Posts Tagged ‘business’

Do you use the back of your business card? And I don’t mean for writing notes on! I mean to inspire, to sell or to explain; to create impact, add intrigue or simply to appeal to your target audience.

So many businesses miss out on this opportunity, and yet it doesn’t actually cost very much more. For about £35 you can massively increase the impact of your business cards, just by putting something on the back. That something might be a photograph, block colour like in the example, a piece from your logo or an illustration. It might be a quote, a question to get people thinking or simple your strapline or website. Either way, it’s another opportunity to capture peoples attention and imagination. It’s another opportunity to sell your business. And it certainly creates impact.

In fact, why wouldn’t you use the back of your card? I was talking to someone yesterday who protested that having information on both sides was annoying. That he stored his cards in a plastic file and having to take them out to retrieve information was frustrating. I agree. I’m not suggesting that you put important information on the front and back because that does get annoying. What I’m suggesting is that you use the back to sell yourself.

Secondly he commented that block colour on the back of a card was annoying. But why? “Because I often like to write on the back of cards.”. Now people say this a lot. Think about it, when was the last time you wrote on the back of your card before you handed it to someone? Thought not. People usually want to write on the back of your business card because they want to sell you something. Why would you miss out on creating impact with your business card just so that someone can sell you something?

So go on, be brave, use both sides of your business cards and make yourself stand out from the crowd.

Tagged as , business, cards, design, how, to in Branding, Graphic Design

Rachel was at a networking event today and came back absolutely delighted that one of our clients was singing our praises – she couldn’t have been more complementary – talking to people about the blog, the newsletters and our Idea Magazine. And this got me thinking. This client isn’t a massive client, in fact, far from it, she’s very small in terms of profitability and turnover. And yet she’s quite clearly a huge advocate for my business. She’s recommended us to a couple of friends and colleagues, and her encouragement on our marketing is so valuable.

Conventional marketing wisdom has it that you spend the most money looking after your biggest clients. It makes sense, they bring you in the most amount of revenue. The last thing you want to do is let them walk away from your business. And yet are we missing a trick in all of this? How do you identify your business advocates and look after them? I’m not suggesting for one moment that you stop marketing to your best customers, just that you sometimes look beyond how much people spend with you, and look at the bigger picture.

A great example of this is Sales Expert and Motivational Speaker Gavin Ingham. Now I’m convinced that Gavin will have absolutely no idea who I am. I somehow got onto his mailing list around the time of the last series of The Apprentice and have stayed there ever since because he talks a lot of sense. In fact, Gavin talks so much sense that I’ve listed him on my blogroll and regularly recommend his blog to my clients. Isn’t it lovely to think that people you’ve never met before are going round selling on your behalf?

So what’s the point of this post? In truth I’m not sure – I’m not sure that I’ve finished thinking through what I’ve learned from today. So perhaps I’ll come back to you on that. Just, I suppose, that your best advocates are often found in the most surprising and unexpected of places. What do you think? How do you make sense of all of this?

Tagged as , advocates, business, recommendations, testimonials in Business Strategy

What’s the key to successful marketing? Well there certainly isn’t one, magic catch all technique that’s guaranteed to work (if only!). However, there are some basics that every small business should adopt which will significantly improve the success of your marketing investment.

Here are some of the most common mistakes that small businesses make when it comes to marketing (forewarned is forearmed remember!).

They don’t plan. Starting out with a clear goal, clear objectives and a plan of how you’re going to get there is absolutely key. Kneejerk marketing is often more expensive and less effective than a drip, drip of consistent marketing. The key here is consistency.

They stop marketing when things start going to plan. If things are going well then this is the time to keep up your marketing and keep the momentum going. It’s difficult, but not impossible to achieve. Keep the consistency of your marketing going and you’ll get a constant supply of business. What many of us do (and I’m guilty of this as much as the next person!) is think “Aha, I’ve cracked it! I don’t have time for marketing at the moment”. And for some time you’ll get away with it. Then the work dries up and you go all guns blazing at the sales and marketing – and you end up in a horrible peak and trough situation. To avoid this, market your business little and often.

Read the rest of this entry

Tagged as , business, easy, marketing, mistakes, plan, small in Business Strategy, Workshops

When I worked in corporate land logging and reviewing KPI’s were a key part of my, and my manager’s, monthly tasks. Every month we’d use them to understand how and why the company was performing as it was and use that information to plan for next month. There are lots of things that I have [...]

Tagged as , business, key performance indicator, KPI, KPI's, performance, success in Business Strategy

What impression does your business card create when you hand it over to a new contact? Are people intrigued, impressed or just downright confused? Does your card create a positive, negative or neutral impression? I was talking on branding in Ascot last night at the CanDoCanBe Women’s Network and at the end, as always, I [...]

Tagged as , ascot, branding, business, card, cards, corporate, design, graphic, guildford, identity, impact in Branding, Workshops

What does your business brand say about you? Take our one minute brand detox quiz to find out more>>> Does your stationery (or worse still, your logo) use any of the following fonts: Arial, Times New Roman, Comic Sans, Zapf Chancery, Brush Script? Was your logo designed in “Word Art” or “MS Paint”? Does each [...]

Tagged as , brand, business, card, detox, on, put, stationery, to, what in Branding