I was having a conversation with a highly successful friend the other day. During our conversation he presented me with several of his many business cards and proceeded to explain that he was really trying to “dial in” his niche.

Feeling like Mrs. Obvious I said, first things first… get rid of some of those cards! I asked him, what do you truly love to do… what is your passion? Without a moment’s hesitation he said bicycling. Perfect, I said, build a brand around that and do what you love every day! The roadblock people often face in “dialing in” their niche is the fact that they overlook the obvious, their passion. Do what you love, love what you do!

Then the proverbial dropping of the bomb…How can I make money by loving bikes? What do I need if I want to build a brand around my passion?

Start with the basics:

• A Passion: This seems pretty simple to me, what do you love to do? What makes your clock tick? What can’t you wait to do when you get out of “work”?

• “Be As You Are” Philosophy: Don’t try to be someone other than you. That is why people in your world of passion love you. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks, be yourself 100%...Embrace transparency!

• Insight to Invest in Yourself: Your time + Your energy = Your Success. Simple formula that can easily explode your brand. How many hours a day can you devote so you can live your passion daily? What about the time between “work” and bed, how much of that could be devoted to you?

• $150 Flip Camera: Flip Ultra - Document your passion, people LOVE video. Remember, if you are passionate about something it will shine through in all of the great info and insights you have to share. You become an “expert” on the subject just by talking about what you love. How to videos are a great launching pad for your brand.

• Social Sites: Four must haves: Facebook Account, Twitter Account, YouTube Account and a Blog! Begin with these and start sharing info, video, pictures etc of what it is that you love so much. Like minded people will be attracted to you based on sharing a similar interest. Your money making opportunity WILL present itself if you listen to the questions and comments coming from your networks.

Freedom is the reward, loving every minute of your day is the reward, total happiness is the reward, being financially independent is the reward…Passion is the vehicle!!

Michelle Corteggiano



 Jodi Mallow Maas

Michelle Corteggiano

YouTube is very strict on music played in videos for copyright reasons so you must be careful when your video has any type of music added to it. I have had friends and clients get their videos taken down because of background music that they weren’t even thinking about (wedding reception videos are known for this).

Don’t worry, YouTube offers a fair/free solution. The AudioSwap tool allows you to add music to your video from their library of licensed songs. Please keep in mind, however, that the audio will be permanently replaced for that video. To use it, follow the steps below:

1. Go to your uploaded videos
2. Click the "AudioSwap" button under the video you want music added to
3. This will take you to the AudioSwap page where you can select your audio, by genre, artist, and track
4. Clicking on a track will automatically play your video along with the selected track
5. Once you've found a track you like, click the "Publish Video" button and the new audio will be applied to your video

No chance for your video to be taken down if you follow YouTube’s simple rules!

Please submit a link to your YouTube video that you used AudioSwap on in the comments section below.

Thanks!!

Michelle Corteggiano



 Jodi Mallow Maas

Don’t be mistaken, little things DO matter to your customers!

We now live in an economy where brands have to do good for their customers before asking them for their business.  If you do this correctly you won’t have to ask… If you do it incorrectly, you won’t get the chance to ask (are you listening spammers).

Show them that you care and they will be yours for life. They will become brand evangelists and introduce all of their friends and family to your brand…word of mouth is powerful!

What do people like? What makes them feel good? What sucks them into your brand?

Back to the basics…Manners!

• Thank You’s – Simple and still highly effective. Sharing a heartfelt Thank You will go a long way! In fact, we counsel our clients to do Thank You's 3 times a day.
• You’re Welcome’s – Let them know that it was no problem to help them out.  
• Listening – Your consumer has the answers you need! Listen to them and act quickly on their responses. Who else knows better what your consumer wants or needs than your consumer?
• Human, Timely Responses – How many times have you called a customer service line and had to push 3 twice, 2 nine times and you still didn’t get the answer you want? Being accessible and answering questions in a timely manner will go far in business. People want to know that if they need an answer they can get it easily.
• Care – businesses have been massively underestimating the power of caring. We now live in a word of mouth world; our followers/customers have awesome BS detectors. Businesses have to care or they will lose…bottom line!

With the rise of Social Media everyone has a voice now! Take advantage of this and make sure you’re your consumers voices are heard in a positive manner.

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Here is a video I shot this week of Gary Vaynerchuk's speech at South by Southwest. He says it well in this video, his message is powerful!

WARNING: Gary swears a lot in this video, if you don't like that...don't watch this!

Michelle Corteggiano

http://facebook.com/username

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Michelle Corteggiano

The number one thing we hear at each and every presentation we give is: We don’t have the time!! To that we say,

You have to make the time...... because your competition is already there

Time saved is $$ saved!!So, to help you save money, we are going to share a couple of the time saving tools we currently use daily in our business... 

 Posting to Multiple Social Media Sites

• TweetDeck: Can view and post to Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Fan Page, LinkedIn and MySpace…all at the same time or choose which one/ones you would like to send it to. Bonus: Wonderful organizational tool!

• Ping.fm: Post from anywhere >>> to anywhere. Post to all of your favorite services (currently 44 different choices)

Social Media Organizational tool

• Facebook Lists: Organize lists so you can easily access certain people. For instance: Family, Friends, Prospects, Home Town etc… Once you have created your lists, you will be able to view a feed with updates from only people in that list. Enter link

Social Network Scheduler

• Hootsuite: Manage Social Networks, iPhone App, Track Statistics, Twitter Lists, Brand Monitoring, Personalized View, Schedule Tweets

URL & Headline Shortener

• Bit.ly Sidebar Shorten, share and track your links! Once you install the bit.ly sidebar (located under tools) you will be able to shorten a URL to any page you are on with one click of the bit.ly sidebar. The shortened URL will appear once by itself and then once with the title of the page you were on and the shortened URL . We use this every day when we find an article we want to share. Bonus: All of the links you shortened will be tracked here so you can monitor the quality of your posts.

Five great places to begin at becoming more efficient with the time you spend in social media. You can and will dial this in to a very reasonable daily time allotment. With the Social Media Toolbox that we have built for ATI, we manage our Social Media visibility/presence in 30 minutes a day.

Michelle Corteggiano



Facebook Lists Q & A

Click on the comments section and share your thoughts below!

Jodi Mallow Maas | ATI Attraction Marketing

Michelle Corteggiano