If you’re like a lot of companies, you may think great brands can be intentionally made. No matter how hard you may try – you come up with an idea and try to control how the public uses that idea – ultimately your brand will be determined by that audience, NOT YOU. All you can do is deliver or not on the promise of why that idea exists. How well you deliver, influences your brand. That authenticity is what you have control over. How it is perceived is what the public controls, and that perception is YOUR BRAND, like it…

“This is pretty cool”, I thought as we went through this mile long document filled with legalese together with the representative on the phone. Oh, make no mistake. Legal documents do not make my heart skip a beat – not unless some long lost relative bequeaths me a fortune (tough). But what I did find interesting was the system the law firm used to obtain our signatures digitally to seal the deal quickly. We often have a need to sign NDA’s, Joint Venture agreements and Independent Contractor agreements. This sometimes is a pain because many freelancers don’t have faxes and…

Here’s an interesting issue. James is an affiliate who sends a company leads to a page where the prospect shall complete a form requesting for – something free. Once the prospect does that and is considered a ‘good’ lead, James gets paid his commission. This is a pretty classic cost-per-action campaign or pay-per-lead affiliate program. Nothing wrong with it right? But what if… The lead is ‘rejected’ by the company. Maybe because the form wasn’t complete or the prospect did not complete all the required steps because they changed their minds. The prospect doesn’t receive his freebie and James doesn’t…

How many people do you know who long to be in their own business? They have lots of great ideas and yearn to “be my own boss.” They put a lot of energy in dreaming and wondering if this will be their ticket to financial freedom. I had the opportunity (I use this word lightly) to meet one of these dreamers the other day. They had that great idea that was going to do it for them. We shared a conversation over coffee. Essentially it was a web-based business, lots of coding etc. I said I’d investigate and can back…

Everything that touches your brand affects it. How you market it, is the voice of your brand. Positioning is the stand you take. Community involvement is the heart of your brand. Brand perception is reality to your audience. How stake holders describe and talk about you has some impact on your brand standing and the perception factor. With all these influencers (and more that I haven’t mentioned) there are any number of barriers that affect your brand’s success. Your job ( and a mighty big one) is to minimize any negative impact these influencers may have. Some of these are…

Lowest price guaranteed! We will not be undersold! If you find a lower price we will… Competing on price, not something we all relish. If you’re a discount store, it is part of your brand values. It’s what gets ’em in your door. For the rest of us, it’s something that can easily drive us out of business. Reducing our business to a commodity, is a horrible place to be. That’s especially true if the other guy is willing to buy the business or sell below their cost in an effort to outlast you. (who has the deeper pockets). In…

Too many things run on wifi these days – even cameras! But practically for an entrepreneur, it would certainly be nice to use your existing hardware to connect your netbook, iPad, Kindle or whatever devices from anywhere. I know I would love to have this option and so set out to find out what is available out there. This is one area where Windows Mobile phone owners have a leg up. Considering how many applications and services these days are iPhone and Droid only, this really came as quite a surprise. Here are my findings. iPhone I suppose this has…

One of the many hats I wear is a Girl Scout troop co-leader. Even though it is a volunteer position, we are part of a large non-profit organization and that doesn’t make our day-to-day business challenges that different from for profit organizations. For example, one of my biggest challenges is to properly share information with my troop leader and new co-leaders. This is very much like the core team in our business. Throughout the year, we are always on the look out for fun venues and activities the girls can participate in. Museums, farms, skating rinks, tours or cooking classes.…

My wife has been declaring to the world via Twitter and Facebook each time she tackles tasks that are outside her comfort zone. As any good spouse does, I listen to her talk herself through those fears – OK maybe sometimes I do zone out a little. I’ll admit, I don’t really understand some of her worries because she’s great at what she does and others are hard for me to identify because I don’t struggle with the same things. But, I can tell you, those fears are very real for her. Today, I see she’s challenging herself again by…

Just because you’re on vacation and lounging at the beach doesn’t mean your brand has to relax too. Here are ten ways you can promote your brand when you’re supposed to be relaxing: 1: Build a sand model of your store or office. 2: This one’s for the ladies. Get a one piece suit and using an exact-o knife cut out a stencil of your brand logo. Next time you wear a two-piece suit your logo will be in a nice golden brown against your lighter skin. 3. Buy the beach volleyball team playing near-by some drinks and get them…