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Getting Started Articles
Growing Your Business
What is the easiest way to increase your sales/profits?
Learn the easiest way to increase your sales and profits....more
The Importance Of A Thank You
Getting repeat business from your client base is easier than you think. It just takes a few minutes of your time.
The art of a thank you note has almost disappeared. And yet it is so powerful in today’s business market. People like being appreciated. They like being acknowledged for the business they bring to you. And they are more likely to give an encore performance if they know you value their business. ...more
Creating Multiple Landing Pages
Every website has a home page, the first page of your website that pulls the entire site together. It is where all navigation originates. And it’s where you direct your viewers to different pages throughout your site....more
How To Make Money With Referrals
Referrals are the lifeline of your wedding business. Getting referrals provides qualified people that already have emotional ties to you. What could be better?
Many businesses get referrals by accident. They satisfy their clients needs, and the client refers their friends back to the business. But that isn’t a formal system. If a business currently gets 100 referrals a year by accident, imagine what it could be if a formal system was put into place! (Multiply those 100 referrals by 10, 100 or even 1000%!) ...more
Make Money With The Extras
Get ideas on how to package products together for extra profits, and when and where to charge more.
It all comes down to giving your client a better end result. Your business caters to providing the ultimate benefit to your client: memories of an exciting day or of one particular point in time. That day can never take place again, so memories are all that remains. Play with that emotion. ...more
The Power Of Testimonials
Recommendations are by far the most valuable form of marketing. If your friend has recently gone to the movies, loved it, and recommended it to you, wouldn’t that be the first movie you pick on your next outing? It works that way with any business. Our friends and family, people we trust, hold the highest standard of recommendations.
"What others say about you and your product, service, or business is at least 1000% more convincing than what you...more
How To Get Customers From The Internet
When a client contacts you after visiting your website, can you close the sale?
Closing the sale begins with your website. To create excitement within your client, you have to have a few prevailing tools in your marketing pocket. Consider these 3 tools: ...more
Lessons In Selling From A Virtual Location
Selling virtually is completely different than selling from a storefront. Without a commercial location, and with your client hundreds of miles away, how are you going to sell?
A home-based business typically acts the same as a studio with a commercial location. They have clients come to their home, market to the people within a 10-mile radius of their home and create connections with the businesses in their community. ...more
Why A Great Headline Is So Important
Some websites have it. Some don't.
But really, there is a huge difference between the two. If more businesses understood this one concept, online marketing as a whole would be a lot more efficient.
I'm talking about the power of a headline. A good headline will draw people in. It will make them want to take the next step, and read more into your site. They will scroll down your page, wanting to discover the answers you've enticed them with. And they'll want to click through to other pages, hoping to find more information that will ultimately lead to action - the sale!
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How To Mark Up And Price Your Photographs
How do you price your products and services? While this informative report is written for photographers, anyone in the wedding industry will gain a wealth of information on how to price your wedding related services....more
Is Buying An Existing Business Easier?
Buying into an existing business gets you an existing client base. It can also bring you in an armful of problems. Before you buy, consider these key points.
Business Structure. When you buy a business, the structure is already in place. The customers of the business are already “trained” to expect certain things. If there are employees, they work the way they’ve been taught by the previous owners. Systems are in place. The easiest way to tell how strong the structure is would be to actually...more
Creating More Than A Job
Now that you’ve decided to go into business for yourself, aren’t you ready to create a new lifestyle as well? Stretch beyond just replacing the money you earned while working at a job, and create a huge income stream that will provide for you and your family tenfold.
Up to 90% of all small businesses simply go into business with the intent of creating another job for themselves....more
Starting Your Own Wedding Business
If you’ve reached the point where you’re tired of dreaming of starting your own business, and are ready to take action and actually start your own business, congratulations!
My husband and I started our photography business a little over 17 years ago. We were young and thought starting a business was just as easy as buying a few business cards. Our families came from the “job” mentality, so we had...more
New Ways Of Networking
How do you get new clients? Do you work from referrals? When was the last time you attended a local networking event, and made contact with people that brought you in business?
Try attending a new event this month. There are so many different types of networking events,...more
Overture Launches Local Search Listings to Web Sites
One of the most common phrases I hear when talking with people about their websites is “But I’m just a local company – I don’t need a website yet.”
If you’re “just a local company”, now’s the perfect time to have a website, and begin marketing to just the local neighborhood. ...more
Create A Virtual Office Location
Do you live far away from a major city, yet want to capture the attention of the city dwellers for your business? That’s the beauty of Internet phone service.
Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, is the new way to make and receive your business phone calls. When a phone call comes in, they are converted into data that moves through your high speed Internet connection. And the best thing for those in a virtual environment is you can choose what area code your phone number will exist in. ...more
Blogging
Blogging is an interesting word. The first time you hear it, you think you misheard what the speaker was saying. Let’s face it, blogging as a word does not bring about flowery images....more
5 Things To Do To Get Better Rankings In The Search Engines
Getting to the top of the search engines is a daunting task. Just when you move up the ranks, the search engines change their algorithms to stay ahead of the people trying to trick their way to the top. This can cause your site to plummet – even if you are a legitimate company.
What can you do today to help increase the odds of your site staying in the top rankings? ...more
How To Use Sponsorship In Your Business
Want to jump on the bandwagon of the fastest growing form of marketing in America? Include sponsorship in your marketing plans for this year. You can find unlimited opportunities to broaden your image by sponsoring events attracting people within your target market....more
Creating Headlines That Sell
A headline is what pulls people in to your information. It makes them want to read more, and find out more information about you. Throughout the past one hundred years, many studies have been done to find out the best types of headlines. You can even find reports on specific headlines (you just have to insert your product or company name into the headline). But there are some basic guidelines to follow to create a proven and well-written headline....more
10 Ways To Be Better At Networking
Join one networking group with the intent of helping someone else.
Networking is a reciprocal process, in which you share ideas, leads and referrals. Give as much as you can, and it will come back to you.
Build at least one strong relationship. When you meet someone you connect well with, invite him or her to lunch or out for coffee. Find out all you can about...more
Multiple Marketing Channels
I attended a seminar on Thursday, and was impressed by the number of ways the speaker, a business coach, was marketing his products. His number one approach to business was to have a wide variety of products and services to sell, and to have a mixture of ways he get his word out to clients about his products and services. He stated that he was a big ...more
Bride’s Work Sheet
For every wedding we photograph, we have our bride fill our “Bride’s Work Sheet” a couple of weeks before the wedding. We use this worksheet in several ways. ...more
Under Promise and Over Deliver
Whatever you plan on doing for your customer, never give away your whole strategy.
What is your timeline for service? Double it.
What promises do you make? Make them as generic as possible.
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Cutting Costs Without Cutting
Bootstrapping tends to be commonplace in small businesses. In today’s economy, it tends to be even more so. But is it really saving you time and money? Probably not.
Doing everything yourself actually takes away from what you do best. Even if you must maintain everything in house because of low funds, minimize the amount of work you have to spend on each task b automating steps as much as possible.
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Direct Marketing
I’ve been reading a lot about direct marketing lately. With the trouble email marketing has been facing, the limitations the Do-Not-Call Registry has placed, and rising costs in advertising, direct mail seems to be a viable alternative for many small businesses. If you have given up on direct marketing lately, or have never considered putting direct marketing into your strategic plans, maybe now is the time to begin investigating the advantages of using direct marketing. ...more
Focus Your Energy
I hear people time and again saying they are so motivated to build up their business, and yet there always seems to be a let down because profits don’t seem to keep up with that motivation level. As a start up company, you wear many hats because you have to. ...more
How To Photograph Weddings
Many photographers start their business by photographing a few weddings, thinking that it’s the easiest type of photography. In reality, its one of the most difficult, strenuous types of photography. ...more
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