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New Radiance Updates
November 2001
NEW RADIANCE NEWS
The New Radiance Florida Directory is the only statewide Directory of body, mind, spirit professionals published continuously since 1990.
(1) The quickest, easiest way to make sure you meet the December 15 deadline for advertising in the Florida Directory's 7th Edition is -- drop your business card in the mail along with your two free listings and $60. That takes care of it!
For online order forms, visit www.newradiance.com or call (727) 397-2702 to receive them by regular mail.
(2) The September and October newsletters are now archived at www.newradiance.com. In the October issue is an eye-opening review of how to best use 13 different types of media, including brochures, classified ads, direct mail, magazines, newspapers, websites, yellow pages and more. It's written by Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the Guerrilla Marketing books.
(3) If you have a website and would like to exchange links with New Radiance, drop me an e-line
-- newradiance@earthlink.net.
(4) Here are a few guidelines for writing your 10-line Directory listing:
Directory listings were expanded to 10 lines this year to allow space for email addresses and website names. The basic $25 listing gives room for your business name, address, phone and fax numbers, email and web info plus four lines (40 characters each, including spaces and punctuation) to describe your business.
Some business owners use the description space to list their products and services. I like to use my "elevator speech" -- the one sentence that describes the focus of my business when people ask, "...and what do you do?"
TIP: Many advertisers like to omit their business address in favor of more information about their business. It's a trade-off between losing one of the ways in which people can contact you versus adding two lines of advertising copy.
To see an example of the "elevator speech" type of listing, here's one I wrote for the marketing business I'll promote in the new year (please note: the focusfinder website is not active yet, but will be when the book comes out).
1. Barbara Casey - "The Focus Finder"
2. PO Box 86674
3. St. Petersburg, FL 33738
4. (727) 397-2702 Fax: (727) 572-8312
5. focusfinder@earthlink.net
6. www.focusfinder.com
7. I help you focus your marketing to gain
8. new clients more quickly, easily and
9. systematically. Find-your-focus by
10. phone. Re-focus your written materials.
RECESSION-PROOFING YOUR BUSINESS - PART 2
With the economy looking like it's heading into a recession, many people are already cutting back on discretionary spending. Until the current cycle of fear and uncertainty subsides, individuals and businesses will focus their attention and finances more on the "essentials" than on indulgences.
We are already seeing the effects of this trend, as families cancel vacations, postpone larger purchases and shorten their holiday buying lists. Industrial giants have slashed payrolls and cut spending in an attempt to stay afloat during this economic downturn.
If really large businesses are in trouble, what can the future hold for small and home based businesses such as ours?
There is a way.
If we have the discipline and the desire, we can actually re-focus our businesses more quickly and easily than the big companies. We just need to understand which of our products and services could be considered "essential" and then base our marketing efforts around them.
For example, Reiki Masters could emphasize the cost-effectiveness of learning how to heal our own sore throats. Nutrition experts could focus on building the immune system's defenses against stress-induced illnesses. Counselors might advertise personality and aptitude testing for improving career choices. Bookstores could promote more heavily their self-help books and classes, focused on practical, "how-to" solutions.
It might be useful to look at the essential needs of humans, to get an idea of what motivates us to act, to change, or to buy products and services. Psychologist Abraham Maslow suggested that we each have a "needs hierarchy" which essentially tracks our life cycle from birth to maturity.
I've used a ladder analogy to picture this hierarchy because we're not motivated by the "higher" needs until the basic ones have been filled. On the other hand, all of the needs are recurring, so we're up and down the ladder quite a bit.
See if you can relate the major benefit of your product or service to one or more of these essential human needs. Then re-focus your marketing -- your wording, your look, your positioning statement -- so that it is clear just how you can help a person have his or her needs met. What psychological "button" does your message push to get the attention of those you can help?
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:
(1) Survival is the first basic need -- food, water, clothing and shelter.
Health food stores might promote toxin-free products to a population that has recently learned to fear toxins. Clothing stores could place longer-lasting, natural-fiber apparel in the forefront as essentials for cost-conscious, health-conscious shoppers. Realtors don't just sell houses, they provide shelter for families.
(2) Comfort and security sit on the second rung of the needs ladder. After the basic requirements of survival are met, we naturally want to preserve and enhance what we have.
Here's where furniture, home improvement, insurance and home security become issues. How can you offer security and protection from physical and emotional harm to people who are concerned about anthrax infection, job loss and the future in general?
Think about specific personal or business security issues that you can solve and build your marketing around them. Health practitioners might focus on keeping clients healthy so they can better ward off airborne bacteria, not to mention mail-borne ones. Water filter and air purifier businesses can emphasize the "clean" and "pure" aspects of their products, now that people are more likely to appreciate these benefits. Life insurance agents provide peace of mind for families who might lose a breadwinner.
With an uncertain economy, we are more likely to cut back on the comforts and luxuries that we might normally feel entitled to. Travel agents, restaurants, retreats and spas could re-focus toward the business market, or emphasize events that continue regardless of economic conditions -- such as weddings and anniversaries.
(3) After people have had their survival and safety needs more or less met, they are ready to give and receive love, to make friends, and to belong to a group or community.
Are you a teacher? Emphasize the nurturing environment of your classroom. Do you operate a singles group? Use testimonials to demonstrate a sense of "belonging." Spiritual centers can be particularly important resources as people with like ideas naturally group together in times of crisis. Tell people who you are and how to reach you.
(4) If we've climbed this far up our needs ladder, we find ourselves wanting to be respected -- we are building not only self-respect but our reputation and status in the community.
We are learning to master our careers, establish our autonomy and understand our usefulness in the greater scheme of things. Comfort and security are "kicked up a notch" and so are our teachers, mentors and service providers. We are fine-tuning ourselves in body, mind and spirit, and look to learn from those who have already "made it."
What do you do that can add to a person's "approval rating" in his or her community -- whether home or business? Can you provide status symbols, teach poise or public speaking skills, create a standout marketplace image? Can you teach a person how to run a business successfully?
(5) Moving to the fifth rung, in education, we want the higher teachings; in healing we want to feel balanced in all our bodies; in our spiritual yearnings we will settle for nothing less than Divine Connection. Does your business offer services at these levels? If so -- say so! People are looking for you.
If we've made it to the fifth rung, we are ready to "live our real lives." The need for self-actualization and inner meaning is not always recognized until we have endured a period of discontentment. We are here for a purpose and, try as we might, we won't achieve real self-fulfillment until we recognize and activate our purpose.
How can your business help people do this? As a personal example, earlier this year I wrote a marketing manual that shows home based business owners how to re-focus their business on their life purpose, to create harmony between their personal and business life.
Can you help individuals picture and fulfill their mission through regression, meditation, counseling, coaching, spiritual healing? How might you re-focus your business to point people to their own self-fulfillment? Remember, at this level it's not so much a factor of having got there first; rather, "we teach what we have to learn." If you're reaching, you could also be teaching.
If you'd like help to re-focus your marketing, the manual I mentioned is called "Marketing with a Mission." You can print out an order form at
www.newradiance.com. Purchasers of this 100-page "how-to" guide also receive a free one-half hour phone consultation and $15 off any display ad in the upcoming New Radiance Florida Directory.
DIRECTORY ADVERTISER UPDATES
(1) Patricia and Michael Lawn are now certified to teach the EMF Balancing Technique and have added information about this service to their new website
www.universallightconnection.com. The Lawns offer Reiki healing and EMF balancing sessions by appointment: (727) 455-8489 or email:
intuitivecounselor@usa.net.
(2) Marcy Roban's new website is www.marcyroban.com. Marcy provides educational and healing assistance for your ascension process. She uses bio-energetics, NLP, regression, numerology, spiritual counseling, chakra clearing and balancing, spirit releasement and other techniques. Private sessions, group classes and workshops, and national and international lectures available in English and Spanish. Email:
marcyroban@yahoo.com or call (305) 756-1700.
(3) The Tree of Light, Brandon's spiritual learning center, has just opened its new healing room at 209 Elrod Drive. Constructed to give the feeling of being in a forest, with wood walls and sky blue ceiling, the healing room is used by the Tree of Light's Reiki Masters, massage therapists, Light Touch and Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioners. Call (813) 689-1751 for information about classes and healing appointments.
(4) Marcella Zinner recently revised her website www.marcellaz.com and Charles Zinner has introduced a new Numerology Reports-by-Mail service. The Zinners' extensive teaching schedule is posted on the website. For information call (727) 726-3582 or email:
mysticalz@yahoo.com.
(5) Robinson Expositions offers a training class on how to effectively exhibit yourself and your products at expos and trade shows. The class is free for all paid exhibitors of the Body, Mind, and Spirit Expos held across the state. They also offer licenses/franchises for entrepreneurs who wish to produce an Expo in their own community. The current show schedule is posted at
www.bodymindspiritexpo.com. To inquire about exhibiting or producing your own Expo, contact Deb Robinson at (941) 415-7911 or email:
vermontbiz@aol.com.
TRADE SHOW TIPS FROM DEB AND CALVIN ROBINSON:
(1) To have a successful expo exhibit, you need to understand the end result you want to achieve: (a) increase sales, (b) introduce new products or services, (c) educate customers, (d) perform market research, (e) write orders, (f) project an image, or (g) recruit dealers or distributors.
(2) A few "don'ts" of exhibitorship are: DON'T (a) block the entrance to your booth, (b) stand behind tables, (c) stand too close to your product, (d) eat or drink in the booth, (e) leave personal items in view, (f) leave your booth empty, or (g) pounce on visitors.
(3) Bonus tip: Explore piggy-back or cross-promotional opportunities to combine your products or services with another exhibitor's.
RESOURCE LIST OF DESIGNERS AND WRITERS
If you're looking for a writer or graphic designer to help you with your marketing, New Radiance is putting together a resource list to be posted at
www.newradiance.com.
Here are this month's additions to our list:
-- Janet Autenrieth of Crystal Vortex Design Studio specializes in designing for individuals involved in alternative health care, animal rights, metaphysics and environmental issues. Services include logos, brochures, business cards, display ads, media kits, plus custom photography. Janet has 16 years of corporate experience and can assist you with your business graphic design needs. Reach her at (813) 884-3500, ext. 226 or by email:
cvdesign@tampabay.rr.com.
-- Irlianna Samsara has 21 years experience in copywriting, marketing, public relations and promotion for clients ranging from large companies to small businesses. She helps you focus on identifying your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition, as the foundation for your business. Coaching on mystical abundance, too. Writing services include: brochures, press releases, ad copy, media kits, pitch letters, newsletters, direct mail, web copywriting and content development, as well as media consulting. Email:
irlianna@aol.com.
LITERARY AGENTS FOR AUTHORS
Gleaned from Dan Poynter's excellent newsletter, Publishing Poynters, here are three websites with lists of literary agents:
-- Preditors and Editors
www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/
-- Writers Net Internet Directory of Literary Agents
www.bocklabs.wisc.edu/ims/categories-la.html
-- Association of Author Representatives
www.publishersweekly.com/aar/
MARKETING TIPS FOR FREE PUBLICITY
(1) Email Signatures
Are you using an email signature to promote your business? At the bottom of this newsletter you'll see an email signature that includes my name, the Directory name, and a brief promotional paragraph, along with contact info. This same "blurb" is on the bottom of all email I send, and hopefully encourages recipients to either visit the website or call/email me for details on how they can be included in the upcoming Directory. At the minimum, it's a reminder and it's free publicity.
Take a look at the signatures on email you receive to get ideas of how to word your own. Your email program will most likely have a "tools" feature that adds your signature automatically to all email you send. It really gives a professional look to your business email.
(2) Letters to the Editor
If your business is local and you're an expert at something, you can gain visibility and credibility with a well-worded "Letter to the Editor" of your local newspaper. This is one of the "free publicity" tools that you might consider as an ongoing part of your marketing plan, along with press releases and radio call-in shows. If you have good writing and/or speaking skills, and information people could use, you can schedule these activities weekly or monthly -- whatever works -- but do it consistently for best results.
(3) Donate Your Services or Products
If you have a clearly defined target market and can make contact with organizers of events for this segment of the population, you can gain "free" publicity by donating either a product or your services to be used as a door prize, a fund-raiser gift, an auctioned item, a raffle prize. You'll usually get a mention in the event program or an announcement on the loudspeaker, plus whoever wins your product or service could become an ongoing client and potential source of referrals.
Give away a free psychic reading, a workshop slot, a massage -- something of value that can bring repeat business. It's a win-win situation for all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barbara Casey, Editor
New Radiance Florida Directory
The 7th Edition of the Metaphysical & Holistic
Florida Directory will be published Winter 2002.
You can include your business for just $25
and receive a free Directory, too.
Details online at www.newradiance.com
PO Box 86674, St. Petersburg, FL 33738
(727) 397-2702 newradiance@earthlink.net
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