Business
Over the last two days I attended a self-employment workshop at the Sunshine Coast Employment Center, offered by Cassandra Gierden of Prophet Coaching. A valuable idea she offered was to create your own personal “yellow pages” – get out and meet somebody from every possible profession you can think of.
The idea is to be of service to your clients no matter what they need. If they can’t make an appointment with you, don’t just ask to reschedule. Ask them if they need a mechanic and refer them to a great one.
You can make the creation of your yellow pages like a scavenger hunt for yourself: find X contacts by X time.
The concept of serving your clients, no matter the need, is similar to what this blog and indeed many successful sites are all about. Share a little information or service for free, and you become a valuable resource that stays top-of-mind. In the end isn’t that what marketing is all about?
I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Scott Berkun at a VanUE event this week. In his often hilarious, entertaining presentation, Scott discussed some of the topics covered in his new book “The Myths of Innovation”. His discussion focused mostly on the perceptions of innovation (eureka moment) versus the historical reality (lots of sweat, hard work, and collaboration).
During the Q&A period, people were obviously engrossed in his ideas and wanted to know more about how to be innovative and how to reach the Eureka moment. Scott provided us with the best advice I’ve heard for a long time.
Forget about innovation. Don’t use the word innovation.
Heck don’t use the word design. Solve problems.
You have a problem? Fix it.
Your client has a problem? Fix it.
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Back in my days as a student, I swam competitively with the University of Ottawa. I can’t say that I was very good, but it did keep me fit and I owe it to the sport for making me who I am today. I don’t swim much anymore. Swimming is actually really boring. Going up and down the pool with your head in the water is really not that exciting. In fact, the only place I like to swim these days is at Kitsilano pool.
Kitsilano is home to the largest pool in Canada. It is 138 metres long, outside in a breathtaking location and filled with salt water. Swimming is still boring at Kits but just not as much. So every year, to motivate myself, I sign up for FastLane. FastLane is a training program that runs twice a week from mid-June, first thing in the morning. So, Wednesday and Friday mornings at 5.45am, you’ll find me working out in the pool with lot of other like-minded people.
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I just received the latest Market Navigator newsletter today and was reading this interesting Q&A.
Q: I don’t have a Web site and I’m pretty busy as it is. Do I really need one?
A: A funny thing happened at the office last week…
No kidding, just last week a graphic designer came by to pitch me on his services. The first time he’d sent me an email, months before, I saw he didn’t have a Web site and basically chucked his info. Why?
Because in this day and age, not having a Web site is like networking without a business card. No matter how good you are, you lose a great deal of credibility without one.
If you’re serious about doing business and you want people to take you seriously, make the investment.
It doesn’t have to be fancy with a multitude of bells and whistles. It does have to educate visitors about your business and showcase why they should care.
And, particularly for retailers and restaurant, it also goes a long way to providing good customer service.
The graphic designer, it turns out, is actually pretty good and has a well-rounded portfolio. That’s something I’d never have known if he hadn’t been persistent in following up.
The lesson: if you think you can’t afford a Web site, the question you need to ask yourself is whether you can afford not to have one.
The Market Navigator newsletter is delivered once a month and contains interesting Marketing ideas, tips and tricks. Visit their website to read their blog.
As of October 2006, there was a reported 57 million blogs registered with Technorati. Now you may think that this number is huge, but in fact there are probably more blogs than that. This number only counts the ones that are public, when in fact many blogs are private and some are just missed by the counters.
So if there are 57 millions plus blogs out there, why aren’t you blogging or more importantly why should you?
At a recent Northern Voices conference in Vancouver, Richard Eriksson from Bryght mentioned the following three reasons:
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Tired of using webmail? Wouldn’t you prefer to use a good search tool like Google to sort through all of your emails? Well now you can with Gmail.
Gmail’s popularity has been growing rapidly since it launched it’s free service. Based on the fact that you shouldn’t have to delete any emails, Gmail has come up with a great email tool and they’ve now extended their experiment to Gmail for your domain. That’s right you can you use Gmail to access your email@yourdomain.com. All you have to do is register with Google and once they give you an account, you can you start using Gmail for free. While this service is still in beta version, Google is only providing 2 gigs of storage per inbox and may not respond to your request right away, but their service is free and very easy to use. Sign up for your Gmail account and take part of their beta test.
Still curious about branding? In collaboration with Twin Fish Creative, brand strategist Stephen Abbott outlines some of the aspects of a brand that can get overlooked, and how a little “house cleaning” can make a big difference in your customers’ experience, and ultimately, how they feel about your company.
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The best websites know that customers are ready for action. They help customers complete common tasks quickly and easily. Gerry McGovern explains…
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When planning on working with a Web developer, you may have to shop around and see who is the “best fit” for you. You may come across big companies that have an amazing portfolio and many talented people and may come across a lone individual who is just as talented. So who is best? Big or small?
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If you need to define a web marketing term, you can find it in a flash in the new WebTrends glossary. This new resource on webtrends.com provides a handy guide to commonly used web marketing and analytics terms.
Relationship marketing and web analytics seem generate an inordinate amount of acronyms. From ACT to KPI to YSM, it’s easy to get a little lost. If you’ve ever confused your POA with your POC, or wondered what exactly “sessionization” refers to, you may want to bookmark this page.