we make our New Year’s resolutions. Maybe this is the year you plan to get organized, stop smoking, or finally lose those extra pounds you’ve been carrying around. Of course, many people make ambitious resolutions every year, and then fail to follow through. Here is how you can make resolutions to create positive marketing habits, and make those habits stick.

Choose just a few things to do–or even one. The more things you try to do at once, the greater that chance that you won’t keep to your resolutions. Choose one, two or three things you will do this year.

Make your resolutions “do-able.” They should be ambitious, but not overwhelming. Do-able resolutions might include sending one press release a month, joining a professional association and attending at least 80% of the meetings, writing one new article each month and submitting the articles to newsletters and article banks, setting at least three sales appointments each week, following up with ten customers each month, etc.

Your resolutions must be specific. Note the examples above. Not “Make more sales appointments,” but a specific number.

Write them down. When you put them in writing, the resolutions become real. Post your resolutions above your desk or anywhere you will see them often.

Make a plan. How will you work these actions into your schedule? Put them on your calendar and treat them as important appointments. Put the meeting dates for your association on your calendar now, before it starts to fill with other obligations. Choose a day each week or month when you will do what you have resolved to do.

Reward yourself. Promise yourself something you enjoy when you keep your resolutions. Don’t wait until the end of the year. It’s March and you’ve sent press releases every month so far? Get a massage, go see that movie you want to see, or buy yourself a little treat–and pat yourself on the back.

Enjoy your success. If you are in the habit of marketing on a regular basis, you will start seeing results. Remember that marketing has a cumulative effect, so expect that even if you don’t see huge jumps in business right away, you will start to see results and those results will snowball over time.

Feel free to revise your resolutions. If something isn’t working, stop doing it and start doing something else. But when you see successes, you may be inspired to increase your efforts and do even more of what is working.

Have a happy and prosperous new year!

Your Marketing Idea Box

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idea boxDo you ever find yourself looking for a great promotional idea? Or staring at a blank computer screen, trying to come up with just the right words for marketing copy? Do what savvy marketers do: Consult your idea box.

If you don’t have an idea box, start one today. The next time you see an ad that really seems to work, or you read copy that makes you sit up and take notice, put a copy in your idea box. The things you save don’t have to be related to your industry or for products or services that are similar to yours. They should simply be examples of great marketing.

Then, use your idea box as brain food. The next time you are stuck, pull out the idea box and review the items you have there. It may include books, sales letters, clever advertising specialties, print outs of web sites or emails, and other materials.

The point is not to copy the items in your idea box, it is to use them as inspiration. See how they are constructed, what buttons they press, and how they present benefits, and learn from them. Use bits and pieces of ideas from several to create something that is uniquely yours.

Don’t copy the words, don’t duplicate what someone else has done, but do learn from what has worked for others.

Perfekt!

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striving for perfectionAre you obsessed with getting everything just right? Do you do everything yourself because no one else can do it as well as you can? Do you believe that everything you do has to be absolutely perfect? Although striving for excellence is a good thing to do, demanding perfection in everything you do is not.

Often, perfectionism is a way to delay taking action. If you keep finding problems to fix, you don’t have to do something you dread (such as making sales calls) or subject yourself or your product to the judgments of the marketplace.

Realize and accept that good enough is often good enough. There is a point of diminishing returns, where the time and effort you put in to “improving” something is not worth the cost. The cost is not just the cost of doing something over and over. It includes opportunity cost. Every day that you don’t have your product available for purchase, or every day you delay your new marketing program, is a day you are losing sales. And all of the time you put in doing something over and over again is time you could spend doing something more productive and more profitable.

Perhaps what you are trying to make perfect is something that will evolve over time. Your web site doesn’t have to be the ultimate web site the day you put it up on the Web. It should be attractive and free of obvious mistakes. The less-obvious mistakes can be fixed and you can always add new sections and content.

If you find it hard to let go of your quest for perfection, get help from someone you trust. Ask them to look at something you’ve done and help you decide if it’s good enough. They may catch something you didn’t, and really make it better. And, they will let you know when it is time to let go and move on to the next imperfect project!

You Know All Those Things You’re Going to Do “Someday”?

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We all have things we’re going to do “someday.” The truth is that “someday” never comes–until now, that is.

“Someday, I’m going to . . .” How would you finish that sentence? We all have things we’re going to do “someday.” Some are big things, like getting married, buying a house, finding a new job, starting a business, going back to school, getting your writing published and so on. Others are smaller, but meaningful things, like learning a new language or how to play an instrument. And still others are those tasks we keep putting off, like organizing paperwork or cleaning out the garage.

Amazingly, some of the things we put off until someday are fun things, but even fun things involve some risk–asking someone out on a date, signing up for a dance class or taking that foreign vacation you’ve always thought about. And putting things off until someday is really just a way of avoiding risk.

The truth is that “someday” never comes–until now, that is. September 15th has been declared “Someday.” So the day that you thought would always be in the future is coming to your present! September 15th is the day to take action on at least one of those things you’ve been putting off.

We humans are very creative when it comes to making up excuses and rationalizations.

“I’m too old.”

“I’m too young.”

“I don’t have enough time.”

“I don’t have enough money.”

“I can’t do it until the kids start school.”

“I can’t do it until the kids are out of school.”

“I have too many other things to do.”

“I’ll do it after I finish this other thing (that I’m never going to start either).”

“I don’t have the training or experience I need.”

“My spouse/boss/parents/kids/other won’t let me.”

“My spouse/boss/parents/kids/siblings/friends/others think it’s a bad idea.”

“My spouse/boss/parents/kids/siblings/friends/others won’t help me.”

Whew! It makes me tired just reading that list! What do you see when you look behind the excuses? The truth is that you’re too fearful, timid or just plain lazy to do the things you claim you really want to do. But you’re not alone. We all fall into the “someday” trap now and then.

So, how do you overcome those obstacles and make your dreams come true? Follow these steps to face your fears and get the motivation you need to succeed NOW, not some time in the distant future.

1. Specifically define what you want to do. Saying that you want to learn another language isn’t specific enough. What language do you want to learn? You can’t reach your goal until you know exactly what it is.

2. Know why you want to do it. Often, we lack motivation to make a change or take a chance because we don’t have a conscious reason for why we should do this. Why do you want to go back to school? It might be to get ahead in your career, to change careers, just for the joy of learning, or because you think it is important to finish that degree you started on years ago. Any of those are fine reasons; make sure you know what yours is.

3. Visualize your success. It is important to imagine yourself successful to realize that you CAN do it. Thoughts that you can’t do this, you were crazy to think that you could, and you should just quit now and save yourself the aggravation and embarrassment of going further will happen. You will have setbacks and feel frustrated at times. But if you can imagine what your life will be like when you reach your goal, you will find it easier to stay on track.

4. Surround yourself with others who support your vision. You don’t need to hear from a lot of naysayers, telling you that you can’t succeed. Get with people who will support and encourage you as you take steps toward your dream.

5. Use your success as a springboard to other successes. Once you’ve experienced the exhilaration of doing one of your “Someday” projects, you won’t want to wait to start another one!

What are you going to do “Someday,” September 15th? Use it to complete one of those little “someday” projects, such as cleaning out the hall closet, or move toward one of your bigger “someday” dreams, such as taking a first step to starting a business or going back to school. Use it to prepare yourself for your future–rewrite your resume, dust off that short story and mail it off to a publisher, or ask that guy or gal you met recently to join you for coffee. Who knows where that first step will lead you?

Then, pat yourself on the back and feel proud of your accomplishment. Savor the feeling, and remember it well for the next time you think of putting something off until “someday.”