Ivana Taylor

During the school year, I spend most Saturdays at the Independence Starbuck’s on Rockside Rd. in Cleveland. I send my son to Serbian School and I hop over to the Starbuck’s to catch up on things that happened and plan for the things that are going to happen. I call it Starbuck’s Saturdays.

If you’re a client, chances are I’m thinking about you. If you’re not yet a client — chances are I’m STILL thinking about you. I can’t help myself. There are potential marketing strategies and insights just about everywhere you turn, and I subconsciously and consciously keep track of them and think about which of you will benefit most from what I’m thinking about.

Today, I’m thinking about marketing trends for 2009. Anita Campbell from Small Business Trends is pulling together a trend list and she’s asked many of her experts to put their lists down and share them with the Small Business Trends Community. Seems easy enough - but I’d like to get more use out of these trends than just one article.

That brings me to the next thing I’m up to; DIY Marketers. I’ve gotten it into my head that I’m going to launch a membership site for in-house marketers. You know who you are - you’re either the owner of a small business who has to wear a marketing hat, or you’ve been given the responsibility of “Marketing” by the owner of a small business and you’re not quite sure what else there is to marketing other than placing ads and going to trade shows. I’ll be doing a series on what the hell I was thinking when I decided to do this. So tune into Strategy Stew to see how that’s going.

I was a presenter at the COSE Small Business Conference on Thursday October 23, 2008. Anita Campbell was kind enough to ask me to co-present with her on Web 2.0 and social media. The room was fairly full. We had some technical difficulty and we actually had to do what I often teach in the Power Presentations Course — run the presentation with NOTHING - just what you know. It turned out to be a blessing. One of our goals was to make it interactive - and with no slides - we presented some thoughts and the audience asked questions. It was awesome.

This week - hopefully today, my plan is to start pulling together the content calendar for all these different blogs. I learned something about SEO that says you should have several blogs all linking to each other. Since I’ve been putting everything on Strategy Stew, but now have Ivana Taylor’s Blog, Third Force blog, Strategy Stew AND DIY Marketers - you will be hearing similar things from different perspectives.

But I’ll be thinking about you.

When you really think about what it takes to build a successful business today, you realize that getting and keeping customers isn’t as much about selling them something — it’s about getting your ideal customer to choose you - regardless of price.

Over the last twenty-plus years, I’ve built a reputation for helping the companies I work with

• FInd their strengths
• Identify their ideal, most profitable customers
• Figure out what’s important to these customers when they are buying what we’re selling - and
• Getting US chosen over ANY other alternative - regardless of price

Just imagine your business when:

• You are working with customers who love working with you.
• Customers are loyal because they know exactly the benefits you provide and are HAPPY to pay for them.
• Referrals pouring in because your clients and customers can’t stop themselves from raving about you.
• You are profitable year after year.
• You actually smile when a customer calls

Getting and Keeping Customers is what good marketing is all about.  It is supposed to be as much fun as doing any of the things you love to do.  If that doesn’t sound like you, we need to talk.