10 Reflections on my 2nd Anniversary

By Blog, Uncategorized

I can’t believe that it’s my 2-year anniversary already. No, not my wedding anniversary (we’re approaching 30 years), rather my business anniversary. It’s been 2 years now that I’ve been an independent speaker, business consultant and author and I wanted to share some of my reflections of the last two years and what I’ve learned. I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to work with so many wonderful people, travel to so many new places (which is not easy for me as I’ve been traveling a lot over the years), and make many, many new friends.

So, here are 10 things I’ve learned from you over the last 2 years:

  1. There are so many creative and talented people, with wonderful passion. There’s no end to the ingenuity I’ve seen.
  2. However, being passionate and creative does not guarantee business success. That requires a different skill set.
  3. Everyone I meet is busy… some are just more successful. This was the spark for my new presentation “Are you too busy to be successful?” – I posted a survey for this, so if you didn’t get a chance to share your thoughts, please click here to take the 10 question survey.
  4. Life happens! Sometimes your day to day gets in the way of your big ideas and dreams. I’m working on a new presentation about this, tentatively titled “Don’t let your Today list get in the way of your To-do list” – stay tuned for the debut of that one.
  5. Lots of businesses are thriving, while others, in the same market and category are struggling. It’s not a lack of opportunities. I believe it’s an attitude of success, something I’ve written about extensively. Read More

Boston Area Afternoon of Education for Wedding & Event Pros

By Speaking Events

 

Alan Berg, Sales & Marketing Expert

Attention Boston & New England Wedding Pros:

Join us on Monday, April 22nd for a special afternoon of education, with marketing guru, Alan Berg. He’ll be giving two great presentations that can help you do more business and there’s a Bonus:

1) Close More Sales, Today! – until you close the sale there’s no work to do, so the better you get at closing sales, the more you get to do what you love – video, music, food, flowers, photography… you know, the creative stuff. Come hear Alan give one of his most popular presentations and learn how to close more sales so both you and your customer feel better about the process.

2) 10 Ways your website is Killing your business – that’s right, many websites are actually costing you more in lost business than they’re getting you. Come to this session and hear Alan, who wrote the book “If your website was an employee, would you fire it?”, teach you quick and easy fixes for your current website. If you’re thinking about making a new site, this is a must-see so you don’t build in some of these mistakes to your new site.

Bonus: Time permitting, Alan will do live website reviews of some of the attendees. Are you brave enough to let him look at yours? You should, people pay him hundreds to review their sites and you may get it for free!

WhereHoliday Inn Dedham MA, 55 Ariadne Rd, Dedham, MA 02026

WhenMonday, April 22, 2013 – 1:00pm – 5:30pm
Videographers: Then stick around for dinner and the NPVA meeting that evening, which requires separate registration, click for more info)

Special Early Bird Pricing – extended!

Alan Berg, Marketing Guru, Professional Speaker

If you register now you pay just $99, with no additional fees. Not only is Alan going to teach you how to make more money, he’s going to make it easy for you to save, too!

If you get one more sale from the ideas you hear, most businesses will make this small investment back many times over.

The live website reviews alone are worth seeing and the closing the sales ideas are priceless. Sign up today to ensure your seat.

If you’d like to have a private website review or consultation with Alan while he’s in town, he’s got 3 time slots available on Tuesday before he leaves. Click here for the times and the $100 savings

Choose your option, single ticket for only $99 or bring friends or associates and save with 2, 3 and 4 person tickets!


How Many Tickets – the more you buy the more you save



You don’t get any business from your website

By Blog

That’s right you’re’ not getting any business from your website… you’re getting business through it! Visitors to your website have to come from somewhere before they get there. Maybe be it’s an online ad, a search engine result or even your business card, but they have to come from somewhere, they don’t just miraculously know your website’s URL. That brings up a couple of interesting questions:

• Where is your traffic coming from? and
• Where is your business coming from?

Traffic does not equal business

Where your site’s visitors are coming from is an important piece in figuring out where your business is coming from. Unless you can track the sales back to the source, you really don’t know where your business is coming from. You may guess, but that’s not helpful in knowing where to invest your marketing dollars. So, unless you have a toll booth on your site, where people are paying just to view it, traffic is not a good indicator of business success.

E-commerce or offline sales?

If you make sales on your website, where someone can enter their credit card info and check out, then you may be able to track back to how they got to your site in the first place… maybe. If this wasn’t their first visit to your site then, unless you have cookies, or some other tracking software, you won’t really know what brought them to your site. Even with cookies or other software you may not be able to connect the dots all the way back. Read More

WeddingsOnline.ie – regional conferences in Ireland

By Speaking Events

WeddingsOnline.ieAfter successful presentations in Limerick and Dublin, WeddingsOnline.ie, the largest wedding website in Ireland, has asked me to come back and speak now in Cork 20 May; Galway 21 May and Donegal 23 May.

I’ll be giving three presentations and Mark Richardson will also be presenting. Come hear:

We Want Action – Conversion is the key to your success – Alan Berg

Closing Sales and doing better business – Mark Richardson

Lunch break & refreshments (included)

Angry Brides – protecting your online reputation – Alan Berg

Creating an Exceptional Customer Experience – Alan Berg

Q&A with the panel

I’ll even have Special, Limited Edition copies of my website book “If your website was an employee, would you fire it”, which are only available at the conferences.

Click here for me info and to register

Bridal Show Producers International (BSPI) annual conference

By Speaking Events

BSPII’m proud to be invited back again this year to present for BSPI. It’s a wonderful conference with some of the best bridal show producers in the US and abroad. I’ll be presenting “How to communicate better with prospects via email”, which is a topic everyone needs to hear. We know that prospects and customers just don’t pick up the phone anymore, so we need to learn how to have better conversations via email.

Wedding MBA 2013

By Speaking Events

Wedding MBAWedding MBA is one of my favorite conferences each year because only the wedding pros who are most serious about improving their businesses come out. I’m proud to be giving the opening and closing keynote addresses again this year… and maybe another presentation, stay tuned.

For more information and to register, click here

Wedding Market Expo – Atlanta, GA

By Speaking Events

Wedding Market Expo

Wedding Market Expo 2013 is a Conference for Wedding Professionals

  • Hear from Wedding Industry Experts
  • Learn how to increase sales & gain referrals
  • See, touch, and hear about Current Trends
  • Get hands on advice from Online Marketing Pros
  • Network with others in the Industry
  • Visit Exhibitor Booths
  • Surprise Tour event on Tuesday evening
  • …and much more!

I’ll be presenting 3 great topics:

  1. The One-Page Website – how less is more when it comes to your site
  2. The Power of Reviews – see how you can use this powerful tool to your advantage
  3. Your Attitude for Success (also the topic of my latest book) – change your attitude for a better perspective on life and work

And that’s just my presentations. There’ll be lots more over the 2 1/2 days and this is a great value. If you’re serious about the success of your business, you definitely want to attend. Don’t say “I should have gone”, register today. Thanks and I look forward to seeing you there.

For more information and to register, click here

Wedding Market Expo will be held in 4 cities:

April 9-11, 2013 – Kansas City, MO – Kansas City Convention Center

August 6-8, 2013 – Austin, TX  – Palmer Event Center

September 10-12, 2013 – Lakeland, FL – The Lakeland Center

October 22-24, 2013 – Atlanta, GA – Gwinnett Center