Authentic Values « Zenworkz Blog

Authentic Values

Great Quotes for Marketing!

Welcome to the Marketing Quotes that I have created over the last year.

Dream. Believe. Plan. Create. Succeed.

Observe the masses, then do the opposite.

Customer Focus: Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

’Those who tell stories – rule the world’ ~ Plato

Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make it’s colours appear.

Rejection can sometimes be the Universe’s way of saying ‘wrong direction’, find another way. ~ Unknown

Dream the impossible. Seek the unknown. Achieve Greatness.

The Facebook Paradox: The attention economy is not growing! That means we have to grab attention that someone else has today!

To be successful, you must surround yourself with positive people and seek advice from capable, trusted sources.

About the content creator: Teresa Bassham is the boss lady of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in Strategies for traditional and online Marketing; and implementation. If you would like free how-to-do-it-yourself marketing resources or to subscribe to free e-news about all things marketing, please visit the website:

http://www.zenworkz.com/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect to our fabulous community on Facebook:

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Authentic Values / Inspiration / Mindset — No Comments
26
Feb 13

What Inspires You?

Today I am writing about inspiration. And the question, what inspires you? My inspiration is: Being loved, having gratitude, being alive with very few (not zero) health problems, being resilient, having an inquiring mind, and a drive to help others through my knowledge and skills?

Inspiration or being inspired is what pushes us to do big things. It can come in so many ways – other people, music, books, or simply being in nature. No matter what form it takes for you, inspiration is what moves us to dream bigger dreams, to plan action and push us out of our comfort zone; and learn or achieve something worthwhile. Inspiration can be that little push we need to turn an idea into an action.

People inspire me, especially those who have tougher than normal lives, but focus always on the positive. One person I think of whenever I feel unmotivated is a friend called Kylie and I have written about Kylie before. Kylie runs an online and market based business selling babies and children’s needs (Nic-Nac). If this isn’t hard enough as the Mother of a ten year old, she is also the full time carer of her quadriplegic husband.

That’s not to say that Kylie is positive all the time, because there are days when it gets too much and she reaches out to friends and family for emotional support. It’s that she bounces back stronger each time, and is always grateful for what she has; the love of a wonderful husband and daughter, a big network of friends and her extended family (overseas), her health, strength and resilience, inquiring mind and her business skills. She makes a difference to so many people lives through her involvement in her daughters school, teaching dancing, and volunteering for a local women’s business network.

What does Kylie’s story teach us about using inspiration?

1. Engage with people through living your inspirational story. Almost everyone wants to connect, involve your customers and fans. They have a yearning to learn from you, to translate your achievements into lessons of their own, to adapt pieces of your story and re-imagine them into something that works for them. Listen to what people who inspire you have done, how they’ve done it and how you can learn from their mistakes and successes.

2. Have an open-mind. Learn something new, even if it’s not related to your business. You will be surprised how elated you will feel through the process of learning and how that will affect everything you do.

3. Open your eyes and open your ears. Unplug from the connected world. Leave your phone at home when you go for a walk, go to a dance class, listen to the music in the cafe and take in your surroundings – some of the best inspiration is outside your office and home!

When you’ve discovered what inspires you, it’s time to use it! Leverage the feeling you get when you experience these inspiring things? Does it make you want to start that research? Does it make you want to learn a new skill? Does it make you want to try new big adventures?

Whatever your sources of inspiration are telling you, write it down. Use a mind-map and dream big. Map the ideas that your sources of inspiration reveal. These are values and energy sources that are important to you, that drive you. It’s necessary to discover these before you can excel in an authentic and aligned business.

Love to know your thoughts on sources of your inspiration?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to create their differential advantage, attract more ideal customers and create a marketing plan to achieve success. She coaches customers online and by phone – if you would like to request coaching – please contact me.

Advertising / Authentic Values / Branding / Engaging customers / Keep Calm & Keep Marketing / Selling / Trust — No Comments
14
Aug 12

Telling Stories and Ruling the World (apologies to Plato)

Good marketing promotion has always been about building a strong relationship with your audience through telling your story. And building relationships with an audience of potential customers, is about being relatable and matching values.

Why are values important in your marketing promotion? Values represent what you stand for or believe in; and your values form the foundation of your personal and business branding message.

Your personal branding message is what sells you, your services, and helps you develop relationships with potential customers. Your business brand is what makes your business recognisable and sets it apart from others.

People will ultimately buy from those they know, like, and trust. That’s why telling your own story is so important. While your story is not a sales pitch, it is and should be seen unashamedly as self promotion. You just can’t create something fabulous, you have to communicate that fabulousness to your potential customers. It will be the story of your passion, your ideas, your values and the medium that people (who you ultimately want to buy from you), will get to know you, like you and trust you.

When people land on your web or social media page, meet you or walk into your office; they should understand within seconds what you are all about. Your blog posts should communicate that personal story directly or indirectly. Every piece of promotional material, including your story, that you put out should be put out with your potential customer in mind.

Telling your story can help you and your potential customers by:

Displaying a clear values message or value proposition, your ideal customer will know very quickly if they trust you and want to do business with you.
Explaining passionately why you do what you do, which also helps potential customers understand you and trust you
Sharing something about yourself, revealing the real person; will enable customers (and suppliers) to see what you’re like to work with and for
Clearly identifying a profile of your ideal customer, will encourage them to contact you

The bottom line is “be who you are” and make that your difference. Your values form the foundation of your personal brand. Your personal brand is what sells you and your branding is what makes your business recognisable and sets it apart from others. In sending out a clear message, your ideal customer will know very quickly if they trust you and want to do business with you.

Never forget that businesses are ‘people’ too, and in revealing the real you, you offer a sense of trust and assurance that the business is real, ethical and has integrity. Given the exponential growth of online video and social media, communicating your own story will have a big advantage over those that don’t reveal anything about themselves.

I would love to know how you feel about revealing the real “you” – so, please leave a comment?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to research their customer market; create their authentic marketing message; attract more ideal customers; and create a marketing plan to achieve success in 2012/2013. She runs local workshops in Northern NSW and coaches customers online and by phone – if you would like to attend the next scheduled workshops or request distance coaching online –please contact me.

Visit my website and subscribe for monthly e-News updates on all topics related marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Attracting Customers / Authentic Marketing / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Branding / Engaging customers — 1 Comment
7
Aug 12

Why should customers buy from you?

In your journey to attract and keep new customers, unique and authentic messages work best. Today, a small business must understand and optimise every interaction with customers in a way that establishes positive, emotional responses to form meaningful relationships with you and your message.

Getting the message right for what your business sells is important, because it provides the basis for your business relationship with your customers; and it answers the question foremost in every potential customer’s mind: Why should I buy from you? Over time, these customers will become your best marketing advocates and promoters.

Here are 3 tips to help you to create your authentic marketing message and grow your business:

Any authentic message must be simple: Put yourself in the shoes of potential customers and ask “Are my messages easy to understand? Do they motivate customers to purchase?” When constructing your authentic message, you need to first research your ideal target customers. Then visualise who they are and write directly to them.

Benefits – not features, will grab your targeted audience’s attention: Your customers want to hear a clear, simple message that demonstrates that you understand their situation – that you recognise the problem they wish to solve, or the outcome they wish to achieve. Followed by a specific offer or explanation how the benefits of your products or services will help them address their situation. A simple authentic message like this will be the single deciding factor for customers choosing you over someone else.

Tell your authentic story: Potential customers buy from people they know, like, and trust. Building trust begins with sharing the story of your business and the people behind it. Telling your authentic story helps both you and your prospective customers by:

Demonstrating your values, so you naturally attract customers who relate to you
Explaining why you do what you do, which helps prospective customers understand you and trust you
Sharing your unique persona, enabling customers to understand what you’ll be like to work or deal with

In today’s crowded marketplace, with new competitors emerging from around the world, distracted audiences, and almost saturation marketing of products and services; it is more important than ever to ensure that when you have the attention of a potential customer, you are able to offer a compelling and authentic reason for doing business with you.

Taking an authentic marketing approach, developing insights into your customers’ needs and wants, and understanding what motivates them requires effort and investment. Figuring out what you stand for and the core authentic message you present to your ideal target market as a brand is easier said than done, but is easier with the help of an Marketing Coach.

I’d love to hear your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment or question below.

Visit my website and subscribe for monthly e-News updates on all topics related marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Advertising / Attracting Customers / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Coaching / Engaging customers / Integrated Marketing Strategy / Keep Calm & Keep Marketing / Marketing 101 / Selling — No Comments
17
Jul 12

Keep Calm and Keep Marketing Part 2 – Focus on Marketing Tactics

Recently I responded to a request to help small businesses that were feeling despondent because of falling sales and general feelings of frustration with marketing a small business in difficult, trading times. In this series of posts, Part 2 will focus on marketing tactics you can do to survive and thrive.

Firstly don’t be tempted to stop marketing! This is not the time to cut back on marketing activity. The key to building customer awareness is to take consistent, regular action. Be sure to keep your marketing activities going at least six months so that you can track your rate of return.

Promoting your products or service, little and often is better than one large, expensive campaign. The more you crop up in potential customer’s awareness, the more they feel that something is drawing them to you. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this from my customers – it was meant to be! Little did they know it is my marketing tactic.

Identify your best product or service by it’s revenue margin; then focus your promotional and selling efforts on this only. Add as many low cost promotional options as you have time for, like Twitter and Facebook Pages to broadcast valuable information about how to solve customers problems or bring them joy. Update your LinkedIn profile regularly with updates about your business and any valuable content such as blog posts.

Work out how you are unique to your best customer and focus on doing this better. Define what your unique marketing difference is and promote that consistently. Being different and finding that difference is easier in a service based business because YOU are unique. Finding the difference in a product market, means adding or augmenting your products with value added services, like lay-by’s, special deliveries, or exceptional customer service – there are a thousand different options. The secret is understanding what you need to do to make your service or product a vital part of someone’s life to the extent that they just won’t be tempted by your direct competitor’s offers.

What makes your marketing message unique is your story, your purpose, and your values. What makes your message compelling is that it is customer focused – it speaks to the customers hot button that your service or product fulfils as a necessary part of their life or business. It must tap into the emotional metaphors: looking good, feeling good, being successful, rewarding themselves – refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of highest needs.

Finally, recognise that you can’t always do this alone and if you are, not with peace or joy. To be able to hire support, you need to focus on sales and cash flow. You may need support from someone who can guide you? A coach or mentor can look at your business and your progress with an honest and objective eye; and guide you away from costly mistakes and focus on a direction that may well challenge you; but will also bring you the business success you desire.

I’d love to hear your thoughts? Please leave a comment below:

About the Author: Teresa Bassham of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing inspires small businesses to develop and use an empowering Marketing and Communications Plan for Business Profitability … see my full services at www.zenworkz.com and while you are visiting my website – subscribe for weekly e-News updates on all topics related to authentic marketing.

Authentic Marketing / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Branding / Customer Service / Relationship Marketing — No Comments
18
Jun 12

Dealing with sensitivity and still thriving with customer service!

One thing remains certain: A strong brand message and customer relationship will create business value; and these relationships are founded on consistent delivery of a relevant business offer and good customer service.

What is constantly changing – the challenge in meeting customer service expectations. You can have the greatest impact on improving your customer’s service experience by ensuring that you consistently deliver what is expected. Delivery requires sensitivity and perception to meet customer’s needs.

Broadly, brand message and consistent customer service should have the following objectives:

You want your ideal customer to quickly identify you as a preferred supplier.
You create an environment where evaluating service levels is efficient, comprehensive, and enables the customer to decide that you can meet their need or wants.
Where you cannot meet their needs and wants, those customers are able to ascertain that quickly.
The purchase itself should be an efficient, and enjoyable experience for your customer.
At the time of use or consumption, you want your customer to be completely satisfied that your solution or product solves their problem.
Your support and repair offerings need to align with your customers’ expectations.
Your complaint handling process needs to respect the customer’s expectation and provide a timely and equitable result.

Expectations are set by your marketing brand messages, where you clearly set out what benefits you offer and problems you solve, so that there is alignment between the need benefit; or problem the customer has and the solution you provide. At the end of the customer experience, you want the customer to want to buy from you again if they have either the same need or a new need.

You also want to be the preferred supplier of choice if the customer is asked for a recommendation. And you want your customer to be proactively communicating their positive experience with you to others. What we know is that high growth is directly related to repeat sales and referral rates. Your profitability and resilience is directly related to the level of customer experience you achieve.

Most of the successful people I know are sensitive and perceptive. When they get criticised, they feel bad. But they don’t let unreasonable customers stop them from improving; not because they don’t feel the slight – it’s because their passion for what they do, building their brand and providing a positive customer experience, is stronger than their discomfort.

While it may be impossible to reach 100% positive customer service experiences, aim to gain the approval of all but the most unreasonable customers, and if it’s a genuine complaint – you will know you can deal with it.

Sensitivity is an asset you need to thrive in customer service, after all its part of your strong brand message and customer relationship.

I’d love to know your thoughts?

While you are visiting my website – subscribe for weekly e-News updates on all topics related to authentic marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Authentic Marketing / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Mindset — No Comments
13
May 12

12 Keys to Mindful Success

What you believe about yourself and your business will come true. Believing in your success is 80% of the battle won, with the other 20% being your skills, expertise, products or services that meet your ideal customers needs.

What may be preventing you from fulfilling your business potential grows out of your beliefs.

Here are 12 useful keys for developing a belief system for mindful success:

1. Develop authentic confidence!

2. Take ownership of the outcomes!

3. Clearly communicate your vision and talk about it!

4. Create a passion for learning and making mistakes!

5. Learn to be a team player to grow a successful business!

6. Learn to be systems-oriented – to produce consist results!

7. Dedicate yourself to your vision, purpose and goals!

8. Be grateful for what you have and be open to more!

9. Develop a positive outlook and generate optimism!

10. Tell people how excited you are to share your ideas!

11. Motivate yourself and lead by example!

12. Don’t be afraid of risks or of amazing financial success!

If you like what you find in this list, please share it with your friends to help us spread the idea.

Are these 12 keys working for you? Leave your comments below?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to research their customer market; create their authentic marketing message; attract more ideal customers; and create a marketing plan to achieve success in 2012/2013. She runs local workshops in Northern NSW and coaches customers online and by phone – if you would like to attend the next scheduled workshops on 6^th & 7^th June, 2012 or request distance coaching online –please contact me.

While you are visiting my website – subscribe for weekly e-News updates on all topics related to authentic marketing.

For daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and “like” my facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Authentic Marketing / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Branding / Online Marketing / Social Media / Trends / Uncategorized — No Comments
15
Apr 12

Authentic Branding – the Future of Marketing?

As a forward thinking business, I consider what a marketing business might look like in the future? How to provide marketing services to smaller business in a fast moving technological marketplace.

I know that my customers are often overwhelmed by the choices available; the fear of missing out by not jumping on the “next new media thing”; and often lose sight of return on investment, whether it’s time or money.

Psychologist, Abraham Maslow formulated the “Hierarchy of Needs”, where he mapped human needs in a hierarchy; starting at the bottom with basic physiological needs of food, shelter, water and safety, and at the top with esteem, belonging and self-actualisation. This remains the strongest model we have for understanding what has meaning for customers and explaining what they do and why.

Today brands can no longer tap into satisfying basic needs without considering the higher needs of belonging and esteem. Customers respond to brands which match their values, aspirations and esteem. This is the future of marketing – it is about authentic communication and engagement; and this is where customers are now driving brands via social media platforms. Today it is the customer who will figure out what your business does and how they will let the world know about you!

Future Authentic Brand Marketing will utilise effective marketing psychology to create brand messages which begins with what you do that effortlessly connects with your customer. Authentic means not hiding from the customer or the public – it means being open and human; something that smaller business often excel in over their larger competitors.

Authentic brands that tap into satisfying basic and higher needs together, including elements of relationship, respect, support, and even happiness, will hook us because they will help to feed our social selves, the part that seeks connection and belonging as Maslow suggested.

Do you think that your brand meets these broad range of “needs” or do you love a brand that does? Please share your comments below?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the owner of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in Marketing Strategy, both off and online; and implementation. If you would like some free how-to marketing resources or to subscribe to free e-news about authentic marketing, please visit the website:

http://www.zenworkz.com/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect to the community on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Advertising / Attracting Customers / Authentic Values / Relationship Marketing / Social Media — No Comments
25
Mar 12

How to Promote through an Authentic Story

As a marketing services provider, I know the benefits of promoting myself and my business, but that doesn’t make it any easier to step out of my comfort zone and actually do it. Culturally in Australia, we do tend to be a teeny bit critical about those who enthusiastically share their awesomeness; but we can learn to authentically self promote through telling a story about what we do, and why we do it and gain the benefits of self promotion.

The most compelling reason to try is that customers are going to be more motivated to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Building trust can begin with sharing the story of your business and the people behind it. The imminent change to Facebook Timeline will provide businesses with an improved platform for authentic story telling.

Telling your authentic story can help both you and your prospective customers by:

Demonstrating your values, so you naturally attract customers who relate to you,
Explaining why you do what you do, which helps prospective customers understand you and trust you,
Sharing your unique persona, enabling customers to understand what you’ll be like to work or deal with,
Clearly identifying your ideal customer, encouraging those that don’t fit to look elsewhere and those that do, to make contact.

As business owners, we owe it to ourselves to become better at communicating our story. We are all passionate about our business. We express love for our new project or idea or product. An authentic story simply links this passion with our unique persona to what we love doing, and a genuine joy becomes evident when we share our story.

Promoting yourself and sharing your story won’t always feel comfortable but to develop and grow, you won’t ever be comfortable. With a bit of practise, you’ll find your story telling skills starting to improve. Given the rapid changes happening with online video and social media, great story tellers will have a seriously big advantage over those that hide behind their computer screens.

If you are shy but have learned how to promote yourself with your story, please share your experiences below. Feel free to give yourself a bit of gratuitous self-promotion at the same time!

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the owner of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing and educates businesses to think, create, engage and optimise their marketing effort. She coaches customers in Social Media Strategy and implementation. If you would like some assistance changing to Timeline for Facebook Pages, please contact her through her website: http://www.zenworkz.com/

Zenworkz Authentic Marketing publishes a weekly blog on small business marketing: http://www.zenworkz.com/blog/

For daily marketing tips and references, connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

Authentic Marketing / Authentic Message Creation / Authentic Values / Branding / Customer Research / Marketing 101 / Marketing Plans — No Comments
11
Mar 12

How to Discover Your Next Brilliant Career!

If you are brilliant, you will be one of only a handful of lucky people in Australia or across the world, who know intuitively what you’re destined for. For the vast majority of us, we need to take a more thoughtful path – one that requires deep thinking.

Coming up with a new business idea, of course, is the hard part, but I have methods for helping my customers, and it begins with telling the story of their life. The tool I use is a timeline, to help them express their values, experiences, insights, skills and abilities that are unique to them.

Your brilliant idea needs to be uniquely your own, so it makes sense that this journey begins by looking at the events that have shaped your life and made you who you are today. It may sound weird coming from a Marketer, but to discover your big new idea and what is unique about you, we don’t start with what the market wants from you, because the market only knows what they have seen. If you want a great example of this – think Steve Jobs and Apple!

To uncover what is unique about YOU, that will help you stand out in the market, you need to turn away from the market. What makes this paradoxical approach work, is that you will be able to identify a customer for any idea you come up with, again – think Apple.

For an aspiring entrepreneur, doing some form of creative exercises to discover your big idea is a quick way to improve your chances of launching a successful business. Where to start? Here are three exercises to help you:

Exercise 1 - Make a “mind map”

Start by taking a large piece of butcher’s paper, put the words “New Business or New Idea” in the center and create a collage of images, quotes, articles, your values, strengths, skills and other inspirations.

The idea behind this is that when you surround yourself with images of your intention – the successful business you want to create – your awareness and passion will grow. As your mind map evolves and becomes more focused, you will begin to recognise where your creativity, values, strengths and skills can be focused.

Exercise 2 - Research people who have achieved the success you seek

Study people who have been successful in the business area you want to pursue and who have similar values and passion. Study them, figure out how and why they are able to remain successful in these difficult economic times and then make plans to emulate some of their successful actions.

Exercise 3 – Create a plan or roadmap to get there

When you have gone through this creative process, the next step is to create a marketing plan. A marketing plan is a process that helps you evaluate your idea as a market offer; evaluates the target customer and marketplace; and prepares you for the many possibilities to achieve your new business success.

At what creative stage are you? Tell me about it below? Have you found that great idea? Do you need help with a Marketing Plan?

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to think deeply; create difference; engage customers; optimise marketing effort; and develop a marketing plan to achieve success in 2012. She runs DIY workshops in Northern NSW and coach customers online and by phone – if you would like to attend the next scheduled workshop or request distance coaching online – please contact us.

For more daily Authentic Marketing updates visit and like my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

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