Branding - is it good for you?

Is branding important? Do you know what it is? Don't feel strange if you don't know. Many new business people have very little understanding of branding their business.

By definition, a brand is a "a name, logo, slogan, and/or design scheme associated with a product or service "

You know what the Nike logo looks like. And you know when you see a Coca-Cola or a McDonald's restaurant. Those entities are branded into our minds. We can't shake loose from them.

If you have a product that is widely known you have brand recognition.

Obviously, not everyone can be a superstar. The Toyota symbol is also a brand but you may not know what it looks like until you actually buy a Toyota car.

Do you know what the Wells Fargo bank logo looks like? I do because we have an account there, but, again, you probably would not recognize it if you don't do business with Wells Fargo.


Many people on the Internet try to brand themselves with a picture, an avatar, or something I see more of every day, a caracature of themselves. Some will combine a logo or caracature with a nick name, like Alice Seba does. Alice is known as the Internet Marketing Sweetie. Her Twitter name is @imsweetie.

Zna, a fitness guru, brands herself with the spelling of her name and also with the name of her corporation, SmartBodies, Inc. and her domain name, FastestFatBurn.com. Zna's Twitter name is @ZnaTrainer. Obviously Zna appreciates the value of branding.

So, you can successfully brand yourself alone, especially on the Internet. But if you are going to brand yourself with your name alone, as many do - myself included, you better be sure you don't want to sell your branded website in the future.

A careful management of a brand can create value. Businesses can brand themselves locally by advertising with their company logo in the newspaper, on the TV and many other places in the local area.

I think the time you spend finding a good brand for your business is time very well spent. You will profit greatly if you succeed and the brand itself may help you succeed.


Photo credit: John McDermott

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
Wahm Town (domain and site are for sale, make an offer)
Wahm Online (for sale)

Local Search valuable tool

If you own a local business and you are serious about being on the Internet so more people can learn about your business, then you need this online tool http://www.getlisted.org

This service will check if your site is optimized for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Local and in the Best of the Web Local Directory.

For good Local visibility your profile should be consistent throughout the web. In other words, keep your location to one place with one phone number and with the same business name. If the search engines get confused they will use sources that may not be to your liking or benefit.

This one is a winner for Local Business search: http://www.getlisted.org

greg cryns

Get your FREE report Is Freelancing Right For You?

Follow your passion

Picture (overlooking Morrow Bay in Central California) by Greg Cryns

Someone called me yesterday. I invited her to call after I saw a post she made on Twitter.

Most of the people who call me want to sell me something. She did not want that.

In fact, I don't think she knew exactly why she called me. Just following her hunch, I think.

We chatted for a few minutes. She told me is in direct sales. I asked her if she was really cut out to sell a product.

(pause)

"I don't think so," she said.

I asked her what she really wanted to do. Immediately her voice brightened. She sounded excited. "I know what I want to do!" she exclaimed. She went on to tell me she had a passion about something but she did not tell me exactly what it was.

My advice to her was to drop her direct sales business even though she "loved" the product. I advised her to set up a blog and post somethine every day for at least 30 days.

Some people don't have a passion for business per se. Making money is not what it is all about in my opinion. But I do believe that if you have a true passion and work hard at it, the money will follow, usually.

I think she may do that. We will see. Do you think that was good advice?

greg cryns
Watch me try to nail down a good refinance rate on my mortgage

Three Keys to a Recession-Proof Business

We are all concerned about the economy, of course. There are some common sense steps you can take to continue your business success. My friend, Marcia Yudkin, presents three ideas here:


Three Keys to a Recession-Proof Business

by Marcia Yudkin

“It’s the economy.” Are you putting up with a drop in
revenues because of the economic downturn? In fact, a
worldwide financial crisis does not have to send your own
business into a discouraging spiral. Smart business owners
and managers minimize the damage from a business slowdown
with three crucial strategies.

1. Diversify. Beware of depending too much on one, two or
three clients. Never allow your prosperity to get tied too
closely to the fortunes of a very few others – no matter
how stable and healthy these organizations seem. If they
suddenly hit the skids or if they just get sold and their
leadership or direction changes, you could be in deep
trouble. Protect yourself by keeping at least four active
clients at all times.

The same goes for your product line and promotions, where
an overly narrow focus also puts you at risk. Some years
ago, I had a financial planning expert whose whole
marketing funnel depended on beating the estate tax. When
Congress suddenly changed the estate tax, he had to
recreate his business.

If you sell services, you can hedge your bets for a bad
economy by developing information products, which offer a
low-risk, low-commitment way for new customers to get to
know, then trust your company. If you sell expensive
products, you can hedge your bets by offering services as
well, such as consulting and seminars, so interested
prospects can get value from your firm in more than one
way.

2. Stay in touch. Don’t let your customer database lapse or
go out of date! (Some businesses just toss paperwork into a
shoebox.) Former clients may not need your services right
now, but don’t let them forget about you. Send something
meaningful and relevant to previous customers twice a year.
Postcards are perfect for this – they have just enough
space for a tip, a tool or an inspirational case study.
Keep in mind that it costs five times as much to obtain a
new customer as it does to sell more to an existing one.

3. Never shut down the marketing pipeline. Create regular
marketing activities that reach out to new customers and
keep these going, regardless of whether you’re so busy you
can’t stand it or waiting for the phone to ring. That way,
you’ll never have to try to get traction from a dead stop.

According to a study by the American Business Press, in
past recessions companies that maintained their advertising
had increased their sales four times more two years later
than companies that had cut their advertising because of
the economic downturn.

I once asked a client of mine who closed down her business
to retire how long it took after she halted all of her
marketing before the calls stopped. Six months, she said.
Too often I’ve seen business owners become complacent about
how well word of mouth was working for them. One day they’d
wake up and realize referrals had dried up, and they’d have
to begin creating a marketing pipeline, which might not
start yielding new clients for months. In both good times
and bad, you must therefore market to keep sales humming.

Master marketer Marcia Yudkin, author of 6 Steps to Free
Publicity and 10 other books, has been selling information
in one form or another since 1981. This article is
excerpted from her report, “33 Keys to Thriving During a
Recession,” which is available as a free download from
www.yudkin.com/recess.htm .


Greg Cryns

Wahm Search Engine

The 4 Hour Work Week

Today I came across a an interesting blog by Tim Ferris. I never heard his name before so I was a little taken aback by his attitude about Twitter.

Tim says about Twitter, "I don't follow anyone on Twitter. To some, this is sacrilege."

I checked his stats page. Sure enough, Tim follows no one. Yet he has 3,857 followers.

Tim continues, "Imagine that you send an email to 10 people inviting them to a party, but you BCC 100 more casual friends who are uninvited. How will those 100 feel? Offended and somewhat resentful, just as I would."

I thought his attitude was quite haughty until I learned more about the man.

Tim wrote a book called "The Four Hour Work Week". You can buy it at amazon for about 12 bucks. I noticed on Amazon that "others who bought this item also bought" Seth Godin's "The Dip." The puzzle pieces are coming together. Tim is a successful author if scores of people selling his book as affiliates of Amazon is any indication.

His book is mainly about how to outsource as much as possible in your business life so that you have more time for other activities.

I found an interview with Tim by Scott Allen on About.com. Here Tim describes how he got caught up in the "overwork ethic" as a salesman for a Silicon Valley company. He was working 80 hours a week. That company went belly up in the 2001 dot bomb debacle. Tim moved on to "pharmaceutical design." A couple of years later he was making very good money at a sports nutrition company. But he felt dissatisfied with the long hours.

Tim started his own company and traveled to 20 countries. He started making more money and working fewer hours. This discovery led to the writing of "The 4 Hour Work Week." Apparently Tim made enough money not to be concerned with mundane activity like following other people.

One of Tim's post on his Twitter page is "Just bumped into Paul McCartney in an Amagansett coffee shop. He was playing a harmonica for a baby in a stroller. How cool is that? "

Learn about Twitter at Twitter Squeeze

Greg Cryns
http://www.wahmsearchengine.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/calgreg

25 Kickbutt Ideas On How To Promote Your Website

1. Set up your own forum at Ryze.com
2. Set up a Lens at Squidoo.com (very worthwhile)
3. Create MySpace, Yahoo, and MSN profiles
4. Use Instant Messaging for social networking
5. Set up a BLOG! Promote it on Technorati.com
6. Post comments on other blogs in your niche
7. Gather email addresses and send a bi-weekly newsletter
8. Write articles and post them in article directories.
9. Use eBay- the world's largest store where all the people congregate
10. Get a Google Adwords account and learn to use it for profit
11. Promote your stuff at CraigsList
12. Host an online party
13. Make an RSS feed with your own articles
14. How about a PodCast?
15. Write an eBook and give it away for free with the link to your site in it
16. Offer a free eCourse (eBook)
17. Review (regularly) some products at Amazon
18. Review products and post them at epionions.com
19. Post a comment a day on your favorite business forum
20. Post your business at Wikipedia for your own town
21. Advertize in Ezines and on websites
22. Create folders at backflip.com
23. Make a video of yourself selling your product and post it at YouTube
24. Contribute to Yahoo Answers
25. Post your photos to Flickr.com
26. Make a Post at Digg.com showing your website address

Generally, there are many ways to promote your blog or website at little or no cost unless you count your labor as "cost". Once you start to earn some big bucks you can then hire help at affordable outlays and do the things that you have learned to do to make you the most money.

For example, if you are blogging daily and you have a significant number of people in your blogging audience, it would be wise to have someone proofread your work for basic punctuation errors before you send it into the blog world. I think the idea of employing a virtual assistant is a no-brainer since they will usually work without demanding a minimum hours policy and you do not have to pay them expensive benefits.

Learn about social networking at Greg's Squidoo site: http://squidoo.com/goaffiliate

Greg's Blog: http://greff.wordpress.com/

Best advertising values: http://www.wahmsearchengine.com