The Marketing Mentor Podcast

Packaging creative services is all the rage these days, but it's more than a trend. It's actually allowing creative professionals to take control of their work life, raise their prices and save time on estimates and proposals. In this podcast, excerpted from Marketing Mentor's new product, The Package Pricing Bundle, Ilise Benun interviews web copywriter, Alyssa Martin , about how her copywriting...

I recently joined Jake Jorgovan  to discuss the biggest mistake new freelancers make when telling people what they do. Listen to learn a better way...

  Ilise Benun joins Jim Blasingame of Small Business Advocate  to reveal two more critical questions to ask yourself before you become a small business owner.

  Ilise Benun joins Jim Blasingame of Small Business Advocate  to talk about why most of us start our small businesses, and to reveal a very important question to ask ourselves when we do.

Here's the 5th Audio Article written by Ilise Benun of Marketing-Mentor.com  and read aloud by the author, "5 Steps to Finding the Right Clients." Listen to learn the secret to closing a deal with new clients by ushering them through a step-by-step qualifying process that weeds out the tire-kickers. Follow this tried-and-true formula to find the clients you really want to work with.

In today's podcast, The Marketing Mentor, Ilise Benun , chats with Heather Lloyd-Martin, SEO Writing expert and teacher of SEO copywriting, about what designers and writers really need to know about SEO plus the art of writing pages that both convert well and connect with web site visitors. Find more on the blog: http://marketing-mentor.com/blog  and at  seocopywriting.com

Here's the 4th Audio Article written by Ilise Benun of Marketing-Mentor.com and read aloud by the author, Closing the Deal: From Proposal to Contract. Listen to learn when to talk money, how to present your proposal, when to follow up and what to do if you don't get the gig. Find actual sample proposals in the  Marketing Mentor Toolbox .

Here's the third in a new series of "audio articles" written by Ilise Benun of Marketing-Mentor.com and read aloud by the author. There is more and more video being used by creatives to market their services, which makes sense. Because when it comes to showcasing your talent, seeing is often believing – and stills don't always do the trick. Bring a little movie magic to your self-promotion strateg...

Battling big egos and unfair deadlines? You're not alone. For small agencies and solopreneurs especially, one bad client can mean big problems, draining your resources and even harming your carefully built culture. In this podcast, Ilise Benun , of Marketing-Mentor.com, helps you spot the 4 red flags you should be watching for, plus 3 actions you can take for each. Watch the video presentation giv...

Here's the second in a new series of "audio articles" written by the Marketing Mentor, Ilise Benun and read aloud by the author. "Content marketing" is the latest buzzword, but should you be doing it? The answer is yes, but only if you do it right. Follow this guide to create a content-marketing plan that will lead to more exposure and better projects for your firm or freelance business.

Here's the first in a new series of "audio articles" written by the Marketing Mentor, Ilise Benun and read aloud by the author. The Art & Science of Pricing covers the basics of pricing for creative services, including the tools you need to price profitably (instead of desperately) as well as the intangibles that make up the "artistry" anyone can master. For more like this, check out The Pricing B...

The answer, according to Jake Jorgovan, web designer and intrepid freelancer, is an unqualified YES! In this interview with Ilise Benun, he shares how he kick started his business using oDesk + what and who online marketplaces are best for. For more like this, check out  www. Jake-Jorgovan.com

In this post-HOW Design Live/Creative Freelancer Business Conference podcast interview, Laura Foley (@LMFDesign &  lauramfoley.com ) generously shares so much, including what she learned from Jason Blumer about pricing her services and how she immediately used the 3-tier pricing structure to win a new project -- at the highest price.

In Part 2 of their conversation, Ilise Benun joins Jim Blasingame of Small Business Advocate, to discuss one of the most popular sessions from CFBC with Doug Dolan,  A Field Guide to Bad Clients.

In Part 1 of their conversation, Ilise Benun joins Jim Blasingame of Small Business Advocate, to discuss one of the most popular sessions from CFBC with Doug Dolan, A Field Guide to Bad Clients.

Marketing Mentor, Ilise Benun, talks with Corwin Hiebert about how to create a Business Action Plan, which is much simpler (and can be better for creative professionals) than a traditional business plan. Listen to this taste of his session at the 2014 CFBC/HOW Live, Creating a Business Action Plan. Details and sign up for the event in May in Boston here:  http://bit.ly/1eNEI0v  

Marketing Mentor, Ilise Benun, chats with Doug Dolan, communications strategist, writer and creative director about a cast of bad clients from the coin counter and the buck passer to the web searcher and the game changer, in preparation for his CFBC/HOW Live session, Solving Your Biggest Creative Problem: The Client. Details and sign up for the event this May in Boston here:  http://bit.ly/1eNEI0v...

Started by Jen Lombardi,  Kiwi Creative  (a small design firm outside Cleveland, Ohio) is now a firm of 6 people - and this growth was intentional. This is what Jen discusses with Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor, in this episode of the HOWLive/CFBC 2014 Speaker podcast series. Details and sign up for the event this May in Boston here:  http://bit.ly/1eNEI0v  

In this week’s podcast interview, Marketing Mentor Ilise Benun chats with Alina Wheeler, author of “Designing Brand Identity” on the latest survival strategy for the soul: Reinvention. At this year’s CFBC/HOW Design Live (2014), Alina will be sharing the process she’s used to reinvent herself, as well as lots of examples of people to use as role models for reinvention."

If you want to survive as a creative professional, you need to be one who understands business, especially the things in business that trump aesthetics. But how? That’s what Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor discusses with Douglas Davis, in this week’s installment of the HOWLive/CFBC 2014 Speaker podcast series. Details and sign up for the event this May in Boston here:  http://bit.ly/1eNEI0v

In the next installment of the HOWLive/CFBC 2014 Speaker podcast series, Ilise Benun of Marketing-Mentor.com  chats with Jason Blumer of BlumerCPAs.com  about the highly subjective art of pricing (especially value-based pricing) for creative services, plus many other topics he’ll be covering in his CFBC session this May in Boston. Details here:   http://bit.ly/1eNEI0v "

In this week’s podcast interview, Marketing Mentor, Ilise Benun, chats with Ed Gandia, of the International Freelancers Academy, about time-sucking clients and the things we procrastinate (i.e. tasks we hate, don’t do well and shouldn’t be doing in the first place). Details for his popular “Effortless Productivity” program (which starts  Feb. 27, 2014 ) here:  http://bit.ly/145e6UR

We all know that preparation is important -- but most people don't take the time to do enough of it. And the consequences often sting, especially when you're working with corporations whose culture often involves (and demands) lots of preparation. In this podcast, Dana Maciagli (in preparation for her HOWLive/CFBC 2014 session, Behind the Corporate Curtain!) shares with Marketing Mentor, Ilise Ben...

In this podcast, Marketing Mentor client, Tiffany Estes, of Whole Brain Creative , describes to Ilise Benun, her step by step process to choose and approach a select few of her existing clients about a retainer arrangement for more stability in her business and less anxiety in her life.

In this first podcast of 2014, Marketing Mentor, Illse Benun, interviews her client, marketing consultant and creative director, Jim Gorman of Gorman360 . Their wide-ranging conversation covers everything from Jim's uber-confident and clear, 3-storey elevator pitch to an in-depth discussion of 3 of his winning proposals, with which he won 4 retainer clients in his target market: the aviation indus...