Marketing

3 Skills To Increase Your Value

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No matter what your goals are, there are certain skills that will help you to excel. It doesn’t matter if you want to find a nice spot at a large corporation, get paid as an artist, or start your own business. These 3 skills will help you to be as successful as possible. Now, these are definitely not the only three, but I feel these to be of utmost importance because they are useful in all situations. Whether it’s professional development or personal development, it’s all about increasing your value to others.

Leadership

It is very rare to find someone who is a true leader, this is why I’ve place this skill at the top of the list. If you can learn to be a good leader, everything else almost follows of it’s own accord. A leader is someone who has a focus and a vision. They are confident and able to stimulate others to accomplish goals. They inspire others to do their best. Leaders don’t rely on outside motivation. They also do what is right, regardless of if anyone is watching. Anyone can learn to be a leader and the first step in that direction is having confidence in yourself.

Sales and Marketing

These are two terms that have gaind a bad reputation over time. This is because a lot of salespeople and marketers have used the wrong techniques in the past to get the job done. Many have also run into unsavory characters who run scams under the guise of sales and marketing. With the proper sales training, you can learn to build long-term customer relationships and increase your numbers.

Whether you like it or not, you are always involved in a sale. It doesn’t matter what your business is or even if you’re in business or not. Every conversation ends with you selling someone, or them selling you. The best sales people can close you without you ever even realizing it. Marketing is closely tied in here because it simply involves getting your brand out there. If no one knows about you, you can’t make any sales.

Money Management

Finances are pretty boring. I’m not implying you need to be an expert in accounting to make money, but you definitely need to know how to make your money work for you. This could be as simple as being able to calculate how many pieces of business you need to do to stay in the black. Depending on the size of your business, you might even seek some corporate finance training to help make sure you’re profitable. There are too many people in business making no money simply because they don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to finances.

The End

Personal development is the key no matter what you want to do with yourself. If you have the ability, take some classes, find a learning coach or get a mentor. No matter what they say, it is always possible to increase your value to others. The knowledge is out there. Taking the steps to seek it out already puts you ahead of the game.

Would You Still Love Me If I Post for Pay?

I have to admit that the I was turned on to blogging because I wanted to make money. I kept reading about it being a good way to market online, but it also held a special attraction for me because, well….I’m a geek. Now that I have been blogging for a few months, I realize that I would much rather blog about whatever I find interesting and the “monetary gain” part has taken a back seat. BUT…I still gotta pay the bills, right?

Enter the PayPerPost blog network. I know…you’re already groaning and rolling your eyes. PayPerPost (aka IZEA) is definitely not the most respected company in the blogging community. They don’t require you to mention the fact that a post was written for money, so this opens up a whole can of worms regarding blogger respect and credibility. Which brings us back to my original question: Would You Still Love Me If I Post for Pay?

The answer is that I’m going to do it anyway. I care about my readers and their opinions, but I have mouths to feed. I try to provide the best possible content that I can with every post that I write. I aim to educate, train, inform, and entertain. If I find avenues where I can get some up-front money to cover a topic of interest, wouldn’t I be an absolute moron not to take it? So, here are the rules:

• I will write posts for pay
• I will not write about things that have nothing to do with my blog
• I will blatantly flag these posts as being paid for
• I will make sure that these posts only serve to further the goals of this blog

I’m not just going to turn my blog into a steamy, spammy trash sludge of product reviews and blatant advertisements for the sake of earning money. Quality is very important to me and I would like to make sure it is not compromised.

From where I sit, this is a good opportunity to get paid for doing what I love. I keep seeing PayPerPost all across the blogosphere, even on blogs that don’t suck, so it’s gotta be worth something.

It’s ultimately up to you, isn’t it, my faithful reader? Do you trust me? Have my past actions shown me to be a respectable and honorable person? Do you think I would jeopardize my personal brand for a quick buck? Do you post for pay?

Feel free to respond in the comments…

Doh! You Forgot to Close!

You are having a great conversation with a prospect. You have related on many different levels. You’ve laughed, you’ve cried, you’ve discussed personal issues. You even find out that you may be related or once lived in the same neighborhood. Everything is going great. You really feel like you can help this person to succeed and that they would be an excellent addition to your team. You hang up the phone feeling good about that call. You feel as though you have accomplished something. So what’s wrong?

You Forgot To Close the Deal!

You let that person go without: adding them to your team, getting a committment from them as to when they want to join you, or even scheduling a definite callback!

What are you doing?!

This is probably one of the most common failings of many marketers and it is actually a very simple one to fix… Continue reading »