Belladia Marketing and Design

Archive for the ‘Recommended Reading’ Category

May 14th, 2012 by belladia

6 Things You Can Do to Boost Your Energy

It’s Monday and sometimes Mondays are a drag. Even if you love what you do, the transition from a fun and free weekend to emails and phone calls can be tough. Here are some ways you can get over the Monday blues and start off a fun and productive day.

Music
Our lives are filled with experiences of music changing our moods (for better or worse!). Use this to your advantage by making a morning playlist. Include songs that lift you up and put you in a positive frame of mind. You’ll be humming along in no time!
Exercise
A little bit of exercise can go a long way! Exercise stimulates chemicals in the brain that make us feel better and more relaxed. A walk around the block, a trip to the gym, whatever your thing is – do it and feel better!
“Eat that Frog”
It sounds strange (and a little gross), but this saying comes from a book of the same name by Brian Tracy. Essentially, do the thing you dread first thereby making the rest easier and free from procrastination. Try it — once you’ve “eaten the frog” the rest of your day should be more productive and just a bit brighter.
Work on What Excites You
Now this may seem to contradict the point above, but remember everyone works differently and the goal is to find what works for you. Sometimes when I’m stuck on a project, putting it aside and working on a project that I have been looking forward to is just what I need to help me “un-stick” the other project.
Step Outside
There are so many reasons why taking a break and going outside can help your mood. It can help clear your head to improve your focus, you’ll get a little sun that helps produce Vitamin D (which we all can use more of), and you’ll have the opportunity to interact with your community — something that many of us who work on the computer all day can easily miss out on.
Do Something Else
This last items piggybacks on the previous two. Sometimes it just isn’t going to happen. Instead of beating yourself up about it (and thereby making your mood worse) go do something else. If you work for someone and you can’t physically leave, switch to a different task. If you work for yourself, go to a museum, go to the beach, work on a home improvement project that has been on your mind. When you return to your desk, you will find that you are ready to get started!

A couple of points to keep in mind. Not everyone likes to lift their mood in the same way so find what works for you. Try a technique and if it doesn’t work try something else. Keep a list of those that do work, so when you are feeling blah, you can scan the list and do what feels best at that moment. Also, don’t try too hard to lift someone else’s mood. Energy is contagious so focus on yourself and see the shift take place across the office.

Have a great Monday!

Further Reading:

June 22nd, 2006 by belladia

Loyal Customers

Marketing Tips, Recommended Reading No Comments

If you’ve ever had a client that tells everyone how wonderful you and your services are, then you know how valuable this can be to your business (and your self esteem). Past client referrals are not only quality leads but they don’t require you to do any work!

“So, how do I create these kinds of customers?” you ask.

Start by reading Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. I highly recommend buying this book and reading it cover to cover. But for now I will share with you their six tenets of customer evangelism.

The authors studied Southwest Airlines, Krispy Creme Doughnuts, Build-A-Bear Workshops, Dallas Mavericks, O’Reilly & Associates, SolutionPeople and IBM and discovered that they all shared these common approaches to creating Customer Evangelists:

Customer Plus-Delta: Continuously gather customer feedback.
Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely.
Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks.
Create Community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share.
Make bite size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite.
Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or an industry, better.

Now you’ll have to read the book for further explanation but the point is that marketing to your past clients, your possible “Customer Evangelists”, has the potential for a much greater return than marketing to strangers. So don’t forget about the clients that already like you and keep in contact with them. They can turn into your best sales people.

Buy Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba on Amazon