I think all of us can pretty clearly imagine our ideal client. For each of us, we’re looking for different aspects, though the unifying factor is gumption (having serious backbone and drive / initiative).

We are, every one of us, attracted to clients who have gumption -- the backbone to take business and life by the horns and navigate into situations that dictate a need for our expertise and help. The best of the best are the prospective (or current) clients that are regularly innovating as well as self-aware. They need our help, not because of pain, but because their vision dictates it.

One of the most potent ways to direct those ideal clients to our best intellectual property is the self-diagnosis checklist. These checklists help support and develop powerfully informed clients guided by your methodology and their gumption. As an added bonus, as prospects become more aware of their need for support (or lack of need; a positive time-waste-avoider), their bond with you continues to grow.

Offer checklists and similar self-diagnosis tools to support your clients and their growth. These tools are valuable free assets that validate your expertise and value to your prospective client, while simultaneously improving their condition with a plethora of “ah ha” moments that may, in fact, drive them straight to you.

I’ve discovered that I’m a music nerd that simply has little interest in actively listening to the lyrics of music. Ironically, I listen to a … lot … of hip hop / rap (mostly older music from the late 90’s and early millennium), and indie rock, where – essentially the lyrics, artistry, and poetry establish and define the music.

How might a leader in the online presence realm succumb to such a bizarre practice of listening to top shelf music? Quite simply, my attention is better tuned elsewhere – and so are your executives and prospective clients.

You are, literally, surrounded by aficionados that aren’t paying attention to the notes of their finest wine (your tactics). I no longer fight to listen to the lyrics of music, I simply accept that I hear the big picture, all the music at once – and that’s fine. But the question remains, how does one really connect with and communicate with an overwhelmed audience?

Most importantly – your audience is not distracted. Executives are busy, looking at the big picture (sometimes overwhelmed), and – like me – looking for an incredible hook that covers a solid base (lyrical, musical, and emotional / ego). Your hook is your value proposition, your story, and your unique value. Make it stand out, and it will be recognized.

Executives ego’s do care about how high in the “charts” you are. While billboard charts are virtually a thing of the past, every executive wants to work with the best of the best, even if they don’t have time to scrutinize every album, every song, and every hook. As big picture visionaries, they want to know that you’re every bit as good as your acclaim says it is (so make sure your online presence announces it from step one – your homepage).

Case in point: I don’t have to (nor do I care to) look up whether or not the new Jay-Z album is receiving acclaim. I buy it because I trust that Jay-Z will deliver. Your clients think similarly. There’s absolutely no reason to be discouraged by this reality, simply embrace this principal: make your leadership and business stature immediately and permanently evident.

For virtually every professional service firm we work with, the top search term that generates traffic is either the principal’s name, or the name of the business. After seeing this on Analytic report after report, I started to question – what’s this all about.

In actuality, so many people are simply typing in whatever comes to mind (your name, what they can remember of your exotic business name…) on their address bar and Google search homepage, that the site URL is (almost) passé.

What does it all mean? It’s pretty simple. The more common your business name, the harder it will be for people to find you. Similarly, the more common your name, the less likely you’ll come up. Note: this is NOT about serendipitous search, this is about customers who are looking for you and are simply searching out of convenience.

Several quick techniques will help you and your business show up when people type it in:

1. Have a biography page where there’s a lot of great information about you. Your name should be written, if you have a photograph, ensure the alternative text includes your name, and similar best practice approaches to ensure that your person is on the website in force.
2. Make sure your business name is included in the title tag of every page on the website (typically as the starter of the site hierarchy, e.g.: Heatbrain | Second Tier | Third Tier Page )
3. Your contact page should include your full business address, full name, and preferably an email address that includes your first and last name in the address.

The use of Google as a “find the website I’m looking for” technique used to be a bit of a joke that has – over time – become a convention (thanks in large part to mobile devices, where typing in the .com is extra unneeded effort). The good news is, if you’re branding your person and your name, and not some generic “business results excellence” business name, you’re going to continue to do fine in this arena. Simply pay attention to smart usage of the annunciation of your person throughout your online presence (website, social media, blog, and beyond).

Yesterday, celebrating a wonderful week with a glass of my favorite single malt scotch: The 25 Year Macallan (neat, water back) at the local public house, I found myself next to an attractive couple in the midst of debriefing one another on their days. My ears perked up and I became interested when I overheard “facilitation,” and “training.” Waiting for a lull in the conversation, I asked the woman what she did for a living (after apologizing for the intrusion).

She looked at me for a moment (realizing that I was asking based on what I had likely overheard), and stuttered that she was a fitness trainer, or something… or an interior designer, and a fitness trainer on the side… her delivery was so poor that I was hesitant to go any further (she wasn’t drunk). Giving her a second chance (I’m that kind of guy) I mentioned that I was actually looking for a fitness trainer -- would she care to exchange information and discuss this at a more convenient time (we’re at dinner, and I’ve got a very nice glass of scotch that I’m interested in continuing to enjoy).

Amazingly, despite having the physique that would verify her agility and skill at fitness (her education ability was certainly questionable), she remained flustered and apologetic after several minutes of digging around in her purse to find a business card. She did eventually find a business card with her full time job’s contact information on it…

What a missed opportunity, and a reminder of how worthless mediocre first impressions are. I politely took the card but immediately wrote her off and went on with my evening, never bothering to look back in their direction. The business card, to avoid taking up space next to more important contacts is in the trash.

She may not have been interested in taking on new clients, or could have even been in the process of winding her freelance training down. Regardless, I was hungry to find someone that did exactly what she did, who looked like they could do it, and I had – through random happenstance – met that someone.

Folks, don’t be that woman. Don’t let your spokesmen / spokeswomen / ambassadors (your website, social presence, etc) present a stuttering, stammering first impression. Be bold, impressive, and interesting.

Case in point, if she had simply said “oh, during the day I am an interior designer, but by night I’m a fitness trainer. My last customer lost 90 lbs. over the course of our work together,” I probably would have given her my information.

Every year, my wife and I try to out-do each other for birthdays and anniversaries. For her birthday, I do my best to “raise a ruckus;” similarly for my birthday she tries to out-do my most recent efforts… and the cycle continues. We’ve gotten into quite a fun round of ridiculous costume parties, and overnight trips across the country just for a dinner on the beach – almost entirely because experiences (not knick knacks, and gifts) are what we enjoy most in our time together.

We (and I believe a great majority of us) live for and love experiences. Experiences are like pin cushions that we can stick dozens of little mini experiences onto. The richer the time spent and the experience had, the more memorable (and positive) we are walking away afterwards.

I challenge you to look at your world, your business, and your story to figure out if the experience you’re sharing and creating is magnetic, energetic, and life giving.

Hotels and the service industry figured out the importance of a great experience long, long ago. Entrepreneurs are still trying to catch up.  I find that a great deal of online presences (if we can call them that) suffer from the “experience gap.”  As one enters the website, we’re greeted with drab introductions, boring or obviously stock visuals -- there’s no sense of the company’s personality or story, I have no memorable experience with the organization, nothing to cling on to, and as such I walk away empty and uninterested.

Are your clients and prospective customers feeling the same thing? Experiential online presences come in all shapes and sizes (just like experiences we have in the world around us). The key in creating a potent and memorable experience is to remember that you want your prospective customer to engage with a sense of interest and awe – anything approaching that and you’re making progress.

I love the phrase ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ Side stepping the the biblical reference – I have always found this to mean something along the lines of ‘if you’re not saying or doing it, someone else either has, will, or is right now.’ If that sounds bleak to you, move on.

Listen, everyone – deep down in side – is interested in protecting their intellectual property and ego for a myriad of reasons (some sane, some… not so); but really, sharing your thoughts on a topic, taking a stance, and showing your prowess is one of the most critical pieces of the pie when it comes to positioning yourself as a leader, and (my favorite phrase) titan in your market.

Own it, and own that what you’re doing has probably been done before, but it’s uniquely yours because it’s coming from your vantage point, with a healthy helping of your perspective guiding that ship to shore.

Long story short: the best ideas are common sense, it’s likely that your goal is to make the common sense applicable and to put it back on your client’s radar. If you want to help prospects realize how much they need you, put it on their radar before you have that first conversation.

One of my favorite forms of music is improvisational jazz; it has many (damning) and outstanding qualities to it, though the most significant is how (by its very nature) it puts the listener on edge, actively listening and paying attention. As the music unfolds and expands around a melody or central theme (“melody” may be a loose description depending on who you’re listening to), one’s never really sure what’s next, but three things are certain:

1. The song / album / live set is a shared experience amongst the musicians (creators) and those listening (audience). The musicians formulate the soundscape, the audience, then, moves through it – shoulder to shoulder.
2. The value of the experience unfolds when both sides actively participate. The musicians must find their shared message or melody, the listener must pay attention to hear and follow it. The melody may come from an unconventional place (such as the bass)
3. Improv jazz isn’t for everyone. And neither are you – and that’s perfectly fine. Accept that your unique approach to “building a melody” may not be for everyone, and the shared experience and value unfolded is for those who actually want it.

You’ll rarely find people who dislike jazz paying to attend a live show or purchasing an album from iTunes. Sophisticated music attracts sophisticated people. Likewise, sophisticated businesses should attract sophisticated clients. If your business isn’t attracting an equally brilliant and sophisticated clientele, it’s time to take a second look at the music you’re making.

Everyone, everyday is pulling inspiration from “the air,” – ideas and concepts are all around us. Reinventing the wheel is not only pointless; it can be downright destructive.

Creativity in business and relationship building is not necessarily about sizzle (though it helps), but creating relationships by “exploiting” the familiar. Creativity and high impact results are simply common sense ideas molded to the needs of our clients and the needs of their customers.

If you assert something, offer evidence to back it up (thanks Wayne McKinnon for that common sense idea that you shared with me years ago).

How much time are you wasting trying to come up with something no one else has thought of before? Get back to producing results for your clients, and marketing your business – leave invention up to the inventors.

Yesterday, my team and I spent a portion of our afternoon in discussions with a NFP that offers coordinated health services to the underserved public in a portion of MA (which, thanks to very important healthcare laws in MA, actually makes this possible).

We covered a lot of important topics about their strategy, objectives, and the results they want; but really – one of the stand out topics of discussion was how a majority of their patients would access their website. As it turns out, and we’re still exploring the data to verify, the expectation is that a majority of the public visitors / patients won’t have (regular or easy) access to a computer or laptop. But are expected, in fact, to own and regularly use a smart phone with web browser capability.

Simply put, it was an eye-opening reminder to really go after the gold. Lay it all out on the table, and make sure to understand the who, what, why, and how of our client’s audience (the human factor) – and in this modern gadget era, what their preferred (or primary) digital access will be.

While we haven’t yet verified this through the use of Google Analytics, and similar tools – we probably don’t need to; our client’s are embedded in their community, they know their customers and clients, and I’m very pleased that we were able to listen and interpret the evolving need of their organization. Not just a website, not just an online presence – a solution that embraces the human factor of their organization… a solution set that also happens to be inline with the direction that the internet is and has been moving for quite some time.

As J. Zeldman (a visionary in the web creation world) might put it -- the best web browser is the browser you [or your customer] is using.

NASA’s ‘Image of the day,’ (March 19, 2012) is a top down view of the Galaxy IC 342 (a spider’s web formation, with a galactic spin) yields some really fascinating parallels to business growth and development here on our terrestrial world, and from our vantage point in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Remove Barriers of Access. To view Galaxy IC 342, astronomers and cosmologists had to utilize infrared viewing strategies, because our position in the galaxy hides it from ‘regular’ view. In essence, there was an usual amount of extra work required to take this photo – all due to reasons outside of our control; our choice as business owners is that we CAN control access to our new and interesting value offerings.

At the core, it’s burning hot. The center, which glows well, well beyond the “actual center” of the galaxy is powering and empowering the birth of new stars, and new energy. This massive, aggressive, tumultuous center is white hot, and it’s constantly pushing out new material that other aspects of the galaxy are chewing up and absorbing, strengthening not just the formation of the galaxy, but fueling new growth... energy, passion, excitement, creation – it all starts at the core.

It’s all interconnected. One of the most fascinating visual aspects of Galaxy IC 342 is that it really looks like a spider’s web (interconnected tendrils) that has been taken through the PhotoShop ringer and spiraled to about… say 30%. This galaxy represents a beautiful relationship between access, a white-hot core, and growth – everything you do effects everything around you. This is a celestial body that’s affected by and directed by other galaxies swirling around it, and around them, and around us.  

What are you doing this week to remove barriers of access to your gravitational forces? How are you leveraging burning hot ideas and needs from clients; and along the same line – how interconnected are your decisions to your life and well-being. Complex questions, but – then again, so is the universe.