By Stuart L. Cohen
International Speaker, Trainer and Success Coach
Chief Motivation Officer, Exclamation Points Inc.
Host, Stuart Cohen Show
Stuart@ExclamationPointsInc.com
(631) 630-3907
We all want to achieve higher success in our businesses! We tend to focus mostly on big ideas, fancy Facebooks, and resource intensive promotions. Once we’re an established business we rarely come back to the very basics of branding. We may not be looking, but I assure you that everybody else is looking, reading and hearing you loud and clear. The very basics of branding can actually have a profound impact on sales and profits. Taken from my new motivational program entitled Achieve Your Remarkability, here are five simple yet powerful strategies you can embrace today and begin achieving greatly!
1. Create a remarkable “elevator speech”. You and I are in an elevator together. I ask what you do for a living. You’ve got 20 seconds to knock my socks off. If I don’t ask you for a business card, you’ve failed. Would you pass or fail? I coach you to craft your 20 second verbal powerhouse resume NOW. If you don’t know what makes you special then neither will your clients. Achieve your “Remarkability” by perfecting your elevator speech and see how many new clients you’ll attract…everywhere, everyday!
2. Create a remarkable business card. Many travel professionals slap together a business card on the cheap and never look back. I’ve seen cards that contain too much print, teeny tiny phone numbers that are almost illegible, and worse yet, are just terribly unremarkable. A business card is not a cluster of contact information. Rather, it is a living, breathing billboard that will arrest attention or be as forgetful as the rest. Create a remarkable card NOW, it is among the least expensive marketing tools that can drive the highest returns. Please be certain it aligns with your elevator speech!
3. Create a remarkable email signature. Emails are overused and abused yet possess the power to radically help or hurt your business. We write them quick, read them quick, and hit delete faster than the blink of an eye. Inside those short golden seconds of attention span, you have your client’s total attention. Nano-seconds before they hit delete, you can either WOW them or be entirely dull, like all the rest. I encourage you to create your signature. Power up your elevator speech, business card, and email signature, and you are on your way to standing out from the crowded playing field of unremarkable businesses.
4. Create a remarkable email address. Quit using Aol, Gmail, Hotmail, Ymail, Earthlink, and Yahoo email addresses. Send me your letters trying to convince me that you’ve never lost business because of your email address. My answer is simple: how will you ever know how much business you’ve already lost? Professionals, your email address is profoundly important towards establishing your level of professionalism and commitment. Want to grow your business faster than the rest? Want to achieve true remarkability? Dump the personal email address and transition to professionalism. I promise it will take less time and less money than you’d expect. I promise that all your friends and clients will follow you, no worries! (In fact, they’ll be most impressed).
5. Create a remarkable voice mail message. Often overlooked and dismissed as an operational necessity versus a marketing strategy, I encourage agents to pay attention to what they sound like. This is yet another consumer touch point that can help us fall flat or fly high. Go ahead and write out a script. Record it till you get it perfect (there’s no charge for trying and trying again). Smile big and look up when you are recording. Answer with robust gratitude. Make a call-back promise that is fast yet realistic. Did you ever suppose that something as simple as a recorded greeting will elevate your remarkability?
Pay attention to the little things! To you they may be insignificant but the world is watching, listening and reading all about you. We all have opportunities to blend in with the masses or to be remarkable! What’s your choice?
