Business owners who want more are getting help today for their business by hiring marketing coaches and business consultants who are able to bring a fresh view to what can bring your company from OK to great.  Purple Diamond has helped over 50 local businesses in the past couple of years with affordable and effective marketing coaching and services with the emphasis on “success”.   The coaching service was created after a year of hearing local business owners say that they were overwhelmed with the sluggish economy, decline in their business and the confusion of what really works for advertising today.  Most of these owners were sole proprietors who didn’t want to take their worry home to their family, but really needed someone to share their frustrations with and to brainstorm new and innovative ideas.  So, Purple Diamond created a marketing coaching service that allowed businesses to hire a coach for a couple hours a month.

If you are OK with “OK” or really don’t want to have better sales, then this solution is not the right one for you.  However, if you want your business to be better than good consider hiring a marketing coach or business consultant to work with you today!

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The right time to advertise is not when you are closing the doors to the store you have loved and owned for 25+ years, but this can also be a key time for running an advertising campaign.  No, if you want to stay in business and come out of this slow period as a strong leader in your industry you need to call an advertising agency TODAY!  There isn’t a miracle with any form of marketing or advertising even though many reps would like to tell you that their product will get you instant results, but if you continue to stick your head in the sand and take no action at all you can be sure that it won’t be long before your business becomes part of the growing statistics of fall-out from today’s economy.  You need to be visible and maintain a marketing presence and get in front of your prospects.  Don’t discard traditional forms of advertising like TV, radio, billboards, etc and think that you can substitute these for social media marketing.  The truth is you need to do both traditional and non-traditional and do them aggressively.

If you need help with your advertising and marketing please call!  Though I love writing this marketing blog and giving marketing tips and ideas, your business deserves immediate attention and a plan to take action. If you are on the fence about what really works and if TV or radio in your area is affordable and effective or if buying Google Ad Words or ads on Facebook equals sales for your business, call! Don’t get caught as one of those businesses that the first call they make for advertising help is  to promote a “going out of business sale”.

All my best to your success! ~ Charlene

“Success wears The Purple Diamond!”

There is a temptation to pull back and stop investing in advertising in slow economic times, but to attain and maintain customers you need to be in front of them.  This means that in addition to investing at least 1/5th of your budget to smart advertising campaigns, you also need to get out of your office and connect face to face with potential clients at networking events and on-line social networking sites to reach potential clients.  How much time should you be investing for this?  Well, some businesses will need more time since they may have introduced new products or have a new business which needs more exposure, but most successful businesses will regularly use at least 20% of their time to attend business networking groups, connect on-line regularly with their connections and connect with their client base one on one to increase sales. The key is to always be working your business like you just opened your doors.  When you cut back on your advertising and you stop attending events or connecting with businesses on-line, the sales pipeline gets smaller and the climb back to where you once were in business is twice as hard.

If you want to increase sales it requires investing in your business and that starts with smart marketing and advertising campaigns!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

For my business the first turn was in 2008 when I recognized that many of the clients who were advertising in TV and radio and on Billboards and other traditional media services had pulled their advertising budgets to pay for day to day business expenses to off-set the drop in sales that were occurring with record unemployment.  I used the knowledge I had from working for an  internet company prior to Purple Diamond to create a new service because I saw that there was a need for business owners to still actively work on their marketing for their company.  I called the service “marketing coaching” and I worked with the CEO on any part of marketing they needed to help their business, but most requested help with social on-line networking on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter and to determine if a Blog was right for their business.  This kept the cash flow going for my own business and relationship building throughout the business community, along with brand awareness for Purple Diamond and today my business is healthy with a steady group of marketing coaching clients and many of the traditional advertising clients are ready to launch TV and radio campaigns and banner ads on popular internet sites and the phone is ringing!

So, do you have a new  services or product that you can launch today that will sell in this market? Or, have you considered a marketing campaign that expands to a new market that you have never considered?  If you have always sold locally maybe looking at how the internet could expand your reach to even an international market? If you have cut away your marketing and advertising budget reconsider this. Doing nothing often gets you nothing and unless that is what you want for your business it is time to get daring and bold with your advertising.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Purple Diamond would like to wish all of you Happy Holidays! Please share with us how this year has been for YOUR business and be sure to post about your company, along with a link to your website so that others can find YOU!

All my best to YOUR success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Often we forget to “ASK” for help from the people we network with every day. We create fans pages on Facebook and sign-up for Twitter and create great content for our newsletters and blogs, but we do not think to ask the people closest to us to please follow us and sign-up for our newsletters. Organization Plus needs your help in breaking their subscriber count goal for their monthly newsletter and I am choosing to blog about it because I like to support people who are not afraid to ask for help.

How are you growing your on-line networking? Are you thinking outside the box in building a following and do you see how valuable that following is for your business? This is not a time to sit on the sidelines and watch others build their business and continue to procrastinate on your own. Be smart and connect with as many people as possible and share with the world why your services are essential to their life!

All my best to your success!
~Charlene
“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Beyond my first choices of doing a targeted cable TV campaign in your direct area and advertising on a few local radio stations, you can still draw people to your business in other ways. Getting involved in the community holiday festivities through your chamber organization and hosting an event at your store will offer an opportunity for a press release about the event and attract potential shoppers who come to the event. Also, if the city zoning allows your store front to have holiday balloons and signs out front be sure to add them, along with decorative holiday lights and wreaths around your store window so that when people drive by they notice your place and want to stop in. If you lack the holiday spirit and your store reflects that, it is tough to motivate shoppers to spend money for gifts with you. This also applies to your website. Have your web designer add some festive colors and bold sale signs to your landing pages so that a person remains in the holiday frame of mind when they visit your site on-line. Make purchasing on-line simple and with the least number of steps as possible and have your phone number on all your web pages. Also, if you have a monthly email newsletter that you send to your current client base, be sure to add a coupon for savings as a way to thank them and draw them to your business. Remember to smile and be friendly and add a bowl of candy at your counter if possible. You want to make sure that when people are in your store they have a great experience and ask them to tell their friends to stop in, too.

Happy Selling!

All my best to your success!
~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

In the 1981-1982 recession businesses who advertised aggressively during the difficult times had a far greater return than their competitors and after the recession they had a significantly stronger market share. So, why do we not see more local businesses taking advantage of better media rates? Most of it is that we are influenced by what we hear on the news. It does have an effect on consumer spending and it also has an effect on how businesses will choose to spend money. Even with businesses that are not really directly impacted by the economy they will follow suit and choose to cut their marketing budget just because it is what everyone else is doing. Yikes! This is when I ask them if they are looking long range at what it is doing to their business and if they are planning on staying open, what is their strategy to increase sales?

The thing you really need to ask yourself as a business owner is this….”How will I get people to know about the holiday sale I am having at the end of the month or about the quality service I am providing today?” Word of mouth advertising and on-line networking will help, but is it enough? Can you see your business reaching a wide enough audience to insure traffic to your doors so that your sale is successful or so you capture the market of people who are planning to purchase the service you provide? And, when the economy improves, have you positioned your business for growth with a strong marketing campaign or did you cut your budget so much that only your immediate family and friends still know you are in business? How are you telling the world your doors are open and you want to do business?

Listen less to the news media and more to your own business intuition. Contact a marketing consultant or hire a PR firm to help position yourself for today and tomorrow. Sitting in your store with no traffic coming in the doors or no phone ringing for your service offers you time to review what you have done for marketing and advertising this year. Decide if it is time to be bold and brave and invest in your business today with a smart marketing strategy so that tomorrow you are the leader in your industry and the company everyone remembers!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”