Core Essence of Marketing

When you peel away the outer layers and confusion around the role of marketing in business, what is at the Core?

Broken down to the most basic elements, it all comes down to three tasks that marketing must accomplish:

1. Create Value

2. Communicate Value

3. And Transfer Value

Some tasty Food for Thought... bon appetit :-)

~Melanie Kissell

Yours FREE! - The Perfect Business CD by Robert Kiyosaki

5 Simple Ways to Stop Avoiding Projects

Here are a few reasons you may be avoiding a project and possible solutions to get you back on track:

1. Pick one. If you have 27 things on your To-Do list, instead of lamenting that fact, just pick one. Although you can get hung up on priorities, realistically picking just one thing (even a small thing) is better than doing nothing. You can't do everything at once, so pick one thing and just do it.

2. Don't fear the unknown. If a task seems overwhelming, is it because you haven't done it before? Many technical tasks start out this way. For example, you may have heard that setting up an autoresponder is "easy." But if you've never done it before it's not easy for you. Go through the tutorials that explain how it works and don't be afraid to make mistakes the first time out.

3. Break it up. If you are avoiding a task it may be because you haven't broken it down into enough manageable steps. For example, "write a book" is a huge task that many people put off forever. But "write a page of your book" is doable.

4. Avoid distractions. If you spend your life going to meetings, talking on the phone, text messaging, and answering email, you never will get any actual productive work done. Set aside a block of time when you turn off all the toys. Be a hermit for a few hours and you'll be amazed at what you accomplish.

5. Switch off. Most people can't work on a single task indefinitely. Understand your limitations. For example, I write best in the morning, but if I write too much for too long, my brain sort of fries out. Knowing this, I try to write in the morning and do administrative tasks like paying bills in the afternoon.

The key to taking action is to focus on what you really want. If you can't seem to muster the enthusiasm to ever get a particular thing done, maybe it's not really worth doing. That's okay, too. When you know what you want, doing something is always better than doing nothing at all.

~Melanie Kissell

Yours FREE! - The Perfect Business CD by Robert Kiyosaki

Twitter Defies Common Sense

Twitter is a Tweet Sweet microblog ...

It's atypical, off the beaten path, literally defies common sense, and it's blazin' Hot!
If you don't know how to play along, here's some basics that will get you up and running.

1. Twitter is known as a "microblog". You're given 140 characters in each posting to get your point across. You'll be constantly challenged to cram all your info in a tiny space.

2. Twitter is a Really fast moving conversation. Because there is so much multi-messaging going on, it has a quick pace to it. Don't let this frighten you- pay attention to a few people and just follow them. If you try to follow all the conversations you'll land yourself in a straight jacket in no time.

3. The items you post are called "Tweets". You are referred to as a "Tweeter" and your Twitter world is called the "Twitterverse", just as bloggers reside in the "blogosphere".

4. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networking sites. Your next client, customer, or business partner may be a tweet away.

5. Remember to do far more replying than announcing. Twitter is not just a one-way bulletin board where you announce your latest and greatest "stuff". It's extremely important to acknowledge others. When someone posts something you want to respond to, simply type @ then the user name and it will be considered a reply.

6. No Pitching, Pushing, or Pouncing! I hate getting a notification that's followed with a link to a sales page or an opt-in page. Because many hype-hungry internet marketers are getting onto Twitter, you'll see this happening A LOT. You wouldn't litter because you saw someone else doing it, right?

7. The links you post should have substance for many people. Twitter is a newswire they can depend upon for breaking information, articles, and blog posts. In a short amount of time, you can collect information on your target market, events, products, etc. So when you come across something really important, just send out a quick Tweet with the link.

8. A smart move would be to use Twhirl http://www.twhirl.org/ a Free download that allows Twitter to pop up on your desktop. You don't have to be logged into the actual Twitter website to use it, and it has handy organizing tools that help you sort the many ways you can communicate on Twitter.

9. Implement RSS Feeds to Connect your Tweets to your MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites. This saves time and energy and does the multi-tasking for you.

10. The focus needs to be on relationship building to get the most out of Twitter. Create a mix of personal and professional-related posts. Relax and feel free to share appropriate social or personal tidbits. Some people bond over the love of brussels sprout ... go figure!

Tweet !

Melanie Kissell

"Follow" me on Twitter

Yours FREE! - The Perfect Business CD by Robert Kiyosaki

Secret to Success in Nine Words ...

Keep these nine simple words in the forefront of your mind and in your heart, and you will experience tremendous Success ...

"Help Others, Tell the Truth, and Don't be Greedy"

And on days when you begin to doubt yourself and think you can't go on ...

Melanie Kissell

Yours FREE! - The Perfect Business CD by Robert Kiyosaki