Cip

Cip
Focus or Discipline?

A great many of my coaching clients ask for help with focus. They are easily distracted and stray from doing the important. As I was on the final push for the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro this past July, I asked myself what would get me to the top.

The Platinum Rule

Selling and, indeed, all of this business of marketing is about relationships. Until someone likes and trusts you enough, you will not be able to create a true relationship. Turning strangers into friends, friends into customers and customers into raving fans is the new definition of marketing, Seth Godin said in his book, “Permission Marketing.”

How to Have a Conversation

You will build a better business if you learn how to have a better conversation. Maybe the best thing you can do to increase your sales is to stop selling. Stop doing all the talking and start building a give and take conversation—a true dialogue.

Without People, Brands Have No Meaning

Brands are built over time but can be destroyed in an instant. This is why is it critically important to realize that branding is all about people. And it begins at the inside of an organization.

5 Reasons You're Not Growing

There is a market of around $20 billion dollars for what you've got to sell. Most of us would be very happy with just a few crumbs from that table. So what's holding you back?

Promotional Products as an Engagement Strategy: Part 3 of 3

For effective use, the engagement professional will be strategic and thoughtful in the selection of promotional products as a communications device. Selecting the right products means knowing your communication objectives.

Promotional Products as an Engagement Strategy: Part 1 of 3

Promotional products are a communications tool that can engage all five senses. They are a creative way of not only informing, but for interacting with an audience by providing a sensory experience. Promotional products can be any tangible item usually imprinted with an organization's message, branding or promise.

What Would Have to Change?

What would have to change for you to be completely fulfilled as a promotional professional, as a loving spouse, a nurturing parent, a true friend, a whole person?

Need-Fulfillment? Or Need-Creation?

What business are you in? When products are a part of your offerings, there are two ways to go to market. You can source the request from your customer and be in the need-fulfillment business; or you can create solutions, generate ideas, develop visions and plans and create the need.

How to Do a Client Marketing Review

The first of the year is a great time to reconnect with all of your best clients. Right after the holidays is the perfect time to set yourself apart from the competition by providing your customers with a value-added extra. That little extra can be in the form of a Marketing Review.

This Industry is the Pits!

And I mean that in the most loving way possible. Can you describe what you do without using the word "products?" Can you write a pre-approach letter to get an appointment without ever referring to a specific or a general laundry list of products? Instead of being the advertising equivalent of a Chinese restaurant menu with a long list of "stuff" you can sell, how about you start talking about what solutions you can offer? Here are six of them:

Countdown to Success: Live Better. Sell Better.

Ten pieces of advice that I hope can help you be more professional and more successful. You won't find "How to Make More Money" or "How to Sell More Products" among these articles.

This One Thing. Create.

Make this world a better place. Make this industry a better place. Make your home a better place. You can do it—starting with you.

Two Ways To Find Your ‘Why’

Do you know your “why?" Why are you doing what you are doing? Please don’t tell me to make money. Money is a result of what you are doing. It is not the why. Your “why” is your purpose. When you find your purpose and live it, you discover meaning and you get to do what you love. When you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life.