Authority and Reputation Marketing Agency

Instantly Optimize Your Credibility & Trust with Authority Marketing & Positioning

Mike Saunders holds an MBA in Marketing and serves the small and medium-sized business market. In addition to coaching and consulting clients in his firm Marketing Huddle LLC,  he teaches Marketing as an Adjunct Marketing Professor at 3 Universities. Read Forbes bio

I specialize in providing highly targeted, optimized campaigns for my clients.

As an Authority Positioning Strategist, I assess your corporate vision and install a unified-strategic online marketing blueprint. The result is that ALL of your marketing will  resonate powerfully with your target audience so that they fully understand why you are the obvious choice! Whether it is a powerful authority news release in the press, being interviewed on a respected business online radio show or getting your 1st book published on Kindle and paperback, WITHOUT writing a word. (with my “Podcast Publish System”) and running a powerful Best-Seller campaign….you will be seen as an expert which opens more doors to closing more business!

My Team helps you build Authority Positioning and become recognized as an Expert in your field because this Credibility brings with it great opportunity! From speaking, generating quality referrals, commanding higher fees and closing more sales. What sets me apart from other business advisers is that I combine personalized MBA-level marketing strategy, cutting-edge tactics & execute your marketing plan for you allowing you to stay focused on your key tasks. I am a Talk Show Host at Business Innovators Radio & contributing iReporter for National publications covering business professionals in a variety of industries.

I would be delighted to speak with you to learn more about your company and share some ideas on how I can help you reach your goals.

OK, How about a little about me? Reflecting back on what brought me to this point in my career:

I grew up in Virginia and remember the financial struggle my parents dealt with after losing their home in foreclosure because of a bad business deal my Father’s boss put him in. We went to live with my Grandparents in their basement apartment, and it was nice enough with a kitchenette, bathroom and 1 bedroom. This was pretty tight quarters with my parents and sister and I…and I kid you not, since there was not enough room, I slept in the workshop. Right next to the lathe and workbench! I didn’t realize it them, but this time in my life really made me realize that I would do everything I could to keep this from ever happening to my family. Looking back, it actually was a motivating experience…because it was something I didn’t ever want to have!

During college I got involved in a network marketing company and still remember going to a friend at church asking his advice, as I am typing this his name just popped into my mind: Sam Conway,…anyway, he said MLM can be summarized as “unrealistic expectations! I ended up getting involved and definitely found that to be true but I did take away some powerful life lessons like the “standing order” which was a monthly success recording and I also was taught to read great books like “Think and Grow Rich” and “Thinking Big”. Although I never saw the success that some do in network marketing I do think it was a great training ground for me!

Fast forward 10 years: After graduating from college at Liberty University, I made some very poor financial decisions regarding the use of credit cards. Even though my parents taught me the dangers of consumer debt, I still wanted to have all the “stuff” I wanted and in about 4 years ended up with over $35,000 in credit card debt with minimum monthly payments as much as my mortgage payment! I even made an appointment with a Bankruptcy attorney to file Chapter 13, but sitting in the office filling out the info sheet on the clipboard it hit me that I just couldn’t do that. I decided to tough it out and make it work, and I don’t have an easy answer or a spectacular story of how “this one little idea turned into hundreds of thousands of dollars”…because in life that type of story is just plain rare!

What I did is become diligent like Proverbs teaches about the success of the diligent, so in my job with my new Wife, I just put my nose to the grindstone and worked hard, then when I was tired of working hard….I kept at it! We had moved from Virginia to Colorado where my Wife’s family is from, and stayed with her parents until our house sold thinking a few weeks in close quarters wouldn’t be too bad. But the housing market in 1998 in Virginia wasn’t all that great and it turned out to be 8 months and after our 1st baby arrived (still living in her parents extra bedroom) we decided to buy our own place even though we would have 2 mortgage payments. While finances were tight, the job I had, provided opportunities to earn sales commissions and it was during this time that we were able to systematically pay off each and every credit card! In fact as we wrote the check for each final payment on each card we literally took the statement out to the back yard and burned it signifying that we would never get into that situation again. And we never did! In fact, because of my constant desire to learn sales and marketing and just devouring books and audio programs, I began to see a trend that I slowly started to build on in my marketing. It turned out that setting up automated marketing systems kept me busy with new prospects and clients. As I kept improving my marketing I achieved many awards and trips and even was the #1 Producer in the entire country 2 years in a row for the major financial institution I worked for.

We were blessed during this time in my career, not only with 3 more children, but also such an dramatic increase in commissions, that were were able to pay off all credit card debt. I just kept thinking of living in my Grandfather’s workshop and I didn’t want to ever have a chance of letting that happen to my family! When the “Credit Crisis” hit our economy in October 2007, it became clear to me that business would never be the same and I decided to enroll in an MBA in Marketing to expand my potential future. One of the motivating factors in making this decision was my Wife’s encouragement, and the other was my Father who at age 60 had just finished his PHD in International Business! So I figured at age 40 I could handle my MBA! It was through my MBA program that caused me to create the Marketing Huddle and bring together all of the critical marketing tools and strategy that I had tested and tried over the years that had proven to be so successful. Building off of that foundation by adding the cutting-edge technology that we have available to us today truly allows the business owner and sales professional to make great strides in achieving their business goals by finally taking care of their marketing!

How did the Marketing Huddle get started? At the age of 40 with a Wife and 4 small kids I decided to start my MBA in Marketing to better my career. After the initial group of classes (the boring ones!) I got into the Marketing Core and the 1st project was to create a Business and Marketing Plan for any business we wanted. I thought about it, and decided to choose a Marketing Coaching firm because I had noticed over the years so many Small Business Owners and Sales Professionals who just don’t market consistently.  As the project progressed and the plan took shape, the company Marketing Huddle just came to life, and actually began to attract clients because some of the coursework required surveying potential clients on their marketing needs. When people I knew found out that I was getting my MBA in Marketing and saw the vision of the Coaching firm that had been created, they naturally began to ask how it could help them.

Who are your clients?

I specialize in serving Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, Sales Professionals and Chiropractors. This is a passion of mine because there is so great of a need in this area of marketing for them. Typically this group cannot afford to hire a marketing department or high-priced consultant like “the big-boys”. When you think about it, a Sales Professional such as a College Financial Planner or Accountant are small business owners in their mind-set because they must make the same budgeting, sales, planning decisions that the brick-and-mortar business owner must. Neither group has the luxury of having sales leads and prospects handed to them on a silver platter, and while they run the daily business grind, they must consistently day-in-and-day-out market their products and services or else they lose momentum. For most business owners, it just does not get done and their business either suffers, or is held back because of that lack of marketing focus.

After joining the Colorado Chiropractic Association and interviewing chiropractors on my podcast, seeing the torrents of life changing reviews and testimonials (literally) come in for my chiropractor clients using my review marketing software ChiroRep….that’s a story for another day! And then working with a new client who directed and produced “Chiropractic the documentary”…. the light came on for me. The chiropractic profession delivers results that change lives. Period. Impacting quality of life in a positive way is a noble art and I decided to focus my marketing and authority building expertise to help
As an Authority Marketing Expert, I help Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, Sales Professionals and Chiropractors build and market a powerful Authority Positioning Platform to set themselves apart from their competition.

While these are extremely important areas, for the typical small business owner today …they just need to get more business in the door. They don’t really care whether their logo has blue or red in it. What is needed is the ability to generate new prospects who are interested in their products and services. Then since statistics document that only 3% of those people are ready to buy from you now, there needs to be a way to keep in touch with the 80%-90% that will buy sometime in the next 3-6 months. You want them to choose your company.  Additionally, business owners tend to ignore the people that already have given them cash, their current customer base. By adding just one simple marketing tool, these customers can be alerted of specials and coupons that get them back in the store or buying from you again. Cross-sell a different product that compliments what they bought, up-sell a larger version of the same product, or merely remind them you are still there! Since it costs 5-7 times more money to get a new customer, more emphasis needs to be given to the customers you already have to easily increase bottom line profits.

I want to work with businesses who have a strong desire to break out of past patterns and are willing to learn a new way of doing things in order to get the results they desire in their business. Being extremely ambitious myself, I’m known to work best with people who want to go after big goals and make a huge transition in their lives within a single year, I team up with you to support you in achieving what you most want in your business.

What type of person is the program NOT going to work for?

Please know that I am very selective in whom I work with, choosing to turn away those I feel are not suited for this program and won’t get the results they or I want to achieve. Some people are simply not ready to take responsibility and action in their business, and that is fine, we just want to identify this upfront to save us both time and energy. The types of persons I will not work with (without exception) are the whiner or chronic skeptic, as well as individuals who consistently make excuses for not getting their actions done or challenging every aspect of the program. If you are one of these people, I gently and respectfully ask you not to call and I hope you understand why. My experience is that we won’t work well together, and I don’t want you to waste your time or money. I think it is fair for you to know this up front rather than to be disappointed in our working together.

Does This Really Work, and How Can I Get the Results I Need?

In a word, Yes! But let’s be honest…even the most productive diet in the world will not help you shed the pounds if you don’t follow the program!  Understand that this is not a “quick fix,” it’s not magic and it takes time to create lasting change. All of my clients who have diligently applied themselves to implementing these tools in their business have experienced the success they needed in much less time than they would have on their own.

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