Sales and Marketing Playing in the Same Sandbox

What the Heck is Sales 2.0 (& Why Should I Care)?   This post is written by Nigel Edelshain, CEO of Sales 2.0 (LLC) with a good sense of humor and relevant user-friendly analogies.

Sales and marketing DO play in the same sandbox, but as marketing opens the door - sales needs to "close" it and the deal.  He points out the ultimate requirement is the use of effective sales tools/strategies for best bottom line results.

Motivated Employees are More Productive Than Their Unmotivated Counterparts

As a small business owner, it is difficult to focus your energies in all the places they are needed when your  number one priority is the bottom line.  However, if you have employees who work for you, it would be in both yours' and your company's best interest to expend some of your energies on those employees.  Did you know that a motivated employee is more productive than an unmotivated one? 

Fostering a team mentality in your business will go a long way in your success. Team players work together towards a common goal. Why not make sure your employees are on your team?

Iran Bans Gmail

Big News:  Iran Shuts Down Gmail, Announces National E-Mail Service

Marketers Need to Understand the Power of Viral Videos

Green Buzz Agency is a strategic digital media company specializing in high quality Video Production Services.

"Organizations approach us wanting an online video presence, and typically choose the path of Client Testimonials, Product Demos, or something similar. Those are great choices, but the road less taken to brand loyalty is the Viral Video. WHY VIRAL VIDEOS?

1. Youth is still the magic demographic for marketers, and news flash, this generation of young people watch way less television than generations before. Millenials are too busy watching videos on YouTube. They typically don’t care who made those videos, or if they have an agenda, as long as the video is entertaining. If your company wants to boost its coolness factor while making a great first impression, then it is hard to ignore the viral video format.

2. They are cheap to produce. At least compared to other formats of online video or television. Weigh the cost of making a slick TV commercial with actors, a set, props, a big crew, and the ad time needed to air it versus twenty-five or so viral videos. Out of that large group of videos maybe you decide six will have a holiday shopping season theme, three a St. Patrick’s Day theme, and so on. This means you make a viral video whenever you want, which leads to the next point.

Read Marketers Need to Understand the Power of Viral Videos to find out more reasons why your business should use viral videos as part of your marketing strategy.

Thank you to Tod Plotkin for sharing his blog and valuable information.

Social Media Comedy

http://www.penn-olson.com/2009/12/08/6-hilarious-social-media-motivational-posters/

Branding as a Promise

A Brand is a Promise discusses the importance of making sure brands follow through on their promises. Greg Satell says: "Great companies build great brands by valuing their customers and wanting to make their lives better in some way". Read this post to see examples of big brands that hold true to their advertising promise. 

Help Tor the Non-Techies Like Me

I just found this great site for testing your HTML code: http://www.jmarshall.com/easy/html/testbed.html. If you are writing articles, some sites require you to use basic HTML code. If you want to make sure your links will appear correctly in your article,  you can use this tool - it really works!

Pepsi Chooses Social Media over Super Bowl Ad

This is huge! Everyone knows how Super Bowl ad space has been considered prime real estate for years. The cost of the ads alone proves this point. How will such a major brand's decision not to advertise during the Super Bowl affect the future of TV ads? Perhaps the cost to advertise will be reduced? What do you think? Check it out: Pepsi picks social media over Super Bowl ads.

Specific Sample Internet Marketing Techniques

Most small business owners know that they should be doing some form of Internet marketing but there are so many options to choose from. Dee Adams in 10 Tactical Online Marketing Techniques offers some very specific examples such as telling your prospects about your product by writing a product review, telling your prospects about a news-related story that will persuade them to purchase your product, and telling your prospects how close they are to benefitting from your product.

"Deer in the Headlights Trap"

Are you a small business owner?

Are you overwhelmed by the vast number of "things" to do on the Internet as part of your marketing efforts?

A common reaction to being overwhelmed is to become immobile and do nothing - just like a deer caught in your headlights. This is not a dig at anyone; it is more of an understanding of why some react to the whole idea of Internet marketing by doing nothing.

Many people don’t make decisions out of fear of making the wrong one. Unfortunately, this usually results in the biggest mistake of all – doing nothing! In business, this result can be quite costly. While you are procrastinating and continuing to evaluate all your choices, your competitors are out there making things happen. Will some of your choices be wrong? Absolutely! But as long as you own up to, recognize and learn from your mistakes, you will still be one step ahead of where you would have been had you done nothing.

Keep in mind that nothing you do is etched in stone and can be modified, changed or even deleted (Unless you have spent tons of money putting up a huge billboard. That might be a little more difficult to just "erase"). Take for example, re-designing your website. If you look at this as more of a process than a task with a definite beginning and a definite ending, you will be more comfortable taking the necessary steps in this process to get to your desired goal - a newly designed, well-optimized website. But even when you think you are done, you are not done. You will more than likely be adding content to your site, you might want to make some design changes, you might want to re-design your logo, your tagline, etc. Don’t be afraid to make a decision on the design or content because it might be the wrong one. It more than likely will be the wrong one, so expect to make many wrong choices along your way to finding a better one. It is all part of the process.

4 Ways to Make a Fool of Yourself on Twitter

4 Ways to Make a Fool of Yourself on Twitter

SCORE

SCORE is the premier source for small business advice and counseling in America. SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide.

From its formal inception SCORE has been focused on the American dream of small business ownership. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Small Business Act into law in 1953 and the Small Business Administration, or SBA, was created. The law said the federal government “should aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business.” Recognizing a need of small business owners, the SBA, in 1964, officially launched SCORE as a national volunteer group with 2,000 Volunteers. By 1978 SCORE was providing small business counseling services to 2 million Americans. In 2005, SCORE assisted its 7 millionth client—a milestone of service to America’s aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. Read full article here.

If you would like a SCORE mentor for your business or would like to be a volunteer counselor, simply visit the national SCORE website and follow the instructions there.

Small Business Internet Marketing: The Entrepreneurial Dichotomy

Stereotyping might be considered in some cases to be unfair and in truth, sometimes it is. You can’t assume any one individual is a certain way because they belong to a group that is known to have certain stereotypical characteristics. Rather, there is often a common characteristic that usually defines a certain group of people – the operative word being “usually”. There are always exceptions. Entrepreneurs tend to share common personality attributes that are often double-edged swords.

It is important to distinguish between entrepreneurs and those who are self-employed. The entrepreneur wants to grow companies and the self-employed want to earn their income working for themselves. Not all small business owners are entrepreneurs but all entrepreneurs start out being small business owners. Here are some common characteristics of entrepreneurs with explanations of how one characteristic can be both positive and negative at the same time.

Strong Sense of Urgency

Entrepreneurs thrive on activity and are enthusiastic to develop and implement their ideas. They are creative. But they can also be inpatient, intolerant, tense and uneasy when others don’t share the same sense of urgency or don’t respond as quickly as the entrepreneur wants them to.

High Level of Intelligence

Entrepreneurs are extremely knowledgeable in their area of expertise – they have to be in order to successfully run their business. But sometimes this high level of intelligence does not correlate with other important aspects of running a successful business like effective communication skills and good customer service

Autonomous

Many entrepreneurs do not function well in structured organizations where there are strict company-specific rules and regulations to follow, including having to answer to an authority figure other than themselves. Most believe they can do the job better than anyone else. They have a strong need to do things their own way with the freedom to choose and act according to their own criteria. They are often creative geniuses who have unique and innovative ideas but aren’t always able to communicate these ideas clearly for anyone to be able to effectively execute them. They know exactly what they want and can become extremely intolerant and impatient if their employees are unable to read their minds.

Self Confidence

Entrepreneurs are self-confident. They have to be in order to think they can make it in the business world. But when that self-confidence steps over the boundary into arrogance, there could be some negative consequences. Arrogant people don’t consider anyone else’s ideas to have value – they know best. They are difficult to work with and inflexible because it is their way or the highway. Entrepreneurs have to be their own biggest fan because they are often working alone or with only a small group of people. Self confidence can actually be a triple-edged sword.

Interpersonal Relationships

“Work - work - work” – that is the entrepreneur’s mantra. They are over achievers who never find enough hours in the day to get their work done. Their strong work ethic oftentimes interferes with their personal relationships and their interpersonal skills. Entrepreneurs are single-minded when it comes to their business – they will do whatever they have to do in order to be successful and they expect everyone who works for them to do the same. Needless-to-say, personal relationships often suffer when all one does is work. In addition, many entrepreneurs have lousy people skills and are more concerned with what their employees accomplish rather than how they are feeling. This insensitivity and lack of empathy is not received well by the entrepreneur’s employees.

Need to Control

This is usually a main reason entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs. They are risk-takers whose primary motivation is growth. Coupled with high intelligence levels, strong work ethic, high level of confidence and strong sense of urgency, the entrepreneur’s need to control can be very effective. But, their lack of empathy, inability to delegate (because no one can do it better than they can) and intolerance may have negative consequences. In all fairness to the entrepreneur, before they feel comfortable enough delegating tasks to an employee, they need to have the confidence in that person’s ability to get the job done. But if their interpersonal skills are inadequate, how will the entrepreneur be able to develop a good enough relationship with an employee to be able to ascertain that employee’s competence?

Goal-Oriented

Success is the goal of the entrepreneur – sometimes success at any price. Success is the only acceptable result. Many entrepreneurs don’t have managerial experience and are unable to mentor subordinates effectively in order to foster a team spirit. This can lead to dissatisfaction and frustration on the part of the employee. The entrepreneur doesn’t understand and won’t accept that employees don’t always share the same drive and aren’t willing to live by the “work - work - work” mantra of the entrepreneur. Why should they? They don’t own the company.

Entrepreneurs are highly motivated, goal-oriented, high-energy, super-focused, visionary, driven, self-confident people who set high standards for themselves and for those who work for them. But they can also be intolerant of minor mistakes, have over-inflated egos, unwilling to consider someone else’s point of view, and unable to develop and maintain solid interpersonal relationships. The very characteristics that can lead to the entrepreneur’s success, might also lead to failure.

Social Media Marketing: Narrow the Gap Between Perception and Reality

Take the Brand Perception Snap Shot quiz now:

• What five words do you use to describe your brand today?
• What five words do your customers use to describe your business today?
• What five words do you WANT your customers to use to describe your brand?

From Build Your Brand, Build Your Business

Small Business Internet: Marketing Harsh Cold Facts

Attention small business owners! You need to be where your customers are because your competitors are already there.

5 reasons why small business should embrace social media.

Reputation Management

Nice to find positive scores when checking on your own reputation management: 

Measure Your Web Presence For Free

Lessons to be Learned from our Four-Legged Friends

Wouldn't the world be a much better place if people were as loving, as non-judgemental and as appreciative as our pups? 

Read The Muse and Views: Our four legged friends for more inspiration on the lessons to be learned from our four-legged friends.

 

Facebook: What You Post Might Come Back to Haunt You

Facebook is the largest social networking website intended to connect friends, family, and business associates. However, it can also work against you if you are not careful with what you post. 

In the case of the teen who was facing drunk driving charges - I think justice prevailed with her over-share. Check it out: Judge uses Facebook to condemn drunk teen

Business Logo Design and New Marketing Trends

In the time of yesteryears, marketing and advertising was done in limited ways. Posters and billboards were the first instruments of advertising that were used with great efficacy followed by print media advertising in which newspapers and other periodicals were used. Subsequently, the introduction of radio and ultimately the television gave a phenomenal boost to advertising as a particular line of work.

In the modern world, the internet has proven to be the final frontier for marketing and advertising with a significant potential of growth. The term new media is quite fittingly attributed to this medium of advertising for its dynamic and diverse characteristics.

With the advent of trademarks which are nowadays referred to as logos or logo designs, advertising and marketing campaigns took a new turn. While the advertising field was witnessing rapid evolution, awareness about the significance of business logo design was also developing on a fast pace. From shops to farms and small business setups to large organizations, business minded people became intrinsically aware of what a business logo design was capable of being.

This was the time when a business logo design was beginning to be used effectively as a promotional tool. In place of lengthy messages on large placards or giant size hoardings, smaller posters showing a business logo design alongside a short slogan did the job well. With the passage of time, more and more organizations began emphasizing on their logo designs. Entrepreneurs started taking particular interest in the development of their business logo design.

At the present time, business logo design has become a prominent feature of branding and is being efficiently utilized as a very important tool for marketing and promotion. Article source