1. Get more credit cards. Yes, I know some people are advising against this because it could have an adverse affect on your credit score. I can argue about how that theory is wrong but your credit score isn’t the important point today, credit is. The problem is that banks are raising rates on credit cards on any excuse they can find. Additionally they are also freezing cap amounts and no longer extending credit. As you pay down the credit card your cap automatically lowers. This gives you no more credit and makes that card worthless to you. You need to get more credit cards when you can so you have options if problems with your others occur. New cards often have low teaser interest rates for 6 to 12 months. We all know this can work against you when you hit the time deadline but in the meantime you can transfer balances on cards you are having rate spikes with today. Deal with today’s problems and then work on cures for the future.

2. Watch your merchant accounts carefully. Banks have the right at any time to pull out money for a reserve if they feel they need to. If you are counting on that money for operations and all of a sudden it gets frozen you can be in big trouble. The best recourse against this is to build a relationship with someone at the bank who works in merchant services and the higher up you can go the better. The relationship isn’t a guarantee something won’t happen because most of the banks are tied in with card processors and don’t do the work themselves. Nevertheless you are better off with a bank advocate pleading your case then you are talking to the 800 number recording.

3. Establish more than one merchant account. Banks always want all your business but today you simply cannot afford to do that or you may wind up with an account you can’t use and it will take more than 30 days to get a new one. In the mean time you can’t take new charges on your old merchant account so you lose lots of cash flow. Having a back up is an answer and use both of the accounts for some of the processing each month so you always know they are working. Even then alarms will go off when the account all of a sudden has more money running through it then the banks computers think is normal but at least you should be able to explain that you are now using them for all of your processing so that’s why the spike.

4. Consider lining up one or more investors who are prepared to step in should you have a crisis. If your merchant account does get a reserve requirement slapped against it you will eventually get the money so you could use that reserve for a private loan. I am not saying this is easy but think about this and other resources before a problem occurs gives you more time to act because you know what you need to do and who you might call to help.

It is a good idea because there are frequently mistakes in them that lower your credit score and as we all know, credit is tightening. Go to the web site I have listed, and you can order free from one, or all three at the same time. If you order one now, you can then order from the other two over the course of 12 months so you can view your credit more often. Order all three at once and you’re done for 12 months, which I don’t think is as good.

http://www.annualcreditreport.com

Senator Kennedy and Rep. Rosa DeLauro are pushing the “Healthy Families Act”. Who could object to a wonderful name like that?

The bill requires any firm who has 15 employees to provide a minimum of 7 days of paid sick leave. I have no problem with that and have always had sick leave days in my companies. My preference is that you don’t come in when you are sick and spread whatever you have to everyone else. The problem with this law comes in the form of detail. The bill allows you to take the leave anytime and in the smallest increment the employer tracks payroll, and no notice is required. This kind of language would allow an employee to show up consistently late with no advanced notice, ultimately causing all sorts of problems with real staffing issues, especially in shift positions. An employer would have no retribution for such tardiness and disruption to everyone else.

There are other new bills coming down the pipeline, which impact our business. I encourage you to look beyond their names and see what the real affect they will have on your business. If you like them, great – but if you don’t, let your Congressman or Senator know they need to make some changes. To do nothing is a mistake.

During this recession and economic pullback, price can have an appeal and if you can compete on that level than you should point it out loudly and even make it a competitive advantage.

A couple of interesting examples and how value can be successfully marketed is Validas (www.myvalidas.com) and InchWorm Shoes (www.inchwormshoes.com).

Validas offers to shave an average of 22% off your mobile phone bill by letting them analyze what you are currently paying and making some suggested changes. You can upload your bill and pay $5 for a report that shows a breakdown of usage, compares carriers, and makes other suggestions for saving money.

InchWorm Shoes is a clever example of problem solving. We all know the cost of shoes and for kids how fast they outgrow them. Inchworm Shoes has a special technology that allows you to increase the size of your child’s shoe by pushing a button and pulling on the toe. Shoes can grow in half size increments and can expand up to three sizes… now if they could just do that for men’s pants I’d save a ton.

Keep thinking about the benefits your products and services have and remember …price can be a successful one.

We tried taking some pictures of some very unusual thing, and the order information we got back was at least always interesting. But if you took a picture of something normal like a book or electronic gadget, the results were right on.

Apparently the service uses a combination of computer technology and human interference, which I am sure will be decreased as time goes on. This is not only a cool new service for ordering, it can be a great price comparison system. (My tech son-in-law tells me there is an app that scans bar codes even better but I haven’t done that yet.)

It really is quite a gadget that really works, so check it out!

But the story I’m going to tell you about actually happened exactly a week ago, on Friday morning, at one of the biggest brunches you can be invited to, the BMI SXSW Brunch. BMI administers royalties to songwriters and music publishers all over the world to names like Aretha Franklin, Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Shakira, Kanye West, Mariah Carey and about a million others. They always have GREAT music at the brunch, and you’ve rarely ever heard of anyone who they invite to play. They are usually artists who BMI is recognizing as “rising stars.”

I was eating my brunch and having a mimosa, chatting with some industry friends that I usually only see once or twice a year at events like this, when this guy came on stage. I heard about 3 notes and instinctively reached for my Flip camera (if you don’t have a Flip, do yourself a favor and go to Amazon.com now and buy one!). I couldn’t believe my ears. The vocals were amazing. I had to look at the program to see his name and I found it. Then I went on my iphone to Twitter and “tweeted” that I had just heard a great tune from a new artist named “Guy Sebastian”. I recorded a better video of him from a bit closer up and then went on my way for some more meetings and to see a few more of my artists play.

I left a few hours later because I got a call from my wife informing me that her and both of my little boys, Brock (4) and Bowen (16 months) were all sick. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it was a bit of a “cookie toss” lol. But as I was at the airport, I logged onto my email and I saw that I had a bunch of new Twitter followers. I wasn’t sure why, but I had to shut down my computer and board my flight. When I got home, everyone was asleep, so I updated my Facebook account and posted my videos from SXSW and posted an update on Twitter that I had just uploaded the videos. Then I went to bed.

The next morning, I had about 50 Facebook friend requests. And I also started seeing the messages. Messages all about Guy Sebastian. Well, it seems that I wasn’t aware that Guy is from Australia and he won the first season of Australian Idol and had gone 6x Platinum in Australia. WOW. That’s impressive. And it made me stop and think back to 2 concepts I always teach when I’m speaking:

1. The only people who need to know who you are, are your target audience. I often give an example of walking through the mall with one of my bands, and how the teenagers freak out, and the parents have no idea what the commotion is about. But it doesn’t matter, the target audience, the teenagers, know exactly who they are! And the same applies to your business. You don’t need to be a Celebrity to everyone in the world, just your target market that would be suited to hire you and pay for your services.

Well, Guy’s fans in Australia knew EXACTLY who he was, and I can tell you that you all will too very soon. This guy is too good. Check out some of my videos (and become my friend on Facebook! at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=138863210116 ).

2. When you join the conversation that is already occurring in people’s heads, they take notice. It’s the old concept that we are all on a “Moving Parade” through life. As we move through life on our “parade,” our wants, needs and desires change, and we take notice of different things as these wants and needs change. Ever notice how you start thinking about getting a new car, and all of a sudden you start hearing about 100 car commercials on the radio every hour, and you start seeing all sorts of promotions on financing for cars, etc. Well, it’s because you are subconsciously paying attention to them on your “parade.”

The value in this concept is that your prospects and even your clients are often distracted as they move along their parade. You can try to “interrupt” them and get them to notice you, but it’s SO much easier to get noticed if you join the conversation that is already going on in their minds. Right now, no matter what business you are in, you could gain a lot of attention from talking about the things that are on top of people’s minds at this moment: Barack Obama, The Federal Bailout, The Recession, Bad Economy, Income Taxes, Spring, etc. There are lots of things that are already on people’s minds right now. If you talk about those things, and relate what you really want to tell your clients and prospects (about your product or service or whatever else) to what’s going on in their minds, they will take note much faster.

Obviously these Australians were already talking and thinking about Guy Sebastian and when I mentioned his name, they caught wind of it like wild fire. My posts hit their message boards in a matter of hours and they were all stalking me to learn more! Well, you see, it seems as if Guy is recording a new album in the US and the Aussie population is dying to hear it, so even a glimpse of a new song, which I gave them, is what they’re dying for! So by joining that conversation, I became very relevant to a whole new group of people, across the world no less, that now were interested in what I had to say. Think about how you can become relevant to the audience that you really want to pay attention to you, and start hopping in the conversation. I think you’ll be as stunned as I was, when you hit the right note!

That’s all for now! I’m off to Chicago to speak at a conference next week for the Senior Living market, for two of our clients, Traci Bild (www.TraciBild.com) and Richard Seppala, “The ROI Guy,” (www.YourROIguy.com). I’ll be sharing the stage with Bill Rancic, winner of Season 1 of the Apprentice with Donald Trump. I’m sure I’ll have some more stories for you soon!

Feel free to email me or post comments on this blog to let me know how the above lessons have applied to your marketing!

Well, here is an example of me taking my own advice (notice that the birds weren’t added sound effects! they were just part of the background, and I was still able to get my message across!)

Here is a link to the video: http://www.celebritybrandingyou.com/cby-video/

Anyhow, as I was packing, I was reminded of the last time I flew on a plane, a few weeks ago when I was coming back from France. I had so much time on the plane I actually ran out of things to do, watch, read etc, so I resorted to the airline’s shopping catalogue…in german.

I saw an image similar to this:

Now I can tell you, I would be willing to bet that the first time that the tobacco companies in the EU were told that they would have to start using this label on their tobacco products, they probably weren’t really excited about it. We can be they felt blindsided and had a lot of emotions. This is a very far departure from the cigarette commercials of old that used to have Doctors giving testimonials on the benefits of smoking (seriously, here in the U.S. too). I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, I sure am glad that I don’t have to deal with that in my industry. That would really kill my sales.” But instead of just dismissing the notion for a moment, let’s play it out in our heads.

Many of us rely on the way we are doing things right now, and assume that nothing will change. We find strategies that work, and rightly so, they become easy to rely on– you might say as easy to rely on as testimonials from Doctors when selling cigarettes– but, at some point, something will change, that will affect one of your key strategies.

I know, I know, the people who relied on cold-calling consumers to sell products didn’t think that the “Do Not Call Registry” was a real threat…until it became law

and yes, I know, I know, marketers who were sending out faxes, like they were going out of style, never thought that fax broadcasts would be banned…until “junk faxes” became illegal

I’m also sure that those of you who have started to discover text messaging in your marketing, are also not excited about some recent propositions for businesses to start paying a “tax” on each and every text message they send out marketing their products and services. This free media, is about to become not so free.

I’m not here to be “Mr. Gloom and Doom,” but I do want to remind you to be conscious of the fact that things always change, and sometimes when you least expect them to, so be sure to have a plan B and continue to test new and different methods of reaching your market, even when things are going great with what you are currently doing!

There were thousands of local and regional contests that all culminated in the final that was hosted last night, by Leann Rymes, with the top 5 winners from the final 5 regions. Johnny was the winner from the Southeast region. Anyway, Johnny WON last night! So big congrats to him and we’re looking forward to lots of big things from him!

I’m heading home now for about 24 hours and then I’m off to Cannes, France for MiDEM, the world’s largest music festival for a few days. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Anyhow, I was talking with a good friend the other day and he was confiding in me that he was working with a non-profit and couldn’t figure out why the division he was working with wasn’t doing quite as well as all of the other divisions. All divisions were located in different parts of his town, but the division he was involved in just hadn’t been performing up to par.

We went through the usual excuses, the location wasn’t right, the community wasn’t as involved, etc. but when I asked the right questions, we both got the light bulb over our heads.

Between this division and the others, it was the person running the division, we’ll call him Tom for now, that was actually the problem. When you’re involved in a business that requires community support like most non-profit, philanthropic, businesses do, you’ve got to get the community personally and financially invested. Which you might say is even tougher than being a consumer business in the retail market, because while you have to get your customers to buy into what you’re doing, there is usually a correlation between how much your product or service meets the needs of your target audience and how many actually decide to give you their money. When you are looking at a philanthropic model, this usually isn’t the case.

The problem we discovered was that Tom, the guy responsible for the mission and direction of the division, was not compelling to his audience. Everyone liked him, but at the end of the day, they had no burning desire to rally around him, help fund Tom’s project and ultimately to be recognized and embraced by Tom as a contributor to the cause. The other division leaders on the other hand, were seen as pillars in their communities that everyone loved seeing, knowing, speaking with and being recognized by.

This makes all the difference not only in the non-profit sector, but in your business as well. So, think about it, are you allowing your prospects to get to know your personality well enough to be compelling to them? If you’re not, a few quick changes will take your business to new heights in 2009!

But, in any event, check out the video she has up on her site:

http://www.leannrimesworld.com/splash/splash_wicc.php

It’s to promote her song, “What I cannot Change.” What I want you to notice is that even big stars don’t always spend lots of money and time to get a great quality video up online. Many of us hide behind the fact that we can’t get into the studio, cost etc, in order to get a video up. We all need to take a lesson from this video, it’s heartfelt and connects with the audience. She’s got her hair up and you can tell she’s “just like you and me.”

This is ALL YOU NEED in a video! So, get out there with those FLIP cameras and start recording! If you don’t have a FLIP camera, just go to www.Amazon.com and type in FLIP Mino.