So you know not to ask a female prospect, “Do you need to check with your husband first?” But are you sabotaging your selling conversations with women in other ways? There’s no special sisterhood pass—both men AND women unwittingly turn off women prospects with habits they’ve picked up over the years.

In general, here are some key differences when it comes to selling to women:

1. Women start the decision-making process by seeking word-of-mouth recommendations from those she knows. Men prefer to get their information from impersonal sources such as websites, magazines, and brochures.

2. Women initially define the product or service by its end use—“I want a laptop to take with me on next week’s trip.” Men define the product or service based on key features—“I want a laptop with 17” high-definition screen, 320 gigabyte hard drive, and an Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor.”

3. When asked what they’re looking for, men will get straight to the point. Women may answer with a story. This is not a waste of time. Tune in and you’ll hear exactly what you need to identify the best solution for her—as well as how to position it.

4. Men focus on a few top criteria and march straight toward the decision by eliminating options that don’t fit. Women add criteria and more options to evaluate along the way as she gets new recommendations or thinks of other uses—“It would also be great if the one of the kids could use it when they both have papers to work on for school.” So her decision path is more of a spiral.

5. Men look for a good solution, but women want the perfect solution. So she will want a lot more information and ask a lot more questions. Women are much more attuned to detail so you shouldn’t ever brush off a question. The deciding factor may just be something you see as trivial.

6. The bad news is the initial selling process will take longer with women, but the payoff in repeat business and referrals will be worth it. Women are much more vested in the decisions they make, so they tend to be more loyal customers and a lot more likely to recommend you to others.

7. A man nods when he’s agreeing with someone and often means he’s ready to seal the deal. A woman nods to signal that she’s listening to you—not that she necessarily agrees and definitely not that she’s ready for you to “close her.” When she stops nodding, it means she’s tired of what you’re saying, so stop the monologue and start asking some questions.

8. A woman usually means it when she says “maybe” or “I’ll think about it.” Often she just wants time to review the new information and mull the decision over with a few friends. If you push too hard to close, she’ll decide you’re untrustworthy and write you off. It’s better to schedule a follow-up conversation.

If you’re interested in learning more, the best resource I’ve found on marketing to women is Marketing to Women by Martha Barletta.

Ok, so life got a little crazy with client projects at the end of last week and I didn’t get a chance to post. Among other things, I wrapped up the first draft of copy for a killer prospecting package–can’t wait to see it when it’s done! I also got raves on my first official Marketing Map (which needs a better name)–a 12-month marketing action plan for a green home store in New Jersey. I hope to chronicle some of his journey as he gets closer to opening the store October 1.

Marketing-wise, it’s been a lot about the website. We finally went live last night but I can’t get in to edit some outdated info because Contribute sucks. So I’m a little stressed about that this morning. This is why I wanted a CMS system but there’s no point going into that now.

I have two teleseminars tentatively scheduled–one for next week! And I have one more new project related to the other two I got last week for a new mutual fund. And finally, on Friday I received a check that equaled 645% of my daily income goal. Yeah!

Lots of thinking and ideas for the week ahead if I can get a better grip on my time. : )

It was a hodge podge of items today, fitting in what I could between client work. I got another new project from a client yesterday–sort of a spin off from the one I mentioned on Monday. Both are projects for a mutual fund company.

Marketing-wise, I spent some time on Linked In. I keep hearing buzz about it lately so I spent some time writing recommendations for people in my network and also posting a question to their Answers section. I was also excited to see I’d gotten a Best Answer designation from an answer I gave the previous week about teleseminars. Linked In, more than other social networks, is about building credibility with people who don’t know you well. And all these moves will help you do so. They also have a feature to allow your profile to come up in Google searches, which is another nice perk.

Also spent a few minutes in a forum for solopreneurs and on Facebook. Facebook is good for getting on people’s radar screens, but to me Twitter is much more effective (and fun!).

Also started discussions with a buddy about yet another teleseminar. Hopefully, we’ll set a time this week to finalize that.

And I spent a few minutes formalizing my local press list. It’s always better if you can send a press release directly to the person who would be interested in the topic–instead of just relying on the distribution services. Once my new website it launched, I have two press releases I need to send out.

Again, 0% of my daily income total–and I’m realizing now I should have probably tracked dollars earned instead of dollars paid since I tend to have fewer, large projects rather than daily sales. Oh well, live and learn.

Well, yesterday was a busy day for client work so I didn’t get a lot done marketing wise–except for finishing my e-zine, which will go out today and signing up for a JV deal a friend of mine is offering in September.

But I actually did a couple things different with my e-zine this week. For one, I created a copy of the survey specifically for my e-zine readers so that I will know to weigh those answers differently from general responses. I also focused more on encouraging people to visit the blog. And the biggest news is the debut of my copy review program.

Now my entry-level copy review is actually a 10-Point Copy Critique that will be posted on the blog. So they’ll get ways to improve their copy and a little free promotion as well. And what I once called Laser Copy Reviews are being relaunched as the R-word Copy Revamp–where I essentially edit and polish the copy.

Finally, I did get a new client today–from one of those contacts I received on Friday. But I still ended the day as I began, at 35% of my daily income total.

You can’t skip eating for a week and then refuel yourself in one day, and you can’t do the same with marketing. It’s hard, but finding the time to promote the business must be a priority if you want to keep growing at a healthy rate. You have to do it every (working) day—for at least two hours a day. So here are some ideas to help you fit it in:

1. Outsource the things you shouldn’t be doing. You knew I was going to say this, so I won’t harp on it. But remember that it’s mathematically impossible to make $100 an hour while you’re doing $15 an hour tasks.

2. Start an idea book. Someone sends you a link to check out, or you get a great idea for a new service. In the excitement, you drop what you’re doing to explore further—then suddenly you look up and it’s two hours later. Next time, jot down the link or the idea in a notebook or on a sticky note to go into an idea book. It’ll be there for you later when you have time to look into it, and in the meantime you may realize it’s not a good idea after all.

3. Create a marketing calendar. Spend some time mapping out what you want to do over the next month or so. For those tasks you need to do weekly, assign a day of the week and how much time you want to spend on it. For example, my calendar says I’m going to visit the Linked In website every Tuesday and Thursday for 15 minutes, and I’m going to spend 3 hours on Saturday writing articles. Have certain promotions you want to do? Put them on the calendar as well so you can see when you need to be getting things ready.

4. Time yourself. A kitchen timer is a clear reminder that time is up on a task. If you decide you want to keep working on that item, take a quick break then reset the timer. Otherwise you may fall into “zombie mode” where your brain is getting increasingly less productive but you’re still sitting there trying to finish three hours later.

5. Batching tasks. Schedule client appointments back to back and group any other like tasks together as well. It’s much more efficient to sit down and crank out all the articles you need for the week in one sitting, than to try to work on them piecemeal here and there. Same for phone calls you need to make. You’ll save time plus get bigger chunks of time to concentrate on projects.

6. Automate repetitive tasks. If you type certain emails over and over again, store a copy in your Outlook Drafts folder or use an autoresponder service. I’ve also found free applications that feed my blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. Just Google what you’re looking to do and you’ll probably find suggestions for free or low-cost software that can save you time doing it. (To be safe, I usually look for recommendations from other legit-looking bloggers, not the sites of the applications themselves.)

7. Take advantage of “down” times. For some reason, article outlines often come to me while I’m brushing my teeth at night. Or I’ll use a digital recorder to brainstorm ideas or map out what I want to say while I’m driving. Being away from your desk can actually spark your creativity, so take advantage of that by keeping paper and pens stashed everywhere.

8. Eliminate marketing time wasters. Networking can be a huge time waste. You do NOT need to attend every networking event in town—and it’s really not going to do you much good to do so. Be strategic about the groups you get involved with, and the events you go to. Here’s an article about networking that discusses this a little more. And of course, track your marketing results so you can eliminate tactics that aren’t paying-off in a reasonable amount of time.

I’d love to hear what you have to say, click on Comments and post below!

Well, my intent was to take one full day off over the weekend and that didn’t quite happen–I took parts of both days instead. Perhaps I’ll do better next weekend, my neck and shoulders could really use more time away from the keyboard and mouse!

Aside from a lot of client work, I made progress on several fronts:

• Outlined a new special report on index cards (love those index cards!). This is key because a) My current one is not converting well, even though it’s way more in-depth and actually walks you through creating a certain type of press release plus the many ways to repurpose it and b) I think it’s tagging me as a press release writer in people’s minds and I don’t want that.
• Wrote 85% of my ezine, so hopefully I can just quickly review and get to the VA this AM.
• Finalized the initial structure of my marketing & publicity system, which still needs a decent name.
• Prioritized all of the marketing ideas I’ve had floating around on Post-It notes so this week I should be able to pick up the pace.
• Listened to a fabulous CD of Dan Kennedy and Robert Imbriale on Motivational Marketing while I drove out to see my sister and her family and new dog for dinner last night.

Also received payment for one of those new small projects from Friday, and since I only counted out the daily income total for weekdays–I’m already at 35% for today!

I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions, so please feel free to comment as we go along on this!

Spent a lot of time working on client projects yesterday, and dealing with last minute issues about moving the domains to the new website. Why does it always have to be so complicated?!  I have two questions in to my current web guy so the move probably won’t be made this weekend.

As far as new projects go:

• That same client from earlier in the week sent another small project–so I ended up at 35% of my daily income total. Basically, he’s paying me to review the copy for his website a page or two at a time, as he has it ready. But we talked about other potential projects in the coming weeks as well. You might think I’m discouraged about my results with the daily income totals from this week, but I’m not, and I’ll explain why below.
• I talked to another previous client who needs a press release for the opening of her new store. For a number of reasons, I’ve been shying away from doing press releases in recent months so I also gave her the option of having me just create a template, instructions, and short list of local contacts. And of course, that’s the route she chose. So I’m thinking I may leverage what I create for her into another info product.
• And a referral from a current client led a third person to contact me for a copywriting project–we now have an appointment to talk on Monday.

Marketing-wise:

• I spent an hour on a call about selling affiliate products which also had some great blog traffic tips that I hadn’t heard before.
• And I had my weekly mastermind buddy call with Victoria Player, an online marketing coach in the UK where we discussed a couple of options for joint teleseminars and telecourses after she wraps up the one she has scheduled for later this month.

As for the daily income totals for this week, I should probably explain that I’m NOT discouraged yet because I can easily make 200% or 300% of that amount with a deposit for a typical copywriting project. So while I wished I had fantastically stellar results to report in that area this week, I know it is way too soon to be concerned. Besides, it usually turns out that when it rains, it pours. This past week, we only had a few quick showers this week.

So I’m not feeling like I got much in the way of massive action done today. Started the day organizing in the office for like an hour and a half. But it easier to concentrate now. Also spent some time working on three short sales pages for some cool products for parents of kids with developmental difficulties.

Ok, onto the marketing:

1. Decided to put out a short four-question survey for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and solo professionals to answer about marketing. Obviously, I kept it short to encourage more response. But my goal is to get answers that help ensure the new products and services are moving in the right decision. So if you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, or solo professional please click here and take it so I can give you what you want!
2. I forgot to mention I announced in this week’s ezine that I’m raising my copy review prices after this weekend. Originally, these were supposed to be 30-minute and 60-minute copywriting critique services, although I figured I’d go a little over. But they’ve turned into 2-3 hour plus editing/suggestions/tips services. So today I devised a third option that really is just a critique to launch alongside the new pricing. I think it’ll be a lot of fun too.
3. My new website will be going live soon! I had to address some last minute things today and am still waiting to hear when we’re going to flip the switch. The downside is I was planning on sending out a press release today on the Conscious Entrepreneurs book but a) I hate the press release they gave us to go with the book and b) I want to find out when the website will be changing over.
4. I looked into the Private JV Club website. It sounds great but I’d really like to find someone that’s actually used it before I make the commitment. One call out to the Twitter Universe today went unanswered, except by one of the experts on the site. Maybe I’ll try again in a few days.
5. The other project today was brainstorming ways to change my list opt-in offer–maybe adding more to it but more likely changing it all together. I have a few ideas but none thrill me so I want to see what the survey results say.

Finally, it looks like two more small projects are on tap, but I didn’t actually take in any income today. Looks like this effort is off to a slow start! But it’s too early to worry. These types of things seem to happen in waves.

Yesterday was a busy day–a lot of time spent running around outside the office and finishing a client project. It’s always great to finish something, but I spent much longer than I anticipated. “Fixing” that is clearly a top priority!

Marketing-wise:

• I sent out two packages–one to the Ben & Jerry’s PR guy as I discussed in the Day 1 post, another to a kick-ass copywriter I admire  and would love to work with. The package itself was a 2-page sales letter and toy cell phone (which actually talks!) being sent via Priority Mail. (Her address is a PO Box, making it impossible to send via FedEx or UPS). We’ll see what happens…
• Followed up about three teleseminar opportunities
• Sent a list of ideas to my VA about things I’d love to outsource
• Tried to send out follow-up postcards last night to a small group of local web designers but twice my laptop wigged out and the text ended up getting deleted.

After the second time, I called it a night. I’m not a big fan of SendOutCards to start with (I ONLY use them to send small batches of postcards. The cards are way too cheesy for me, esp. with the person’s address on the back of the card. And I’m sorry, you can scan in your handwriting and pretend it looks real and people can’t tell the difference, but they can!) and the fact there doesn’t seem to be a way to save what you’re working on and come back to it without sending it the card doesn’t help. Maybe I’ll send a letter instead.

Finally, the client who approached me with another small project the day before paid me (why can’t they all be this fast!), so I ended up banking 68% of my daily income total for the day.

Aside from client work, the schedule is clear today so hopefully it’ll be an even more productive day!

Actually, a better question is, “Who are the people who could have a BIG impact on taking your business to the next level?” It could be a huge client, a mentor, a key referral source, or a journalist from your favorite business publication. Do you know who they are? Are you trying to figure out how to reach them?

I was re-reading Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi this weekend and one of the things he advocates is what I’d call “aspirational” networking. It’s something I’ve done several times in recent weeks because it can take your business from crawling to leap frogging to the next level.

Too often we take a kind of fatalistic approach to networking—I’ll meet who I meet at whatever events sound interesting. But if your goal is to become a $1 million a year company, it’s going to be a lot easier if you develop relationships with people who are already running $1 million a year companies.

So think big and develop a list of names whose support would have the biggest potential impact on your business. For example, if your goal is to become a key supplier to IBM, find out the name of the person who would make that decision. Then start researching these aspirational contacts—the more you know about them, the easier it will be to reach out to them and to know what to say when you do get their attention. Look for things like:

- What do they like to do?

- What are they currently focused on in their job or business?

- What groups are they members of (business or charitable)?

- Are they speaking anywhere?

Then start brainstorming how to reach them. Ask people in your current network if they know them. (There’s a lot of truth in that six-degrees of separation theory.) Google them and set up a Google News Alert with their name. Because ultimately you’d like to know three things:

1. Where could you possibly meet them so you can follow-up with a warm phone call?

2. Any common interests that could help facilitate a conversation that stands out among the hundreds they probably have each day?

3. How you can help them.

In recent weeks, I’ve done this twice—one was a success and the other wasn’t (yet!). Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

The first is a top expert in marketing to women. I sent a letter asking for a 20-minute conversation, but let my intimidation get the best of me. As a result, I was vague about what I wanted and also how this could specifically benefit her. No surprise, I didn’t get a response. But I’m certainly not doing trying.

The second is a fairly well-known internet marketer. I sent a handwritten note explaining how a new service I’m launching could be a valuable resource for clients in a certain program, and that one of his former clients had already tried it out and was thrilled with the results. Less than a week later, he emailed me. We swapped a few more emails and the very next week he sent me a referral.

Yes, having a mutual contact probably made him more comfortable about referring someone, but I wouldn’t let the lack of one stop you. Just showing that you’ve done your homework could work too. I also knew the handwritten note would have an easier time getting through his assistant,