This is the first post in an ongoing series where I will be introducing you to various individuals that I have had the good fortune to meet and or do business with. Folks, allow me to introduce to one of Atlanta’s best, a dynamic young woman named Denise Phinn. She is the owner of Sound Marketing Designs.

So, what is Denise bring to the table and how does she help people?

Everybody wants to get noticed, but how should a person go about getting noticed?

Let me direct your attention to something before I answer that question.

Babies cry for attention. Men and women go to great lengths to get the attention of a person that they have a romantic interest in. Businesses do all types of promotions and offer incentives to attract new customers and to upsell their existing customers.

With the advent of social media like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, people are very excited to be able to leverage the power of the Internet to share their personal interests and/or to market their business. However, the World Wide Web is a big place and it is easy to get lost in the crowd.

One thing that business owners can do for their business is to brand themselves.

What Denise does is help people audio brand their business by creating jingles and doing voice overs. This way a small business owner can better promote their business and stand out in the crowd.

We all whistle, hum, or sing jingles that we hear all the time. Most of us do it unconsciously. Wouldn’t you like to have a jingle that is associated with your business to be in playing in the head and being whistled, hummed, or sang by prospects? That is where Denise Phinn and Sound Marketing Designs come in.

I had the pleasure of meeting Denise and doing business with her. We met on a social networking site for small business owners and quickly took the online conversation offline (telephone). Her audio branding services really piqued my interest so I decided to retain her to help me with creating a jingle for my business, Grassroots Business Network, LLC.

We then had the opportunity to meet face-to-face earlier this month when she was in NYC on business. Ladies and gentlemen, this young lady really impressed me with her poise, passion for her business, and the excellent value she brings to the marketplace. Also, her rates are very reasonable and her turn-around time on delivering the finished product to you is impressive and sets a high standard.

Denise is really good a what she does.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Denise on the GBN Talk Radio Show recently, and you can listen to the recording of the interview by clicking on the link below. At the beginning of the show you’ll hear the jingle that Denise created for radio show.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview.

I highly recommend Denise Phinn. Her services are particularly relevant for those interested in podcasting, creating a musical theme or voice intro to their website, or for voice over work for radio commercials and video.

She really studies your business while she walks you through creating tagline and jingle.

For instance, McDonald’s has a cool tagline – “You deserve a break today.” and it is supporting by a catchy music jingle and singing voice over.

How about the FreeCreditReport.com commercials you hear on the radio and see on TV. Those are stellar examples of how big businesses use audio branding as part of the marketing strategy.

You can do the same for your business. You can compete with big boys now.

Please reach out to Denise if you would like to learn more about branding your business.

Also, …

Who do you know who would be interested getting new customers for their business? Denise Phinn and Sound Marketing Designs can help.

All the best,

I hear a lot of talk about marketing affiliate programs, so I decided to start doing some heavy research on the subject. Five things keep coming up. These 5 things seem to be common criteria for all of the super affiliates that I’ve researched:

1. Recurring Income

   The product or service that you decide to promote should be consumable or a subscription. You would like to take your foot of the gas once and a while, wouldn’t you? You don’t want to always be out there hustling do you?

2. Multi-tiered (for leverage

   Not that it should be network marketing (i.e. MLM), but when you can incorporate the efforts of other sales affiliates, and you can get a piece of their action, you may be able to enjoy passive income.

3. User-Friendly

   The product or service that you are promoting should be easy to use and easy to explain to prospects. If it is too complicated, it probably will not sell very well.

4. Passion

   You should be passionate about the product or service, otherwise you can’t promote it with conviction and prospects will smell the salesperson stench on you a mile away.

5. Value-added

   People use this term so much on the Internet that it’s value has been cheapened (pun intended). What I mean by adding value is that whatever the product or service is that you promote is inline with your business’s mission and/or compliments other products and services that you may have in your portfolio.

Now that we know what to look for, why don’t you ask around by doing some research on www.AssociatePrograms.com, and by reaching out to your contacts of Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites to take a poll to find out what types of products or services would compliment your existing line.

I hope that you found this information helpful.

Kind regards,

The relationship between a business owner and her customers, employees, and partners is sacred and should be treated as such. In the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic holy scriptures, reference is made to the Ark of the Covenant.

However, this is not about that Ark, but about the ARC.

ARC is an acronym for appreciate, reward, and celebrate.

Here is the breakdown:

Appreciate

• Appreciate your customers because their patronage puts food on your table. In today’s world, there are endless choices, but your customers chose to do business with you. Appreciate them for that.
• Appreciate your employees. If those hard-working, dedicated men and women didn’t deliver on the promises that you make to your customers, you would not be able to compete in the marketplace.
• Appreciate your partners because they help add value to your employee and customer relationships by helping fill ‘gaps in your game’ or but offering a complimentary product or service.

Reward

• Reward your customers with outrageous customer care, and a very good product/service. Offer specials like reward dollars and other ‘frequent flyer’ like incentives.
• Reward your employees with public praise and other performance based incentives (e.g. extra paid time off, professional development, etc.)
• Reward your partners with what they crave most – new business referrals.

Celebrate

• Celebrate customers on special days like birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, holidays, and other special occasions
• Celebrate employee achievements and milestones. For example, throw pizza parties and such to celebrate birthdays, employee anniversaries (e.g. 5 years with the company, etc.), and other life-changing events like birth of children, marriage, etc.

Celebrate any successes that your partners may have like closing a new deal, a new product launch, and the anniversary of the partnership.

Ladies and gentlemen, hold fast to the ARC of the Covenant for Entrepreneurs, as it will set a chain of events, and put people in your path that will help you achieve success in uncommon hours.

THAT is the secret.

All the best,