Happy March! I am very excited that March is here! To me, this means that spring is here and very soon flowers will start blooming and nature will come back to life.

Last month, for my birthday, we went to a great Greek restaurant. I love Mediterranean food, and there was lots of great food at the restaurant. Fried zucchini with a fabulous garlic spread, grilled octopus, Greek sausage. All of these dishes had fabulous bursts of flavors. This is why I really enjoy Mediterranean cuisine - lots of herbs and spices translate into real bold flavors in food.

Speaking of bright and bold, what kind of bold statements will you make with your business this spring? In today’s article I am sharing with you three ideas to help you make a bold statement with your business, provide more value to your clients and bring in more revenues.

Spring is in the air, even despite all the snow. Many stores have been promoting spring merchandise ever since February. The stores are hoping that the brightly colored Spring merchandise will get people excited about spring and about shopping at the stores. You can use the same technique to create excitement about your products and services.

Springtime is usually associated with rebirth and a new beginning. It’s also a particularly auspicious time to start a new marketing campaign. As warmer weather arrives and spring starts, more people will be interested in starting something new in their lives and their businesses. Offer them a compelling reason to work with you to help them start something new, and you will get new clients!

Here are three ways to start your spring marketing and get more clients:

Offer A Spring Special To Your Potential Clients

Everyone likes a special, and your offer may be just that one extra push that your potential clients need to start working with you!

Offer a discount on one of your popular products, or create a bundle of products and offer the bundle at a special price. This way your clients will get more of your products that they need.

Do Your Spring Cleaning

Not the spring cleaning you usually do in your closet, but do a spring cleaning of your current offers, products and services.

Review your lineup of products and see whether any one of your products needs to be retired. There are many reasons to retire a product - maybe your business is moving in another direction, and the product doesn’t fit anymore. Or maybe you are creating another product on a similar topic. If you find a product that should be retired, offer a spring cleaning special on it for a few weeks, and then retire it.

Doing this will help you increase your revenue and will help you finally set a deadline and retire an older product to make way for new products.

Start Using A New Marketing Technique This Spring

Spring is the time for starting something new, so get started by using a new marketing technique to bring more clients to your business.

Start a blog, start writing articles to do article marketing or finally join social networking web sites. A brand new marketing technique means a brand new stream of potential clients coming to your business.

Start something new this spring - become a new member at the online mentoring group for heart-based service professionals, and get help with getting clients for your business. Spring has started, so join now and start getting all the members’ benefits at http://www.MarketingSalad.com

I am very excited to share with you this interview with Shel Horowitz. He is the award-winning author of Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers and Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. Shel Horowitz is awaiting publication of his eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson).

As a copywriter/marketing and publishing consultant, Shel helps authors, publishers, and entrepreneurs with marketing plans, book jackets, website copy, press releases, etc. He also turns unpublished writers into published authors, step by step.

Shel’s been featured in many major media, including repeat appearances in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, and elsewhere. An expert on affordable, ethical, and effective marketing, he’s been using social media marketing all the way back to 1995, and since 1996, it has brought in the majority of his income. Shel speaks frequently on social media, book publishing, frugal and ethical marketing, and business success through ethics and Green principles. He’s the founder of the international Business Ethics Pledge.

Biana: What inspired you to write your book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First?

Shel: Reading the news in the early part of this decade, when it was filled with scandal after scandal–Enron, WorldCom, and all the rest–I had an insight that the frugal marketing methods I’d been advocating for years were also highly ethical, and that success was actually *easier* for ethical businesses than for crooked ones.

Biana: How did the principles of putting people first when you market change the way you market your own business?

Shel: Well, I’ve always put people first ever since I started my business in 1981, but when I started actively talking about it, being public about it, I started to attract a much better class of client. At that time, the bulk of my business was people coming in for a one or two quick jobs, like a press release and a back cover for a book, and then they’d be gone. I still do those kinds of things, but I’ve found that more of my clients want to stay with me a while. They want to hear what I have to say about their overall marketing strategy, and hire me to carry out many more pieces of that strategy. Sometimes, they actually want me to produce their book, start to finish. This has built a nice floor in my business, because I don’t have to be in constant marketing mode when I have steady clients.

Biana: Can you give our readers your top three tips to help them transform the way they do marketing, based on your principles?

Shel:

* Follow the “Magic triangle” of honesty, integrity, and quality
* Build partner relationships with other ethical businesses that already reach your best prospects, and let them open doors for you
* When you have high standards of ethics and a cooperative attitude, you can turn customers, suppliers, industry experts, and even competitors into ambassadors for you

Biana: What’s next for you? What are you going to be working on in 2010?

Shel: It’s going to be a big year for me. First, my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, will be coming out–it expands on the concepts in Principled Profit to really see the business world through an eco-oriented lens, and unlike the self-published Principled Profit, it will have the support of a major publisher.

Biana: Please tell us more about your book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, and how the readers can purchase it.

Shel: Principled Profit may have been the first book to really look at all of these issues together. Most business ethics books are all about being ethical because it’s the right thing to do and it keeps you out of jail. That’s true, but it’s a only a little piece of the whole story. I chose to slice it differently: the focus is that business ethics is a roadmap for business success. when you look through that lens, amazing things are possible, and Principled Profit really goes through that piece by piece, with examples ranging from solopreneurs to the Fortune 100. the book won an Apex Award for best book in the marketing/PR field, was republished in Mexico and India, was endorsed by more than 80 entrepreneurs form Chicken Soup’s Jack Canfield and MarketingSherpa founder Anne Holland on down–and I think this book has begun to make a difference in the way the business world is starting to think.

Through the end of the year (or until I run out of books), I’ve cut the price substantially from the original $17.50: $11.95 for single copies, and lower prices as you buy more. A whole case is just $4 per book, or $2.50 per copy (that’s 86 percent off the list price) if you buy out the stock. It makes a great holiday gift for sales and customer service people, customers, and entrepreneur friends.

Here’s the link: <http://frugalmarketing.com/newsletters/2009/11/04/a-life-changing-11-95-gift-for-the-entrepreneurs-in-your-life/>

Are you putting your heart and soul into your business, but clients just aren’t coming to you?

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Here is a question I have received from many coaches - “How do I get more coaching clients online?” I am sure you have wondered about that too! In this article I am sharing with you steps that will help you create a plan to get more clients for your business.

Who Are Your Clients?

This is the very first question that you must ask yourself. After all, if you do not know who your potential clients are, whom you want to attract to your business, how are you going to find them?

Create a profile of your perfect client - what do they do? How old are they? Are they male or female? What do they need help with?

Once you know who your perfect client is, it is going to be much easier to attract them to your business.

What Are You Offering To Your Clients?

If you are not bringing clients to your business, the reason may be that you are not offering what they really need. What your potential clients are looking for are solutions to the problems they are having. If that is not what you are offering them, they will not contact you to work with you.

For example, you are a weight loss coach, and one of the problems for your clients is overeating and gaining weight during the holiday season, you may want to offer a coaching package that deals with gaining weight during the holiday season.

Create An Authentic Message That Describes Your Offerings

Now that you are offering your services as a solution to your potential clients’ problems, you must communicate this to them.

To do that, you need to create an authentic message about your offerings that you are going to share on your web site, in your newsletter, on your blog, etc. When you share an authentic message that speaks to your target market, you are going to attract many clients to your coaching business.

Share Your Message With Your Potential Clients

Once you create the message, you need to start sharing it. Use social networking web sites, article directories, as well as your own blog and newsletter to connect with your potential clients and share your message.

Invite Your Potential Clients To Take The Next Step With You

As your potential clients get to know you through your message, social networking web sites, your blog and your newsletter, they are going to start wondering how they can learn more from you.

Don’t leave them wondering! Make sure that is always simple for your potential clients to take the next step with you by getting on your list.

For more information on how to get more clients for your coaching business, get the How To Get More Clients Online Home Study Guide at http://www.EffectiveOnlineMarketing.com

If you have been paying any attention, you heard that Twitter was hit by a denial-of-service attack, and people I know have been experiencing Twitter withdrawal.

So what do you do if you suddenly have all this extra time on your hands? Here are a few things you can do:

1. Write A New Blog Post. If you want to succeed with social networking, then you must blog. Your blog is the place that you can use to share tips, connect with your social networking connections on a deeper level and promote your expertise.

You should blog on a regular basis, so that you can share your blog posts on a regular basis.

2. Facebook. There are tons of things to do on Facebook - learn how to use an application you always wanted to use, update your group page, start your Fan Page or join my page

3. Re-write One Sales Page or Squeeze Page. You can always improve you on a sales page or squeeze page. Pick a page you haven’t updated in a while, and re-read it. Now make changes to make the page more compelling.

4. Write An Article. Write an article of interest to your target market and submit it to article directories to get more web site traffic!

5. Optimize Your Web Site For Search Engines. Find good keywords that your potential customers use to find your services and then use those keywords to optimize your web site.

Please comment and tell us what you did when Twitter was down!

Many of my clients have been talking to me about their social networking overwhelm. Every day they hear about different social networks; they are not sure how social bookmarking is different from regular bookmarking; they want to add more functionality to their blogs to make them more “social” and then they still have to find time to work with their clients.

If you are completely overwhelmed with all the information you hear about social networking and everything you have to do to participate in social networking, step back, take a deep breath and follow this plan to get out of social networking overwhelm and get social networking to work for you:

Make A Conscious Decision To Make Changes To Your Social Networking Process

Nothing will happen until you decide to get out of the overwhelm and create a new system that will be easy to follow and that will bring you better results.

Commit to making small changes and you will see how much less overwhelming social networking will become for you.

Create Your Social Networking Shortlist

You must be visible and active on social networks to get clients. But if you are a member of 10 or 15 social networking web sites, you simply do not have the time to be visible and active on all of them. As a result, you will not get clients on any of them.

Instead of trying to be active on 10-15 social networks, pick 2 or 3 and spend time there. Become visible, become active and become helpful - you will get many clients that way.

Don’t Feel Guilty When You Can’t Get To Your Social Networks

There will be days when you are just too busy with clients and will not be able to get to your social networks. Don’t beat yourself up for that. Instead, schedule your social networking activities for the next few days.

Automate As Much As You Can

There are quite a few things that you can automate in social networking. For example, you can have your blog posts posted automatically to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

You can pre-schedule your Twitter updates. You can have your Twitter updates posted automatically to your Facebook account, and more.

You should still add a personal touch by personally participating in social networking, but automating certain aspects of social networking, such as posting blog posts, will simplify and enhance your social networking at the same time.

Create A Social Networking System

Having a system will tell you exactly what to do and when to do it on social networking web sites. It will tell you whom you want to connect with, what you want to share and how you want to do that. Knowing that will completely simplify your social networking and help you get more results at the same time.

If you are feeling overwhelmed with social networking, you are not getting the results you could be getting. Instead of continuing this way, step back and use the ideas above to simplify your social networking. Click Here To Join Me For A FREE Call On How To Simplify Your Social Networking and Get More Clients

Biana Babinsky

If you have a Facebook Fan Page, then you probably know that you need to have at least 100 fans if you want to have a vanity URL for your Fan Page. A vanity URL is a short link that will bring people to your fan page. If you don’t have at least 100 fans, you have to refer to your Fan Page with a long, unruly URL.

So what do you do if you don’t have 100 fans yet? You can create your own short URL that will lead to your Fan Page! Either one of these methods will work. The first one will re-direct from your own web site and will help you with branding. The second one is easier to do.

#1. Create a folder on your web site, and call it fbpage. Create a file in that folder, call it index.html

Now, inside the head of index.html file, use this code:

<meta HTTP-EQUIV=”REFRESH” content=”0; url=LINK TO YOUR FACE BOOK PAGE”>

Change LINK TO YOUR FACE BOOK PAGE to the actual link to your FB Fan Page. The above code tells the web site to send everyone who comes to your fbpage folder to the FB Fan Page.

Once you have this setup, just go to http://www.yourwebsite.com/fbpage and this address should send everyone to your FB Fan Page.

Here is an example of my page: http://www.avocadoconsulting.com/fbpage

#2. Another way to create a short URL to your Facebook Fan Page is by using a URL shortening service, such as tinyurl.com, is.gd or any other.

Here is an example of my short link: http://is.gd/1R9Zy

And don’t forget to join my Facebook Fan Page

Biana Babinsky

More social networking posts:

- Social Networking Mistakes You Making Now

- How To Create A Squeeze Page To Capture Your Social Networking Traffic

- Thinking About Leaving Social Networking Web Sites?

I am celebrating my 10K followers on Twitter, and you benefit! To celebrate, I am giving away my How To Turn Web Site Visitors Into Customers Special Report.

Normally, this report is sold on my web site for $17, but I am giving it away FREE for one week to celebrate my 10,000 followers on Twitter. This report is available FREE until 6pm Eastern Time on Friday, July 17th.

If you want to learn how to turn people who come to your web site into buyers, then you must get this report!

Click Here To Get How To Turn Web Site Visitors Into Customers Special Report FREE

Recently I have received an e-mail from a life coach who was in a state of panic. She had created social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter, and, according to her, had spent over 400 hours using these social networking web sites. The time had come from her other marketing activities - she had put blogging, article marketing and other marketing on hold to jump into social networking.

She has met interesting people, and has been having fun, but didn’t get any clients or newsletter subscribers from her social networking efforts. She was panicking because she had spent over 400 hours without having anything to show for it, and wanted my advice about what she should do next, so that she can start getting results from social networking.

I asked her what her plan for generating leads on social networking web sites was, and she told me that she didn’t have a plan. I asked her how social networking fits into her overall marketing plan. She didn’t have an answer for me.

Truth is, social networking alone is not going to get you clients. If you are using social networking web sites without a strategy, you will still have fun, but you will not get results.

Here is what you need to do to get results from social networking:

- Decide whom you want to meet on social networking web sites. If you are using social networking web sites to get clients, then the people you want to meet are people in your target market. Spend your time on social networking web sites to connect with people who are your
potential clients and customers.

- Create a system to generate leads on social networking web sites. The most effective way to get results on social networking web sites is by using social networking web sites to get leads. Share your no charge articles, blog posts, reports on social networking web sites on a regular basis to generate leads.

- Create events and information products. People who know you on social networking web sites are ready to invest with your products and events, because they are priced lower than your services.

This means that you will get much better results if you promote your products on social networking web sites, and not your services.

If you are using social networking web sites, but are not getting any clients, then there are some important parts missing in your Social Networking Plan. Find out which pieces are missing and learn how to quickly add them to your plan at the social networking and online marketing mentoring
web site, http://www.MarketingSalad.com

The price of the membership is going up in just seven days, so register now and save
at http://www.MarketingSalad.com

Biana Babinsky

Are you on Facebook, but not sure how to fully use it to promote your business? Lately I have been hearing from many coaches and other service professionals who are not sure how to use Facebook to promote their businesses. There are just too many different options to choose from.

I have picked the top five actions you can take on Facebook to get more clients and build your list. Here they are:

Create An Effective Facebook Profile

Make sure to add your picture, your bio and a link to your web site. When your potential client comes to your profile page, they want to learn more about you. When you share this information with them, they connect with you and they remember you. That is exactly what you want your target market to do on your profile page - to learn more about you and to connect with you.

Add Your Newsletter Subscription Box To Your Profile Page

Use a Facebook application called Profile HTML to add your subscription box to your profile page. Doing this will help you get newsletter subscribers right from your Facebook Profile Page!

Add Your Blog To Your Facebook Profile Page

Got a blog? Use the Notes application to have your new blog posts appear on your Facebook profile. This way your friends will be able to read your blog posts, follow links in your blog posts and comment on your blog posts right from Facebook.

Create A Fan Page On Facebook

Create a fan page for yourself on Facebook to help you promote your business. A Fan Page has an important viral marketing aspect. Every time someone joins your Fan Page, this information appears on their Facebook Profile. This way their friends will see information about your Fan Page and will be able to join it too, giving you with more exposure.

Get Active, Create A Plan

Social networking is not a one-time action. To get results from social networking you must take action on a regular basis. Create a plan for taking action on Facebook every single day. Outline who you want to connect with, how much time you want to spend every day, what kind of actions you want to take, and what kind of results you expect.

Get started today. The sooner you start, the sooner you will see results. Grab the FREE How To Make Money And Get Clients With Social Networking to learn how to use Twitter to get more clients and leads.

Biana Babinsky