Initiate Contact #atozchallenge

Sean Doherty, Charlotte Harbor Visitor & Convention Bureau, Makes a Call During Telphone Sales Blitz, July 26, 2010 (Photo credit: JenniferHuber)

   

        So you've got something really cool that you want people to know about.   You've written your book and even have publishing arrangements made.  You've started a business that people are going to love.  You've developed a product that everybody will want.   Now to sit back and wait for those customers to beat a path to your door.

        You might be waiting awhile.  If few people or no one knows about what you've got for them then they're not going to be contacting you just because you have it no matter how great it is.    Making contact with the customers is the job of the marketing campaign.    And the process starts with you.

        You have to initiate contact.  Blogs are great for doing exactly that.  Once you've made contact with others in a community then you can ask for their help when you need help.  Same thing goes with others with whom you come into contact in other aspects of your life.  

          Let the world know what you can do or how you can help them.  Then offer your services.   Make yourself available for interviews or to be on panel discussions.  Wherever you see an opportunity to grow your personal brand, take it and use it to your best advantage.

          Here's an example of someone who initiated contact by making her need known to others:

     

Another New Life

by Sydney Aaliyah Michelle

Publication Date: June 2, 2014

New Adult Contemporary Romance

**This book contains adult subject matter. Not intended for young readers.**

 Another New Life

By Sydney Aaliyah Michelle

“From the first day we met, it was Troy and me against the world.”

Another New Life by Sydney Aaliyah Michelle

New Adult Contemporary Romance

  Miranda Preston is a walking contradiction. Talent, smart and beautiful on the outside and insecure, haunted and damaged on the inside. Despite these contradictions, she’s ready to start Another New Life.

When her talent wins her a piano performance scholarship to the University of Texas, Miranda arrives on campus determined to experience everything college has to offer and to keep her secrets in the past where they belong.

An easy task, until the first guy who catches her eye happens to be someone, she’s known all her life.

Eight years have passed since the last time Miranda and Troy saw each other. He reminds her of the best and worst times of her live, but she can’t think about one without dwelling on the other. As they grow closer, every day their attraction reminds them they are no longer kids.

The epic romantic love story that is Miranda and Troy seems to be destined for a happy ending, but Miranda knows it’s only a matter of time before her secret is discovered. A secret that will not only destroy their relationship, it will destroy Troy, too.

Can Miranda focus on her future with Troy while preventing her past from tearing them apart all over again?

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About The Author

Sydney Aaliyah Michelle is a New Adult Contemporary Romance writer, a voracious reader and movie fanatic who 

Sydney has been blogging at sydneyaaliyah.com for three years, where she interviews people about their tattoos, discusses her favorite movie quotes, reviews books (New Adult & only the ones she loves) and journals about her writing and editing process.hailsfrom Texas. After surviving 5 1/2 years living in China, she had the courage to finally pursue her passion and become a writer.

Sydney's self-published debut New Adult Novel Another New Life will be available June 2014. An active tweeter, she is also a JuNoWriMo (2x) and NaNoWriMo (2x) winners who notes the sci-fi action flick "The Matrix" as the best representation of her life in the past. She is blessed to be awake now and doing what she loves.

Find Out More:

Website   Facebook   Twitter

Pinterest   Goodreads

 Google+   LinkedIn

 

           Have you received help from other bloggers to get a message out for you?   Do you ask for others to help you promote your causes?    Are you willing to talk to strangers in order to sell yourself or something you want to promote?

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Happiness and Hope #atozchallenge

         Every ending doesn't have to be happy.  Real life is like that.  But it is nice if there is a ray of hope somewhere in the future.   It's better not to dwell in Downerland all the time.  If your whole world is negativity then you're eventually going to kill whatever audience you have if you ever managed to acquire any audience in the first place.

        Negativity and depression is tedious and tiring for both you and those who are around you.   Happiness instills an inner peace and an outward energy which in turn encourages hopefulness.   A positive outlook needs to start with you before you can pass it on to others.

        Say for example you are going for a job interview or trying to make a good impression on someone with whom you'd like a relationship, you'd most likely start with a smile and a pleasant demeanor would you not?  This is the basis of good marketing.  And it goes beyond first impressions.   You don't always have to be bubbly or sugar-coated, but a positive nature will draw people to you.

        Most marketing focuses on the happy side.  The marketer typically sets out to show how what they're offering can bring happiness.   Generally speaking, people are looking for something that will inspire happiness within them and fill them with hope for a better tomorrow.    Even if only a temporary fix is being offered, the goal of good marketing is to suggest that the answer to finding hope and happiness is at hand.

   
Battle of the Bands winner

       Since my most recent Battle of the Bands coincided with opening day of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, it's not too surprising that I had a record number of votes for this contest.   However I was a bit surprised by the outcome.  I fully expected a rout by the venerable Fab Four.  It did not happen.

       As I had expected the Beatles version of "Act Naturally" was the over all more preferred with 45 total votes including my own.   I've been a long time fan of the Beatles and Ringo was the first one I ever heard perform the song "Act Naturally".   I prefer the skiffle band country sound that their version has--the instruments sound better to me and I enjoy the vocals more.   Buck is good, but the Beatles are my preferred taste in music.

      Now Buck Owens did not get totally trounced in the contest.  His version ended up with a very respectable 38 votes--far more than I had anticipated.   Owens always came across as a pretty likeable guy to me so I'm glad to see him get the respect that he received from the voters.

      Final tally for "Act Naturally":   Beatles 45 votes to Buck Owens 38 votes.

       Next Battle of the Bands comes on Tuesday April 15th.  Hope you'll visit and vote again.  I'll be once again tying the song I use into my A to Z theme of Promotion and Marketing.

         Do you have a positive feel about yourself or whatever it is you are marketing?   Do you feel that you could be contributing to another's sense of well-being and happiness with your product or yourself?    Can you think of some examples where the negative approach works best?       

     

     

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Go For It! #atozchallenge

Uttercast: Steal This Idea (Photo credit: doughaslam)

ideas (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

          So many of us dream dreams that we never do anything about.  We come up with terrific ideas that may fire us up for a while and then we'll let them fall by the wayside.   Sometimes our lack of action may be due to lack of money.  In many cases this is totally understandable.  At other times we may lack know-how or we are too preoccupied with other things or just too plain lazy to go any further in pursuing a dream.

          If you don't go for it, somebody else eventually will.

          I'm reminded of an idea I came up with back in the 80's.  I dreamed up what I thought was a rather clever toy that could be further expanded to be used by arts and crafts aficionados.  The more I thought about the idea, the better it sounded.  I talked  to my wife about it a lot and dreamed up all the different related products that could be marketed.   I was on the road touring with a show at the time so there wasn't too much I could do but dream and talk while driving.

          Years later I was in a business marketing class at the University of Phoenix.   One of our team projects was to come up with an idea and a plan to market that idea.   We decided to use the idea that I had dreamed up in the 80's.  We presented the idea and it was well-received by the class.  And that was it.

          Or was it?

           A few years ago, I revisited my idea as I considered ways to make an income since I was unemployed and not having much luck finding a new job.   I researched my idea on the internet and there it was.  A product essentially identical to the concept that I had dreamed up in the 80's was now available on Amazon as well as several other retailers such as Walmart and Toys 'R Us.   My dream had been realized by someone else and the product line had been expanded in many of the ways that I thought it could be.  The only thing that was really different was the product name.

          I'm not going to say that someone who had heard my idea at sometime in the past had stolen it.   After all I didn't own the idea or have any claims on it.  It's conceivable that someone in that marketing class had run with my idea, but I haven't found any evidence of this.

           My point is that I had a good idea and I didn't go for it.   Maybe someone else used my idea. I'm more inclined to believe that ideas are floating out there for anyone's taking.  I doubt whether I'm the only one who ever thought of this idea that came into my head, but no one acted upon that idea until fairly recently.

           If we don't go for making a good idea see the light of day, we should expect that somebody else eventually will.   We can and should dream, but if we don't pursue the dream, it will eventually get away from us.

           Have you ever lost out on a dream because of not following through on it?   Why do you usually fail to go for making a big idea happen?     Do you think somebody "stole" my idea or do you think there's a floating idea repository out there with dreams ready for someone to grab onto?

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