I started this article on the way back from Scottsdale, AZ the day after two of the biggest sports events in the U.S. ended on the same day in the same town. The day, outside of writing, was spent taking part in a sort of “luggage treasure hunt” sponsored by my favorite low cost airline, but that’s another story. Should the small, medium enterprise ( SME ) sector advertise? Should large enterprise advertise? A much different question, but from a directional perspective the following test can be both fun at parties, and quite telling. Ready? But, first you have to…

Let’s face it, what is a good idea? To any one of us, it is based on our entire world view. The answer stems from our collective experience. Every day we have ideas to improve our businesses. Some we write down, others we file in the hard drive of our brain and others we let slip away. The point is we need to be always searching for that good idea that will help grow our business. Where can you get this good idea? Is there a good idea store out there? Maybe there is a good idea pill. The fact…

For those of you that have seen the movie “Ray”, you might recall the scenes in which Ray Charles feels the wrist of young ladies he has been introduced to. Singer, musician Ray Charles was blind. Today, we are all a bit blind when it comes to how we are doing relative to fundamental marketing goals, such as; Generating Awareness, Building Interest, Facilitating Trial Sales and Sustaining Repeat Sales. So, like Ray, we are looking for “signals” from which we can design. But, how do we get those signals? In many cases there simply is no wrist from which to…

You may have recognised, that in the past few years, the way which we communicate, share ideas and exchange value has dramatically changed. People are discounting messages they encounter through the media, more than ever and marketers are forced to interact with customers on a wide variety of different channels. This, combined with the newfound power of individuals through social media, has called for a new definition to serve marketing practitioners and academics more appropriately. Recently I was contacted by Christine Heath on behalf of the American Marketing Association and informed of a revision of the definition of marketing. It…

Before 1984, graphic design could boast that it was a discipline, something valuable in the hands of a competent designer. Then came desktop publishing and the graphic design brand started its gradual decline. Today anyone with a computer and a few hundred dollars in software believe themselves to be proficient in the execution of graphic design. What got me writing about this, was a comment in a recent post from a graphic design listserve that I get daily in my email. The listserve is populated with graphic designers from across Canada. One person wrote in that her nephew in his…

A small business constantly worries about where its next client is coming from. Without dedicated sales people typically, most entrepreneurs generate leads themselves amidst their multitude of other business functions including servicing existing client accounts. Often without professional sales experience, the small business owner (myself included) would be remiss to turn away some helpful tips on how to sell effectively. With this in mind, I took some time to interview a proven sales professional. Following is my interview with Kenneth Barns, founder of Breaking the Sales Bottleneck (BTSB) Consulting (www.breakingthesalesbottleneck.com): Kevin: What sales challenges do you see the small business…

The thought started with a knife, recently sent by a small to medium enterprise ( SME ) client with a small note, which read “What do you think of the logo treatment?”, and blossomed from there. I’m new here, so we’ll see how it smells. A kind gift some might say, and I thought so too, until I began to percolate on it a bit, and speculatively explore the relevance between the gift and the clients brand building strategy. Then, the more I percolated, the more I came to the conclusion that there was no relevance. The knife was nice…

Now that you’ve committed yourself to being a “Doer”, let’s see if we can get your message out there in a way that gets attention and effectively tells your story. Once you have discovered what your point of differentiation is, chances are your next biggest hurdle is going to be delivering that message. You are going to want to present yourself as professionally as your budget allows and I believe that any budget can deliver effective results. Even if it is as simple as a one page flyer, you can deliver a very professional image. If you yourself do not…

In business it mainly comes down to money for most things. How much do you make in a wage? How much does your company turn over? What does the accountant say is the bottom line at the year end? But do you ever think about how much you could be saving? As someone who takes negoiating for our clients very seriously it comes as second nature now NOT to pay full price for anything! Oh ok it could just be that I’m a Yorkshire woman, born of a Scot that I’m so very tightfisted, but I’m not about to apologise…

Branding is an imperative in business today if you intend to make your company stand out from the crowd. Many businesses (large or entrepreneurial) take this to mean a slick logo or a graphically pleasing website. These promotional/branding mechanisms are important and should be considered, however, one of my personal favorite means of branding a business and its offerings (primarily applicable for business-to-business organizations serving other businesses) is to leverage the PowerPoint medium. The ability it affords for you to develop and display graphical models/images that speak volumes about your business and the value your products and services provide, make…