Out of the Blog, Into the Light

Protect your emails

As a business consultant and coach, many people ask me what they can do more of to protect their e-mail intellectual information. Since I am not a lawyer, nor will I claim this to be in lieu of legal advice, please don’t accept this as legal advice.

Setting aside the legal disclaimer, here is a suggestion that I provide to people who write and distribute their own business emails.

You want to include a copyright statement along with a clear statement of what action is required in order to get protection at the bottom of all your emails. Here is a sample to begin with:

This email is protected by copyright, 2006, with [your name] and [your business name]. All rights reserved.

Reproduction of any portion of this email is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of [your name] and/or [company name]. Permission not granted for forwarding this email in any form or manner to any other party without express written consent of [your name] and/or [company name]

You will also want to include this language or similar information if you create and provide an eNewsletter, also called an e-zine.

If intellectual theft is something that is of large concern for the type of business you have, I would suggest discussing this with a lawyer in your state. Ask him/her to prepare the exact language you will need. Don’t forget to ask them where and how to use the information as well.

Best wishes,
Catherine

It's Not Too Late

It's December 1st. Don't fret over your sales goals. Get cooking. The truth that sales slow down over the holidays isn't totally true. Getting in front of the right people, new people, is more difficult. Yet, if your presentation needs to be in front of business owners, this is a good time to reach them. Their staff is on vacation and they are forced to answer the phone more often -- that is if they are small business and they don't have a sophisticated phone system.

Changes you can make this month to boost sales...

Whether you are networking or sending out a newsletter, the holidays are the best time for you to talk about how you help others. Rethink your stories you can share. You don't need to mention a year or specific timeframe. If you don't have any, create a few that you can have fun with too.

This is a great period to follow up with prospects and past clients to make a few additional sales.

If you sell globally, some other countries outside the U.S. may be a better market to focus on during this time of year. Different religions celebrate differently and at different times. Which ones don't celebrate this holiday or celebrate it differently?

Be creative, get your 2007 planning done, if not already done. Spend extra time creating new products. Deliver more value with your current products as special promotions. A 2 for 1 is great this time of year for those left over inventory items or old inventory you need to move.

Go ahead, put on your thinking cap. Come up with a plan that will turn 2006 into the best year ever. It's not too late, that is unless you procrastinate until the 31st. Then its too late.

For those of you with high price sales items, it may only take one sale to make it the best year ever. Figure out what you need and go get it. You can do it! I know you can. You have done it before.

Blessings,
Catherine

PS: Tune in to the Let's Talk Marketing radio show, Tuesdays at 10 am Eastern. Streaming available on the Internet at: http://www.fcac.org/webr . Call in your questions or send them to me by e-mail and I'll find the expert to answer them.