Whether you work in a regular office or out of your home, it is very important to take time off to refresh and recharge. Of course, when you take time off, you want to be sure your customers are in good hands while you are away. You certainly don’t want them to feel abandoned or forgotten. Customer service is a big part of effective marketing.

The following suggestions will help keep your customers connected to you and reduce your worries so you can totally unwind on your vacation.

1. Plan in advance and let them know:
If you plan your vacation and business trips well in advance, you can easily let your customers know when you you’ll be away. If you work on your own, make sure they know exactly what dates you leave and come back. If you have an assistant or business partner, take the time to carefully prep them in advance so they can keep everything running smoothly while you are gone. Checklists can be very helpful during this time to ensure things are run according to you.

2. Don’t be afraid to say “no” so you have time to finish things:
If a client asks you to do something during your time off or to take on a big project with a deadline right before you leave, simply say, “I’m sorry I’m going out of town such and such date and will return on blah-blah.” Let them know that you won’t be taking on any additional work until you return. In this way, they can work around your schedule. More importantly, you won’t be stressed because you have to burn the midnight candle to complete something before you hit the road. If you’ve shared your schedule with customers in advance, these types of requests should be minimal.

3. Set up your systems:
Send out a reminder e-mail the week before your vacation to remind people when you leave and when you will return. Be sure to set up an e-mail autoresponder and a voice mail message to let customers know how long you are gone and that you will respond ASAP upon your return. You can also try this trick: add on one day at the end of your vacation that you will be “gone.” You can use this day to sneak into your office to ramp back up and get everything ready to go in your office before you let anyone know you are back in town. This is a BIG stress reducer.

4. Schedule vacations during slower times:
If you are nervous about leaving during a busy time of year and you work in a business where you have an off season, take advantage of this by scheduling your vacations during this period. In this way, you can alleviate your stress about leaving your customers hanging. If you don’t have a slower time of year, take the vacation anyway - you’ll be better for it!

5. Set limits for yourself:
If you are like me, sometimes it can be hard to just let it all go. I find myself checking in with my office or checking e-mails and voice mails. Don’t do it! Trust me, everyone will be okay while you’re gone. By checking in, you are just keeping yourself from enjoying your vacation fully (and probably annoying folk back at your office). If you do need to check in, only do it once or twice during your vacation…and not once or twice a day!

If you follow the strategies above, your customers will be more than happy and able to take care of themselves while you are gone. You’ve given them ample time to work around your schedule to get their project needs met. You’ve provided backup support if possible. And they know when you will back to pick up things with their accounts. In fact, you can be a fantastic role model for your customers because many of them need to take more days off too!

While you are on your vacation, truly take the time off you need. Completely dedicate yourself to absolutely relaxing and NOT thinking about work projects. You’ll be refreshed, rejuvenated, and better equipped to be of service to your customers when you return.

Ready to learn more great success tips? Then it’s time to get a copy of the Maven Marketing Home Study System! It’s everything you need to know to attract the best customers for your business. You’ll learn how to describe what makes your business remarkable, how to get new customers calling YOU, and lots of other valuable strategies to help you fill your sales pipeline quickly. (Why struggle with your marketing anymore?)

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In any marketing effort, remember you are trying to reach people who are bombarded with a plethora of information and offers. To be effective at getting the attention of this harried bunch, it is crucial to make time to plan each marketing campaign.

Whether e-mail, advertising, or direct mail, each endeavor must have benefit-driven messages that clearly reinforce your brand. Each promotion should be designed to let your target audience know that your company is something different and special.

By carefully planning each marketing effort, you will increase your response rate and revenue! Determine the message of your piece and make a specific offer with a call to action that drives customers to experience your services/products. This planning time will make each campaign more successful for you and more meaningful for your recipients.

Here is a planning format to help you shape your marketing (I’ll use an example of a financial investment adviser to show you how this might work):

State the objective of the piece. Example: Add 3 new clients to sign up for my portfolio management services.

2. Reach Target Market: Identify who the campaign will reach and the best way to reach them. List any demographic information that you might have. Example: Retired high net-worth individuals with investable assets of $250,000 or more living in the Chicago metropolitan area. Purchase mailing list of subscribers to Fortune & Money magazines living in high-income suburb near Chicago Country Club.

3. Key benefits: State the unique benefits that you will offer to the target audience. Example: I customize each customers’ portfolios to their specific needs to bring them significant returns on their assets.

4. Tone and Personality: Address the overall look and feel of your campaign. Example: Promotional, oversized postcard featuring a picture of happy retired couple playing golf. Tone and personality is professional, progressive, and emphasizes trust.

5. Promotional Offer/Call to Action: State the benefits of working with you and what the offer will be - determine whether there will be a coupon, a discount, or a give-away with purchase. Make sure the offer will be appealing to your target audience to entice the best response. Example: I can show you how to grow your portfolio by 130% over the next 5 years so you can enjoy your retirement. Call today for your free initial consultation.

6. Repeat the Message: Frequency over time = reach. For the best response, plan to reinforce your brand and messages often. In order to get through, marketing messages must be repeated. Example: This postcard campaign will be repeated each quarter to the same mailing list with a slightly different image and message.

Action Tip: Stay the course - successful marketing requires a long-term investment. It involves careful planning, tracking response, and repeating/expanding successes. It also involves minimizing those things that aren’t working. Make an investment in sound marketing by taking the time to develop a planning system for each of your promotions. This time upfront will ensure the best response rates.

Ready to learn more about how to create effective marketing campaigns? Then it’s time to get a copy of the Maven Marketing Home Study System! It’s everything you need to know to attract the best customers for your business. You’ll learn how to describe what makes your business remarkable, how to get new customers calling YOU, and lots of other valuable strategies to help you fill your sales pipeline quickly. (Why struggle with your marketing anymore?)

Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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Whether it’s in a print advertisement or on your website’s home page or at a networking event, you get just a few precious moments to convey your message.

Time is a dwindling resource for today’s average harried consumer. And, there are more and more competing streams of information coming at each of us.

So, be willing to be remarkable to get noticed by your target audience.

Consider this - when someone chooses to listen, read, or view your message they are giving you a huge gift of their attention. What are you giving them in return? Offer them excitement, entertainment, creativity, and inspiration because you get only one chance to make a first impression.

Here are some tips to make sure your message sticks:

1. Don’t Make Them Think: When you develop your message, make sure it is from the audience’s point of view. Your communication should be easy to understand, have a single message, and be to the point.

2. Tell Them the Benefit: Quickly explain the reason a consumer should pick your company. What makes you special? And, how are you going to solve their problem?

3. Be Creative: Creativity is the key to capturing attention and keeping it. Are your three seconds original?

Think about things you can do to show your clients you are remarkable. You can also really go for it in your advertising and promotions. Don’t be scared of being BIG! It doesn’t have to cost a lot either.

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Attention all entrepreneurs:

Can you help me out?

For a couple of business-building ideas I have, I am conducting research on entrepreneurs’ perception of their own marketing/sales skills and gaps.

If you don’t mind, would you take 5-10 minutes to fill out this survey?

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=340723677706

It’s anonymous and just going to be read by me.

Thanks so much!

Best, Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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At my company, Kinesis, we often manage advertising campaigns for our clients. As a result, the media representatives call us about specials that they are running. And while these are sometimes a good fit for a particular clients’ marketing strategy, generally they aren’t in alignment.

Those media folks can make these “deals” sound very appealing. I believe they get a lot of buy-in from their other customers on these types of advertising specials. People often purchase based on impulse and not because it fits in with their overall marketing objectives.

So, my recommendation? Just because a media rep calls about the next greatest opportunity to advertise doesn’t mean you should jump on it. Tell the person you’ll call them back once you’ve had a chance to review your overall marketing strategy to see if this is a good fit (they hate when you say that!). If it is appropriate, by all means - seize the day! If not, another deal to advertise will be along in…oh…about 2 days.

And if you really want to know what I think about most media reps and their approach, just watch this clip from Ice Age 2.

Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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American Idol is a very popular reality TV show. It is a spin-off of a show called Pop Idol born in the UK by Simon Fuller.

The format he uses to create a pop star out of a no-name wanna-be has proven to be wildly successful on an international basis. The Idol format to make and market a new pop star has been launched in dozens of nations worldwide, and there are many international imitations of the show.

I am fascinated by this phenomena. The thing that is so amazing to me is that even though all of the contestants are singing in different languages, each show is creepy in its similarity.

Here are some examples of the International Idol craze:

Shada Hassoun, a 26-year-old Iraqi singer won the Arab version of Pop Idol in Beirut a few days ago.Also from that Star Academy show, Haifa Wehbe.

Indian Idol: One of the final sing offs. Look at the emotions on the faces in the audience.

Vietnam Idol: Flashes of potential stars to be.

Phillipine Idol: Earliest stages. Profiles of the initial sing-offs with judges giving them hell.

Nouvelle Star: Amazing French Beatbox performance. I don’t know how this guy does all of this with his mouth. And another one of Joseph Beatbox.

And you ABSOLUTELY have to watch this early tryout with an imitation of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean for Malaysian Idol. (It’s horrible and oh so funny). Here are a couple of the finalists in Malaysian Idol.

Initial Casting for Idolos in Portugal. This girl takes on Fallin’ by Alicia Keyes. This same contestant made is pretty far. Here is a later show with an amazing rendition of Luciana singing I will Survive by Donna Summers.

Wow…well that’s all the global pop culture I can handle for one day. Have a great weekend.

Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

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Body language is critical to the way in which we market ourselves. Human beings are constantly taking cues from one another’s tone, expressions, and body language. Which brings me to Man Hugs. The hug is muscling its way into the culture of the American male.

If you are an American male, it can be tricky knowing exactly how to say “hello” and “goodbye” ’cause times they are a-changing.
From American guys embrace the hug:

Men accustomed to the automatic, dependable hand clasp accompanied with a brisk up-and-down pump now must preface their greetings or goodbyes with intricate, split-second calculations based on body language, length of friendship and other factors.

Absent any formal rules about the matter, Tesauro says, “If you are in a casual scenario and you are greeting someone, I don’t think a hug is out of place. It says you are an extroverted, demonstrative person.”

He hugs most of his male friends, he says, although he usually does not hug men upon meeting them for the first time. After that initial handshake, though, the hug could happen any time.

“Saying goodbye is always safer,” he says. “You’ve built up fellowship. It’s the difference between a hello kiss on a first date and a good-night kiss.”

When Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University professor of Black popular culture, is with men, he’ll use a certain kind of hug - as long as the other guy also is Black.

“If I was greeting a White guy, I would probably never go for the hug, it would always immediately be the handshake,” says Neal. “In the case of Black males, particularly around my age, 40, it’s the hip-hop hug: a handshake, you pull yourselves together, and you bump.”

From Males come to grips with man hugs:

“Depending on the circumstances, it can also include a loud exclamation, a general grunting noise to assert your masculinity,” says Patrick Carone, entertainment director for Stuff magazine, whose readers are largely males in their 20s.

That’s just one of the ways that American man hugs are different from hugs between men and women, and even embraces among females, he notes.

Man hugs are brief, involve minimal body contact and may include a back slap, a gutteral noise or both.

“We’re still men, after all,” jokes Carone. “It’s OK to show that we like each other, but we still have to act tough.”

If you are confused, here are some Man Hugs for you to try:

The Hip-Hop Hug: Guys greet with handshakes of various styles, pull themselves in toward each other, then bump their inside shoulders.

The Half-and-Half Hug: Guys greet each other with standard handshakes, then reach around each other’s shoulders with their left arms and pat each other’s backs.

The Bear Hug: Guys dispense with handshakes altogether. When they greet, the left arm drapes over the partner’s right shoulder; the right arm goes around the waist. The left hand usually pats the partner’s back.

Good luck and let me know how your manly hugging works out.

Man Hugs and success,

Wendy Maynard
Your friendly marketing maven

P.S. Check out this picture of McCain hugging Bush. What are these guys saying with their body language?

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