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Mind Your Own Business
November, 2024 - Issue #235
courtesy of Shutterstock
courtesy of Shutterstock

When Should You Revisit your Estate Plan?
When people create an estate plan, they feel relieved and don't revisit the plan for years. Even the best-made plan will need to be revised from time to time. While your life might change, your estate plan does not. Here are some good reasons to schedule a visit with your estate planning attorney to review your estate plan and make updates, if needed.
1. Your intentions and desires have changed significantly from when the plan was made
2. A child or grandchild becomes an adult and is mature enough to act as your agent
3. A new child or grandchild is born or adopted
4. Marriage or divorce, whether your own or of your child
5. A key person moves closer or farther away
6. Substantial rises or declines in the value of your assets
7. Purchasing a house or other significant asset
8. Illness or diagnosis where incapacity or death is possible in the near future
9. Changes in federal or state tax and probate laws
Reviewing your estate plan on a regular basis, particularly following major life events, is the best way to ensure your legacy and assets are passed on in accordance with your wishes.
Yeager Law Estate Planning & Probate 471-2177
Valencia Acura
Valencia Acura

Gratitude this Fall
Keeping You Safe on the Road

As fall brings a season of reflection and gratitude, Valencia Acura is thankful for the opportunity to help protect you and your family on every journey. Safety is not just a feature - it's personal, and it's a priority for every Acura vehicle. This unwavering commitment drives Acura to develop innovative safety technologies that provide peace of mind on the road. At the core of Acura's design is the Advanced Compatibility Engineering™ (ACE™) body structure, crafted to absorb crash energy and protect the cabin, shielding what matters most - your loved ones.
Knowing that every vehicle carries your most precious cargo, Acura aims to deliver top-rated safety for you and your family. Each year, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) evaluates vehicles on crashworthiness and crash avoidance. Acura was the first luxury brand to receive the highest safety ratings across its entire lineup, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) awarding Acura a 5-Star Overall Vehicle Score. The new TLX models come standard with AcuraWatch® technology, while MDX models offer an expanded suite of advanced safety and driver-assistive features.
This fall, Valencia Acura is grateful for the trust you place in them to keep you safe. Visit Santa Clarita's Friendship Dealership, where dedicated sales consultants are ready to guide you through the state-of-the-art safety features that come standard in every Acura model.
Valencia Acura 255-3000
courtesy of Shutterstock
courtesy of Shutterstock

Why your Social Media Strategy is Never Going to Work
by Therese Edwards
Instead of asking, "Where did the year go?" in the fall, I encourage my clients to change that question to, "Where do I want to take my business next year - and how am I going to get there?" More often than not, the answer to that question lies in marketing, public relations and overall brand visibility strategies. In this article, I'll lightly cover one of the topics I get asked about the most that tie into all of the above: social media.
As a university professor in my field, I spend a lot of time teaching the world's future marketers today's best practices - and we invest a good portion of the semester on social channels. Why? Because most companies - especially small businesses - do it wrong. Like: really, really wrong. Here are just a few ways you're not optimizing your social media.
Your bio isn't SEO optimized; it's about you instead of your client; it's clever instead of clear.
You're posting every day - even though your engagement is low and new followers are hard to come by.
You're trying to be "everywhere," instead of where your best clients hang out, so you're doing a lot of different things on different social channels with varying levels of success and plenty of burnout.
You hired a social media manager who is lovely to work with and makes "good content" that gets very little engagement or sales when you should have put that contractor or salary money into a really good ad in new or traditional media that actually converts. (Hint: Your social media manager is likely the last person who should be hired to create and manage ads.).
You don't actually have a social media strategy beyond, "post more and pray."
Your social media content is not in brand alignment and the incongruence is confusing your clients and slowing sales.
You're not thinking about how new algorithm SEO should change how you use your social channels; your social strategy has been the same since 2022.
Your social strategy isn't plugged into a thoughtfully-constructed sales funnel in a way that makes the client experience easy, profitable and pleasant to navigate.
You are using a "borrowed" channel - unless you own Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc. - without a strategy to transition those leads to one of your owned channels, like a newsletter.
Your overall brand messaging has never been adequately refined and now you're using social to amplify those same poorly-crafted messages that aren't differentiated from your competition; aren't communicative of your value; and/or "are just bad."
I say that last one with a lot of love and a reminder that you likely are an expert in your field, like I'm an expert in mine, and you shouldn't be expected to nail messaging... or any of this, really. It's endlessly odd to me that, during client consultations, a chef or an inventor or an attorney will say to me, "Why is this so hard to do right? Why can't I 'get' this?" as if I could walk into a professional kitchen and whip up a Yelp-approved souffle or engineer anything or defend myself adequately in court. You're excellent at what you do - that's why you have a business. Choose to work with marketing professionals who are equally excellent at what they do - and don't stress about "not doing it right" yourself.
Therese Edwards has taught marketing and public relations at the university level for 23 years and has served Southern California small- and medium-sized organizations as a business strategist for over two decades. Have a marketing question? E-mail her at tedwards@insidescv.com.
Mercedes-Benz of Valencia
Mercedes-Benz of Valencia

Acing the Test of Time
Mercedes-Benz G-Class

Exquisitely crafted, still almost entirely by hand, the G-Class keeps advancing without abandoning its principles or its presence. From its rugged ladder frame to its signature round headlamps, the G-Class was invented to defy the limitations of time zones... and time itself. Its shape, always driven by its function, is refined with new attention to aesthetics and aerodynamics. And yet it never needs to be redefined. Its sense of adventure continues to ace the test of time.
Mercedes-Benz of Valencia 753-5555
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