How important is getting name recognition?  Just have a look at this clip of Welsh Culture Minister Rhodri Glyn Thomas announcing the wrong winner before correctly naming Dannie Abse’s The Presence Wales Book of the Year. (I can hardly look)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7485572.stm

You won’t see many large companies letting their branding decline during tougher ecconomic times.  But smaller companies often cut their marketing spend at just the time that they should be expanding.

Pleased to say that the IOD Institute of Directors Magazine has recently published and article I wrote on how to market your business even during period of ecconomic decline.  Hope you find it of interest

http://www.director.co.uk/ONLINE/marketing_11_06.html

In an ideal world, marketing activity would be self supporting, always pay back multi-fold what it costs to execute, and be effective in reaching every potential buyer in the appropriate sector all the time. But in the world where the sky is blue, marketing activities are driven by several factors, including perceptions of the company and the head marketer there, economic forces that drive consumer behavior of all types and factors beyond your control.

As a result of these factors, marketing budgets are at the mercy of the reactions of the company to these perceptions. Many of these perceptions are flawed, skewed, marred by history, personal experiences of senior management, and most have no historical precedent or foundation.

Myth #1 - “Our brand is strong enough not to need support for the duration of the downturn.”

Fact: Few brands are strong enough to survive without advertising, product promotion and customer service support. Brands are like delicate houseplants - they need attention, support, bolstering, and polishing, (the marketing equivalent of nutrients, light and water) - or they will wither and shrivel to a shadow of their former self. This is not a position you want your corporate brand to be in when the growth engine for the economy revs back up.

Myth #2 - “If we cut back on marketing spending, we can use the money for other things internally, and increase the budget when things get better.”

Fact: Studies have shown that once that budget gets cut, it takes a herculean effort and a strong internal champion to boost it back to its former levels, and even if it does increase, there are much stronger conditions of ROI attached to its implementation. Once those funds are allocated elsewhere, they tend to stay there - after all, that other department doesn’t want to give them up either.

Myth #3 - “Nobody’s buying anything, advertising and promotions are a waste of money.”

Fact: Many studies conducted by prestigious business publications and university think tanks have come to the same conclusion based on the data they gathered on U.S. and in some cases global companies: Those that reduce their presence in their key service markets are in a far worse position in terms of profitability, market share and market competitive presence when the downturn eases and profitability growth returns than those that maintain their marketing activity levels. Those companies that are so bold as to increase marketing activity stand a great chance of taking market share from their less aggressive competitors and can rule the category if the downturn lasts long enough.

Myth #4 - “We can cut back [on marketing] now, and then ramp up quickly when things get better.”

Fact: This strategy has proven disastrous time and again, especially for companies that have inefficiencies inherent in their design, or product delivery channel. That inefficiency won’t allow them to “ramp up quickly”, since by that very inefficiency they will effectively always be “late” when timing the market - they are not market leaders but laggards, and thus the ramp-up activity gets started late relative to the buying cycle, and their more nimble competitors have already beaten them to the punch.

Myth #5 - “We should examine what’s working for us, and cut out everything else.”

Fact: This is not really a myth, but a knee-jerk reaction to a short-term slump in sales gross. Good marketing departments should be doing exactly that on a perpetual basis, not just when times are tougher. Why would any marketer worth their pay continue programs that didn’t work, effectively dragging down performance across the board and wasting money.

In addition, there should be metrics built into any campaign so that there is a way to “take the pulse” of its success, and mid-course correction is possible to boost effectiveness and increase ROI on a continual basis. Further, in some channels, there is a cumulative effect that blurs perceptions of what’s working and what’s not - interdependencies exist between channels that are not planned or scheduled but that live in the customer’s mind and trigger sales inadvertently. Cutting out what can’t be measured accurately hampers this effect, dragging down results with no apparent reason.

Myth #6 - “Marketing spends more money than any other department, they have the most room to cut budget.”

Fact: While spending may be a measure of power in some corporate structures, at least informally, return is really what counts when its budget review time. Marketing is one of the few departments that can actually point to contributions they make directly to the bottom line. There is a proven cause-and-effect relationship between sales gross and marketing expenditure for larger and enterprise-size firms. Increased spending in the IT department might yield long-term benefits, but better servers don’t often move more product, unless the product is server space. Cutting the marketing budget only reduces the opportunities available to build market share, boost product awareness and memorability in the mind of the consumer, and dampens profitability in the long run.

Myth #7 - “All of our competitors are pulling back advertising and media expenditures to save money, so we should, too.”

Fact: This kind of lemming-like sheep thinking can destroy your company! Your Mom knew better than this when you used the excuse “All the other kids are going, why can’t I?” and her response was likely something along the lines of “If the other kids jump off the bridge, are you going to jump, too?” Despite being competitors, their financials likely look a bit different from yours, and it’s foolish to think that you can mirror their moves and be successful - at best you will be equal! The smart money here is being used to take market share from your more timid competitors, by increasing presence and exposure, and cutting other less-than-mission-critical expenditures for a short period to accomplish it.

Bonus!
Myth #8 - “We should downgrade the quality of our marketing materials, use a cheaper creative agency, and mail out less frequently to save money.”

Fact: This set of moves will actually cost you both in the short- and long-term. You might save a very small incremental amount on cheaper paper, shorter, smaller brochures, cheaper handouts, smaller tradeshow giveaways - but the damage you’re doing to your brand and the resulting poor reflection on the company as a whole does far more damage than can ever be repaired by spending those few dollars later to try and fix it.

Not to mention shaking the confidence of your customers by giving them a visual representation of how poorly your company is performing! “Gee, they must be in trouble, this looks like cheap junk. Maybe I’d better take my business to the other company that’s likely to be around to support their products down the line,” is the thought you’re promoting by reducing quality in your publicly released materials.

Good design often costs less than bad design, due to fewer creative iterations, fewer miscues, greater effectiveness and higher return. Jumping ship from the agency you’re with if they are delivering on dollars spent just to save a little money is fool-hardy. The ramp-up time for a new agency to learn your needs, your products, your style and your brand will just about be exhausted by the time the average recession is over, and it will have cost you more to get the same level of productivity in that time, just in time to reposition for the new economic conditions.

When times get tough, the tough get going in the marketing department, providing the market with visual evidence of your corporate strength, your leadership role in the sector, your expertise in the market, and the supportive strength you offer for your products and services. Don’t believe the nay-sayers who want to slash your marketing budget, reduce your headcount and reduce the quality of your materials. Everything you do here reflects on the health of your company, and cutting here shows the most and helps the least.

The Right Way to Set Goals

by Ralph Jean-Paul

Ok so you decided that you want to set a goal. Good for you! What is it? Do you want to get in shape? Make more money? Maybe meet someone new and start a relationship? Whatever it is the important thing is that you’ve taken a step towards your goal. Now think about your goal. I’ll give you a second. Ready? Alright. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being absolutely confident and 1 being not confident at all) how confident are you that you can reach your goal? If you answered any number other than a five you are off to a bad start. Confidence and belief in your ability is crucial to your success. It’s not being cocky or egotistical but more like being sure of your ability. Read this quote and think about the idea.

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” - Henry Ford

Why can’t most people keep their New Year’s Resolutions? Every year people make promises to themselves to change or add something to their lives. But by the time May or June comes around, most people can’t even remember what their resolutions were. I was one of those people until about 2003. After being frustrated about how my life was going and not accomplishing anything in my life that I wanted I decided to change. On January 1st 2003 I wrote down a list of things that I wanted to change. And I was determined to achieve everything on that list no matter how long it took. When I learned the right way to set my goals, achieving them became much easier

Write down your goals so they are clear.

Your goal should be clear enough to you that you can write it down. If you can clearly write down what it is you want to accomplish then it’ll be easier for your mind to adjust your thinking in order for you to start moving towards your goal. Reaffirming your ability can make a huge difference in the outcome of goal.

Have you ever seen the movie Men of Honor with Robert Deniro and Cuba Gooding Jr.? Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Carl Brashear who is a man trying to become the first African American Navy diver. Throughout the movie he faces opposition from those who don’t want him to succeed. Well the final test of his training is to assemble a flange while under water. To make it impossible for him to accomplish this, Deniro is ordered to cut the supply bag containing all of the parts and tools Gooding needs to do the job, and toss it into the water.

It’s a great scene because Gooding is under water and he sees his bag cut open and his supplies scatterd all over the river bottom. Hours pass and now it’s dark and cold and Gooding is still under water trying to put this thing together. Deniro is communicating to Gooding by radio saying “Give it up Cookie (Deniro called him Cookie in the movie) it’s not worth dying for”. Gooding answers with “My name is Carl Brashear, I am a Navy diver.” He eventually puts the flange together and becomes a Navy diver. Why am I telling you this? One reason is because I love the movie. The other reason is I want you to focus on what Carl Brashear was saying to himself while he was underwater. He kept on repeating to himself that he was a Navy Diver before he even passed the test.

Now think about your goals. Are they clear enough to you that you can specifically write them down? Are they clear enough to you that you can see yourself already there even though you are not there yet? If you want to advance in your career then you should already be thinking and acting like you are already there. How would you act if you were department manager? How would you dress? How would you treat people? How would you speak? Be as specific as possible even down to what you would smell like. The purpose of writing down your goals and reaffirming them is so your mind and habits can align.

Remove Roadblocks

There are two major types of obstacles that you will come across when you are trying to accomplish a goal or succeed at anything, internal obstacles and external obstacles. Internal obstacles include fear, procrastination, lack of information, denial, pride, or anything that you do to yourself that stops you from reaching your goal. External obstacles are the things that happen that you have little or no control over. When I was building this site I came across so many external obstacles that I was tempted to cancel the entire project. I will have a section on how to deal with the external obstacles but for now let’s look at what you can do to remove your internal roadblocks.

The first thing you should do when removing the road blocks is to identify what they are. Are you a big TV watcher? How much time a day or week does watching TV take away from what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to start your own business are there things you could be doing instead of watching TV that will help you succeed? The faster you identify your roadblocks and remove them the faster you will be able to see progress in your goal.

The way you set goals may be just as important as what you do to accomplish that goal. Before I knew the right way to set goals, I would fail miserably at almost everything I attempted. It wasn’t until I realized that the foundation for my goal wasn’t stable enough. It is like trying to construct a building with a weak foundation. This is a common mistake that many people make when they want something. The sooner you can get into the habit of setting your goals right the first time, the sooner you will achieve them with a lot less hassle.

At my weekly networking goup working breakfast (www.workingbreakfast.com) I met up with a long standing friend of mine Rose Garwood.  She told me about a new course which is part of the management workshops that she runs (which are excellent by the way). This one is designed to help team managers and business owners get the best out of their people, improve communication and raise performance.

She’ll show managers how to predict behaviour, overcome tension, cope with the complexities of team dynamics and focus on success in the business. The next half-day workshop is Wednesday 18 June, in Nottingham. There are 3 places left! I’d love to go but have some stuff on that I can’t get out of that afternoon.

You can reach Rosie at www.reflectionconsulting.co.uk

If you go I’m sure you won’t be disapointed.

Predictions of an economic slowdown or even a full blown recession have been rumbling for months. For the business owner this inevitably means a time to re-evaluate budgets and tighten up on spending. The first casualty in a recession is often the marketing spend – but this may prove to be a short sighted approach. Advertising Guru David Ogilvy asked question in his book Ogilvy on Advertising “What should you do in time of recession, when you need every penny to sustain your earnings? Stop advertising?

He points out that if you stop advertising a brand which is still in its introductory phase, you will probably kill it — forever. Studies of the last 6 recessions have demonstrated that companies which do not cut back their advertising budgets achieve greater increases in profit than companies which do cut back.

In a Morril survey of 40,000 men and women involved in the purchase of 23 industrial products over five years, it was found that share-of-market went up in bad times — when advertising was continued.

He goes on to point out that the American Business Press that had pie charts of sales of companies which cut back their advertising expenditure during the 1974-75 recessions compared with companies that did not cut back. The companies that did not cut their advertising budgets had more than doubled their sales 2 years later while sales from the companies that cut their advertising had barely gone up 50%. Three years later sales were down for companies that had cut their advertising while it was up for those that did not. The net income for these companies also followed the same suit over the same period of years — those companies that did not cut their advertising had more than tripled in sales, while companies that did cut back during the recession had barely doubled.

Ultimately, you want your business to grow whatever the economic climate, and marketing is a key tool in achieving this. Instead of panicking, the small business owner should focus on these seven key areas. Get these right and your business should not only ride out the economic storm, but actively thrive throughout.

Here are 7 marketing areas that you should be focussed on over the coming months:

1. Remember you company’s most important asset. Your existing customers are your best bet for bringing in more business- and making more profit. Maintain good communication with your satisfied customers; let them know about everything you offer and what you can do for them. Reward their loyalty by offering new products or services at a preferential rate and give them a reason to spend more money with you.

2. Make your own headlines. Some companies seem to be forever in the newspapers or on the TV and radio. But this doesn’t happen by accident – it happens because they actively pursue publicity. If you have something that present or potential customers might be interested in, tell them about it. Surveys, predictions and articles that link into a topical issue are particularly newsworthy. If you sit back and think, you will be able to find something that you do, or make that will be of interest to an audience of potential customers.

3. Give it away for free – then reap the reward. Use the law of reciprocity in your favour: if you give a customer something, they will have the urge to give you something in return. Take food samples at the deli counter. You try the product, you like it so you are more likely to buy it. Following this principle, try offering special reports, insiders’ information, free talks or tips booklets - anything that may be useful to the prospect. Ideally it will cost you very little, but will be of value to the recipient – they now have an implicit obligation to give you something in return.

4. Become the ‘go to’ guy. Instead of trying to appeal to the widest market possible, develop a niche. In reality, the more specialist you are, the more people will seek out and buy from you. One way of achieving this is to create a specific brochure for every sector of your market. This rule also applies to direct mail letters, e-mail shots, sales presentations etc.

Work out what the problems are in your target markets and create a product to address them. This shows the customer that you understand their problems and have the solution to help them. Work out the specific benefits for your customers and you will unlock the real sales potential.

5. Make sure you know your customers. Put a reference code on every type of marketing that you produce and ask people to quote it when they call you up. Make it company policy that any new business enquiry is checked to find out where the person heard about you. Also, bear in mind you want to know how much a customer’s lifetime value is, not just how much they spent with you in one transaction.

6. Spend time online. It’s no longer good enough just have a brochure website – it needs to constantly be updated if it is to feature in the rankings and pique people’s interest .The simplest and easiest way to do this is to put a blog on your website and keep it regularly updated with news and views. By creating regular content and referencing articles from other sites that you think are of interest to prospects, you will find that you can increase your site’s Google ranking dramatically.

7. Don’t give up. If you have a product or service worth selling, believe in it. When someone says ‘no’, they may mean ‘not yet’ or even ‘I don’t know enough about the benefits of what you are offering’. Clients are not always ready to buy now and they don’t always respond to the same messages. Create a target group of good customers and hot prospects and keep in touch with them for months or years. If you’ve got your targeting right, they will buy from you – in the future if not now.

If the economic forecasts come true, many small businesses will not survive the next decade. I believe that those with the foresight to look long term and maintain their marketing activity will be the ones who most successfully weather the storms ahead.

Advertising Guru David Ogilvy asked question in his book Ogilvy on Advertising “What should you do in time of recession, when you need every penny to sustain your earnings? Stop advertising?

He goes on to source the American Business Press that had pie charts of sales of companies which cut back their advertising expenditure during the 1974-75 recessions compared with companies that did not cut back. The companies that did not cut their advertising budgets had more than doubled their sales 2 years later while sales from the companies that cut their advertising had barely gone up 50%. Three years later sales were down for companies that had cut their advertising while it was up for those that did not. The net income for these companies also followed the same suit over the same period of years — those companies that did not cut their advertising had more than tripled in sales, while companies that did cut back during the recession had barely doubled.

Whether there is a single ’secret’ to success I rather doubt, but many great minds point to the same things time after time.

There is a book called ‘The Secret of Success’ not to be confused by the Michael J Fox fim from the 1980’s that  is an important motivational book written by author William Walker Atkinson. Atkinson teaches in this work that individuality is inherent in each of us, and which may be developed and brought into activity in each one of us if we go about it right. Individuality is the expression of our Self - that Self which is what we mean when we say “I.”

Each of us is an Individual - an “I” - differing from every other “I” in the universe, so far as personal expression is concerned. And in the measure that we express and unfold the powers of that “I,” so are we great, strong and successful. We all “have it in us” - it depends upon us to get it out into Expression. And, this Individual Expression lies at the heart of the “Secret of Success.”

If this sounds of interest, you can view the whole book online for free here:

 http://www.scribd.com/doc/401071/William-Atkinson-The-Secret-of-Success

What Would You Do With A Second Chance?
By Tim Knox

You could avoid the mistakes you previously made and build on
the successes you previously enjoyed.  You could nurture the
positive relationships and avoid the bad. You could tap into
your wealth of experience during times of indecision and always
know where and when your time and money would be best spent.

How many times have you said, “If I only knew then what I know
now?”

We’ve all wished that we could go back in time with our heads
full of knowledge and our belts busting with experience and do
it all over again.  The proverbial “second chance” is something
we’ve all wished for - some of us more than others. Imagine how
different our lives would be if we came equipped with unlimited
“do overs.”

You could avoid the mistakes you previously made and build on
the successes you previously enjoyed.  You could nurture the
positive relationships and avoid the bad. You could tap into
your wealth of experience during times of indecision and always
know where and when your time and money would be best spent.

Now apply that question to your business. What would you do if
you had the opportunity to build your business all over again,
but do so with the wisdom gained from building the business all
these past years?

If you could take the knowledge and experience gained from
years of running your business, as well as your credibility,
good name, and customer list, and start anew from square one
what would you do? Oh, and did I mention that you had a nice
check to fund it all this time so you won’t have to scrimp and
save and bootstrap your way back to the top?

Here’s why I’m posing this question: a few weeks ago a young
business here in Huntsville was destroyed by fire. It was a
devastating loss for the owners who could do nothing but stand
by and watch as years of hard work went up in flames.

The fire destroyed the building, some equipment and inventory.
The business was insured and the owners have already vowed to
rebuild, which means the fire did not destroy the business
itself, only the physical aspects of it.

Brick and mortar and inventory do not a business make. Brick
and mortar house the business.  Inventory brings the business
revenue, but the heart of the business – the spirit and soul and
purpose – lives inside the entrepreneur building that business.
If the entrepreneur survives and rebuilds, so survives the
business.

Starting over can be tough even with an insurance check to fund
it all, but I hope these entrepreneurs understand that this is
an opportunity to take the lessons learned over the last few
years and put them to work for the future. This is a chance to
do all the things they always talked about that they should have
done differently in the beginning.

So back to the original question: if you could go back and
rebuild your business knowing what you know now, with an
insurance check to fund it, what would you do differently and
what would you do the same?

Let me put it into perspective for you. Imagine building your
dream home and living in it for a few years until one day the
house is destroyed by fire. A devastating loss, no doubt, but no
one is injured and everything is insured.

You now have to make a decision; will you build the exact same
house or build a different house that takes into account all the
things you wanted to change about the old house.

Maybe after living there for a few years you discovered that
you should have put in a downstairs bathroom or added more
closet space in the master bedroom. Maybe the kitchen was too
small or the laundry room too large. Now you have the chance to
rebuild your dream home with all the lessons learned from years
of living in the house.

So to these entrepreneurs who are living this experience, I
encourage you to keep the faith and keep looking toward the
future. I understand that you felt completely helpless watching
that fire engulf the building. I know that you are now mourning
the business as if you’d lost a close friend. But please, keep
in mind that disaster gives rise to opportunity.

Rise from the ashes, become the Phoenix. Rebuild your business
into something truly amazing. We’ll all be with you as you do.

About the Author: Tim Knox Entrepreneur, Author “Check Out
Tim’s New Radio Show!” http://www.timknoxshow.com Preorder Tim’s
New Book: Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My
Mama http://www.timknox.com/amazon/

Source: http://www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=168684&ca=Business

Testimonials and case studies - it makes sence to ask all of your staff to get involved in creating case studies and gather these up where possible. In theory, almost every satisfied client could be the basis for a quote about their experience. In some cases, the company they worked for may not allow the name of their organisation to be used, but even in those cases it is worth gathering a few sentences of their thoughts during post candidate placement.

When testimonials are in an important sector or with a well known client, it may be worth developing these into a short case study. In this case, allow the client to talk about issues such as:

Specific recruitment problems they have had in the past

Why they choose to use you

If they were sceptical about what you could offer

These quotes can then be passed along (with some background information about the company and the specific position filled) to an external marketing company - such as The Ideal Marketing Company or can be written up depending on what is decided. As a general rule, about 30% of the case study should be quotes directly from the client. By writing case studies, you are showing that you can do the job well, your customers think you are exceptional and that there is no logical choice other than to use you.