Notes

6 Steps To Get Slightly Famous
A few years ago, Bruce Smith experienced a slowdown in his Salt Lake City-based travel agency. Airlines had eliminated his sales commissions. The recession and recent terrorist attacks also took a toll. And because the travel industry was ultra-competitive, he knew he had to find ways to distinguish his company from thousands of other travel agencies.

Then, he previously a fortunate accident. His wife asked him where they would celebrate their first wedding anniversary. When he gave her a blank look, she set about planning for a trip-but wouldn't simply tell him what she was planning. Because he enjoyed the mystery before the trip, and the hints his wife gave him, he repackaged his travel service as The Veiled Voyage, selling 'destination unknown' vacations to couples among others.

Smith's clever branding strategy was a hit. It not merely helped him develop a unique and memorable brand, but also made him 'slightly' famous.

Now, the majority of Smith's business comes through referrals from happy clients who eagerly tell their friends concerning the Veiled Voyage. He's regularly featured in newspapers, magazines and radio programs and was even invited to speak at a national travel conference. Moreover, he's been able to extend his brand with a major grocery store chain by way of a lucrative co-branding relationship which has further expanded his company.

The 'Slightly' Famous You

Some business owners attract clients and customers like magic. They do not cold call or rely on advertising. Yet they're regularly featured in newspapers and magazines and obtain invited to speak at conferences. Everyone knows their name, and they get all the business they can handle.

It's almost as though they were famous.

In fact, they're, but not in the manner celebrities and athletes are famous--they're just slightly famous. Just famous enough to create their names one thinks of when people are seeking a particular service or product. They have more business - not only more, but the right kind of business - and they don't have to work so hard to get it.

Desire to join them and revel in this ideal state of affairs, where customers arrived at you? You can, nonetheless it may require a new way of thinking and a new online marketing strategy. Although their efforts take different forms, underlying them all are six basic principles.

1. Targeting the best prospects

Slightly famous entrepreneurs focus their marketing to target the best prospects.

Alex Fisenko is known in the wonderful world of coffee as 'the Dean of Beans.' The 60-something coffee expert started his first espresso shop in the 1960s. Since that time, he's focused his energies and today sells his expertise on launching a successful coffee business to aspiring entrepreneurs. Alex conducts restaurant seminars and sells a training course called 'Espresso Business Success.'

His Internet site, http://www.espressobusiness.com, generates thousands of dollars a month in products sales and consulting engagements in the usa, Thailand, South Korea, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, and Barbados. 'By targeting the best prospects, I now make more money through book sales and consultations than when I ran coffee shops,' says Fisenko.

2. Creating a unique market niche

Smaller businesses with a 'slightly famous' strategy establish themselves inside a carefully selected market niche that they can realistically hope to dominate.

Dan Poynter, for instance, is really a successful self-publisher who started writing books about parachuting and hang-gliding over thirty years back. Though it could sound as though his audience will be too small to generate significant sales, he knew his market and how to locate them. Best of all, he has the marketplace all to himself!

Rather than try to fight for attention generally bookstores, he sold books to skydiving clubs, parachute dealers, and the U.S. Parachute Association. Additional info developed a reputation in skydiving circles, and has enjoyed steady sales of his books for more than three decades.

3. Positioning your business because the best solution

Positioning is approximately identifying a key attribute of one's company not offered by competitors and that is clearly valuable to your marketplace.

When Harry Shepherd started his bookkeeping service a couple of years ago, he realized that he was in competition with a large number of other bookkeepers selling basically the same thing. To stand out, he mastered a favorite accounting program and marketed himself as a 'QuickBooks Software Training Consultant.'

Shepherd went from blending into a sea of look-alike competitors to occupying a compelling market position. He charged higher fees, and he didn't have to work as hard to get new customers. Word spread fast among accountants because they referred him with their clients. He even trained other bookkeepers to use accounting software.

4. Maintaining your visibility

When was the last time your name appeared in print? Yesterday? Last week? A month ago? Just because you remember doesn't mean a potential customer will. To become 'slightly' famous, you must have your message out there, if not continuously, then often enough to help keep your name alive in customers' minds.

When Bart Baggett decided to make handwriting analysis his career, he embraced the media, and studied newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programs to discover what types of guests were in demand, and then looked for methods to tie his professional abilities to specific media. His strategy paid off.

At the height of the O.J. Simpson trial, he sent out a news release about Simpson's handwriting that resulted in several timely media interviews. He later appeared on Court TV to go over Timothy McVey's handwriting, and was recommended by the director of this program to CNN. A feature in Biography Magazine resulted in stories in the London Times, the Dallas Morning News, among others.

5. Enhancing your credibility

The surest solution to earn credibility is by establishing yourself as a 'recognized' expert with intimate understanding of your clients, customers and industry. Experts out-position their competitors because they're recognized as knowing a lot more than their competitors.

Fred Tibbitts, Jr. founded Fred Tibbitts & Associates to greatly help food and beverage companies reach global markets. He strategically cultivated a reputation in his industry as a well-connected and knowledgeable global beverage-marketing expert who's fluent in all the facts of his business.

Tibbitts monitors global beverage trends on a regular basis while staying in connection with account managers at hotels and restaurants. He hosts a series of special events, 'Fred Tibbitts Spring & Autumn Dinners with Special Friends,' in key markets, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and New York. Tibbitts also contributes a column to Hospitality International Magazine and numerous industry publications.

6. Establishing your brand and reputation

Slightly famous entrepreneurs use their smallness and specialty in ways that corporate giants can't touch. They make certain their brands strike an emotional chord by bringing their business 'soul' to the forefront of these marketing.

Once you meet Dave Hirschkop at a trade show, don't expect to shake his hand. That's because he'll be wearing a straitjacket while standing before a simulated insane asylum to market his popular line of 'Insanity' hot sauces.

Dave established his brand by making the hottest sauce possible. Rather than sensual pleasure, he promised pain, even danger. Now, Dave's Gourmet, Inc. steps to leading of the crowded hot sauce category because he embraced a humorous branding strategy that resulted in fiercely loyal customers and great media exposure.

When Dave introduced his Insanity Sauce at the National Fiery Foods Show in New Mexico, he made attendees sign a release form before tasting from a bottle that came in a coffin-like box wrapped with yellow police tape. His best, if unintended, publicity coup happened when a show promoter had a minor respiratory problem after tasting his sauce, and banned him from the show.

To enjoy 'slightly' famous status, you don't have to be insane. But, you need to cultivate a brandname identity that will end up being the guiding star of one's entire business. It will ensure that all your marketing efforts pull in exactly the same direction. You'll waste less time, make fewer marketing mistakes, and stand out in an increasing cluttered world.

Steven Van Yoder is author of Get Slightly FamousT: Turn into a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort. Visit http://www.getslightlyfamous.com to learn the book and find out about 'slightly' famous teleclasses, workshops, and marketing materials to help smaller businesses and solo professionals attract more business.

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