TIP 4 Stick With It. Contrary to popular belief, benefits of branding in your market will take time. People look up to others who have stuck with their dreams through good times and bad.

TIP 5 Values and Ethics. Set bar high and far fewer people will make it to other side. Giving up short term opportunities, revenues and prestige in favor of your longer term reputation will always pay off in long run. You will notice that anyy of "experts" in your market shun controversy, usually always try to take hight road and protect their reputation as if it were their last drop of water in desert.

TIP 6 Develop Your Own 30-second commercial and include it everywhere. Your 30-second commercial must include single most compelling benefit about your product or service. Include it in every email, business conversation, discussion forum posting, business card, free article and any communication you have.

TIP 7 Create your own technology. Make it easy for your market to remember you. Create your own solution system. While you may repeat steps used by others in your market, differentiate yourself by labelling your specific approach to your problem space.

Do you have a branding plan? Are you climbing ladder to "expert" status?

Every market is looking for leaders, you simply have to follow steps to get there.

Now here comes real kicker! In one persons ezine, no name, no email address - so I head on over to their site. And what do I find? A whack of testimonials addressed to .... drum roll please ..... Webmaster! Can YOU all believe that? I think this person really took use of name "webmaster" just too literally. But question is .. WHO are all these crazy people buying stuff from this person?

It really makes you wonder ..... cause they gotta be fake! Like that'd be day, I sent in a testimonial to someone who can't even tell me WHO they are, let alone BUY from them in first place. Give me a break here, as if people are going to address you as "webmaster" in a testimonial. I may be a little slow some days, but I am not that stupid to fall for that old routine.

The moral of this story is, put YOUR contact information on your web site and you might just get some business! We are all way too old to be playing hide and seek with YOU.

By Laurie Rogers Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved