Kinetic Ideas will be a bit quiet for the next week and a half. I am going on vacation. Woo-hoo!

Over and out….

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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For the longest time in running my business, I thought there was some secret to being a super salesperson. With enough training and reading the right books, I just knew a day would dawn when I would eventually figure out how to be that slick businesswoman who was perfectly at ease with being schmoozy and charming and salesy. I can still picture her image in my head. Ewwww…

Well, guess what? That day hasn’t dawned yet. Instead, something even better occurred. I had a big aha! moment when I realized I could never, ever be that woman in my head. I can’t pretend to be someone else whether I was with my friends, family, or clients. I can only ever be myself. Anything else would come across as a facade.

When it comes right down to it, marketing is about forming relationships with other people. And, authenticity is a great sales tool. What I found is that the more I settle into being me, the easier it gets to do business, make sales, and interact with other people. So, I encourage you to let your personality shine through – with all of its quirks and idiosyncrasies.

This applies to everything that you put out in your writing and in your speaking. I get a lot of ezines in my Inbox and I visit many blogs and websites. The ones that really get my attention are the ones where the author isn’t afraid to let his or her personality show. I am much more likely to buy from that person because I feel like I know them.

Your customers and prospects want to get to know YOU. They want to know who you are, what hobbies you enjoy, where you go on vacation, your pets’ names, and how your kids are doing. People will be more engaged and your customers will be more responsive.

ACTION ITEM: Take a look at your current mode of operating. Are you truly yourself when you interact with your customers? Or are you trying to play someone else? I encourage you to put more of YOU into your website, articles, blog, mailings, and so on.Let your guard down a bit. Let your true self show to others. It may feel scary at first, but over the long haul, you will feel better and your customers will respond.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE? You are welcome to publish this article in your ezine, newsletter, blog, or website, as long as you include the following:

Wendy Maynard, your friendly Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a weekly marketing ezine for business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and have more fun, subscribe at www.gomarketingmaven.com/ezine.com

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A while back, I wrote a post on Manscaping - that is the marketing phenomenon of male grooming that is sweeping through our spas and targeted at the metrosexual man.

And, now Philips/Norelco has taken it to a new bizarre level of marketing with their website, Shave Everywhere. It features a nice-looking white man in a white robe who talks to you about shaving his kiwis and his carrot and his peach.

And, yes apparently shaving {ahem} everywhere can give you an “optical inch.” Look, the Philips guys says it is so! He also sings a cheesy acoustic song about shaving and the website shows you all of the places you can shave. You can even “test drive” the shaver.

I have to say it’s an intriguing use of Flash technology and the marketing campaign is certainly designed to create a BUZZ {Bwaa-haa-ha! I crack myself up!} but it certainly is…strange.

Give the website a look-see and tell me what you think. Is it effective? Men are you ready to enter the mysterious world of manscaping? Let me know!

Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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Ok folks, it just doesn’t get much cooler than this. I want my own $17,000 flying scooter. I suppose it is being marketed as a commuting vehicle to get to work since it shows a man in a button up and tie riding on it.

From Hammacher Schlemmer:

The hover scooter provides an unprecedented experience in personal transportation, levitating inches above the ground and speeding a single rider across level land on a cushion of air. Gentle lift from an engine-powered fan elevates the scooter off the ground, and a stream of air exiting a vent in the back provides light forward thrust.

Learning to ride the scooter takes less than five minutes, and no previous skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, or other experience is required. Easy and intuitive to control, the rider simply leans left or right to perform smooth turns without the need for complex controls…The hovering scooter deftly glides over level, solid ground such as concrete, asphalt, or well-groomed grass, free of debris, sand, stones, and other obstacles.

Any readers that get their hands on one of these, send a picture in and let’s see you in action!

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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For a consultant or other solo professional, YOU are the brand. Marketing your business is marketing YOU as the best choice for your customers’ needs. Starting today, make sure that you are positioning yourself as the brand…the expert.

By branding YOU, you build the power of influence. Your prospects begin to perceive you as a credible resource in your field. When you are in the process of branding your personality, it’s time to forget about modesty. This is very difficult for some people. But, there’s a saying – if you don’t toot your own horn, who else will?

Tell prospects and customers about your accomplishments and your expertise. Give case studies about other clients you have helped. Use your picture on your marketing materials.

Here are some key reasons for branding YOU:

- It makes you stand out from your competitors.

- It reinforces your core marketing message in the minds and hearts of your prospects and customers.

- You will be perceived as an expert.

- You can deliver your messages clearly and personally.

- It will give you a distinct voice - your own.

- It allows you to let your personality shine!

- It strikes an emotional core in your prospects and customers.

- You build relationships more easily – fundamentally, people want to do business with other people, not a faceless company.

YOU will bring prospects in the door and YOU will keep them coming back. Many small businesses and solo professionals present themselves without a heart and without showing their passion. They come across as mediocre and bland. Forget mediocrity.

As an entrepreneur, you have a HUGE opportunity to let your passion shine through. Be yourself and be authentic! Craft your branding around your personality, your skills, your style, and your values.

Be sure to incorporate your clients as central to your brand. Your unique brand is your passions and expertise weaved in with your customers’ ultimate desires. When the brand is YOU, you begin to INSPIRE people to work with you. Your personality will come through in all of your marketing materials. You will begin to build long-lasting relationships with your clients that can never be eroded by a competitor. You will have absolute loyalty because people will believe in you. Because you have branded YOU.

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard

Your friendly marketing maven

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For your next direct mailing, try an extra special touch with Photo Stamps. You can showcase your logo, a product, or a company team photo - on the stamp that you use. It’s a nice touch to a marketing direct mail campaign.

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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Here is some information in case you aren’t familiar with my main website, Go Marketing Maven!

Learn Marketing Ideas & Strategies that REALLY WORK! I own a successful marketing firm and consult clients every day on how to use marketing strategies to grow their business. I want to show how these marketing strategies can work in your business to attract ALL the customers you want.

First, sign up for your free marketing strategy and idea guide - my ezine.

Next, review the marketing tools I’ve developed to help you learn to attract all the customers you want and have a sales pipeline that’s bursting with prospects. The special marketing special reports below are packed with marketing strategies to get you focused and develop a systematic marketing approach to your own business.

Finally, you can review my marketing article library for even more marketing ideas.

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Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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I love this article by Jack Canfield. A master marketer and entrepreneur. I use visualization quite ofter. It is a powerful tool for getting focused and obtaining results.
Enjoy!

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard

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You have within you an awesome power that most of us have never been taught to use. Elite athletes use it. The super rich use it. And peak performers in all fields are now starting to use it. That power is called visualization. The daily practice of visualizing your dreams as already complete can rapidly accelerate your achievement of those dreams. Visualization of your goals and desires accomplishes four very important things.

1. It activates your creative subconscious which will start generating creative ideas to achieve your goal.

2. It programs your brain to more readily perceive and recognize the resources you will need to achieve your dreams.

3. It activates the law of attraction, thereby drawing into your life the people, resources, and circumstances you will need to achieve your goals.

4. It builds your internal motivation to take the necessary actions to achieve your dreams.

Visualization is really quite simple. You sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine — in as vivid detail as you can — what you would be looking at if the dream you have were already realized. Imagine being inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes at the ideal result.

Mental Rehearsal

Athletes call this visualization process “mental rehearsal,” and they have been using it since the 1960s when we learned about it from the Russians. All you have to do is set aside a few minutes a day. The best times are when you first wake up, after meditation or prayer, and right before you go to bed. These are the times you are most relaxed. Go through the following three steps:

1. Imagine sitting in a movie theater, the lights dim, and then the movie starts. It is a movie of you doing perfectly whatever it is that you want to do better. See as much detail as you can create, including your clothing, the expression on your face, small body movements, the environment and any other people that might be around. Add in any sounds you would be hearing — traffic, music, other people talking, cheering. And finally, recreate in your body any feelings you think you would be experiencing as you engage in this activity.

2. Get out of your chair, walk up to the screen, open a door in the screen and enter into the movie. Now experience the whole thing again from inside of yourself, looking out through your eyes. This is called an “embodied image” rather than a “distant image.” It will deepen the impact of the experience. Again, see everything in vivid detail, hear the sounds you would hear, and feel the feelings you would feel.

3. Finally, walk back out of the screen that is still showing the picture of you performing perfectly, return to your seat in the theater, reach out and grab the screen and shrink it down to the size of a cracker. Then, bring this miniature screen up to your mouth, chew it up and swallow it. Imagine that each tiny piece — just like a hologram — contains the full picture of you performing well. Imagine all these little screens traveling down into your stomach and out through the bloodstream into every cell of your body. Then imagine that every cell of your body is lit up with a movie of you performing perfectly. It’s like one of those appliance store windows where 50 televisions are all tuned to the same channel.

When you have finished this process — it should take less than five minutes — you can open your eyes and go about your business. If you make this part of your daily routine, you will be amazed at how much improvement you will see in your life.

Create Goal Pictures

Another powerful technique is to create a photograph or picture of yourself with your goal, as if it were already completed. If one of your goals is to own a new car, take your camera down to your local auto dealer and have a picture taken of yourself sitting behind the wheel of your dream car. If your goal is to visit Paris, find a picture or poster of the Eiffel Tower and cut out a picture of yourself and place it into the picture. With today’s technology, you could probably make an even more convincing image using your computer.

Create a Visual Picture and an Affirmation for Each Goal

We recommend that you find or create a picture of every aspect of your dream life. Create a picture or a visual representation for every goal you have — financial, career, recreation, new skills and abilities, things you want to purchase, and so on. When we were writing the very first Chicken Soup for the Soul® book, we took a copy of the New York Times best seller list, scanned it into our computer, and using the same font as the newspaper, typed Chicken Soup for the Soul into the number one position in the “Paperback Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous” category. We printed several copies and hung them up around the office. Less than two years later, our book was the number one book in that category and stayed there for over a year!

Index Cards

We practice a similar discipline every day. We each have a list of about 30-40 goals we are currently working on. We write each goal on a 3×5 index card and keep those cards near our bed and take them with us when we travel. Each morning and each night we go through the stack of cards, one at a time, read the card, close our eyes, see the completion of that goal in its perfect desired state for about 15 seconds, open our eyes and repeat the process with the next card.

Use Affirmations to Support Your Visualization

An affirmation is a statement that evokes not only a picture, but the experience of already having what you want. Here’s an example of an affirmation:

I am happily vacationing 2 months out of the year in a tropical paradise,
and working just four days a week owning my own business.

Repeating an affirmation several times a day keeps you focused on your goal, strengthens your motivation, and programs your subconscious by sending an order to your crew to do whatever it takes to make that goal happen.

Expect Results

Through writing down your goals, using the power of visualization and repeating your affirmations, you can achieve amazing results. Visualization and affirmations allow you to change your beliefs, assumptions, and opinions about the most important person in your life — YOU! They allow you to harness the 18 billion brain cells in your brain and get them all working in a singular and purposeful direction.

Your subconscious will become engaged in a process that transforms you forever. The process is invisible and doesn’t take a long time. It just happens over time, as long as you put in the time to visualize and affirm, surround yourself with positive people, read uplifting books and listen to audio programs that flood your mind with positive, life-affirming messages.

Repeat your affirmations every morning and night for a month and they will become an automatic part of your thinking — they will become woven into the very fabric of your being.

Jack Canfield, America’s Success Coach, is the founder and co-creator of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and the nation’s leading authority on Peak Performance. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at www.JackCanfield.com

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