At some point in your business, you will inevitably find yourself feeling stressed, impatient, overwhelmed, or unmotivated to do what has to be done to move forward.

When this happens, it’s important to find the root cause of these feelings and get them resolved as soon as possible.

Sometimes these feelings are a result of you not doing what you know you should be doing. You are not walking your talk.

Here is a common example I see all the time of someone not walking their talk.

You will hear people say they put their family first. But when you look at their lives, they are working 70 hours a week and rarely see their family.

Their reasoning is they want to provide a better life for their family. In the meantime, they are missing precious moments with their children and significant other.

They are not being honest with themselves about where their true values lie. They are living a fearful, self-centered life chasing an illusion of security that never quite materializes. This leads to the stress and overwhelm I mentioned earlier.

The first step in walking your talk is to be honest with yourself and those around you.

In your business, it is essential that your clients and prospects see you walking your talk.

One of the things I rate high on the list of important traits to have in your business is consistency.

Because consistency is one of the things I place at the top of the list when I consult with clients, it’s important that I walk my talk when it comes to consistency.

For example, I send a weekly newsletter and facilitate a teleseminar on the last Thursday of each month. Every week my subscribers know they will receive a newsletter and every month I will be facilitating a teleseminar.

So when I talk to them about consistency in their own business, they can look to me for the example to follow. This raises their level of trust in me and in my business. They know I will never ask them to do what I am not willing to do myself.

This is not to brag about what I am doing but to simply make a point. Whether you are coaching someone or speaking in front of a group, make sure what you are saying is in line with what you are doing.

The only way you will ever gain the respect and trust of your clients is to walk your talk. Be willing to do what you are asking others to do and lead by example. People tend to pay more attention to what you do rather than what you say.

There is a lot of talk today about internet marketing, and there are so many ways to market your business effectively using internet marketing.

But we sometimes get involved in technology at the expense of our other marketing strategies.

Although internet marketing is one of the most effective tools for promoting your business, it is not the silver bullet that will propel your business to the stratosphere. It is just another tool in your toolbox for promoting yourself, your product, or your services.

One often overlooked strategy in today’s high tech environment is direct mail. Some may view direct mail as an out-dated method for marketing a business, but consider this … do you go to your mailbox almost every day?

Regardless of age and demographic, most people check their mailbox every day.

Of course, a lot of the “junk” mail goes into the circular file, but sometimes a mail piece grabs your attention and you end up on your computer visiting the company’s website to learn more about them.

Their direct mail piece caused you to take action.

Here are six tips for success with your direct mail campaign:

1. Write great copy. This is a skill most people can learn with a little time and effort. Learn to write compelling headlines and attention getting copy for your direct mail campaigns.

2. Use colors that attract. Do a little research to learn how colors can attract and what emotions colors can evoke.

3. Keep a swipe file. Everyone receives offers in the mail to purchase products or services. Keep a file of the ones that grab your attention and use these in your own campaigns. Tweak the copy so it suits your specific needs.

4. Mail to a very targeted list. Social media is an excellent way to build a targeted list of people and companies who want what you have to offer.

5. Make sure you have your website listed prominently on your direct mail piece. Even though you are using direct mail, you can’t leave out the high tech piece of the puzzle.

6. Send a handwritten thank you note to a client or to someone who has given you a great referral. This is a great way to keep top of mind presence with your target audience without directly selling them anything.

If you just do a few of the things listed above, your success rate for your direct mail campaigns will improve.

Like everything else in your business concerning marketing and promotion, the way to find what works is to keep testing and trying different things.

A targeted direct mail piece with great copy can help promote your brand and have a huge impact on the success of your business.

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Thomas Edison. He said, “The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person does not do.”

I was reminded of this quote last night when I was up at 1:00 a.m. to work on a project I’m trying to finish this week. I worked for about 4 hours in the middle of the night. Went back to bed around 5:00 a.m. and slept for an hour. Then I was back up to shower and start my day … which will be another 10 – 12 hours.

This is not my “normal” routine, but it is my routine periodically. I try not to make it a habit. I know this is just for a couple of weeks, and I can get back to a fairly normal schedule with more balance in my life than I have at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to make a point. I will work all day, work weekends, work 7 days a week if necessary, get up in the middle of the night to work on a project, and then get up the next morning with very little sleep only to repeat the process. As I said, this is not my life, but this scenario does happen now and then. And I’m willing to do it.

As most of you know, I do a weekly newsletter and a weekly eblast to everyone in my database. This takes time.

I had a situation a few weeks ago where I was having a few tests performed for some health issues I was facing. This was a fairly serious matter.

In case you are wondering what the serious matter was … my doctor informed me the week before there was a chance I had cancer because of the results of blood tests performed earlier. He was concerned, and I was concerned.

Rather than blow off my responsibilities and skip that week, I stayed the course. I planned ahead and spent the weekend putting together my newsletter, weekly eblast, and took care of a few other pressing matters in my business … just in case.

The following week I had more tests performed and everything came back with great results. No cancer. I am healthy (and thankful).

But again, my point is not my facing the possibility of cancer. The point is I kept running my business and did what I had to do to make that happen.

NO EXCUSES!!

Are you willing to do the same? Or are do you just want to make excuses for things not getting done?

What “pressing matters” do you have keeping you from doing what needs to be done to create a successful business? Is the “pressing matter” a life and death situation or just something you “want” to do?

It may be time to take a serious look at how you are running your business. It may be time to ask yourself how important your success and the success of your business is to your family and to yourself.

It may be time to start valuing the time you have been given and using it to create a better life.

There are so many ways to attract and retain customers in today’s highly connected world. Are you making the most of all the resources available to you for getting the attention of your target audience?

There are many free or low-cost things you can do to promote yourself, your business, or your services.

Here are just a few ideas for you to consider:

1. Create a white paper that gives your audience information for improving their business.

2. Give away a free or low-cost ebook.

3. Give away a tip sheet.

4. Create a landing page that gets people to opt-in to receive more information from you.

5. Create a newsletter.

6. Write articles.

Everyone knows people have to know you, like you, and trust you before they will do business with you. The six things listed above will help you build the know, like, and trust factor.

And there are many more things you can do to connect with your target audience to gain credibility. What do you have that you can give away in order to promote yourself more effectively?

And I’m not talking about the silly little refrigerator calendar/magnets that people spend hundreds of dollars on every year. The first part of every year, I start getting these. The first one I receive may get used but the others get tossed. Is this how you want to spend your marketing dollars?

Consider low-cost or no-cost methods of marketing and advertising that actually work. If you give someone information or something they can actually use with your name on it somewhere, they will probably keep it.

When you consider the high cost of traditional advertising and the fact that it’s difficult to benchmark traditional advertising, it makes sense to search for alternative methods of getting the word out about your product or service.