Doggin' Miami; Where To Hike With Your Dog When In Magic City


Until recently dogs were not allowed in any of Miamis parks but here and there a park
is allowing dogs in now. There are quite a few dog parks in Miami, both official and
unofficial.

One is a five-acre Bark Park with paved walkways, benches, shade trees, waste
dispenser stations, and specially designed drinking and spray fountains for dogs and
their owners at Amelia Earhart Park. This dog-friendly oasis can be found at 401 East
65th Street in Hialeah.

Fifteen minutes to the north, canine hikers can get on the trails at Oleta River State
Park. Historically the river, originally called Big Snake Creek, linked the Everglades with
Biscayne Bay and was an important transportation route. Pineapples and vegetables
were grown along its banks. The river no longer flows north to the Everglades but
many of its primoridal features can still be seen in the 1,043-acre park, the largest
urban park in Florida.

There are more than ten miles of trails in dog-friendly Oleta River State Park, most of
which are heavily used by mountain bikers. Many of the trails run along the Biscayne
Bay. Some trails are posted as bike only but with the lack of general canine hiking in
the Miami area, this is still a good place to bring your dog.

Oleta River State Park can be found at 3400 N.E. 163rd Street, off I-95.

30 Seconds to Explosive Networking & Sales Results


This is probably one of the most important things that you will ever do for you and your business. It will definitely have the biggest impact of anything you have ever done.

This activity is to help you not only create a 30 second elevator speech, but to better understand what you really do. It will define your USP (Unique selling proposition). This usually even changes my clients vision of who they are and what they do for their customers.

See the worksheet on the back.

1. Column One Products, Services or Features

List your products/services, probably what you are currently telling me what you do or sell. Write down all of them.

2. Column Two Benefits

List the benefits that your products, services or features provide. Each benefit should be directly linked to the product identified in Column One. Look to answer the question Why should someone buy the product, service or features.

3. Column Three Why Buy From Me?

Identify what makes you unique in the sea of sameness where you can find hundreds of businesses selling the same products, services or features. Avoid price as may become a losing strategy.

4. Column Four Measurable Results

This is where the rubber meets the road, where the real power statement will be found. Review the previous 3 columns and list the measurable results that your products of services deliver.

This will turn the benefitsthe Why buy the product? and Why buy it from me? into a measurable result (make sure it is a result not an activity). This will do more than just improve your networking and marketing. It will make it so powerful that once you start using it youll have people running up to you after a networking eventHow do you do that?.Can you REALLY do that? And that IS what youre trying to do isnt it, Getting noticed?

For most of my clients there is someone just like you on every street corner. Imagine for a moment that you are standing on a street corner with hundreds of other people. They all are the same height, same hair color, same skin color, and even wearing the same clothes. Rather daunting to think someone could find you in that crowd isnt it?

Well.thats your job. To be found on that street corner. And, for most of my clients, that is where they, and their businesses, are standing.in that very crowd.

Our job from this point forward is two-fold:

1) Be the first person anyone sees when they walk up to that street corner.

2) And eventually, have people coming to THAT street corner just to find you. They know YOU are on that street corner so they come THERE just for you.

Does this your perception of the hundreds on the street cornerand your business? It does for those that find that measurable result from column 4 and start using it.

Most of your competitors talk about their products. Your job is to be different, to find what your prospect needs, what benefits and solutions your product provides to meet those needs, and then why buy the product from you. What are the products benefits, and YOUR benefits? And then turn that into something that is so visible, so powerful and grabbing but talking about measurable results that people can't help but come up to you to ask, "How do you do that?", or occasionally, "Nah! No way...Not really...Can You Really Do that?"

I want you to consider this worksheet as a work in progress. These questions and answers should generate thoughts that keep changing and getting better over time. For the first pass, get something down. Dont worry about perfection. Get it down. Well come back after youve finished the entire sheet and probably change those answers. We will come back tomorrow, and weeks later with better and better answers. This exercise generates thoughts that will drive you to improve them and what you perceive as the deliverable to your customer.

Usually the first pass results in a weak, wishy-washy response to Why buy the product? and Why buy it from me? Once we are forced to put a measurable on it we start thinking differently.

More often than not my client says,

You mean Ive got to actually COMMIT to that? or

I dont have any control over that.

YES committing to that IS what will make you stand out on that corner, and ultimately that IS what the client THINKS you are delivering. Up til now youve allowed the customer to come to his own conclusion about what results hell get. People buy you on the value they perceive you deliver. So help them find your value and define clearly what you deliver. Your prospect will literally chase you to get that result.

Watch your networking and marketing results go through the roof!