Very few people start a business because they love marketing. And yet, without marketing it’s unlikely that a business will succeed. Whether you’re a webmaster or window washer, an artist or an accountant, you know that success is dependent upon securing business and that attracting and retaining clients and customers is fundamental to your future. That’s what this seminar is all about.

You’ll learn:

  • How to master marketing fears and make marketing fun
  • The essentials of making your business stand out
  • How to find clients in off the beaten track ways
  • How to generate word of mouth endorsements
  • Free and inexpensive sources of promotion
  • Skills that will generate a growing customer base

 

Whether you own a business that’s ready for a makeover or you have just printed your first business cards, this seminar will offer dozens of ideas that will help your business stand out amidst the competition. Even if your marketing budget is small (or non-existent) you’ll come away with tried and tested practical ideas that will transform your approach to marketing and boost your confidence. It might even help you learn to love marketing!

 

 

One of the reasons that mature people stop learning is that they become less willing to risk failure.

~ John W. Gardner

Three of my four siblings are coming to visit early next week so that was the impetus for me to go through a stack of magazines and move some to the recycling bin. My decluttering project slowed down, however, when I came across some articles I hadn’t yet read. Three of them were worth passing along to you. Happily, you can find them all online.

The October 13 issue of Newsweek had a special feature on women leaders. My favorite article was movie director Kimberly Peirce’s piece To Make It Big in Hollywood, You Start With a Good Story. What caught my attention is what she says about fear being part of the creative process. Pierce says, “Fear is part of creativity, whatever your job is. It’s part of believing in something and wanting it to happen. So I let it in and I say to myself, ‘OK, you’re scared.’ And then when something works out, I say, ‘Wow! You were scared!'” I’m going to remember that.

The big article goldmine I uncovered is in the September issue of Ode magazine, which always has thought-provoking articles. This issue is especially rich. For starters, there’s retired teach John Taylor Gatto’s piece called Childhood’s End which eloquently discusses why our schools are failing us. I think it’s important for anyone who has come through the school system in the last fifty years or so to understand the philosophy that has driven education. 

Gatto ends the article by issuing a call to arms to parents. He says, “School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers…Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so they’ll never be bored.” 

I also love Gatto’s observation that “genius is as common as dirt.” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the piece since I read it and am going to track down his book Weapons of Mass Instruction.

I urge you to read–immediately–Ode’s cover story, In Praise of Failure. It includes wonderful quotes from J.K. Rowling’s commencement address at Harvard. While we’ve all heard stories about people who ultimately succeeded after years of failure, this article points out, in the clearest possible way, why success is impossible if we resist failure. In fact, it reminds us that if our energy is devoted to NOT FAILING, we end up in mediocrity. 

Every entrepreneur should have this article at their fingertips to read again and again.

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. ~ J.K. Rowling