I was recently asked to kick off a telesummit about marketing. When I asked the host why she selected me to do this (btw, this is one of my standard questions to assess all incoming opportunities), she said that I have an understanding about marketing and the ability to explain it that most people need to hear.

I have realized that she is right–most people do not understand what marketing is, how it is different than sales, and how they all relate. So here is a quick overview to give you an idea.

Marketing is the activity that builds awareness, credibility, and traffic to your event and/or your website. Marketing can include networking (online and offline), attending events, advertising, press releases, speaking, direct mail, search engine optimization, joint ventures and many more tactics.

Sales is the process of converting your “people”. This conversion is sometimes a money interaction, but not always. The request for the sale is often referred to as the “call to action” - or what you want them to do next. Sales include converting people from your website onto your newsletter list or your Facebook page is a form of a sale. Sales also include picking up the phone and having a strategic conversation.

If you are trying to combine your sales and marketing, you are probably often frustrated with your results. And I can assure you, you are annoying your potential clients. More to come on this later.

Also note that a good marketing campaign is not usually an over-night success tactic. Unless you are a “wham-bam-thankyou-maam” sales person (who does not care or want to see the customer the next day), then be committed to spending time building relationships, visibility and trust.

Good marketing allows the sale to be an easy process. Often, the right marketing attract the best sales.

Have you created your 2012 marketing plan yet? Do you know some of the specific steps and strategies that you are going to implement this year to achieve your goals?

And where is social media fitting into the picture?

In the last week, I have had three highly respected business owners ask me about creating a social media strategy. And my response is simple: social media is a tool, not a strategy.

“What do you mean?” they said.

What I mean is simple, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and a boatload of other platforms have the potential to garner new visitors to your ideas and even convert the viewers into raving fans and customers.

So if social media can do all that, then why isn’t it considered a strategy?

Social media is what you do to help you achieve the results that you want in your business. You want more visibility for your business online? You want more attendees at your next event? You want to be able to quickly shift complaints into testimonials? Then social media can help you do all these things and more.

It is a tool that can help you achieve:

• Online visibility
• List building
• Increased credibility (and even instant credibility)
• More speaking opportunities
• More qualified web traffic to your site
• Search Engine results (have you “googled” yourself lately?)
• Networking
• Promotional partners to help you sell your services
• Joint venture partners to help you build your business
• Build a team to help you grow your business
• Customer support
• Increased publicity & recognition
• And so many more results!

So if you have speaking, networking, SEO and advertising as your top strategies for your marketing plan, social media can help you get better results in each of these. Is this starting to make sense?

Now that you have a new awareness and understanding of social media, how are you going to use it to achieve your goals in 2012? Please post a comment below.

Do you know who Howard Shultz is?

This was the opening of the presentation that my friend, Ty Bennett, shared a few weeks ago when I heard him speak. He then went on to share the story of Howard Shultz, the CEO of Starbucks, and how the philosophy and mindset of a business can greatly effect everything that business does, and the success it has.

The message: Instead of being a coffee house serving people, Starbucks was built upon the philosophy of being a PEOPLE business serving coffee.

Isn’t that great?!

What’s even better is that Ty has created a program that teaches you how to incorporate stories into your speaking & presentations to engage your audience and create better relationships, resulting in better sales and great success.

https://leadershipinc.infusionsoft.com/go/Accessvideos/MaryPat/

Is that something you want?

I think that the best part is that these stories don’t even have to be your own! Did you notice that the story here is not about me or Ty, it’s about another amazing entrepreneur with vision, passion and a great message.

https://leadershipinc.infusionsoft.com/go/Accessvideos/MaryPat/

If this is interesting to you (and if you are still reading, it probably is), then go check out the video series that Ty created at the link above. They are free and it’s all good stuff.

Let me know what you think!

For years, this was one of my most popular speaking topics. While I have evolved from conversations about Facebook and Twitter to how turn your friends into profit centers while developing authentic REALationships, the question still remains.

Can you make money hanging out in social networking spaces?

The answer remains an astounding YES!

This last month, you probably saw me share tips and links about creating REALationships and Jumpstarting Your JVs on my various social media platforms.

While I usually fill that program with an average of 70% strategic JVs and partnership referrals, this latest program was not the case. Oh, I still had my referral participants, but more than 1/2 of my paid attendees came directly from Facebook!

Why does this matter, you ask?

Well, let me start by saying that I love my Joint Venture REALationships and partners. But I pay them an affiliate commission to everyone they send over. (and I love writing those commission checks because I am very grateful!)

So when someone clicks on MY links in Facebook….or a comment that links back to my program, I make more money!

Please note that I didn’t just show up one day pitching myself to my social networks. I have spent years building my reputation and relationships here.

And I am continuing the process.

But it does pay off and I wanted to share this little win with you.

So the next time you are wondering if Facebook is worth the time, it can be when its done right!

So in my JV travels this past week, I decided it was time to reconnect with Michele Scism. We met a year ago at Nancy Marmolejos I Heart My Biz event (one that catapulted the most transformational experience of my life, as I have mentioned previously on this blog). We tried to connect after but the timing wasnt right.

As I googled my new friend, I discovered she was just launching another Blog Challenge. And I thought How perfect! Just what I need!

I already know that daily blogging can double or even triple your traffic to your website in just weeks. And it also increases your credibility as well as your visibility. So why don’t we do this all the time?

For me, it’s habit….and I really don’t like to write. But I will do it anyhow because I know it works!

So here I am, kicking off this blog challenge with my announcement about it.

Want to join me? Everything is always more fun with friends!

Just so you know, I will be finishing up my 25 1/2 written blog posts that I wrote these last few months and haven’t yet posted–content and value driven! I will also share what I have been up to and what I have coming up. And finally, I have decided to use my favorite Wordpress App on my iPhone–so the quality of the pictures might not be the best. I will try to fix them later.

But right now, my priority and commitment will be to blog 31 times by the end of the month–and getting something good posted is better than waiting until it is perfect! (Again, I have 25 less-then-perfect posts waiting in the queue…)

Please share your thoughts, comments and ideas as you are inspired.

And heres to creating REALationships via blogging!

Blogging is a foundational tool in your online marketing campaign. And you should be blogging everyday if you can. This will build quick visiblity, credibility & traffic to your site. It can also drive traffic from your social networks into your marketing funnel when you do it the right way. In fact, if you need a kick in the pants for your blogging, it’s not too late to jump into my good friend, Sandra Martini’s 30 Day Blog Challenge–and it’s free!

But are you using your blog to build relationships?

Here are 3 simple ideas to take your blogging to a new level:

1. Live on the edge! Ask pointed questions that will inspire people to respond to your thoughts and your topic. When your readers respond, always acknowledge their responses–even when you don’t agree. These conversations may be the first steps in new connections.

2. Talk about others in your posts! I don’t want you spamming, but feel free to share other experts opinions on your blog. Add your own commentary, of course. Make sure to include a link to her original post or social media page for quick reference and then let her know you just mentioned her on your blog (sent her a Tweet or post on her Facebook wall/page).

3. Invite upcoming experts to be “Guest Bloggers” on your site. Make sure they are either writing original content for you or repurposing at least 30% of the content for your readers. Allow them to incl ude a small bio box and their photo at the end of their articles with a link. Quickly, you will have other experts promoting your site and thanking you for the opportunity to build their own audience! And we haven’t even gotten into the time-savings opportunities…

Do you see the win-win-win in each of these ideas? When you are leading from a place of “shared abundance” and you value your community and relationships in your business, great things will come!

StumbleUpon is one of the best-kept secrets in the social networking world. Probably because it’s not really a “networking” tool. SU is a bookmarking tool that was designed to sort and tag favorite sites. It has evolved into a great resource to drive traffic to your site and to build fantastic relationships.

And you get start using this tool in just a couple of easy steps:

1. Go to www.StumbleUpon.com and download the toolbar. It takes a few minutes and will make bookmarking the easiest social media activity you do.

2. Take your “hot JV” list and visit their blogs and web sites. You are looking for valuable content that is relative to your expertise and your audience. When you find a good article or post, give a “thumbs up”. If you are the first person to rate the page/post, then you will also be able to add your commentary.

3. Spend 2 minutes each day reviewing blog posts, articles and videos from your friends and mentors (you should be doing this no matter what social media tools you are using to build your visibility & credibility) and “Stumble” your favorites. Then you can tweet about them and/or share them on Facebook as well.

This “secret” really only takes a minute for each site/article/post you bookmark. The best part is that everything that you rate will also be kept in your account for future reference! The theory is that you will bookmark your “friends” great content and add your commentary and they will do the same for you. Please note your friends may not be active on StumbleUpon, but other great people are. This is a great opportunity to increase your cirle of influence and circulate in new groups!

We have spent the last month discussing how to build content that drives traffic. One of my favorite, high-ranking social media sites is Scribd.com. This is a document hosting site that Google and Yahoo LOVE. In fact, when you upload your press releases, articles, power-points and even excell spreadsheets, the search engines will start scouring and assessing your document for good content almost immediately.

Scribd is a content sharing site that utilizes some bookmarking and networking features to maximize the reach and build credibility & visibility much faster for you than some other sites.

Scribd is also in the process of adding a sync feature with Twitter and Facebook that will definitely build exposure for them and your content on the site.

Best of all, it only takes about 2 minutes to login and upload your weekly ezine article or your latest free teleseminar presentation to start building quality traffic back to your site.

Have you ever partnered with a friend thinking that you could combine your efforts and really leverage your relationship to create more traffic, exposure and even more money in your pockets? But afterwards you felt like you got the raw end of the deal?

This happens all the time. I was talking to a close friend the other day about a “partnership” that she had recently entered into. At first glance, it seemed like a great deal because she was adding benefits to a program that she didn’t think she could offer herself and she got to partner with a really cool friend.

But afterwards, she felt like she was the one doing most of the work without the recognition or the benefits while still splitting the profits 50/50.

Can you relate?

Well, there are 5 steps that I recommend that all potential partners must discuss, come to an agreement and write down before making the “partnership” official.

Step 1: Know Your Purpose: What is the point of the partnership/JV? What do you want to create together? Know what you are doing and why so that you can stay on track. Otherwise, entrepreneurs often get caught up in the potential of what “could” happen if only….

Step 2: Who is the driver? Usually, people come together, brainstorm and create great ideas and think that everything is 50/50. But almost all the time, this is not the case. I strongly suggest that you decide who the driver is, and allow the others to be passengers. Even if the partnership feels even, you must decide who gets what in a worst-case scenario.

Step 3: Who is doing what? Know what everyone’s responsibilities are and be clear about what each person brings to the table. Lay out who is in charge of the creative, the promotions, setting up the event on Facebook, Tweeting, etc. Evaluate these items regarding before, during and after the event and/or promotion. Include what each person will do during the relationship: promotion, creation, expenses, etc.

Step 4: What’s the Win? Be clear about the win (motivator) for each participant. Remember that often the best JV’s are motivated by more than just money including list building, visibility, credibility and even “new pools of influence.” Note that these are the tools used to evaluate a successful partnership in the end.

Step 5: How will I be compensated? If the “win” for each partner is money, then who gets how much? But if the “win” is list-building, you must be clear from the beginning who will host the list, how/when it will be forwarded to the partner, etc. Whichever the “wins”, be clear about the compensation on all levels. Always compensate appropriately and respectfully.

Step 6: OK—so there’s one more step here and this is the most important one: Write it down. After you have had a conversation and made decisions together on each of these steps, write them all down. This is really the most important step since our memories are just not perfect. This also allows for confusion to be  cleared up at the beginning of the relationship instead of the middle or the end.

There are so many great opportunities for all of us to connect and create wonderful collaborations for ourselves and for our collective audiences. And when you take these six simple steps at the beginning of a joint venture, partnership or any similar business relationship, you are sure to have great success, profitability and happiness together!

To access my Partnership/JV Agreement template, click here to download it now for free!

Interested in building your business through Joint Ventures, collaborative relationships and strategic alliances, but not sure how to structure the relationship, or put an agreement into place? I’ve decided to make available to my readers the template I use when putting together Collaborative Agreements, so enter your email below and grab them now!