Successful leaders- people with great business acumen, great teams and great vision- are moving along, growing their companies when, all of a sudden, they fall flat on their faces.
Their businesses start hemorrhaging money. Their best people start jumping ship. Their families start falling apart.
And they sit at their desks with their heads in their hands wondering, “How did this happen?”
I’ll tell you how it happened. They were blown up by a problem they never saw coming.
I call these problems “leadership landmines” because unless you’re consciously looking for them, they’re nearly impossible to spot. They’re buried in the grind of daily life, quietly waiting to injure and perhaps even destroy the next unsuspecting leader who steps on them.
Before I go on, I need to tell you that what I’m writing is based on personal experience. At one time or another in my career, I’ve stepped on landmines like the ones I’m about to describe. In some cases, I even have the scars to prove it.
If you’re moving and active, you’re bound to have a painful encounter with a landmine every now and then. It’s just the nature of leadership. But there are certain landmines that will absolutely wipe you out if you’re not careful, and those are the ones that really deserve our attention.
A friend once told me, “If I could kick the person most responsible for most of my problems, I would not be able to sit down for a week.” From my own life and the lives of the leaders I’ve observed over the years, I have found that to be absolutely right. Most leaders I watch don’t need to worry about the competition beating them. Instead, they need to be concerned about doing something stupid in the race and disqualifying themselves.
Marketing is all the activities and processes of planning, communicating and executing a product, with a price, the promotion and the placement of an item to an end user. Your music is your product which you are then supplying to the end user – the music fan. Between you and the fan is a big space on how to bridge this gap. You may think that if you just get a record deal with some label, your prayers are answered and this instant bridge is built across that space. This is for the most part, not how things work today.
As an aspiring indie or unsigned singer, songwriter, or a musician in a band you can not do just a few things to promote yourself and expect success in your music career. Offline and online music promotion and marketing exposure is an ongoing process in this DIY age. Music companies are looking for artists that already have fan bases, sold CDs, and are proven ready to move up to a higher level. Presented here are more than 100 tips and ideas for you to think about and tweak as you will, to get noticed, gain fans, and get heard. You have to find a way to stand above the crowd, for talent alone is not enough.
Promo Tip #1 A music artist must start somewhere, that’s usually locally, but it’s better to not just dive in without a plan. But begin you must. Create a plan with some ideas and set goals as to what you need to accomplish weekly, monthly, and yearly. Start small and make it progressive. Reach bench marks and keep at it.
Promo Tip #2 Image is everything. Image is the complete package – artist/band name, look, performance, merchandise, and style, to how that brand is marketed. A stage name can be a descriptive statement of the image you or your band project. Be unique and interesting to look at in some way….build your own unique stage persona.
Promo Tip #3 Word of mouth has always been the best promotion – tell people what you do. Get people talking. Create your buzz by just giving enough info to get people interested, but hold some secrets close.
Promo Tip #4 Those that promote the most win.
Promo Tip #5 You may be a truly great talent, but without getting out there and consistently marketing yourself, networking, meeting the right people, maintaining your image, and being humble, your talent will only get you so far.
Promo Tip #6 Be innovative in your promotional efforts! The Internet has made it possible to hear a LOT more music, from a LOT more artists. You are now a very small fish in a very large pond – you will need to find a way to stand out, above and glow in the dark. Think beyond the box on every promo tip.
Promo Tip #7 Learn web basics to use the Net to your advantage. The Internet thrives on links, quality content, keywords and consistency. Properly use the tools of the Internet to build your online brand.
When things are kind of foggy in your life! Have you ever thought of re-framing your foggy situation into storytelling? Turning what once a dull kind of moment situation shifts perspective to more congruent unique sharing entertainment and educational value! Your story is uniquely original priceless value!
Share your perspective on the video of the twin sisters. It has unique style flair below. Does it inspire you create your own unique tangible value in the marketplace?
Storytelling represents the virtual underutilized instrument in selling. Nevertheless storytelling not merely creates it comfortable for folks to get to experience, care and desire you, likewise step-ups gross revenue.
1. In your storytelling – follow this tested guide for most effective outcomes. T.E.S. means “trouble, execute, solutions”.
Express the trouble you’re confronted. What was not functioning, how did that sense? Narrate what execute you conducted. What represented the epiphany that shifted your spirit? What represented your “ah-ha” instant? What represented the solution of the execution you conducted? How to apply numbers and real life solutions? Narrate however you have sensed at present that matters are indeed distinguishable from whilst you experienced the trouble.
2. Most efficient stories drive the listener to discover envisions in their creative thinking. Those envision that glow in our retention and cause us to recall stories long time later on.
Choose a particular instant in time that comprises the crucial part of your story. Discard everything additional contributing up to that aim. At present, while you narrate the story produce envision in your creative thinking. Choose merely two particulars to narrate us virtually about.
Possibly it personified the closeness of your breath, the Green paint breaking off the room access you unfolded, the spongy auditory sensation below your shoes merely sufficient to unlock the key envision. Allow the listener conclude envision in their creative thinking.
3. The bountiful marketing secret narrates a story that likewise instructs a heart and soul thought behind your divine service, merchandise or platform.
Please see below to capture a full multimedia interactive presentation to create your own envision. You will probably recall more the precept behind storytelling how to narrate a story that sells. Please share how you are developing your storytelling message in comment post below.
We hope you had a wonderful and thought provoking Christmas day with your family and friends. Did it include any social networking this year?
With the increase of social networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook it has really made it a lot easier and even cheaper than 10 years ago connecting with family and friends who can’t be with us on Christmas season. It may be because they are interstate or in another country.
Phone cost have come down considerably as well as the phenomenal growth of internet broadband it has made using social networking video sites a great way to connect visually with family, like never before possible at any point in history over long distance. Kind of have a real heart to heart connection making distance nearly a thing of the past!
Now we have the new growing sleeping giant in the mobile phone arena with the advancement in smart phone technology you can be nearly at any location depending on wireless internet range. You can easily connect with family while enjoying Christmas or holidays anywhere if you are using smartphone technology to social network with video. Did you use social networking video sites this Christmas season?
If you are in outside sales in what is known as a hunter position, you are either a water bucket carrying salesperson, or you are a pipeline building salesperson. Find out why you need to identify which one you are, and which one you want to be!
Robert Kyosaki tells a great story about a village that had a serious water issue. They did not receive enough rainfall to provide water for the villages daily needs, and the river was a couple of miles away and highly inconvenient for the village people to go to every day. The mayor decided once and for all to put an end to the problem. He would put the job of bringing water from the river to the village up for bid, and they would outsource the project to the winning bidder.
Well, as luck would have it, two men put in their bid, and they were both awarded the project. The mayor figured a little competition never hurt anyone, and they would also always be sure that they would have enough water. Immediately, man number one went out, bought two water buckets, and started carrying buckets of fresh water early in the morning back and forth from the river to the village 6 days a week. He took Sundays off, so on that day the village did not have water.
Man number two did not buy buckets or start carrying water at all. In fact, no one was sure what he was up to. This made man number one quite happy, as he was earning all of the money as the sole source of water for the village. It was terrific! Man number one continued to carry buckets day after day, all day long under the hot summer sun, and he made a darn decent living doing so.
Meanwhile, man number two had gone to work gathering investors, developing a business plan, and received permits to build a stainless steel pipeline from the river to the village. Once complete, he was able to offer an endless supply of water to the village 7 days a week that was cleaner than what man number one was able to provide for 10% of man number ones price! Competition had arrived with a fury!
The example was told to Kyosaki by his rich dad to illustrate a point on work and investing, but doesn’t it also apply to you in the world of competitive sales? In the past 10 years, anyone in sales can tell you the games rules have changed, and they have changed with a fury!
If you are mindlessly cold calling day after day, with no long range plan on how to put your prospecting on auto-pilot, how are you any different than the guy carrying two buckets back and forth every day from the river? How can you continue to compete with a stainless steel pipeline with your two buckets as you get older and your back starts to ache from the unending physical toil? As the odds of you succeeding against those with a long range plan become slimmer and slimmer, how do you get out of bucket carrying mode and make your own pipeline before it’s too late? How can you possibly avoid burnout? How will you continue to compete in the new digital age with ancient methods of water transfer?
You can’t. And, you won’t. If you do continue on the road of carrying buckets day after day, the inevitable end will be sales burnout, ending up broke, bitter, and completely confused as to what happened. Even as you work right now, some of your competition is in the process of building stainless steel pipelines of new clients. And some of those customers used to be yours. How do they do it? What are they doing? How did they know? But perhaps most importantly, how can you do it?
The answer to the last question is different for every field and every industry, but yet the answer is the same in concept. It’s the power of leverage. How does the pipeline carry more water than the individual? It is a structure that took a lot of time and effort to build, that works 24 hours a day even when you dont, required a vision for the future, and it fulfilled a need. You need to repeat that exact same process in order to create your own pipeline. If you are not in an industry where that is possible, you may consider finding one where it is. Carrying buckets long term will almost guarantee sales burnout.
When you take a look at your industry, there is already someone who is building a better mousetrap and is in process of building their own stainless steel pipeline for finding qualified customers. It is never too late to catch up. But do not be fooled, there is no shortcut in the process. There are hours of hard work involved, tremendous amounts of planning to fulfill a market need, and a long range view of where you want to be. When you decide to become a pipeline builder instead of a bucket carrier, your mind will explode with creative ways to make it so, but it will still require a ton of hard work to get there. The sooner you can identify where you are in the process, the sooner you can begin to work towards where you want to be. Eventually, you should be able to put your prospecting on auto-pilot. Best wishes in your pipeline building!
About the Author:
Steve Norris is a Texas based Energy Efficient Electrical Contractor and Telecommunications Broker for over 80 carriers nationwide. He specializes in hardware solution for multi-location business with advanced infrastructure needs. Over 90% of his clients are able to implement a new technology infrastructure with Dallas VOIP solutions without increasing their budget with TeleTAP.
Comments RSS 
