We are excited to announce the launch of Handsome Properties new website. We headed up the creative content direction and wrote the web copy while the Charleston-based design firm Studio Blur worked their magic.
Handsome Properties is a boutique real estate firm specalizing in historic and luxury properties in and around Charleston, South Carolina.
A year ago, many businesses could safely assume what worked for one successful business worked for all. This is not the case today.
Business practices and marketing strategies, which made a company successful last year, aren’t the same ones companies should implement today. It’s important to understand the pros and cons of this economic downturn and change the way you do business. It’s about marketing your company in a unique fashion and flipping past practices upside down.
The businesses succeeding during this time . . .
• Don’t simply follow trends—they’re ahead of the trends.
• Think outside the box.
• Educate themselves on the economy as a whole and in niche areas, not necessarily related to their industry.
• Analyze what other successful businesses are doing and put a unique spin on it.
• Acknowledge the negative aspects of this economy but do not dwell on them.
• Go the extra mile to discover what their competition isn’t doing.
Don’t let this recession frighten you into hiding. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to get on top. Use your mind as your main tool and resource for creating a successful business during this time. This will help you exercise your creativity for the future benefits of your business.
Change the way you do business today, and succeed in this troubled economy. You won’t regret it.
The following article and excercise was taken (with permission) from Envision Lifeworks LLC, From Purpose to Profit Ezine, Issue 5 dated 1/22/09.
MINDSET WARMUP #2: U-TURN YOUR LIMITING BELIEFS
Find a time and place where you can quietly take 15 minutes to think and reflect. This exercise starts by stirring up some of the gunk that clogs your ability to thrive – your limiting beliefs.
Start by thinking of five beliefs that you live with that really hold you back. You can expand the number later, but five will help you get the idea. For example, as a Conscious Entrepreneur, you may sometimes find yourself yielding to limiting beliefs like:
· “I have to work harder than I do now to increase my prosperity.”
· “I can’t succeed because of this bad economy.”
· “Clients will never pay me the fees that more successful providers command.”
· “Who am I to be creating this business? People are going to see right through me and think I’m a fake.”
Can you remember having these or other beliefs with a similar tone of negativity? Don’t be hard on yourself if you have. You’re in good company! Even the most successful entrepreneurs combat the occasional encroachment of disempowering beliefs. But that said, don’t stay there. Your success will grow if you go on to the next steps below.
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Now we are going to turn this around. This year, and forever more, you are going to increasingly empower yourself by getting into the habit of doing two things.
1. Becoming actively aware of when you are yielding to beliefs that do not empower you. Awareness in itself is a big step forward, signaling that you are ready to grow beyond negative beliefs and into wonderful new territory.
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2. U-Turning the disempowering belief. You will do this by identifying an opposite, empowering belief that you will choose to enjoy in place of its negative opposite. Then, when you become aware of the negative belief trying to creep in, you will actively choose to think the positive replacement instead.
Here is how you might U-Turn the negative examples above:
Disempowering Belief: I have to work harder than I do now to increase my prosperity. U-Turn with Empowering Belief: Prosperity comes with ease when I yield to Spirit’s plan for my life.
Disempowering Belief: I can’t succeed because of this bad economy. Empowering Belief: Many entrepreneurs are thriving right now. I have chosen to grow and succeed along with them.
Disempowering Belief: Clients will never pay me the fees that more successful providers command. Empowering Belief: I provide great value to my clients and help improve their lives, and for that I deserve to be well-compensated.
Disempowering Belief: Who am I to be creating this business? People are going to see right through me and think I’m a fake. Empowering Belief:In building this business, I am being my most authentic self and using my genuine talents to succeed.
I know some will smirk and dismiss this approach as Pollyannaish or just a gimmick for “tricking” yourself into avoiding reality. I am not asking you to put on rose-colored glasses or deny physical realities like gravity and sunshine.
But your thoughts and your beliefs are a different matter. You have a choice. You have free will.
What I am suggesting is that you exercise this choice and take complete responsibility for your thoughts and beliefs.
We all go through life endowing our strongly-held beliefs with the sacred status of “the truth,” whether these “truths” serve us or not. But know this: beliefs that are founded on negative drivers, like fear and doubt, are just your ego’s attempt to protect you. Yes, your ego means well, but it will often do this by keeping you small with “truths” that prevent you playing big and making positive changes.
In choosing to U-Turn your limiting beliefs, you are exercising veto power over your ego and choosing to be and play bigger in life.
Each time you do this, you are choosing to grow and become stronger.
So try it!
Practice becoming aware of beliefs that don’t serve you, beliefs that just bring you down. Give yourself credit even if at first you get just that far. Then, practice taking a fast and sharp U-Turn on that stinkin’ thinkin’. Peel some rubber as you turn your thoughts around to positive beliefs of your choosing. Then hit the pedal to the metal down the road of success and prosperity!
About the author: Julio Blanco is a certified coach, veteran marketer, and conscious entrepreneur. As owner of Envision Lifeworks LLC, he champions other conscious entrepreneurs to align their business with their purpose and to achieve the abundance they desire on their own terms. He is the author of the from PURPOSE to PROFIT Ezine and serves clients through individual and group coaching, seminars, and public speaking. For more information, please visit www.EnvisionLifeworks.com.
Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, scared? Here are five simple ways to avoid freaking out:
1) Stop listening to the news. If you listen to the news, read papers, participate in negative gloom-and-doom conversations, then stop. Try taking a week break from listening to the media reports. You’ll be amazed how much happier and less-stressed you will be.
2) Treat yourself to something nice. Take a walk, take a bath, take yourself to dinner. Whatever you do, do something for yourself.
3) Sit down and write a list of what’s going right in your business and what’s going wrong. Take the list of what’s going right and focus on ways to do more of that. Evaluate what’s not going right and ask yourself why. Brainstorm a bit. Either stop doing what’s not working or find a way to make it work.
4) Surround yourself with positive, like-minded people.
5) Ask mentors for advice. Every business owner should have a mentor. You cannot operate in a vacuum, and seeking the advice of someone outside of your daily struggles will help you refocus and stay on track.
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Step 3 in atracting all the clients you want is…Understaing What Makes Your Company Unique. (Click here to read step 1 and step 2)
With so many companies offering similar services or products as you do, how do you stand out from the crowd? Once you identify your target market and know the benefit your company brings to them, then you need to show why potential clients should buy from you.
In order to do this, you need a Unique Selling Proposition (USP), a short statement explaining how your company or product differs from those of your competitors. Your USP informs prospective and current clients why your product or service is the best option.
Many businesses fail to establish a USP, just as they fail to pinpoint their target market. You must communicate a specific, compelling reason for customers to buy from you. Show them ways your company is different. Do you do something that goes over and beyond what your competitors do? Do you do things differently? Now, sit down and make a list of what makes your company unique.
While you’re making your list, brainstorm ways you can add more value to the product or service. For example, if you are a web designer, perhaps you could offer a free, 30-minute follow-up call to answer any questions customers have or to help brainstorm ways they can draw more site traffic. Offer this a month after the completion of the project. If you own a real estate firm, perhaps you could drive your clients around in a comfortable vehicle and offer snacks and drinks along the way.
Don’t forget to research the competition. Unless you know what else is out there, you cannot properly evaluate or showcase a USP.
Study the competition’s website and marketing materials, noting each company’s history and mission, product features and benefits, and target market. Why do customers buy from them and what does the market want that they do not or cannot provide? Note gaps in their product or service offerings. If you have difficulty clarifying benefits, list the features and why a prospect requires or desires them. Those reasons are benefits.
