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How to Use Competition to Drive Results

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7 Advertising Tips You Need to Know

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How to Generate Leads With Video Marketing | Social Media Examiner

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The 100 best marketing ideas | LifeHealthPro

The 100 best marketing ideas

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How to use Pinterest to market your business.

“Do we really need another social media channel?!” That was the premise I went in to this interview with.

“Yes we do!”, is my view following this chat … on the proviso that it’s easy to manage and provides a commercial return.

The guy who convinced me is Jason Miles – the co-author of the best-seller Pinterest Power, VP of advancement at Seattle’s Northwest University and co-founder (with is wife) 0f Liberty Jane Clothing – a six-figure online business successfully selling designs for doll’s clothes.

As the head marketer for Liberty Jane Clothing, Jason is successfully using Pinterest to drive traffic and rank highly on Google – and in my fireside chat with him, he shares exactly how he’s done it. Jason is also successfully using YouTube and Facebook to market his business, so our conversation naturally strayed in to those two channels as well.

In order to learn how to use Pinterest to market your business, the questions I asked included:

1. What do you love about social media?
2. Explain what Pinterest is and Why should I care?
3. How does it work?
4. Can you wrap some numbers around it? When did it start? User profile? Where are they? Who are they?
5. Where does it fit amongst Twitter etc?
6. What types of businesses is it suited to?
7. What’s the secret to using it successfully?
8. Step us through how you’re using it to grow your wife’s business? liberty jane clothing
9. How could I use it for my show?

PLUS I put it out on the Small Business Big Marketing’s Facebook to find out what you wanted to ask. Your questions included:

1. Is it more important just to be active on pinterest, or should you try to promote your own products? Khalana Gocken
2. How can a service based small business benefit from Pinterest compared to an ecommerce biz? Bianca Board
3. How best to use it to promote products? Gaz Midson
4. I have a personal pinterest account, but have neglected it as Im unsure what its all about! I would love to know how it can beneficial to a service business Mac Smerdon
5. Why do you think females have been so keen on the take up of Pinterest? Richard Hunniford
6. How can manufacturing companies mainly in b2b utilise pinterest? Gavin Hodgins
7. I’ve mentioned Pinterest to clients and the response is “what’s that?” or “nooo not another social networking site”. With Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, google plus, the people I talk to are overwhelmed with what’s out there, my question “what’s the benefits that Pinterest offers that differentiates it from other social networks?” Stuart Upward
8. Finding stats on people who view your pins and other Pinterest reporting tools? Darryl De Abru
9. How do you make sales from it? Jillian Bullock
10. is it only suitable to businesses that are visual, such as fashion, art, photography etc? Simone Outeridge
11. Is it good for SEO? Danial Archow
12. How do you build a following? Davd Newgass

As a result of the interview with Jason, the Small Business Big Marketing show is now on Pinterest.

PLUS in this episode I give a big shout out to the guys at Key Person Of Influence and quietly mention the fact that I’m soon to open up the Small Business Big Marketing Forum.

Make Your Own Restaurant Rule Book

A large restaurant company will have a book of rules which is so thick that no one is able to remember page 234 or what is supposed to happen every 89 days on leap years.  The restaurateur with one or two locations may not have a rule book which leaves the staff with no direction and no expectations. 

via www.michaelhartzell.com

Trade Show Tips for Retailers

Make This Your Best Trade Show Ever

Trade shows, love ‘em or hate ‘em, they should be an important event in your life as a store owner or manager. You get to see new products, renew old friendships, learn about industry trends, and develop a network of professional colleagues.

However, trade shows are a lot like love, life and the stock market: how much you get out of it depends on how much you put into trade show planning. Here are a few lessons (learned the hard way) about how to get the absolute most from your next trade show.

Trade Show Tip #1
Go with a plan. Smart retailers go to shows organized, focused, and ready to work the show like a pro!

• Review last year’s sales statistics. Information from the past gives you the ability to make smart, well-informed decisions for the future.
• Think about what worked last year, what didn’t, and why. Decide which areas are opportunities for next year and where you need to try something completely new.
• Talk to your retail staff and your best customers about what kinds of new things to look for.

Trade Show Tip #2 
Get a map of the show floor plan and find all the vendors you want to spend extra time with. Decide how much of the show you need to see each day and work accordingly – don’t get stuck having to see half the show in the last three hours!

Trade Show Tip #3
Make appointments ahead of time with your top vendors. Plan (write it down!) what you want to discuss with each vendor ahead of time – improved terms, customer service problems from last year, items you would like to see them add/change for the future, packaging concerns, etc.

Trade Show Tip #4
Take your sales and inventory reports with you. Having information at your fingertips projects a very professional appearance when dealing with vendors. This allows you to work much more collaboratively with your vendors when discussing terms, discounts and other issues of importance. 

Trade Show Tip #5
Decide how much you are going to spend at the show and do NOT spend more than you have allocated. You can always buy once you get back to your store and the stars have cleared from your eyes. Make a budget and plan on sticking to it! 

Trade Show Tip #6
Take advantage of trade show specials. Using your trade show budget wisely can save you LOTS of money. Sometimes, show specials can be extended for a short period of time after the show ends. Ask your vendor reps or company contact.

Trade Show Tip #7
Ask for discounts. And I don't mean just a trade show special. This is the perfect time, when you are face to face with your best vendors, to ask for better prices on their products - permanently. Many small and mid-sized retailers think they don't carry enough clout with their vendors to get preferred pricing like the big boys. Not necessarily true! You just have to ask. The very worst thing that can happen is your price stays the same, and, at best, you may improve your margins by a couple of points. 

Trade Show Tip #8
Work for win-win deals with your vendors. Remember, your vendors are partners in your success. The goal in any successful negotiation is to find a solution where everyone is happy. 

Trade Show Tip #9
Go into EVERY booth. You never know where that new, fun, super-high margin whatcha-ma-callit is going to be hiding. Finding new and innovative merchandise is one way to distinguish yourself from the mass market.
 
Trade Show Tip #10
Attend at least one business development workshop. Most entrepreneurs have plenty of product and industry knowledge. It’s the business skills needed to be successful that are lacking.

Trade Show Tip #11
Don’t underestimate the physical effort required to work a trade show really hard. Stay strong, comfortable, and organized.

• Wear comfortable, yet professional, clothing. Jeans and t-shirts may or may not be appropriate.
• Take a bottle of water, small snacks like granola bars, breath mints, lots of business cards, a mini stapler, highlighters, pens, tablet for notes and a backpack to carry all the catalogs in.
• Eat breakfast and a decent lunch.

Trade Show Tip #12
HAVE FUN!!! Remember, this is what your friends think is the glamorous part of your job as a retail store owner!

For more information on trade show planning, check the Retail Mastery System. In it you’ll find nuts and bolts strategies that mean the difference between big-time retail success, and barely squeaking by.

26+ Pinterest Tools and Tips to Enhance Your Pinning Experience | Social @ Blogging Tracker

I’m not saying tools are a must but if used properly, social media apps can be great enhancers to your social networking endeavors, especially one that involves images and graphics like Pinterest. You don’t have to use anything complicated, just a few that enough to meet your pinning requirements. I hereby share with you some tools I tested and how they can be helpful in your daily pinning activities:

To Add Watermarks:

#1  PicMarkr

PicMarkr lets you upload pictures (maximum 5 at once) and add custom watermark to them to protect your copyrights. You can add text, image or tiled watermark; and set 40% opacity for your texts. Not much font choices but enough to fulfill its purpose.

 

To Create Quotes, Covers and How-to Pictures:

#2  Quozio

You can easily create a quote from the ready templates in quozio. All you need is type in the content and author. No uploading required.

Here’s the final result:

You can choose to pin directly by using the pin button below the template but the source will be leading to Quozio. You can change the link after or save the file then upload it manually.

Tip: You can create a quote from Quozio then use PicMarkr to brand your picture with watermark.

#3  Posterpin

You can upload own picture or customize the poster with ready-made templates. You can either keep the border or remove it, or create a text-only poster with Posterpin. All these can be previewed before saving it to your PC.

Final result for the chosen quote:

#4  PinWords

Another handy tool I love to easily create a quote by uploading own picture or use the templates instead. You may reposition and change the font color. Quite sophisticated for a free tool.

#5  Share As Image

Share As Image allows you to create and customize your quotes but free version comes with limited font and background color. Go for PRO then you may customize the color, size etc.

#6  PicMonkey

Comparing to above tools, PicMonkey can do so much more than just creating quotes. Not only it allows you to touch up your picture, you can add seasonal effects, frames and create collages from your uploaded photos! Here’s one I created for an article I read before uploading it to Pinterest last year:

Another thing I love is the ability to customize your picture with various themes! I’ll let Carolyn explain it all in her post how to make full use of PicMonkey.

Professional-looking, right?

To Capture Website Screenshot:

#7  url2pin.it

Insert the web link to generate the web preview as a screenshot to be pinned to Pinterest. A great way to recommend a website of your choice for Pinterest followers to check out.

#8  Shotpin

This browser extension allows you to take a screenshot from a webpage easily and crop it. A fantastic solution for blog posts that have no images or when the blog images are too small for pinning. Plus, it also allows you to Pin a PDF file, however this is only enabled for Chrome browser.

To Create Captions, Notes and So Much More:

#9  Pinstamatic

Got to be by far, the most widely used Pinterest image-creating tool any pinners would appreciate. Not only quotes and website screenshots, you can post sticky notes, music clips, map locations, twitter profiles with latest tweets, calendar dates.. all by using Pinstamatic.

Here’s an example of a quote created by Pinstamatic:

Online Photo Editors:

#10  Pixlr

Pixlr is a free image editing software that you can use directly in your browser, no download required. You can choose to upload the pic from your PC or open image by URL. It’s like a simpler ‘Photoshop’ tool yet so equipped with most of the necessary features: filters, layers, adjustments and much more! Perfect for any intermediate to advanced image editing work before uploading it for blogs or pinterest. Did I mention you can even select preferred language for the app too?

#11  LunaPic

LunaPic is a web-based photo editor that is famous for its multifunctional photo effects: to create animation or blend photos together etc. Since we won’t be using animation in Pinterest, one thing I use it for is creating photo collages and blending the picture within a special photo effect, such as 3D cube or like the one shown below:

For each setting or effect to take place the browser needs to refresh itself.

#12  FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer is fun and easy to use. Upload your photos (even from various social networking sites) and start editing at will. You can beautify, decorate, distort and apply multiple effects to your picture. One thing I love is that you can view all the changes right within the same browser, needless to refresh much. You may adjust the size, click at an area to apply the effects easily or if you’re not into anything fancy, the ‘basic’ option is pretty much enough for any pinners.

#13  iPiccy

If you are not into complicated customization, iPiccy is the online photo editor for you. It’s easy to navigate from one setting or effect to another. You can adjust exposures, fixing colors, add frames, retouch etc.

#14  Ribbet

Ribbet is very similar to iPiccy, including some of the options but a few (such as touch up, stickers, effects, frames) are for premium members which you need to register first before using it. For now it’s free to register but for limited time only. If you’re not into registering then can always check first if iPiccy has the option you need.

For Research & Analytical References:

#15  Repinly

To get more info on most popular pins, boards and pinners, Repinly is your go-to source. I see this as a reference to discover how people normally behave around Pinterest and which types of content they are most interested in general. A quick glance at the Pinterest statistics will give you an idea how people are using Pinterest:

#16  Pinreach

A tool to study your general Pinterest activities via total pins, likes, repins, comments, boards, followers etc. You can study all these stats for your Pinterest boards and find out your most influential followers on Pinterest. Take note on other options like ‘Trending Pins’ and ‘Trending Members’ and learn from those emerging users and their popular pins.

Monitor your influence and engagement level and improve your strategies from time to time.

#17  Pinpuff

Pinpuff is another pinterest-scoring system that looks into your overall influence, popularity and reach on Pinterest. I’m not into scoring system but if you wish to get an overview of how your boards performed, Pinpuff’s ‘score profile’ will do just fine.

#18  Pinalytics

Pinalytics is both a self-analytical and keyword tracking tool. When logged in, you can integrate your Google Analytics account to pull in your blog data and analyze them to check who and what had been pinned from your website.

Or you can always use Pinalytics as a simple keyword-analytical tool by typing your selected keyword and Pinalytics will help you to find and evaluate content (pins, boards or people) on Pinterest, including social sharing results on other social media sites. A great place to find like-minded pinners and boards to follow/engage besides analyzing your pinning efforts.

Currently the results seem random and you can sort them by various social signals. Would be great if we can sort them by date though.

For Pin Scheduling:

#19  Pingraphy

Pingraphy is still the only web tool I know that allows multi-pin scheduling. This is especially useful if you are a heavy pinner and it’s important to space out the pins to not overwhelm your followers; or so your target audience will see your pins even you’re not in the same timezone with them.

To Read: How to Schedule Your Pins to Pinterest Board with Pingraphy

For Pin Notifications:

#20  PinAlerts

I absolutely adore this tool! PinAlerts is useful to inform you whenever someone pinned from your website, all you need to do is provide your email address. This is great to improve engagement and build new connections, a perfect way to use it alongside with Pinterest’s very own notification system.

If you’d like to learn more on how useful Pinalerts is, check out Shelly’s post here.

To Create Infographics:

#21  Infogr.am

Equipped with all the data and rich media resources but no idea how to present them? Infogram is your answer! How? By letting you add all those visual content into their ready-made template without much hassle at all. You can create basic chart or an infographic, save your work in the library, duplicate it (optional) and edit from there. Infogram’s free service provides quite a number of elegant designs. Great tool for anyone who’s not much into designing or image editing but just to tell your story with facts and figures.

To Read: How to Easily Create Infographics in PowerPoint

For Fun and Entertainment

#22  Someecards

With someecards you don’t have to worry about the drawings, just be creative and add a caption that goes with the image. But be cautious on the type of humor you’re spreading while representing your brand.

#23  Imgflip Chart

Another fun thing to try is to apply humor on charts. All you need to do is add in the text and adjust the portion for the chart as shown:

Here’s an example of how it will look like:

Extra Tip: I’m not a fan of memes, but if you’re into them then perhaps can check out this meme generator.

Bonus Tips

Why not integrate your pinning effort with your existing social networks? Here are some bonus tips for you guys who are active on Facebook:

#24  Pin Deal from Tabsite

I heard about Pin Deal back in September last year but haven’t tested it yet. However the concept is revolutionary: encourage your fans or visitors to ‘Pin’ your promotion on pinterest, then the discount code will be shown to them to be eligible for a special offer. A great way to extend your reach and visibility without having to force someone to be your fan (the option to ‘Like’ the page is optional and completely up to the page admin during setup).

Pin Deal isn’t free but you can take it a spin with its 14-days free trial by selecting TabSite Platinum Plan.

#25  4 Timeline Apps to Add Pinterest to Your Facebook Page

Including Pinterest apps for Facebook Page from Woobox, ShortStack, Tabfusion and Pinvolve.

And for your guys who are sharing pins on Twitter, don’t forget:

#26  Twitter card Support

Here’s an article by Kelly showing how your pin will look on Twitter upon followers clicked on ‘View Photo’, very neat! I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work, if you’re interested can refer here.

There are just too many Pinterest apps available, for example Reachli (formerly known as Pinerly) is now offering campaign-setups for image advertising, while curalate and octopin are both analytics and monitoring tools that required DEMO-request that I don’t have access to yet. Even so, I think the above apps are pretty sufficient if you just started to emphasize on growing your presence on Pinterest.

Follow-Up Marketing: How to Win More Sales with Less Effort

If you’re only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all the business you’re losing. Not following up with your prospects and customers is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain!

A study done by the Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happens on or after the fifth contact. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all the business you’re losing. Not following up with your prospects and customers is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain!

But don’t be disheartened if you’re among the 90% of business owners I talk to that don’t do any follow up. The good news is you have ample room for profitable improvement. Consistent follow-up creates a predictable and profitable stream of prospects and customers that buy. Small businesses that capture leads and follow-up with them enjoy higher conversion rates and a higher percentage of referrals than those that don’t.

After asking many small business owners the reason they don’t follow up I often hear responses such as, "I don’t have the sales staff to chase down all our leads", or "We’re usually too busy to do a lot of follow up." These responses automatically set off red flags that tell me that they lack a systematic process for following up. The problem is not that they don’t have the capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it.

What Does a Good Follow Up System Look Like?
A good follow up marketing system should have three attributes.

• It should be systematic, meaning that the follow up process is done the same way every time.
• It should generate consistent, predictable results.
• It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run, meaning it should be able to run on autopilot.  

Sounds like a dream come true for most small business owners doesn’t it? Not only can it be done, it’s being done every day. The secret to "follow-up marketing" is to make it automatic so that you don’t have to lift a finger but the job still gets done. With today’s technology it’s simpler than ever. Automating your follow-up processes gives you more time to work "on" your business rather than "in" your business.

Three Types of Follow Ups
There are three types of people you should be following up with, suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased, and customers (people who have purchased something from you.) Each follow up message and offer will be different for each type of person. With suspects, you’ll want to entice them to call you or visit your store / office. With prospects, you need to persuade them to make their first purchase. And with customers, you want to convince them to come back and do more business with you and give your referrals.

Obviously the hardest type of person to follow up with is a suspect because they haven’t shown any interest yet in a pool or hot tub and you usually don’t have their contact information. But that’s not true with prospects and customers. You not only know who they are, but you should already have their contact information. And if you follow up with your customers with consistency you’ll find that they will help you turn your suspects into prospects and prospects into customers for you through referrals.

Your Follow Up Marketing Tools
Your principal follow up marketing tools are the telephone, direct mail, and email. Many pool and hot tub business owners make the mistake of jumping right on the telephone to follow up; however, most prospects don’t want a pushy sales message right away and most prospects have been trained to consider anyone who calls up to be a pushy salesperson. Instead, you should try to develop a relationship of trust with your prospect by quickly sending informational items such as special reports, audio CDs, or videos before you make a phone call.

Remember to always include a "next-step-offer" to accompany your educational materials. If the next step is to visit the store, then entice them with an appropriate offer or if the next step is to call you, entice your prospect to call you immediately. People move through the buying process in baby steps, especially when considering buying high-ticket items such as hot tubs or pools. Your offer should always help them take the next step.

Your Follow Up Sequence
The power of your follow up will lie in your follow up sequence. Your follow up sequence is a series of communications with your prospect that are "linked" together, with each communication building on the previous message. For instance, you might start your second letter by saying, "10 days ago I sent you a letter..." You might also consider stamping the message, "2nd Notice" on the envelope to let people know this is the second time you’ve contacted them. Referencing the previous communication links what you’re saying with what you’ve already said and reminds your prospect that you care enough to continue the conversation.

Usually, when doing direct mail you should include three to five mailings spaced out about seven days apart. When using a sequential autoresponder you can have as many follow ups as you want because using email is basically free (that’s why you always want to get a prospects email address). One of my clients has over 20 follow-ups in his autoresponder sequence that go out over a six month period.

Each sequence should follow a logical argument and you might consider bolstering the offer with each communication using a deadline as a motivator to act now. As an example, in the third communication you could say, "I’m surprised you haven’t taken me up on my generous offer. What’s holding you back?" Or consider saying, "I’ve written you three times and you still haven’t taken me up on my offer so I’m going to pull out all the stops and make you an offer you simply can’t refuse." Notice how the language always links the previous communication and increases the boldness of the offer. It’s the same type of conversation you might have in a regular sales conversation.

How to Put Your Follow Up Marketing System on Autopilot
What I’m about to reveal to you is the key to developing a powerful follow up marketing system because it overcomes the number one reason most businesses don’t follow up. You must automate your follow up system as much as possible so that there are few, if any, physical interactions from your employees with the system. It’s the required physical interactions (i.e. printing letters, sending emails, inputting leads etc.) where 99% of all the breakdowns happen in well-intentioned follow up marketing systems.

To automate your follow-ups you should consider using robotic marketing systems and outsourcing any manual interactions to a dedicated service. For instance, to capture your leads you should consider using a toll-free automated recorded message system that captures your prospects contact information and automatically transcribes it and sends your leads to you in a spreadsheet every morning via email.

If you’re using a direct mail follow up system (and you should be), find a fulfillment house to do the mailings for you. To find a fulfillment house, simply go to your local printer and ask them to refer you to a fulfillment house in the area.

Now step back for a moment and see the power of what I’ve just revealed to you. Imagine running an ad, having your prospect call up and give their contact information via your recorded message system. Then having your leads automatically sent to your fulfillment house via email, after which your prospect receives a five-sequence direct mail package containing your most persuasive marketing message -- without you lifting one finger!

You can set up the exact same type of "hands-free" follow up marketing system using an email autoresponder system. Your prospect will not only be receiving your direct mail messages, but you can insert your email messages in between your mailings.

What About Calling to Follow Up?
You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about calling your prospect. That’s because you want your prospect to have already received your educational marketing messages and have most of their questions answered before they call you. An educated prospect is your best prospect.

They already know why you’re different, what your value proposition is, and how you’re uniquely qualified to meet their needs. In essence, they’ve pre-qualified themselves before you ever have to spend time physically speaking to them. This drastically reduces the sales cycle and increases your conversion rate because you have positioned your small business to be their only logical choice.

Conclusion
Follow-up marketing will boost your closing rate and dramatically increase your customer satisfaction. Following up with systematic processes allows you to leverage your salespeople’s time and enhance their productivity, which will result in more sales with less effort and isn’t that what you want? Start winning more sales today by implementing your own follow-up marketing system.

Happy follow up marketing!

© Copyright 2003 David Frey, Marketing Best Practices Inc.

A Simple Follow Up to Create More Profits In Your Business | Smart Simple Marketing - Practical Strategies for Creating a Highly Successful Small Business

How many times have you attended a networking event, had a number of great conversations with ideal prospects, collected a bunch of business cards and never followed up?

Perhaps more times than you’d care to admit.

The bad news: You likely missed out on a number of key opportunities to deepen connections that could lead to an increase in revenue, a joint venture or more visibility for your business.

The good news: You can make the decision TODAY to commit to implementing a system to follow-up on all leads that express an interest in your business, so that you don’t miss out on any future opportunities.

To do so, you simply need to follow my step-by-step system for effective follow-up and prospect conversion:     

1.

When you register to attend a networking event/conference/seminar and add the appointment to your calendar, add an appointment the following day for one hour where you will email, call or (gasp!) write a handwritten note to follow-up on hot leads! This is so you stop leaving your follow-up to chance, but rather, allow yourself a specific block of time to address this critical marketing task. (NOTE: If you are planning to attend a multi-day event, I recommend blocking out one hour for each day of the event. For example, for a three-day event, you should block out at least three hours of follow-up.)

2.

Before you attend the networking event, create a system for yourself so you’ll know how to follow-up with each contact.  Perhaps for “hot” leads you place a dot on the front of the card in one corner. And for “warm” leads, you place the dot on the back. Or perhaps you use “X’s” and “O’s.”  Whatever works for you is fine.  The point is to easily (and quickly) be able to categorize the business cards you receive, which will make follow-up a LOT easier.

3.	At the event, as you meet people, take a quick moment between conversations to jot down a note about the person, the conversation or the necessary follow-up.  Again, this will make your follow-up easier and quicker.

4.

If, while at the event you meet someone you REALLY want to connect with ASAP, be proactive and schedule a follow-up appointment right there on the spot.  (Why wait?)  Many entrepreneurs maintain their calendar electronically and will be happy to make the appointment right away.  Even those who keep a paper calendar often carry it with them.  Scheduling a follow-up session right there, on the spot, will save you both time and effort.

5.	When you get home after the event, place the stack of cards front and center on your desk so they’re ready for you to follow-up on the next day.

6.	At the designated time the following day, go through the cards one by one; make the phone call/send the email/write the note. (NOTE: It’s preferable to have your Assistant do this for you, which is a HIGH-payoff investment!)

7.	Last, but not least, when you’ve completed the necessary follow-up steps, add the individual’s contact information to your database with a note about the steps you took to follow-up.

That is simple, right?

I guarantee if you follow this simple system, you’ll enjoy creating stronger business relationships, consistently attract more opportunities to your business and significantly boost your profits.

Why?

The majority of entrepreneurs simply don’t follow-up.  Their lack of diligence is costing them BIG time and they’re leaving serious money on the table.

You no longer need to choose to be a part of that group.  (That’s right…not following up is a CHOICE you’re making!) Instead, switch sides and join the elite group of those who are prompt, diligent and thorough with their follow-up.  If you do, you’ll be rewarded handsomely.

Give my system a try the next time you attend a networking event, then stop back by here on the blog and let me know how it turned out for you by leaving a comment below.  I can’t wait to hear your success story!

Your Action Plan For This Week:

1.	Add to your calendar the next event that you are going to attend.

2.	Add to your calendar for the day after the event to block out 1 hour for following up (or the appropriate amount of time based on how long the event is).

3.	Decide how you will rate your new contacts. What will separate the ‘hot leads’ from ‘warm leads.’ Determine how you will designate potential referral partners.

4.	Create a system for making notations directly after you meet a new contact. You can add the contact to your smart phone and make notes there. Perhaps you can use Evernote. Use whatever system will allow you to keep great notes so that your follow-up will be most effective.

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