If asked to rank their current and future needs, many managers of non-profit organizations would likely place branding at the bottom of the list. If asked why, some might reply: "I can’t afford to undertake a major branding effort right now." That’s the wrong answer. In today’s competitive funding environment branding, or communicating the character or purpose of an organization, is more important than ever.

Developing or revamping a non-profit’s brand can have many benefits. Some of the most significant include increased donations and membership. Given this, can any non-profit afford not to do it? Following are five reasons why branding just can’t wait.

Reason #1: Branding Instills Discipline

Any branding effort should begin with a careful analysis of whether an organization’s mission is truly aligned with its activities. Is the organization delivering on its promises? If it isn’t, it has a big problem. Non-profits that have strong brands do what they say and say what they do. A branding effort can help a wayward organization correct its course.

Reason #2: Effective Branding Improves Clarity

Potential funders and members are more willing to donate time and money to organizations they understand and support. A non-profit with a strong brand will have an easier time communicating its mission and value.

Reason #3: Branding Increases Quality

Organizations with weak brands often deliver poor service. Those that provide high quality products and services have strong brands and intense customer loyalty. Undergoing a branding effort can force a non-profit to carefully evaluate the quality of its offerings and improve where necessary.

Reason #4: Branding Can Motivate Staff and Volunteers

Staff and volunteers that identify with and support an organization’s mission are more motivated and engaged. Organizations with strong brands are in a better position to inspire and activate these important human resources.

Reason #5: Branding Benefits A Non-Profit’s Constituents

A non-profit’s constituents can only benefit from an organization that has a clear mission, high-quality service and motivated staff or volunteers. This is the number-one reason organizations should consider undertaking a branding effort.

Clearly branding is critically important. Non-profits can’t afford to neglect this important activity if they want to ensure they are operating and communicating as efficiently and clearly as possible.

(c) Fard Johnmar

Fard Johnmar is founder of Envision Solutions, L.L.C., a full-service healthcare marketing communications consulting firm. Envision Solutions provides innovative products and services to not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. Envision Solutions’ goal is to make our clients more efficient and successful. For more information about how Envision Solutions can help you, please visit http://www.envisionsolutionsnow.com.

Despite all of the different methods of advertising, it comes down to two basic forms: Direct Response or Image. For most everyone who reads this, direct response is absolutely the only form you ever, EVER want to do. Unless you’re Nike or McDonalds and have spent a bazillion dollars on building your brand, image advertising is a colossal waste of time and money.

For discussion purposes, image advertising, is that soft, feel good kind of ad that makes people see you in a real human light. See: white doves in funeral marketing pieces—car dealership finance specialists smiling while shaking hands with a happy, satisfied customer. It won’t work . Stay clear.

Direct response, as its name implies, is a call to action. In its most rudimentary form, it’s a time-sensitive pizza coupon, an oil change discount, and a half off offer at the local dry cleaner. It moves consumers to your front door with cash in hand–maybe. The offer has to be extraordinary, targeted to the right audience, contain a unique selling proposition and be creative enough to garner interest.

Direct response is fast and you can measure it. You know if you got it right immediately, not at some indeterminate point down the road. When that coupon arrives via email, snail mail or some other mass distribution method, you either have new customers or you don’t. This lets you test your message on smaller groups and take corrective action if something isn’t working without wasting a lot of time and money.

As direct response advertising continues to grow in popularity, PLAN, EXECUTE, TEST and REFINE. The wrong message to the wrong audience in a direct mail or email campaign can yield a dismal 0 to 1% response rate where a well-planned and executed campaign can see results of a 10% response rate and higher. Go where the results are.

Get started with a strong direct response marketing campaign and see marked, significant increases in your bottom line.

Betsey Duggan is the president and CEO of McMann & Tate Advertising. This midwest agency insists that its clients stand out from the crowd, and advertise in ways never before considered.

Building a brand is not a gimmick or fluke, marketing for deep positive branding is a necessary part of business. If marketing with integrity is at the core of your business, you can develop branding strategies that are customer focused built on your values.

Branding Strategy #1 – Branding through top notch customer service

A major aspect of branding for any business is the customer’s experience from first learning about the company to actually using the product. Competitive pricing, quality return policy and programs to generate customer loyalty all add up to effective customer service. Running a business with integrity includes asking for customer feedback, efficiently handing customer complaints and truth in advertising, your brand’s essence is based on the promises made with the initial branding. From the onset, give your potential customers your brand’s promise in the simplest terms possible THEN live up that promise – that IS customer service!

Branding Strategy #2 – Consistent visual branding

Visual branding is very powerful. Both online and offline branding is built on your use of logos, banners, tag lines, packaging, business cards, advertising and direct marketing tools. Even if funds are limited, you can strive to be consistent AND creative with your visual branding efforts. As your business grows, invest in creating a visual logo that can be built into all aspects of your business. Remember that your brand’s promise and personality is most effective if your customers can mentally CONNECT your logo with your business.

The use of a trademark is an integral part long term visual branding. A trademark also protects your business in the long run. Building your brand with a trademark occurs when you convey you are a serious contender for their business. When your potential customer is on the fence between two companies seemingly equal companies, a trademark can influence their choice. Your customer service from sale to repeat sale will help keep them loyal customers but getting that initial foothold will either make or break your business.

Branding Strategy #3 – Branding through relationships with your customers.

Through building relationships with your visitors and customers, you will create deep connections that compel them to return to you for future business. Granted many customers buy based on price or brand names regardless of the environment or customer relations BUT if your business is built on customers rather than sales ~ you will learn the power of branding through relationships. Essentially, it comes down to what your business offers. A service business can only thrive when you are able to develop strong professional relationships with your customers. If you run a website that offers digital products with little human interaction then you may discount the relationship aspect. Smart business? I don’t think so. Customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendations come from customers impressed with your product, service and the way they were treated by you and your team. That’s the bottom line. The long term benefit of connecting with your customers definitely outweighs any short team business success.

Branding Strategy #4 – Choose your branding and marketing strategies based on your potential customers.

Personality branding lifts a business apart from the competition and above similar business with the human element of the business. Your brand’s “personality” is made up of the human aspect of your brand. What human attributes do you WANT you’re branding to project? Think of the customers you seek. Consider the human traits that will draw them toward your brand. Does your brand project warmth, fun, wit, efficiency, imagination, maturity or thriftiness? The human elements you convey in your marketing and branding will be key to reaching your target market. Investment bankers often use branding strategies that convey steady, mature, serious and bottom line thinking because those are what their potential customers seek.

On the other hand, viral branding works best with businesses that tote themselves as cutting edge, trendy, hip and fresh like Apple computers, cell phone companies and even credit cards.

While sensory branding is built on the full experience of the customer, you may make the sale but the customer’s TOTAL experience is what provides the branding you seek. Although sensory branding occurs after you make the sale, sharing customer testimonials that relate their own total experience with your product or services will help get the first sale. When their own experience closely matches the testimonials, the branding will be further deepened for them. Because branding helps customers make a choice, deep positive branding is your goal.

Remember…

Branding and marketing your business is a big venture. Spend time each week on building your brand. Your brand consists of the qualities others assign to your business. Your business offers something – but starting a business alone does not mean success. Success comes when others look at your business in its entirety as VALUABLE and DELIVERS.

How will you know when your branding efforts have succeeded? When the experience of doing business with you fulfills the Brand Identity you set out to develop. Essentially, it comes down to the customer’s experience. When your business is living up to your brand’s essence, consistently and with honest business practices…you will know you have succeeded in building your brand! Profit margins aside, you will know you ARE a successful business owner.

Tammy Ames (c) 2006 - WAHM Connections is a growing home business resource site with a focus on finding your fit in the online business world. Subscribe to WAHM Connections weekly online ezine by reading the latest issue online at Work at Home Connections Ezine

Have you ever taken part in that debate? The one where someone tries to prove that some product in their home was purchased for purely logical reasons, with no emotion involved?

They never can win. Even a kleenex becomes emotional when you can’t find one. The same applies to choosing which brand to buy of all the choices available for most products. You choose the brand that makes you feel the best, even if it means choosing a specific brand of canned peas because once upon a time your Mother told you that to serve less meant feeding your family sub standard meals.

How does that apply to you as a marketer… or as an individual selling a used car or the snowsuit your child outgrew?

It means your first job is to show people how good they’ll feel when they buy what you offer. Never mind the features, go first for the feelings. The features come later, as logical proof that they’ve made the right choice.

You might start your snowsuit ad with a verbal picture of a child staying warm and dry. The used car might be a big gas guzzler… but focus on how good it will feel when everyone can stretch out their legs… and how convenient it will be to take everyone in the same car on your next outing. Or…it might be a sporty little job that makes you feel like a kid as you zip down the freeway.

If you offer a cleaning service, talk first about how your customers will be free to pursue work or hobbies and still come home to a fresh-smelling, sparkling clean house where they can relax and enjoy the evening. Then go in to how you use environmentally friendly cleaners, remember to clean every little corner, and don’t mind walking the dog while you’re there.

Whatever you offer, remember that emotions create the desire and logic backs it up. You need both, but if all you offer is logic, it will be a tough sale. It isn’t always easy. Sometimes you have to uncover hidden benefits that appeal to emotions people don’t necessarily want to talk about.

Those are emotions such as pride, as in: "I have a cleaner house than my best friend. (And that means I’m a better wife.)" "My car is much cooler than my brother’s. (And that means I’m going to get the girls.)" "My children are warmer… meaning I’m a better Mom or Dad. (And that means my own Mom is going to approve of me at last.)"

Dig deep, find those benefits before you start to write, and tap into the emotions that cause your customers to buy.

Happy writing!

Marte Cliff is a Freelance Copywriter with many more tips to share. Visit her at marte-cliff.com and sign up for a free monthly advertising ezine. Marte also offers a no-obligation critique of your present advertising.

Why is it that Coke can market all kinds of mutated varieties such as Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Diet Vanilla Cherry Coke, etc., and consumers literally drink it up? But when Mercedes came out with a low end version of their car, the "real" Mercedes owners were horrified? To discover the answer requires identifying a company’s "pivot point." The pivot point of your brand is that inherent promise you have made, (wittingly or unwittingly), with your customers. And while you can move your brand in any number of directions, that one pivot piont, that key element of trust, must remain steadfastly in place. Want proof? Ask yourself, hypothetically, which of the following would be more accepted in the marketplace…

• Rolex announcing that it was coming out with a very high end clothing line?

• Rolex announcing that is was going to sell a $10 version of its watches at Wal- Mart?

Rationally it would make more sense that Rolex would extend itself further in the watch category. But Rolex really isn’t in the watch business, it’s in the prestige business. That’s the pivot point, or position, it owns in the customer’s mind. To create a cheap, widely available watch would seem more like a betrayal than a brand extension. It’s obvious once you really think about it, but how many times do companies believe they are in the business of the product they make?

Since I’ve positioned Tungsten Marketing as a source for brilliant branding, it would be more acceptable if I next offered brilliant public relations vs. a bottom-of-the- pile discount naming warehouse. If I were to do that, I would need to create a whole new brand or identity so as not to cloud my current positioning… one of providing clarity and brilliance.

A client of mine was at a loss on how to grow his tuxedo business. It was post 9-11 and the mood was anything but festive. When I asked him what business he was in, he was flabbergasted, "Tuxedos of course!". In fact he was the second generation of tuxedo sellers. But then I prodded him again. "Do men really want to wear heavy, tight-fitting, expensive tuxedos?" He thought for a moment and finally replied no. As he sat confused, I asked him again, "What business are you really in… what do that makes customers love you?" His eyes widened and he replied "We make men look good!"

He has discovered his "pivot point".

Making men look good brought with it all kinds of new possibilities. He could gather his customer’s email addresses while they shopped for tuxedos, and then send them thoughtful reminders before loved ones birthdays and anniversaries, with recommendations on the perfect jewelry, flowers or chocolates. He could make a commission on these products all while making his male customers "look good". He could extend his product line to include business suits, since he would no longer be just a "tuxedo" shop, but a place where men could come to look good in the eyes of others. See how important that subtle distinction can be? Instead of being stuck in a dead end industry, the world was suddenly full of possibilities. That’s powerful stuff.

So in looking at your business, what is your pivot point? What is it about your business that makes your core customers love it, use it, and spread the word about it? It’s probably not the goods themselves but the way in which you deliver them. And that’s what customers are truly buying. That’s your pivot point. Find it and you can move your business in entirely new, and profitable, directions!

Phil Davis, President of Tungsten Marketing, has over 20 years of national naming and branding expertise to his credit. Phil has written for Entrepreneur.com and other leading business publications on the importance of naming, branding and strategic positioning. His work can be view at http://www.PureTungsten.com

Full-Review: Article Post Robot

How would you like to be able to submit your article which you have just written to over one hundred submission sites at the same time? I’m not talking just any submission sites either, I’m talking the ones that you personally have selected.

The ones that you have determined that in your opinion are the very best ones on the Internet for your particular product.

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well with the Article Post Robot you can actually do that.

No, this isn’t just a sales promotion, this is the *naked* truth.

HINT: this same article was published using the tool I am going to review now…

Article Post Robot is by far one of the best internet marketing tools on the internet and can, in my opinion and based on my testing, both save you time and make you money at the same time.

You will write your article, complete with contact information and your websites url, which will enable readers to further follow up on what they have just read. Ordinarily it would take you a week or more to post this article on an appreciable number, that is over one hundred, various sites, however, with article post robot, you click once and your article is immediately posted to all of the sites which you personally have chosen and you are ready to begin another article which will in turn be sent off to do still more advertising for your website and the item which you are marketing.

Sound too good to be true?

Yes, it certainly does but the beauty of it is that it’s not too good to be true, it’s very much real and hundreds of online marketers and sales representatives are already taking advantage of it. It is a totally automated solution to posting your articles to hundreds of free article submission sites and e-group lists (Yagoo, Google, etc.)

There are other automatic posting systems out there claiming to do the same thing, and to the best of my knowledge, it’s true that they do, however not as easily or as quickly.

Article Post Robot literally does exactly what it claims to do.

Here’s how it works:

First you fill in all of the article information, following that you fill in all of the author information, then you choose all of the article sites to which you want to post. When this is done you simply press one key and it is done. That’s not one key for each site as is required for some other automatic posting systems, but one key total for all of them and they are off to be posted while you are free to begin to work on your next project.

With Auto Post Robot, you receive not only instant posting, but on those sites which require additional information, Auto Post Robot will only submit your password and login ID, leaving you free to choose the profile which you would best like to use, showing your contact information and anything else which you deem pertinent for this particular article.

Users of Article Post Robot will also receive all of the latest notification of all of the software updates, so that they can always be completely updated with the latest versions.

The development team is constantly adding new sites to it’s collection all the time so that the users have a constantly growing selection all the time.

They also have a full time technical support person to help you to deal with any problems that may arise.

Through the use of Article Post Robot, your website is also automatically liked to hundreds and then thousands of other websites, thereby increasing your ranking with the search engines. People pay top dollar and do a substantial amount of advertising for the rating which you can achieve simply by using Article Post Robot.

This doesn’t mean that all of this will happen to you without any effort on your part. You do have to write the articles, you do have to research the various sites to see which ones you want to program into Article Post Robot, which ones will be the most advantageous for you, This will mean research on your part to make the choices that will be the best choices for you. But these are all things that you would have had to do without the Article Post Robot, then you would have had to spend time posting the articles on each chosen site individually.

Now it is all done for you at the click of one button.

Codrut Turcanu’s FREE $29.97 eReport Reveales For The First Time Ever… "The Quick And Easy *Formula* For Boosting Your Site Traffic By Up 267% AND Generating 297% More AdSense & Affiliate Income!" http://www.AllMarketingSecrets.com

One of the simplest ways to build a strong brand is to make sure that every point of contact that prospects and customers have with your company reinforces the brand promise. Although relatively simple in theory, “touch-point alignment” often proves difficult in practice. Consistently reinforcing your brand requires discipline, focus and commitment.

When asked to identify a company’s brand touch points, most people point to the obvious, such as logos and advertisements. In fact, people often think of the logo as the brand and advertising as the primary way to build the brand. In reality, the concept of brand touch points encompasses far more than these basic visual cues. Every point of contact your prospects and customers have with your company and its products and services provides an opportunity to build your brand – or weaken it. How you manage those points of contact determines the relative strength or weakness of your brand.

Every company has an internal and external brand experience, and each plays an important role in developing your overall brand. Picture a massive iceberg floating in the Northern Atlantic. The visible portion poking its head above the ocean’s surface represents a small fraction of the iceberg’s full mass. Similarly, only a small portion of your company’s brand experience – the external part - is highly visible. Much more of your brand lies below the surface and is not as easily recognizable.

A Case in Point

To illustrate our point, let’s look at an extreme example – IBM. For much of its history, IBM had one of the strongest brands in corporate America, arguably in the entire world. By the early 1990s, however, the company’s branding and advertising systems had fallen into a state of chaos. When Lou Gerstener took over as CEO in 1993, he quickly realized that reviving and clarifying the IBM brand was one of his highest priorities.

At the time of Gerstener’s arrival, IBM had more than 70 different ad agencies representing the firm. Each worked with a different product manager, with no central coordination or oversight. A single issue of an industry trade magazine could have up to 18 different IBM ads with 18 different designs, messages, and even logos. The company had hundreds of product brochures, each different enough that it was virtually impossible to tell that they came from the same company. Gerstener likened the situation to “70 little trumpets all tooting simultaneously for attention.”

To wrest control of IBM’s messaging from his country managers, Gerstener brought 35 of them to a conference center in Palisades, New York. He plastered the walls with IBM’s widely disparate advertising, packaging and marketing collateral, creating a veritable train wreck of brand and product positioning. At the end of his presentation, Gerstener posed one question: “Does anyone doubt we can do this better?” Unanimously, the team decided to consolidate IBM’s 70+ advertising relationships into a single global agency. From that point forward, all of IBM’s marketing reinforced one basic positioning message: IBM as global, world-class integrator. The rest is history.

A Question to Ponder and an Exercise

What if you conducted an exercise at your company similar to Gerstener’s branding exercise at IBM? What if you took every one of your company’s brand touch points and spread them across your conference room? Use the following list of touch points to start the process:

Internal Branding (Employees):

• Recruitment

• Advertising

• Website

• Employee Handbook

• Screening Process

• Goals and Objectives

• Review Process

• Compensation Structure

• Internal Communications

• Recognition Programs

• Training and Development

• Promotion Criteria

Retention Branding (Customers):

• Policies and Procedures

• Logo

• Identity

• Website

• Email Marketing

• On Hold

• Receptionist

• Brochures

• Datasheets

• Press Releases

• Advertisements

• Direct Mail

• Catalogs

• Packaging

• Pricing

• Strategic Alliances

• Correspondence

• Announcements

Acquisition Branding (Prospects):

• Customer Service

• Technical Support

• Logistics / Delivery

• Corporate

• Headquarters

• Branch Offices

• Tradeshow Booth

• Business Processes

Financial Branding (Financial Community):

• Press Releases

• Annual Report

• Quarterly Reports

• Analyst Briefings

• Investor Presentation

Every business is different, but chances are good that most, if not all, of these will apply to your business. As you review your various touch points, keep in mind that one of the simplest ways to build a strong brand is to make sure that every point of contact that prospects and customers have with your company reinforces your brand promise. Then ask the following questions:

• Is a singular message reinforced or are there a cacophony of messages?

• Is there a similar look and feel to the messages or do they look like they are from different companies?

• Is the visual imagery the same or is the graphic look (including the pictures) different?

It’s easy to conclude that a logo is a brand or that advertising is the primary strategy to build brand (even though it is extremely expensive, even for the largest companies). However, the reality is that a brand consists of a lot more than a logo, and there are many ways to build a brand. The key is to identify the touch points of your brand and make sure they are aligned with your brand promise. The more consistency you have across your various touch points, the stronger your brand will be.

Get your free whitepaper: The 10 Biggest Technology Marketing Mistakes… and How to Avoid Them

Rod Whitson serves Townsend as President and Chief Brand Strategist. Townsend is expert at helping organizations with innovative products and services develop differentiated, compelling value propositions. Townsend is the largest integrated marketing agency in Southern California. Rod has personally led recent branding engagements with Intel, BAE Systems, Merck, DowPharma, Marsh & McLennan, and the University of California system. He has also worked with a host of successful and not so successful early stage technology and life sciences companies. Since Townsend’s founding in 1993, it has helped clients create market valuation in excess of $80 billion.

Visit Rod’s blog, Branding the Complex

© 2006 Rod Whitson - All Rights Reserved Worldwide

Here’s a simple, but possibly painful test to perform on your radio script before you’ve produced it. Read the first 5 seconds of your commercial out loud to yourself or to members of your intended audience. Then stop and ask: "Would you continue to listen to this commercial?"

If your commercial is already produced, then play the first 5 seconds of the spot, put it on pause and ask the same question.

If the answer is "No," go back and re-write your opening "audio headline" so that it catches the attention of and intrigues listeners to stay, because if you don’t get them in the first few seconds, you won’t keep them for the rest of the commercial. If the answer is "Yes," then go on to tell the rest of the story with an interesting middle and a strong ending.

That critical 5 second opening could be words, interesting voices, sound effects, music or any combination of those elements. It might be funny, poignant, shocking, intriguing, dramatic, or newsworthy, but make sure it’s relevant to the audience you want to reach as well as to the rest of the spot. An attention getting opening that isn’t part of a story that develops in the following 25 or 55 seconds will only confuse or irritate your listener. A relevant story that doesn’t have a strong opening won’t have any audience.

Remember, if you don’t capture them in the first 5 seconds, often the rest of the commercial is wasted time.

Jeffrey Hedquist has been called "Advertising’s Storyteller." He’s won over 700 awards while creating radio success stories for clients in 44 states. For a free subscription to his newsletter full of tips, techniques and secrets for getting results on radio, visit http://www.hedquist.com or phone 641-472-6708. Got a question on radio effectiveness you’d like answered? Email jeffrey@hedquist.com

I’m always seeking fun and creative ways to market my clients, and myself so I just couldn’t overlook this opportunity. Chase’s Calendar of Events has chosen January 30 as this year’s day when Americans should stop and appreciate the uniqueness and versatility of Bubble Wrap®.

Even more interesting is that Bubble Wrap® was invented as plastic wallpaper with a paper backing. After the plastic wallpaper failed to take off in the consumer market, the inventors realized that their invention could be used as a packaging material. Look where it is today, a mainstream of modern life. We can all aspire to having our product become a household word. Wouldn’t it be great if the first person someone thinks of when they have a problem to resolve or needs a solution were you and your product?

The point of this trivial information is to send home the message that your success is all about branding. It is vital to brand yourself. That means build an image in someone’s mind that pops (no pun intended) to the forefront when they need a particular product, service or expertise. Branding yourself doesn’t happen overnight. First, you have to compete with the awareness factor. (Do they even know that you exist?) Next, you have to overcome the credibility factor. (They know who you are, but do they know what you can do for them?) Finally, you have to tackle accessibility or availability (Can they reach you when they need to? Do they know where and how to get in touch with you?)

Think again about Bubble Wrap® and all of its unlikely applications. People never seem to throw it away. They save it for future uses or because it’s cool and works as a definite de-stressor. That is how you want your clients/customers to think of you. They save your info for when the need arises and remember the infinite ways that they can use your services.

So what lesson can we learn from Bubble Wrap®? Sometimes our marketing efforts might move in unpredictable ways. Ways we could not have conceived when we thought of the original idea. However, no idea, no matter how bizarre it may seem should be discarded. The secret lies in capturing those ideas when they arise and using them as a platform to focus on bigger and better opportunities. So get out of your bubble and begin a strategy that concentrates on branding yourself.

These tips and more come from the extensive library of personal branding tools developed by JoAnn Hines the Chief People Packager available in the "Packaging Yourself Workbook." http://www.packaginguniversity.com/pkgustorefront.htm

If you have a question or issue that needs an answer please let me know.

Symbols are pictures which we use to give a message to other beings and to those that will come after us. The interpretation of the symbol is very personal and unique to each individual.

Those symbols and codes we take for granted are things like the alphabet we use in our language. Languages and their associated symbols are a living thing.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when watching our children sending text messages to each other on their mobile phones. They have created their own language, which is unique and constantly changing.

They may use different symbols in different orders when talking with a certain friend and change the order and language with another. I suppose this is a little like local dialect in different parts of the country.

The main thing to be aware of is the relationship between the symbols on the surface of language and their meaning and effects on our emotions and feelings. Also, the message can be sent out on many levels.

As we write we send a telepathic message, which is received by the other person instantly. The letter or email will follow later. It is this telepathic message that pre-programmes the other person’s emotions and feeling to interpret the message in a certain way and give it its truth.

Symbols are very powerful: as the old saying goes, a picture says a thousand words. It is the intricate matrix of emotions and feeling that is enlivened by a symbol and connects it to your Inner Self. This connection highlights your own truth that you receive from the symbol used.

Last night while I was sleeping I became aware I was receiving lots of symbols. I was quietly watching as thousands of visual images seemed to be being downloaded into my consciousness. Each image was only visible for about a tenth of a second before my awareness moved on to the next image.

I have yet to understand the reason for this download. It appeared to consist mainly of the symbols used by the ancient Egyptians in their wall paintings of animals and various headdresses.

The point being that it is not the symbol that is important; it is its inner meaning for us as an individual. We all have an inner knowledge and belief system which interprets these symbols. This gives meaning and understanding but it is our inner feelings and emotions which give us our truth.

It is this inner connection to Self – that Inner Universal Life Force – that is the seat of our true Inner Knowledge. Our feeling and emotions join the symbols on the surface of life to the inner depth of knowledge which creates our truth and understanding.

It is as though we compare even the smallest symbol to our Inner Universal Knowledge and, through feelings and emotions, make judgements and decisions which give the symbol meaning for us.

The awareness within and our connection to Self, the Universal Life Force, should not be overshadowed too much by our learned beliefs and judgements. It is important to be aware on what level of our awareness we are deciding and acting.

The more we are in tune with our Soul and Universal Life Force the better, as our actions are in tune with the whole universe.

Message channelled by George Lockett (C) Copyright 2005, All Rights Reserved. Read HealerGeorge’s Blog: Journey into the Self Yes, I can send you absent/distant healing: this will really help. Just follow the instructions on the home page of my web site at: HealerGeorge Web Site and Distant Healing

As you make your donation you will get the opportunity to put in your personal details, so I can focus the healing directly to you. Or ask at question at: Ask HealerGeorge