The winter Olympics are off to an interesting start, as always. And while I’ve only caught parts, I did manage to watch short track skating when Apolo Ohno miraculously won silver. From the qualifying heats to the final race he was pretty amazing to watch.

While his competition in those qualifying races wasn’t super stiff, you could still see the mark of experience…As well as how strong and fit he is going into this competition. In both of those early heats he calmly hung out in the back of the pack waiting for the chance to make his move.

Then, when that chance came, he made it in a big way. In the second qualifying heat he passed all five other skaters with one huge burst of speed…flying past them so fast he easily gained, and held, a half-lap lead for the rest of the race.

Pretty impressive for a guy who’s old enough—and medaled enough—to retire happily. Yet here he is again, past the age when most speed skaters retire, and he’s never been more prepared to compete and win!

In a recent Seattle Times profile of Apolo Anton Ohno (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/olympics/2010986192_ohno07.html ), Ron Judd said “In his 13 years in the sport, Ohno has become an advanced student of short-track. He watches race tape like a football coach. He studies other teams’ training regimens. He has soaked up all the sports-performance knowledge thrown his way in a decade of residence at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and used it to retool his body to compete with younger racers whose legs don’t scream as loudly at the end of the day.”

By now you’re probably wondering what all this has to do with marketing your business. Well, there’s a lot you can learn from Ohno’s example.

Here’s a guy who has been competing successfully since he was 14 years old, yet he’s still trying to get better. And he does it by studying the competition, seeing what others have done and are doing today, then changing his own training regimen as a result. And practicing hard.

When was the last time you truly studied your competition’s marketing? Or analyzed what worked and what didn’t in your last marketing campaign?

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, the answer to both of those questions is: “Never!”

What about training? What are you doing to make sure your next marketing effort is more successful than your last? If the answer is nothing, then the chances are good that you’re not going to be any more successful down the road.

If you want to grow your business you’ve got to practice, train, and frankly, do what most other entrepreneurs don’t. Below are three things you can do right now to help turn yourself into an Olympic caliber entrepreneur:

1) Watch your competition. Ohno regularly looks at other teams training regimens. Then he takes what he learns and applies it to his own skating.

Most entrepreneurs never take the time to see what their competition is doing. Yet that’s one of the best ways to figure out what you could or should be doing to grow your business.

So take some time to do a bit of Internet research and see what your competition offers, how they offer it, what they charge, and how they market themselves.

2) Study.  Marketing is one of the most important aspects of running a business. Because if you don’t market your business effectively, no one will know you exist or what you have to offer and you won’t have any clients. Without clients you don’t have a business.

Yet few entrepreneurs spend any time at all studying marketing. While you can’t exactly watch and analyze race tapes, you CAN review books filled with winning advertising and marketing campaigns. Many books written by Ad greats John Caples or David Ogilvy are packed with sample ads and breakdowns of what made them great.

3) Practice. Olympic athletes practice a lot…WAY more than most entrepreneurs for sure. Apolo Ohno practice three times a day. And even then he still doesn’t always win in competition.

Few entrepreneurs practice marketing at all, yet they expect to win all the time. And are discouraged when they don’t.

Need to write new content for your Website? Don’t expect to get it perfect the first time. Create many practice drafts, then edit until it’s the best it can be. If you’re planning to send out a sales letter, write a few versions and test them. Then refine them until you’re getting the results you’re after. 

Thanks to all the powerful, business-building tips shared by the experts at the Small Business Success Telesummit, I could write an entire book. Instead I’m dedicating this, the second of two articles, to sharing ideas from each of the speakers with you. That way, even if you weren’t able to make the live calls, you can still benefit from the wisdom of the 12 fantastic small business experts who participated.

So today we continue with golden nuggets from the second half of the Telesummit:

1) Paulette Ensign, “The Booklet Queen”, shared so many priceless ideas about creating tips booklets and using them to market yourself and your expertise it’s hard to choose just one. In fact I have a whole list of ideas I’m going to incorporate from this interview alone! But if I have to pick one, and I do, it would be:

The seven ways to use one tips booklet…

Create a print version; Turn it into a PDF; Record it as an audio; Burn it to a CD; Turn it into an autoresponder series; Create a card deck; Reformat as a journal with one tip per page; Flesh it out into a print and electronic book.

2) PR Expert Nancy Juetten gave us her foolproof formula for creating a compelling bio. Simply combine: stunning results, a succinct story, sassy sound bites, and social information to help them connect with you. Mix all these parts together to take your bio from boring to better than the rest.

3) From Erin Blaskie, the head of my VA firm, comes some sage words of advice on getting started delegating to Virtual Assistants and other professionals…

You want to give your new team, even if it’s virtual, the time to get to know you and the time for you to get to know them. And a lot of people kind of give up early thinking it’s not working…The team isn’t getting me.

But if you think about getting a normal job outside of the entrepreneur world, you get like a two to three week training period, right? Same thing when you outsource. It’s going to take time to learn how to work together and what you both want and need to achieve your goals. You have to give it time to really allow that natural relationship to grow.

4) Leanne Hoagland Smith, the “The Results Coach”, hit the nail on the head when she talked about the power of knowing the numbers then planning to reach them…

Making sales is all about knowing the numbers. For example, let’s say you go out and speak locally for free, or a very nominal amount, and consistently get one client worth $3,000 annually each time. If you want to make $36,000 more this year, you need 12 new clients. That means doing one speaking gig a month.

So you break it down that way. Once you know what a client is worth annually, and how many you can bring in or work with, you can easily make a plan to reach your financial goals.

5) Nancy Fox, consultant and founder of HUBstreet social networking site, and I talked in depth about your personal brand. And the conversation couldn’t have been more timely, because while your personal brand has a huge impact on all your marketing, it’s especially critical when it comes to your social networking efforts.

So what is your personal brand? According to Nancy, it’s far more than just a tagline…It’s your mission, personal values and the benefits of working with you all rolled into one and represented by everything you do, say, wear and provide.

6) My own topic was how to get more marketing done and grow your business—while still having a life—by outsourcing to Virtual Assistants. And today I’m going to share two of my tips on this subject that I believe can have the biggest impact on you:

1 – In order to outsource happily, you have to understand that while someone else may not do things the way you would, there is a good chance they’ll actually do it better.

2 – Outsourcing doesn’t always go as planned…Not everyone will be a good fit for you, your needs or your working style. And some folks are just plain flaky (Plus, you have to learn to outsource correctly. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic.).

Rather than get discouraged, keep in mind that finding good people to outsource to is a lot like dating—you’re likely going to have to kiss a few frogs to find a prince (or princess).

Or, get all the juicy, business-building info from 12+ hours of interviews and lectures now and start applying them to your business right away!

Just click this link now and pre-order a copy of the audio and transcripts at a special, low price:

http://www.smallbusinesssuccesstelesummit.com

As soon as my team has everything edited and uploaded to the Web, then turns it all into stand-alone products for sale, the price is going to have to go up to cover my costs. So order right now before you forget and miss out on all the amazing, business-building information these experts shared.

http://www.smallbusinesssuccesstelesummit.com