March 2015 - Vertū Marketing

Not Acting On Your Purpose? You May Want To Reconsider.

March 27, 2015 by tylie eaves

So you know what your purpose is, that is great! Now, what are you going to do about it? If you have not asked yourself that question yet, it may be time to start thinking about how you can put your purpose to good use — for yourself and others.

Say your purpose is to help others lead the best lives that they can. You can begin to act on it right away by integrating it into your daily life and your business model. Make sure that the services you provide are actually useful and that they will improve the quality of your customers’ lives. No one wants to shell out hard-earned money for something that will do little, if anything, to benefit them.

If your skill set rests in your ability to design new, innovating products, but your purpose lies with helping people, make sure those products add value to the lives of the end users! If directly serving others is more up your alley, then dedicate your efforts toward not just fulfilling a service but toward enhancing the lives of your clients. For example, a house cleaning can be more than just another service; it can bring joy to the lives of the people who live there because they can focus on attaining their own goals and living their own purposes.

When your services are secured on the foundation of your purpose, your clients and customers will be able to feel and experience the same joy in utilizing your services as you do in providing them.

Never be afraid to question whether a new goal, product or service is aligned with your purpose. Your purpose should always act as a navigator, steering you and your business toward the most fulfilling and rewarding path possible.

Coming Back From The Brink

March 24, 2015 by tylie eaves

Every business owner has toyed with the idea of giving up. Owning a business, whether big or small, is fraught with challenges and frustrations. On many occasions, there is no way around the difficulty; it is simply an inevitable part of business.

Frustrations come in various shapes and sizes and may involve issues such as debt, employee motivation, low sales, high overhead and competition. Despite the overwhelming nature of challenges, many business owners have been able to bring a business back from the brink of failure. It has been said that entrepreneurs are willing to work 80 hours per week just to avoid working 40 hours per week. This determination, among other practical steps, may be the reason for the following back-from-the-brink success stories of these companies:

Disney
Apple
Best Buy
GM
Continental Airlines
IBM

These are just a few of many world-famous businesses that have teetered on the edge of collapse at some point in their history. In many of these success stories, the turning point came with just one good idea, one wise financial move or one smart marketing maneuver.

Few businesses will expand into an international conglomerate, but every business deserves a second chance. For you, this chance may come with a boost of energy in your marketing strategy and a fresh approach to your online presence. At Virtue Marketing, we offer practical services for businesses of all types and sizes. We assist business owners in many ways, including marketing and website copy.

Every entrepreneur has been discouraged and overwhelmed at some point in his or her career. What is important is how one responds to the challenges and moves forward. Find out how we can help rejuvenate your business, instead of throwing in the towel, by contacting us today to get the support and help your business deserves.

Vertu Marketing CEO Finds Success By Serving Others

March 20, 2015 by Michelle Queen

Succeeding in the online world with a small business is certainly not the easiest feat. One shining example of success is Tylie Eaves through her company Vertu Marketing LLC. Eaves has constructed a solid and successful business model at least partially built on a surprisingly simple foundation — quality service.

An online presence can be a complicated matter in the business world, a problem that Eaves intuitively understands. For virtually any business or company that operates online or has a presence with consumers in the virtual world, falling behind the times or failing to regularly engage with consumers can be problematic. There are blogs to be written, social media accounts that need attending to and websites that may need a desperate facelift.

This is where Eaves’ service-based business model thrives. No matter the size of a company or business, finding time to keep an online presence going or to even pin down the best way to follow a goal or vision can be nearly impossible.

Vertu Marketing LLC is far more than a mixture of products available for consumers to purchase. For many, it is an invaluable resource for success. From helpful articles concerning business practices to uplifting videos from the owner herself, Eaves has managed to make visiting Vertu Marketing’s website an experience in and of itself. Her vision and business model of service first has made it possible for other businesses, both small and large, to thrive in a sometimes unruly and competitive online arena.

Essential Questions For Copywriting

March 20, 2015 by tylie eaves

Your product or service is good enough to speak for itself, right? Well, not necessarily. Although word-of-mouth and a solid design might have worked well enough in the past, the age of the Internet has changed the rules of the game.

The ultimate goal of well-written copy is to convince consumers to take some sort of action. Should they try a new brand of herbal teas or switch to a different Internet provider? If the copy is compelling enough, they just might.

Before copywriting ever goes live on the web, an enormous amount of thought, care and critical research needs to be put into the piece. For some products, keeping it short and sweet is the most effective route to a successful piece of copy, while a lengthier piece is more appropriate for other situations. To help determine the most effective way to approach copywriting for a specific purpose, try asking yourself these questions:

• What is my product and how is it useful or needed?
• Who is the target audience and what do they care about?
• Are my keywords unique and identifiable?
• What feelings do I want to convey?
• What is my call to action?

These questions are mostly straightforward but surprisingly easy to overlook. Copywriting is not about waving your arms in front of consumers and pushing your product in their faces, but is more about inviting them in to have a look around and learn about how they can benefit from what you are offering.

Over the next several weeks, we will examine and discuss each of these questions in more detail and discover how even the smallest factor can affect the strength of your copywriting skills.

3 reasons Why Saying “No” Is Not Always Bad

March 20, 2015 by tylie eaves

Embarking on a new adventure as an entrepreneur can be one of the most thrilling times in your life. More likely than not, you are setting the foundation for a fulfilling career based on providing services or products that you love and feel passionate about. As the cogs begin to turn and your vision of a successful business begins to become a reality, staying on track and being true to your vision and purpose is crucial for keeping projected goals and profits on point.

This may seem easy enough because, after all, it is your business, right? Few people, if any, ever create a successful small business without having to make a few tough decisions, including saying “no.”

So, in which circumstances should you not be afraid to stand firm for your business and its purpose?

When others want to change your product’s purpose. If your goal is to keep things simple and easy to use, even well-meaning suggestions or requests to stray away from your product’s design can hurt your business and its image.
When you know that you are unable to complete a request. Accumulating more business and customers is likely a dream that most entrepreneurs share. However, do not be so quick to make promises that you cannot keep. There is much more respect in declining an order or request to do business until your business is equipped to handle a particular request than there is in committing to a project and then failing to deliver.
When it just does not feel right. A deal with a supplier or an offer to outsource some of your services or jobs might look appealing on the surface, but do not discount any uncomfortable feelings on the matter. While none of these types of agreements should be entered into without a serious amount of consideration and reading of the fine print, if your gut feeling is that something may take your small business in the wrong direction or just simply is not appropriate for your business, do not hesitate to just say “no.”

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of owning a small business is the ability to guide it and mold it based on your vision and purpose. There is little denying that being the decision maker is an exciting title! However, before agreeing to anything, make sure you understand that business requires the ability to decline bad decisions or offers with just one, simple word — no.

Overcoming Fear

March 20, 2015 by tylie eaves

Everyone is afraid of something. To deny that fact is to lie to oneself. Unfortunately for business owners and entrepreneurs (and probably everyone else, too), fear often manifests itself as procrastination. This is as true for me as it is for anyone else. I have worked hard to overcome perfection-driven procrastination (fear of not being able to do something perfectly, thereby choosing to simply do nothing, because doing nothing is the easiest way to avoid failure) and it’s a battle that continues to rage. This kind of fear-cycle will kill our dreams and will keep us from fulfilling our God-given calling in life.

I don’t know if fear can be totally mastered this side of Heaven. I think it’s a battle we fight daily; the fight against fear.

I am guilty of letting fear-driven perfectionism and procrastination slow my progress. I have let fear stop me from going all-in many times. I have faced the fear of what people will think, what others will say, of letting people down, of not living up to my own hype and even the failure to live up to my own expectations. Over and over again I have delayed the release of programs, services, books, blog posts and messages out of the fear that I couldn’t produce perfection.

None of us want to let others down. Nobody says, “hey, today I think I want to disappoint everyone I know.” So, in many cases, we choose not to try. Because not doing means not failing —

Oh, but how wrong that is.

After being in business for myself a good while, and letting fear slow me down over and over again, I began to realize that my fear was my failure! The only time we truly fail is when we let fear keep us from taking a step of faith in the first place.

Most of us know this in our heads, but we neglect to live it out. We read great quotes, like a million memes, we post fantastic inspirational posts on Instagram, but we CONTINUE TO FEAR and we continue to fail.

Why? What can be done?

To overcome a fear-driven failure to act, we must take it one step at a time. I know it sounds simple, but anything that is accomplished through mindset is rarely easy. We must purpose within our own minds to simply ACT for the first time; just one time.

When our efforts and our hearts are in the right place (meaning we are truly trying to do good for others, and not trying to swindle people or be shady little turds) and we finally take the first action, we soon learn that criticism will not kill us, and we see that most of the time we get more praise than criticism for our efforts, and we learn that even when we make a mistake the world doesn’t end.

Once we’ve taken the FIRST action and learned the lessons that go therewith, it becomes easier to take the SECOND action, and then the THIRD, and the FOURTH and so on. Eventually, we will find ourselves acting despite our fears!

And guess what happens after that, slowly but surely, the fear dies.

Like I said, fear is an ongoing battle. Just because we overcome one fear doesn’t mean we won’t be challenged by another. But, if we’re diligent, and we keep taking one step after another, fear and fear-driven procrastination become non-issues in our lives.

I challenge you to take that first step DESPITE YOUR FEAR. All it takes is one step to start a journey.

With Love,

Tylie

Off track? Try Getting Reacquainted With Your Purpose

March 20, 2015 by tylie eaves

For a significant number of people, staying on task can be one of life’s biggest challenges. Between Facebook, Twitter and easy access to hundreds of movies and TV shows on the Internet, it can sometimes be a marvel that anything gets accomplished. Of course, if your passion is helping businesses engage with their customers through social media then perhaps you are excused from engaging on social media outlets during working hours, but, if not, it may be time to push yourself back on track.

It can be surprisingly easy for your true purpose, the passion that drove you to your work in the first place, to become drowned out by the buzz of daily life. When that happens, will your friend’s tweet about an awesome sale at Target really help you get refocused? Instead of giving in to the impulse to check your email or to watch “just one episode” of your favorite show, take a quiet moment of reflection.

Even if the hubbub and rush of embarking on a new business venture or adjusting your business goals to align more with your personal goals has taken over your life, your true purpose is most likely still somewhere within you. If you feel run over, distracted, frustrated or stressed or have any manner of other things that seem to be holding you back, it might be time to take a much-needed moment of reflection. In a preferably quiet area, close your eyes and remind yourself of your purpose. Have you been true to your purpose and yourself? Are the guiding principles that initially led you to your work still present? If the answer to both of these questions is YES, then all is well to continue on with business as usual. If the answer to either question is NO, then it may be time to make a few changes and get your business back in line with your true purpose.

Working within your own purpose can be one of the most fulfilling adventures in life, but even the most well-intentioned people can eventually lose sight of the path. What may have started out as a profitable or successful endeavor can begin to falter without the purpose-driven push of your passion to keep it on track and to fulfill all of your goals. Luckily, you can think of your purpose as your lifeline — it will always be there to help guide you and your business through both prosperous and difficult times.

Overcoming Obstacles In Business

March 17, 2015 by tylie eaves

If you have owned or operated a business for any amount of time, you know that the path to success can be fraught with frustration, setbacks and complication. Obstacles are an inevitable part of any type of business, but how you respond to them is completely in your control–and may play a significant part in your long-term success.

Understanding some of the most common obstacles faced by business owners/operators can help you strategically plan a response if you find yourself in a similar situation. Preparation is key to overcoming some of the most daunting challenges. Some things to consider may include:

Pricing confusion is a common challenge faced by business owners. It is important to place a fair value on your goods and services, but one that reflects your talents and quality provided. When determining prices, the profit margin should be the main factor, not emotion.
Learning from mistakes is one of the keys to success in the business world. Has your marketing campaign fallen short? Have you released a product that is not profitable? Success requires constant evaluation and adjustment. Do not be afraid to admit that you made a mistake, and implement changes promptly.
Stay focused on what you do best. While it may be beneficial to expand and launch new products, it is often best to stay focused on the “bread and butter” of a business. Business owners frequently face difficulties when they have over expended or over estimated their ability to successfully handle new products. Simplicity is a good thing, so do not commit to any venture that does not add overall value to your company.

No matter what type of business you own, you will eventually face challenges of some kind. Resolve to overcoming obstacles with determination, flexibility and a willingness to learn from past mistakes. Understanding how to respond to obstacles can ensure that you emerge on the other side as a smarter business owner.