Maybe you’ve seen it or even downloaded it…a free guide with 18 tips on how to attract more clients.

The guide was created with the help of members of the Marketing Trailblazers Community to celebrate the community’s third anniversary. I wanted to feature members of the community and give away something of value that may entice people to join.

The jargon to describe the document is “user generated lead magnet.” That’s a mouthful!

I’m frequently asked how I do the stuff I do so here’s where I answer that question…

Several people who have downloaded the 18 Tips guide have asked what tools I used to design it.

Let me get this out of the way first…I am graphically challenged!

And, I put together the guide all by myself. I didn’t hire a graphic designer.

As mentioned in the introduction of the guide, all the photos are from my adventures over the past few years, from several trips to Peru to India, Nepal, Morroco, and many of my favorite places around California and the U.S. All photos were taken on Samsung Galaxy smartphones over the years.

Use the best tools

Being graphically challenged, I invested in ebook templates from Biz Template Babe, designed specifically for use on Canva (more on that later). The exact template kit I bought is this one called Ebook and Lead Magnet Bundle.

Sarah, the Biz Template Babe, does an outstanding job showing you exactly how to use the templates on Canva.

I’ve been using Canva, the online design tool for years, since it launched because it solved a huge problem for me…how to create great-looking graphic images to use on social media, without being a graphic designer. They have hundreds of templates for just about anything you would ever want to create.

If you’re not already using Canva, you can get started here with a free account.

To collect the content from Trailblazers, I created a form in Google docs, asking for name, tip and URL to include with the person’s tip. The spreadsheet that’s generated by Google forms makes it easy to collect and manage the content.

Once I had put together the tips with the images I had gathered and added a bio page and call to action at the end, I exported the document as a pdf. I was also able, in Canva, to export each page as an image to share on social media (I believe is a feature you get when you upgrade to a Pro account).

That’s it. There’s a learning curve to import and using templates, and once you’ve done it once or twice, it’s easy.

Share your lead magnet and invite others to help you

This is an important tip…when you have content from others, make it easy for them to share. In this case, I offered all the contributors a copy of the completed guide, images of their own, and other’s tips in two sizes (square and portrait), along with a set of hashtags they could use on social media. If you want people to help you promote, you must make it super easy for them to do so. They’ll appreciate it and you’ll get more participation in the promotion. 🥰

Once all the visual assets have been created, then I queued them up to drip out over a few weeks on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. I use Social Bee to schedule and drip evergreen content.

If you have more questions about how you can do this too, book a quick Ask Me Anything consult and I’ll be happy to help you and work out the steps with you.

Recommended Reading

Lead Generation – 5 Easy Steps That Will Grow Your Prospect List

How To Promote Your New Lead Generation Offer

FREE Guide Reveals 18 Ways You Can Quickly Attract More Clients

Discover and Duplicate What the Brilliant Minds of the Marketing Trailblazers Community are Using Right Now in their Own Successful Businesses…

Get Your Guide

Images on this page are California (from the air), Rancho Mirage, CA, and Pikillacta, Peru.

*Some or all links on this page may be affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you make any purchases based on my recommendations.

The post Here’s How to Create a Simple Lead Magnet appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

You can get access to this free training and all future Community Connect training events at http://AskDeniseWakeman.com

Community Connect is a free training series sponsored by the Marketing Trailblazers Community at https://www.marketingtrailblazers.co

The post Community Connect: Planning and Scheduling Content – Video appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

The power of the Marketing Trailblazers Community is found in the passion of our members! I’m excited to share the stories of adventure, challenge, and success that show what it means to own a business in our Featured Member series:   

Adventures in Entrepreneurship

Sue Painter is not only a sought-after business coach, but she’s also a successful entrepreneur running several active businesses while traveling the world with her husband, Bill Painter. I’ve known Sue for many years and am always impressed with her wisdom as well as the depth of her compassion for her clients, student and the global community in which she travels. 

I’m honored to introduce you to Sue Painter, a valued member of the Marketing Trailblazers Community, a colleague whom I admire and trust, and a friend who inspired and recently encouraged me to start my second business, Globetrotting Adventure Travel.

Who: Sue Painter

Your Business: Business Coach

Where We Can Learn More About Your Business:

Confident Marketer, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

How did you stumble on your business path?

So many service professionals kept asking me how I built my first business that I started consulting with them individually and eventually it became my full-time gig.

Who inspired you into this path? What did that inspiration look like? 

No one really inspired me to create The Confident Marketer. It arose out of requests (see above). But I’ve had many mentors along the way who do inspire me.

Who was the first person who believed in you?  

I had a wonderful first-grade teacher, Mrs. Carey. She taught every kid that 1) you are responsible for yourself and no one else and 2) you can work to achieve anything.

What was the moment you knew you could be successful at your chosen path? 

I was making a speech to a local women’s group, and in introducing myself I said something like, “I help you become a more confident marketer.” In that moment, 22 pairs of eyes locked onto me, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. Before I left that day, 8 of the 11 women were clients. 

When did you know you could make a living as a Business Coach? 

About a year into it – I was still running both businesses, and while I truly loved my massage clinic, business consulting was more lucrative for me without having to have a big staff to keep the clinic going.

How do you define success for yourself? How do you define success for the path that you’re on? 

Freedom for me is everything. Freedom and flexibility. I am a big believer in working hard and playing hard. To me, success is the ability to live my desired life. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s less about money and more about living each day how I wish to live it.

Give us a typical day in your life.  

I’m usually an early riser. My best thoughts and ideas hit in the early morning. But first I am a meditator, which I’ve been for over 30 years now. So sitting time, usually in our side garden. Then, typically I get up and write or map out business ideas for myself or for clients. Then smoothie for breakfast with vitamins. Then client work or working on my own business.

I pay attention to various businesses throughout the day but usually focus in 2-hour time blocks on a specific business. Besides The Confident Marketer, I own Travel Changes Life, and I have a busy affiliate marketing business. So I split my time but always in one or two hour chunks of time. My go-to snack is half a protein bar. By 2 or 3 PM at the latest, I’m done for the day. My prime energy is not afternoon. I’m ready to hit the beach, read, or have a solid conversation with someone else. Since we live in Florida, I want to be outside at least a part of every day.

When do you get up?

Varies. Always by 7 AM and sometimes earlier.

When do you eat lunch? Do you eat the same thing every day or mix it up? 

We break around noon for lunch on most days. Usually a salad with some type of protein. Sometimes we go out but usually not. I like variety at lunch since breakfast is always the same (a smoothie).

What do you do from 1 pm to 6 pm? 

Some work, and then knock it off for the day and get outdoors.

What do you do from 6 pm until you go to bed? 

Dinner, probably a little follow up with business, evenings with friends.

Do you have a pre-bed ritual? 

I prep the evening before for the next day. Review calendar, confirm appointments if need be, plan out the day. I usually read a little bit before bedtime, whatever our neighborhood book club is reading for the next meeting, or magazines.

How do you define a successful day? 

That I’ve helped at least one person feel encouraged and stronger in her business, and that I’ve kept my energy and awareness on an even keel. Or, inspired someone to plan a trip.

What’s been the most important skill you’ve developed on your path?

Learning to always follow the energy, which is the simplest and clearest path to manifesting.

What’s been the greatest challenge on your path?

Interested in many things, love to learn many things.

What’s been your greatest reward in the choices you’ve made to do this?

Freedom.

What do you want to learn from a community of your peers?

I try to see what each person’s expertise is, and learn from them something about that particular topic.

Thank you, for sharing your journey as a Business Coach and member of the Marketing Trailblazers Community.

Does Sue Painter’s story resonate with you? Let us know, and share what it means for you to be a business owner/entrepreneur in the comments below!

The post Meet Sue Painter – Business Coach, Entrepreneur and World Traveler appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.

I moved my private mastermind off of Facebook groups. It had nothing to do with the Cambridge Analytica scandal or the fact that Facebook has been mining and storing our data for years. 

Let me back up … for a long while, I’ve been contemplating how to streamline my offers in such a way that I could serve more authors and online business owners while also creating more room for me to take off on an adventure when time and space permitted.

I was mulling this over when I was introduced to Tara Gentile by way of an article she published on Medium. Impressed with her writing and ideas, I continued following and reading her work. I noticed in Tara’s bio that she was the Founder of CoCommercial, “the fluff-free social network for small business owners on a mission.” That was intriguing.

One day I clicked over to CoCommercial and decided to join so I could see what it was all about. I instinctively knew that this community was a model for what I was trying to articulate in my mullings about the change I wanted to make.

Not long after I joined, Tara announced she was doing a two-day workshop at Creative Live in San Francisco. It was about building community and integrating it into your business growth strategy. I booked my hotel and ticket immediately. 

Fast forward… four weeks after attending Tara Gentile’s community building workshop, I launched my own community… Marketing Trailblazers.

Why the change?

To be honest, I’d wanted to get the Visibility Mastery Lab off of Facebook for a while, but wasn’t sure where to put it – what platform to use. 

Facebook groups are terrible for archiving and searching for information.You may have used the “search” function, but you may have also noticed that it doesn’t actually work very well!

I want members to get answers to questions you can’t Google, not frustration that you can’t find what you’re looking for! 

There are minimal if any privacy and control issues for members of a Facebook group. Facebook can do whatever Facebook wants with the images and text that members upload. Not to mention that you don’t have much control over what it shows in your stream and who will or won’t get notifications about the posts.

We needed a space of our own where we could actually maintain the privacy and confidentiality we value. 

In general, Facebook promotes shallow, often meaningless exchanges over deep, meaningful discussions. This isn’t the kind of culture I want to promote.

I want our Visibility Mastery Lab to be a space for meaningful conversations, and sharing of our vulnerable selves and the challenges we face to get our messages out to the world. 

Facebook is peppered with ads, which are all over Facebook groups. Even in secret groups, members are bombarded by ads. Click to Tweet

You deserve to have your conversations in a noise-free, ad-free zone, that is not owned by a big corporation that sees us data points in their algorithm! 

 

In short, I’m tired of Facebook and it doesn’t serve my purposes. I want a space that our community can call our own, so we moved.

 

And, the platform I chose, Mighty Networks, makes it possible for me to create private groups within the larger community so the private Visibility Mastery Lab group not only can participate in the community but also has their private space where only mastermind members can see and participate in their own conversations.

 

By creating my own community space, I can now open it up to the friends, followers, and connections I have on various social networks. 

 

So, what are the objections to moving off of Facebook?

But I like Facebook! And I’m already ON Facebook!

Change is challenging. And, as we all know, it’s inevitable.

 

In addition to everything listed above, here are some of the fabulous things about the new space:

• Events are shown in YOUR time zone! No more having to scramble your brain to figure out what time the event is! And, if you have a global community, this is important.
• You can find other members based on their “specialty” (i.e., their primary business niche)
• You can find people based on their physical proximity to you, wherever you happen to be in the world (so if you’re traveling, and another member is nearby, the mobile app will tell you! As we grow, this will be super-cool!)
• You can write “Articles” with as many embedded images and videos as you want! (“Posts” are shorter messages; “Articles” are longer ones)
• You can include images and/or videos in your comments on other people’s (or your own) Posts and Articles, too!
• You can send private messages to other members, just like on Facebook
• There’s a fabulous mobile app, that makes it really easy to use on-the-go!
• The content is easy to organize and find via the search function with various filters. You can hone in on exactly what you’re looking for
• It’s a distraction-free zone, solely focused on supporting the members on their marketing journey

What is Marketing Trailblazers all about?

Marketing Trailblazers is a support and social community for adventurous business owners seeking to master online marketing.

Marketing Trailblazers is a community of marketers, coaches, consultants, authors, artists and other creative business owners on the journey to grow our businesses with smart marketing.

The community is designed as a safe and supportive space to ask questions, get real-world, real experience answers, meet your peers, share stories and most importantly grow your business.

My vision is to build a global community of independent online business owners coming together to help one another succeed, grow, and make an impact in the world with their important work.

 

There you have it. That’s why I moved my private mastermind group off of Facebook and on to our own platform. The experiment is young. I launched on March 22 to a small segment of my email list and several people jumped into the community right away. I’m rolling out the invitations to my email list and on social media slowly to ensure I have the time and energy to greet each new member and get them comfortable with a different model for getting the knowledge, support and encouragement they want in order to build and grow their business.

 

Ready to jump into the community? Click here to check it out. I’d love to welcome you to our community!

RECOMMENDED READING

The post Why I Moved My Private Mastermind Off of Facebook Groups appeared first on Adventures in Visibility.