Do you offer a Pink Spoon?

From Guest Blogger: Liz Dennery Sanders of SheBrand

(she's also my marketing coach & client) check out her MyStory Film at the link above)

Have you ever walked into your local Whole Foods market and been offered a sample of something delicious? Let’s say it was a new brand of organic guacamole. One bite and you were hooked. You left the store with a nine dollar container, plus the bag of the blue corn tortilla chips they were serving it with.

Or you and your husband decide to check out the new vineyard a couple of hours from home. You walk in and they offer you a complimentary taste of their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, one of their best-sellers. You try the wine, plus three others and walk out the door with three bottles.

Here’s one we can all relate to. You take the kids to your local Baskin & Robbins for a Saturday afternoon treat. Your seven-year-old can’t decide which flavor she wants and asks for a taste of the Ice Cream Cake Swirl AND the Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge. The guy behind the counter happily gives her a taste of each – on a little pink spoon. After multiple tastes all around, everyone walks out of the store with a double cone, and you’ve got the triple scoop sundae.

This, my friends, is Pink Spoon Marketing.

The little Pink Spoon, started by Baskin & Robbins back in 1945, has become the iconic symbol of the free giveaway – just a tiny taste of what you’ve got that keeps customers coming back for more.

Now more than ever it’s imperative that you connect with your potential clients in a meaningful and memorable way. Thanks to an unstable economy, corporate meltdowns and overzealous advertising, consumers are more jaded and suspicious than ever. They are looking for authenticity and value. One of the best ways to build your “know, like & trust” factor, is to create something of value and give it away. Yes, you read that right. GIVE IT AWAY.

A successful free offering or Pink Spoon has five main characteristics:

1. It’s FREE.

2. It is compelling and sought after – something that people would actually pay for, but are surprised and delighted they don’t have to.

3. It contains valuable content that will help your target market in some way. It is NOT a throw-away item.

4. It’s easy to give away – a downloadable pdf or m3, for example.

5. It is a natural lead-in to your other products and services. It gives people a “taste” of your work and leaves them wanting even more.

Do you still have a static, brochure-style website – one that doesn’t engage or offer value to your visitors? You know who you are if your website just has “About Us,” “About Me,” “Services,” and “Contact” pages, or something similar to this.

You have less than ten seconds to make an impression on someone visiting your website. Most visitors will bounce from a static website in even less time. If your website has an opt-in box front and center, with a valuable giveaway, how much more likely do you think it is that someone will not only stay on your site longer, but will also sign up, giving you their name and email address? BINGO!

In order to build your buzz online, you must engage your potential clients and offer something of value. To succeed with your business online, you must turn your website into a lead-generating machine that ultimately brings dollars to your bottom line.

©Liz Dennery Sanders 2010

Liz Dennery Sanders wants you to build your buzz and be successful beyond your wildest dreams. As the CEO of Dennery Marks Inc., a brand development and celebrity outreach firm, she founded SheBrand, to help female entrepreneurs build powerful personal brands, attract more clients and position themselves as authorities in their industries. You can reach her directly at info@shebrand.com or www.shebrand.com.

No longer a Blogging Virgin

Blog Post #3.

Thank God I got that out of the way. What once I was so resistant about, may now be growing on me. Wanna know why???? (Can you see me doing a little dance….)

I finally have something to blog about!!

So, I had this little idea for a business, enter Amy Swift Crosby and the super badass babes of SMARTY a networking group of female entrepreneurs. To be fair it is SO much more than a networking group—community, education, resources, accountability. Without Amy and this group, I certainly would not be writing this bog. I would still be talking about this idea at parties with responses like “cool idea, you should do that!” My super fly reply would be: “Yeah, well what do I know about starting a business?”

Now, I’m getting my street MBA from the ladies at SMARTY. Nine months ago, I didn’t know what the word monetize meant (make money), what a VA did (virtual assistant) and I am still wrapping my brain around how I provide ROI (return on investment). And I am from a family of business owners!! I’m the one at the dinner table asking my uber successful self-made brother to stop talking about marketing because he is making my brain hurt. Really.

Fast forward to last week when I get a call from Deluxe, you know the people who make your checks, apparently, my little yet to be launched company, MyStory, Inc, was selected to participate in this marketing collaborative called Project Rev. I applied months ago when I heard about it through my business coach Whitney Roberts. The application was so cake, I completely forgot I applied (which tends to happen as an independent filmmaker, self induced amnesia to ward off disappointment). No long essay to convince them why I’m a rock star or why MyStory deserves thousands of dollars in free marketing for a year.

Just simply tell us what you do and tell us your website so we can see for ourselves.

Now, they are flying me out to their headquarters in Minneapolis to get started and they want to know what my preferred beverage of choice is in the morning AND in the afternoon.

Who’s the rock star now? It’s the little things.

Stay tuned… Christmas dinner this year is going to be very interesting.

Facebook, Blogging and Twitter, oh my!!

Must I really facebook, blog and twitter?

Can’t one social media platform capture everything I need to say? I’m from a family of journalers--journaling runs in my DNA. I’ve kept a journal since I was 8. Over the years, the journals progressed into computer entries. At times, I’d be writing over several different journals at one time, journals are like books--depending on the mood of the moment.

I have noticed a theme over the multiple decades of journaling, I have a habit of turning to my journal when I need to work through a tough time. Complain, down right bitch, and at times feel down right sorry for myself. I rarely write when life is good, when the cup runneth over and all is right with the world. I’ve often feared if anyone sat down and read all my entries they might get the impression I was a really miserable person.

So, in an effort to get over my resistance having to not only facebook but now also tweet and blog, what an opportunity to take my journaling heritage and document not only the bad and ugly but also some of the kick ass cool things happening in my life. There seems to be plenty of that going around with a rip roaring new business on the forefront.

A wise person once shared, you know you are doing the right thing when the river carries you. I’ve felt my entire filmmaking career I was paddling up stream. I finally get it.

Now my fear will be, someone will read my blog and think, damn, that girls got it good.

Perhaps, I should just stop worrying about what people will think.

Get ready for the good, the bad and whatever the seeming reality of the moment is. All in the name of storytelling and social media.

follow me @MyStoryTasha

What I didn't expect...

2010 is the year of transparency in all I do, so here is the deal. I created MyStory, Inc. in the interest of pure capitalism. Cold hard cash, people. I vowed never to write another grant proposal, beg for money, or ask another studio to finance my films again. I chose to take back my career and finance my own projects.

What I didn’t expect--as I was headed down this road to riches--was to fall in love with my clients (my tribe, really) to have three hour long initial meetings, to be so in engrossed with their offering I would spend hours on each of their films. I thought I would take the money and run. Do good work but not become obsessed with telling each and every story. When I began MyStory, I thought I had to compete with the mass conglomerates of the world, what I learned is for my client there is no competition. The entrepreneurs I serve aren’t looking for a wham bam, thank you ma’am, in and out solution. They want someone just as passionate as they are. A team just as dedicated to getting it right.

I didn’t expect to be so excited about telling other peoples stories, I get to talk to people about their passions, their joys, why they do what they do. And for a moment, I’ve released my documentary in Cuba, my “change the world Peace project” seems eons away and my New York indie feature can wait. Right now, it is just me and this one business owner---and of course, figuring out where the nearest roof top is so I can jump on it and shout their story as loud as I can.