Do-It-Yourself Marketing. Can You Really?

By Montrie Rucker AdamsFebruary 13, 2012 Be More Visible, Blog

I recently attended a seminar that focused on how to get more clients. This is the premise: If you want more customers, you have to do all of the marketing yourself. Don’t rely on anyone else to do it for you.

While this sounds great and wonderful, it may not always be practical. Let’s think about this for a moment. You are a small business owner. You started your business because you have a passion for something. You love to create, work with your hands, design, strategize, transform or improvise. We can even break it down further…you love to cook, paint, cut hair, talk, teach/instruct, fix cars, design brochures, sell houses, heal wounds.

You started your business because you love what you do and want to make a living doing it. Can you really do everything it requires to run a business?

If you worked in Corporate America, most likely you had a specific job to do. For illustrative purposes, let’s say you were a salesperson. You came to work, made phone calls, conducted meetings, responded to emails, completed sales reports, then went home and started again the next day.

While you were selling, someone else at the company was answering the phones, determining the company’s budget, ordering supplies, filing tax forms, interviewing potential employees, ordering lunch, generating publicity, making travel reservations, designing the marketing materials, placing advertisements, updating the website…and the list goes on.

Now you own I Amma Salesperson Inc. Not only do you have to perform your responsibilities as a salesperson, you also have to do all the above … answer the phones, determine the company’s budget, order supplies, file tax forms…

Every professional has his/her gifts and specialties. They are experts at what they do. Why not hire them to do what they do best? It’s impossible for you to do it all.

When it comes to marketing (or any other discipline), there are professionals who have skills and years of experience. They have been doing for years what they do best while you were out selling, because that’s what you do best.

While there is the do-it-yourself mantra out there… many are finding that, if the company is to grow beyond the “solopreneur,” it’s best to hire professionals to help you get to the next level.

Don’t believe the hype. You can start out by doing-it-yourself, but if you have plans to grow, you have to hire professionals to help you.

Annual Reports… Who Reads Them?

By Montrie Rucker AdamsJanuary 18, 2012 Be More Visible, Blog corporations, non-profit organizations, shareholders

No one. Annual Reports are long, boring and usually have awful photos. Well…not all of them. Some people actually do read them, because even though they are few and far between, there are good Annual Reports out there. You just have to know how to create them.

Corporations with shareholders have to report their Income Statements, Cash Flows and Balance Sheets. However, no one reads financial statements. So, if that’s all they published, no one would know about all the other wonderful things corporations do. They have to put their Income Statements, Cash Flows and Balance Sheets in pretty packages so that people will read about the other contributions they make.

Non-profit organizations are not required to produce Annual Reports. But they do. They want their donors to see their names in print as a thank you for their contributions. Publicizing the charitable work that they perform may inspire others to help out as well.

Make it Easy to Read

Annual Reports usually aren’t. There is so much information organizations want to share that it ends up in tiny print. You don’t have to include all the details of the last 12 months. Pick a few great things that you think are more than interesting. Use a larger font. It’s easier on the eyes.

Pick Great Photos

Don’t use stock photography. Make it genuine and hire a photographer to capture events throughout the year. Use close-ups whenever possible and candid shots rather than stiff, posed images.

No Stiff Copy

Punch it up. Make it fun. Invite the reader into your world. Instead of, “More than 350 people attended the annual fundraiser, and a good time was had by all…” include a quote from someone who attended the event. It gives the article a more personal feel. “I had great time at the annual fundraiser. The entertainment gets better and better each year. My children loved the balloon animals and the talking bear.”

Engage the Public

No one wants to read a bunch of comments from employees about what they do at such-and-such a place. They want to read about people like themselves. Ditch the employee humdrum and find real people who are benefit from your products or services. Include real testimonials from the company blog or Facebook comments. Make it real.

Make it Accessible

Save a few dollars and make a pdf version that can be electronically distributed. Hard copies are nice, but you don’t need 10,000. You can save on distribution charges using email, or have a link to the document on your website.

Who reads Annual Reports? More people will. If they are easy to read, have great photos, include interesting, easy-to-read copy, stories from real people and are easily accessible, they will attract the inquisitive rather than repel the curious.

Be More Visible! And The Power of Ten

By Montrie Rucker AdamsOctober 24, 2010 Be More Visible, Featured, News, Uncategorized

The number ten signifies completeness. It implies that nothing is wanting. Ten is a very significant number so far for me in 2010. Here’s why:

~We launched the much needed and very helpful booklet Be More Visible! Create More Interest in You, Your Product or Service

~We celebrated Visibility Marketing’s tenth anniversary in October (tenth month), with Don’t Drop the Dream! a fundraiser for Continue Life, a homeless shelter for pregnant and parenting women.

~Over 100 people attended Don’t Drop the Dream!

~I was ten when I first visited my father’s company and decided I wanted to own a business

~Visibility Marketing won COSE’s Ten Under 10 Award for best practices in innovation, growth/success, value to the community and the environment, diversity promotion and customer service.

I’ve just listed five (half of ten) significant tens for Visibility Marketing. The first ten people who email me will receive the new booklet, Be More Visible! Create More Interest in You, Your Product or Service.

In it are more than 60 (six times ten) ways to tell others about you or what you have to offer. Using these tips at least once a week will create mre visibility, which often leads to more sales.

Thanks in advance for your support and continue to Be More Visible!

260 Ways to Be More Visible

By Montrie Rucker AdamsJuly 2, 2010 Be More Visible, Blog, News

For the tenth anniversary of Visibility Marketing Inc., we’ve compiled a list of 365 260 ways to “be more visible.” They are quick and easy. Nothing hard. Nothing new. It’s only a matter of incorporating the old Nike tagline philosophy “just do it.”

We started out with 365 but then realized, why work them on the weekends? We’ll just give them enough for Monday through Friday and let them rest and play the other two days. Now, if you’re really ambitious we can have that conversation.

So, if you want to be “more visible” just do one of these a day. Or, you can do one of these for 5 days, or 25 days. If you get bored with one, choose another. It’s all a matter of working it until it works.

Now sign on to Twitter and follow @BeMoreVisible to get your visibility for today.

No More Black Beans and Rice (It’s Gumbo Now)

By Montrie Rucker AdamsDecember 14, 2009 Be More Visible, Blog

The deep psychological wounds of slavery cannot easily be measured, but the evidence of the superior race mind-set is ever present.

As America’s pot becomes gumbo rather than black beans and rice, everyone has to learn to accept and welcome the positive changes diversity brings. Not only do we now have an African American running our nation, but minorities are at the helm of some of our great businesses and institutions. Many minorites and some in the majority accept what is, because from generation to generation we have not known otherwise.

A recent incident brought the necessity of diversity education home. For nearly one year I attended job-related meetings at which I was the only African American. One meeting I could not attend, so I asked a co-worker to stand in for me.

Imagine my surprise when she returned, exclaiming how nice and accomodating everyone was. She was beckoned to sit with the hosts and made to feel like a “sorority” sister – gestures of acceptance, acknowledgement and appreciation I had never experienced.

At first I could not quite understand why my emotions were on a roller coaster. Then, it dawned on me. My color prevented me from being in their “club.” I could not join because I did not look like them. Maybe even deeper than that – they were uncomfortable with me. In their world I don’t exist. I am invisible.

The days of “black beans and rice” are over. The numbers of Latinos, Asians, Native and Arab Americans and other ethnic groups are growing. Therefore, diversity education is necessary. By making entire races invisible, we are shortchanging our schoolrooms and boardrooms of their talents, time and treasures. We have to try to learn and understand the history, cultures and souls of those who are different.

There were two lessons learned from this incident. One, I was used to being invisible and ignored. I didn’t recognize it until it was blatantly brought to my attention. Alienating others was their way of life – their actions went unrecognizable to them.

Two, I now have a better understanding of what Jesus meant when He said, “…love your enemies. Do good to them…Then your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Luke 6:35 NIV).

The attitudes and actions that have brought the need for diversity education to took hundreds of years to create and may take just as long to eradicate. We must be patient and continue to seek change with love. We may not see it’s full manifestation in our lifetime. Maybe our great-grandchildren will.

Touched By a RAK

By Montrie Rucker AdamsDecember 9, 2009 Be More Visible, Blog, Hey.. Try This AOL, RAK, Random Act of Kindness

The year was 1998 – I was touched by a RAK. I even wrote about it in Kaleidoscope magazine. It was in the early days of the Internet when we didn’t have to worry about Spam or phishing. Not many people were on the Internet back then. Since I had an AOL account, the only people I connected with were on AOL.

One day on April 9th I received an email from a stranger. Which was quite rare in those days. It simply said, “You don’t know me. I want to wish you a Happy Birthday. You’ve been hit by a RAK… “Random Act of Kindness.”

The email threw me. Since he was also on AOL, it wasn’t hard to figure out how he got my email address. I emailed him back to thank him. He said that’s what he does…thinks of various ways to perform random acts of kindness.

Continue reading Touched By a RAK