Before we get started, I just had to share this Insight poster with you. I loved its sarcastic yet poignant message. You can find it on www. Despair.com which specializes in humorous quotes that are the opposite of Successories products.
What do you do when the going gets tough?
Is it simply a flight or fight response? Do you buckle down and forge ahead or justify why things are not working? You will always find (or focus on) evidence that supports your beliefs (for better or worse).
In my mentoring programs, I work with many clients who have contacted me because they are struggling with their businesses. What happens is they listen too much about the future of our economy and they get caught up in fear, which restricts their ability to be innovative.
What people should be doing and what they are doing are two different things. What they are doing is shriveling up and going into a corner. Their thoughts are centered in "why bother." They are getting consumed in negativity which is very destructive. These beliefs are stifling their enthusiasm and energy that used to be directed towards creating great products and effective marketing efforts.
What they should be doing is putting a little more creative energy into it. Rather than retreat with fear that there is too much competition, they should be making connections and engaging their community on various social networking sites and through their blogs. The sheer fact that there are more people online actually means you have more of an opportunity to connect with people.
I have been doing internet marketing for close to a decade and yet everyday I am seeing a new website who could be a potential partner. Of course, there are some that have been around for a long time and are successful because they have a big following. They might not ever respond to an email or a phone call (if you can find a phone number to call.) At the end of the day, they are not the only ones online. They are not the only ones that are reaching your potential target market. There are 118 million websites online and an estimated 35 billion web pages (please don't hold me to that number!). The possibility for collaboration is enormous.
With more people unemployed and deciding that they don't want to go back into the corporate world, you have a larger audience looking for solutions. History has proven that when there are recessionary times there are more entrepreneurial small businesses that launch than another other time.
What I recommend people should do now is really study. If you are not creating new products then spend your time studying effective, creative marketing techniques. What offerings, landing pages, or websites have caught your attention? Why? Think about how you can adapt those techniques to your own business.
That is what I really love about marketing. We will never get to a point in which all marketing ideas have been tried and there is nothing new to learn. I continuously buy books about my industry and watch what others are doing online that have been successful. I do this not only to improve my marketing efforts, but the efforts of my clients.
I love to share success stories with my community so that we can all learn and prosper together. That is why I came up with the idea for The Center for Viral Marketing and launched it with my dear friend and colleague, Gay Hendricks. Every month I present a case study and dissect exactly what aspects of the company's efforts led them to success so that my members can duplicate the techniques for their own businesses.
What are you doing to invest in yourself and your business? How are you keeping your creative energy up so that you can be innovative and successful? Please share your strategies by posting your comment.
Peggy McColl is a New York Times best-selling author and an internationally recognized expert in the field of personal and professional development and Internet marketing. As an entrepreneur, business owner, mentor and professional speaker Peggy has been inspiring individuals to pursue their personal and business objectives and achieve ultimate success. She provides effective Internet marketing solutions for entrepreneurs, authors, publishers, professionals, and business owners, who want to establish an online presence, achieve bestseller status, build their brand, grow and/or expand their business online. You can find out more about Peggy at her website, Destinies.com.