Notes

6 Steps TO OBTAIN Slightly Famous
A couple of 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 as 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 loved-one's birthday. When he gave her a blank look, she go about planning a trip-but wouldn't tell him what she was planning. Because he enjoyed the mystery leading up to the trip, and the hints his wife gave him, he repackaged his travel service because the Veiled Voyage, selling 'destination unknown' vacations to couples among others.

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

Now, most 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 had the opportunity to extend his brand with a significant grocery store chain through a lucrative co-branding relationship that has further expanded his company.

The 'Slightly' Famous You

Some business owners attract clients and customers like magic. They don't 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 are able to 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 make their names come to mind when people are searching for a particular product or service. They have more business - not merely more, but the right type of business - plus they need not work so hard to obtain it.

Desire to join them and enjoy this ideal situation, where customers come to you? You can, but it may require a new way of thinking and a new 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 focus on the best prospects.

Alex Fisenko is well 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 now 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 Site, http://www.espressobusiness.com, generates thousands of dollars per month in products sales and consulting engagements in the usa, Thailand, South Korea, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, and Barbados. 'By targeting the very 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

Small businesses with a 'slightly famous' strategy establish themselves within a carefully selected market niche they can realistically desire to dominate.

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

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

3. Positioning your business as the best solution

Positioning is about identifying a key attribute of one's company not provided by competitors which is clearly valuable to your marketplace.

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

Shepherd went from blending right into a sea of look-alike competitors to occupying a compelling market position. He charged higher fees, and he did not have to are hard to get new customers. Word spread fast among accountants as they referred him to their clients. He even trained other bookkeepers to utilize accounting software.

4. Maintaining your visibility

When was the final time your name appeared on the net? Yesterday? Last week? A month ago? Because you remember doesn't mean a possible client will. To become 'slightly' famous, you need to have your message out there, if not continuously, then often enough to keep your name alive in customers' minds.

When Bart Baggett made a decision to make handwriting analysis his career, he embraced the media, and studied newspapers, magazines, and radio and television programs to find out what forms of guests were popular, and 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 delivered a news release about Simpson's handwriting that resulted in several timely media interviews. He later appeared on Court TV to discuss Timothy McVey's handwriting, and was recommended by the director of that 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 way to earn credibility is by establishing yourself as a 'recognized' expert with intimate knowledge of your clients, customers and industry. Experts out-position their competitors because they are recognized as knowing a lot more than their competitors.

read more , 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 is fluent in all the details of his business.

Tibbitts monitors global beverage trends on a daily basis while staying in connection with account managers at hotels and restaurants. He hosts a number of special events, 'Fred Tibbitts Spring & Autumn Dinners with Special Friends,' in key markets, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and NY. 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 sure 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 promote his popular line of 'Insanity' hot sauces.

Dave established his brand by making the hottest sauce possible. Instead of sensual pleasure, he promised pain, even danger. Now, Dave's Gourmet, Inc. steps to the front of the crowded hot sauce category because he embraced a humorous branding strategy that led to 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 respiratory problem after tasting his sauce, and banned him from the show.

To take pleasure from 'slightly' famous status, you don't have to be insane. But, you must 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 within an increasing cluttered world.

Steven Van Yoder is writer of Get Slightly FamousT: Become 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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