Linkswitch #87, Use LinkedIn, Difficult Clients, Marketing Mix

5 Reasons for Freelancers to Use LinkedIn

Many of the freelancers I know stay active on Facebook, Twitter, and Google +, but they ignore one of the most powerful professional networks out there: LinkedIn.

Dealing With Difficult Clients

Clients come in all stripes. But difficult clients come in archetypes: The Naysayer, The Answer Man, The Linebacker, The Xenophobe. If you can recognize them, you’ll be better equipped to create a rewarding, lasting, and headache-free client relationship.

5 Tips to Improve Your Marketing Mix

It’s not about one marketing piece, it’s about the whole thing. To be effective, your business needs a presence both offline and online. It needs to use print and digital marketing tools. It needs both advertising (paid) and publicity (free). It’s the marketing mix that gets and keeps your company message “out there” in front of your target audience.

Speaking at Conferences – the Art of Persuasion

What sets an awesome speaker apart from an average one? Their content? Their delivery? Sprinklings of magical unicorn dust? Magical unicorn dust is pretty hard to get hold of, so we’ve been having some training here at Distilled. It’s been illuminating – so I thought I’d share some of what I’ve learned.

How to Survive When Good Ideas Go Bad

Ideas are the foundation of any business. If the ideas are brilliant enough, they result in hours of Herculean effort, and eventually a thriving business. But what happens when that revolutionary idea turns out to be an imposter? Good ideas go bad all the time, and for an infinite number of reasons. Forces outside of our control can change customer tastes but usually we latched onto an idea that was not a good idea at all. How do you survive and thrive after going down the wrong path?

The 3 stages of design maturity

There is A LOT to learn when it comes to graphic design and not just about what programs you use, but how you use your skill. Whether you’ve been designing for 10 minutes or 10 years, there’s much to be learned and figured out. Depending on your path with design, some things will vary, but for the most part, there are three main stages of realizations/characteristics most designers go through.

Are You Losing Business When You Hunt for Customers?

To listen to some people, you’d think marketing were a battle or bloodsport. Think about all the military metaphors we use — identifying a target market, launching a campaign, and using strategy and tactics to crush competitors and win that desired customer. But do we really want to think about our customers as “targets” — to be attacked, overpowered, and killed? And even if that appeals to us — do our customers want to feel like prey or military conquests?

Are You Being Too Consistent?

Most of the time, our desire for consistency makes sense. In general, consistent action leads to positive outcomes. If we exercise consistently, then our health is better. If we communicate consistently, then our relationships are better. If we smile consistently, then our attitude is better. But there are two sides to every coin, and consistency can also keep us in undesirable situations.

3 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates and Increase Conversions

One of the many tough obstacles that newer bloggers have to deal with is the fact that many of their visitors, which they work very hard to get, will often “bounce” away from their pages—they’ll immediately leave the blog after landing on the homepage. This “bounce rate” can have a drastic effect on your blog’s success at any stage, but especially in the beginning.

Logic and Emotion: Why Smart Money Management Isn’t Just About Math

Eighteen months ago, I read Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. This book changed my life. Switch explores the difference between the life changes we eagerly embrace and those we struggle with our entire lives. The book radically altered the way I plan, budget, eat, sleep, and work. Thanks to Switch, whenever I warnt to change any habit in my life, I now think of elephants.