Business cards are one of the most powerful and inexpensive marketing tools you can use. Here are 50 surefire tips to make the most out of your business cards:
About The Author
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest (http://www.theinternetdigest.net) an online collection of tips and resources on Internet Marketing and Web Design. You can also visit his Business Card Tips page at: http://www.accordmarketing.com/businesscards/.
Feel that? The crisp tingle in the air? It’s fall. Fall ushers in the promise of eating, seeing, and getting. It’s my favorite time of year. By now, kids are settled into school, sweaters set free from mothballs, and it’s an amazing time to… BUY.
I don’t know about you; but for some reason this time of year lowers my normal customer resistance to retail and turns up my desire to buy, buy, buy. And not just anything. Products I’ve come to know have reliable value to me. You too?
Think about it. It starts with buying Halloween candy. Do you reach for the no-name orange cellophane wrappers of chocolate dots, or do you buy the mini packages of M&M’s? I know! Me too! Why is that? It’s the same thing! But, the brand of M&M’s represents a certain quality that we have come to know as valuable. And left with candy at the end of the evening, that’s what I want to be gobbling on. It doesn’t matter how long the product has been on a shelf, an M&M is still an M&M.
A favorite thing I like to do in fall is cruise through the stores and see what "they" think "we’ll" buy. This past weekend, I stepped into Crate & Barrel (a personal favorite) and went weak in the knees!
I walked from beautiful table setting to even more beautiful table setting and I thought about the perception that Crate & Barrel had created in me. As I drooled over the dishes, I imagined how the quality of my life would change if I brought them home. (A little bubble appeared to the side of my head. I saw an image of me overhearing holiday guests comment about how beautiful my table was, and subsequently how great I was.) The bubble faded as I dissected how Crate & Barrel created that impression in me. How did they get me to think that?
I passed through living room settings that I would give my left pinkie toe to own (it’s okay, I’m right footed). I ran my hand over the fabrics and textures. Rich leathers. Deep colors. Luxuriant fabrics. All things I’d spend my money on to give my 10-year old living room a facelift. They established in me a certain quality! And somehow they knew what areas I needed to fix up… my boring dining room dishes, my tired living room. Hmmm… Hmmm… a specific quality and knowledge of my problem.
At each display was a sign that had a certain look. A color. A typeface. Even the way it was laid out on the page! It all matched the quality I got from the home décor items I so desperately wanted. (By the way, I never knew I wanted an orange pear- shaped leather vase before.) I picked up their holiday catalog. Lo and behold, not only did it show the picture of the coveted pear-shaped leather vase, but the typefaces and colors matched the signs in the store. Hmmm… consistent communication and imaging. I started to tingle.
As I passed the jewel-toned velvet pillows, I thought, "Crate & Barrel is no different from the companies and small business owners that we help." They are no different from YOU. Or are they? Let’s see…
You have:
• A product or service that is every bit as good and valuable as Crate & Barrel.
• You fix a problem or change the quality of life for your clients as much if not more than Crate & Barrel.
After that, it can break down for small businesses and solo-preneurs.
You may not have:
• Consistent imaging (e.g., business card, website, brochures, leave-behind, product packaging, etc.)
• The deep understanding of how to communicate "the brand" of your business that can translate to your entire support team/staff. (This is easy and affordable to do with BrandU. That’s why it was created.)
And most importantly, what most entrepreneurs tend to forget or, sadly, never deeply establish:
• A huge, non-wavering belief in what you are bringing to people.
You have just as much of this as the people who created Crate & Barrel. They just have more practice at it and had enough vision to bring in partners to help them grow and communicate it.
The last three points are crucial to your business success and easier to address than you think. Simply:
• keep up the value of your service and product AND,
• adopt a brand mindset!
It’s where EVERY brand starts BEFORE they’re a brand. In our upcoming book, Why BrandU, we go into the reasons why it’s imperative for entrepreneurs to gain the power of branding. You CAN have large business success, no matter what size you are.
This holiday season, I share with you these TWO simple brand mindset tips:
• As you’re out (or online) shopping, pause a moment and think about the reasons you buy the things you buy and,
• See how you can apply those reasons to your business.
After strolling around Crate & Barrel for over an hour (which flew by like 5 minutes), I joyfully left with the most amazing vase for my table AND I was filled with a great sense of delight and excitement; knowing YOU can be just as big!
© 2003 Castle Montone, Limited All Rights Reserved.
Written by Kim Castle, the Co-founder of BrandU™ — the home of only step-by- step process for developing your business as a brand from the inside out!
To get information on upcoming BrandU one-day workshops: http:// www.whybrandu.com/Public/events/workshop/index.cfm?semID=13
Get your Why You?!(sm) monthly ezine for easy-to-read tips and informative insights on branding. To subscribe: http://www.whybrandu.com/
“BrandU™ — Big Business Success No Matter Your Size”
"You had me at hello," those famous words from the movie Jerry McGuire let Tom Cruise know that Rene Zellweger’s character was hooked from that point and the rest of his talking was unnecessary. When in networking situations, many small business owners leave people with a slightly different feeling. If questioned for the truth, what would likely be said is, "you bored me at hello!" That is definitely not a great way to grow your business into a powerful name brand. Networking works, but not if you leave your prospects bored.
Networking opportunities are everywhere. You can find them at Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau events, not to mention when you are in line at the grocery store. There are even groups of people who regularly meet solely for the purpose of networking. Unfortunately, all of the networking opportunities in the world will not help grow your business unless people remember you and your company after you are gone.
Here are three strategies to avoid boring people during your next networking opportunity:
1) Gone in Thirty-Seconds - Attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Any longer than thirty seconds for your "elevator speech" and you will be tuned out. People cannot sit through a thirty-second commercial without changing the channel on the television. Your business will be treated the same way. They will start thinking about what they need to pick up on the way home or other random thoughts. Many times, they are simply waiting for you to stop talking so they can try to sell you on their business. Your brand message must be short, simple and to the point. If you ramble too much, the person will start feeling like Charlie Brown in school - "wahwah, wah wah wah," "yes ma’am."
2) Red or Black - Pick a color. Roulette gives you the option of betting on red or black. If you bet red, you win when it hits on any red number. Winning is good. If it hits on any black number, you lose. Losing is not so good. However, when you "hedge" and bet on red and black together you are guaranteed to not win. In a networking situation, limit what you talk about. Sure, you are risking leaving out something the prospect would like to hear. However, unless you get lucky and mention it first, the odds are that you will lose their attention by then anyway. Limit the scope of your brand, or say everything and be remembered for nothing.
3) Listen - That’s right, you are remembered more when you listen. Most of us go through our day fighting to be heard. It feels really good to be acknowledged and understood. So good that we automatically think highly of the person listening to us. Listening demonstrates that you value the person talking. Sincerely listen to what the other person has to say and they will leave with high regard for you and your business.
There ya have it, networking success as simple as 1, 2, 3! Follow all three strategies and you are sure to notice a sharp improvement in your networking. Before you know it, you will leave your future clients saying "you sold me at hello!" Now, those types of responses build a powerful brand!
Kevin Kearns is a small business branding coach. He holds a Master of Science degree in Organization Development and is a member of the Coachville Graduate School of Coaching. With a mixture of hands-on experience, research, and FUN, Kevin helps small businesses become the only choice. Visit http://www.kevinkearns.com to join The Branding Bunch - a community made up of small business owners that want to grow their business the easy way.
LED video displays give you the power to communicate, to motivate, and to entertain. Led video displays are seen to be sited for outdoor advertising, in casinos, for events like sporting events in stadium and arena, for staging and mobile display etc.
The features of LED video display include high resolution with virtual pixel technology, advanced LED video displays have 200% more pixels than traditional LED displays for LED video Displays. With more display pixels, you can show more details and information, or simply a better video quality. This advance LED has the technology of displaying 48 bit color range capable showing 281 trillion colors.
This larger dynamic range helps Act One displays show more details on dark scenes, and smoother, more brilliant colors for all videos and pictures.
Jayex Technology the leading manufacturer of LED displays has proven itself in distribution of LED video Displays with solely providing high brightness output to ensure high visibility for outdoor video displays which is very critical issue.
The horizontal viewing angle of video displays is up to 150 degrees in the daytime, and up to 170 degrees in the night time. It means with displays, you will be able to reach more viewers and broadcast your information more efficiently.
The display systems come with user-friendly software to perform remote control and management. With the software, you can remotely monitor the status of the display, as well as upload and schedule files to show.
LED video displays are modularly designed so that they can be easily maintained. They can be configured into customized sizes and width/height ratios with the combination of modules. The modular design also makes LED video displays easy to setup and dismantle, and therefore perfect for staging applications.
About The Author
Paula Jones
Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia.
Clients who love what you do are the cornerstone of a successful professional service business. Here are three ways to boost the value your clients associate with you and your business.
1. Deliver unexpected value.
Delivering your service with excellence each and every time is the foundation of this method. Excellent service is essential. But you can’t stop there if you want to create top-of-mind awareness and become one in a million in the mind of your client. You also need to proactively manage your client’s expectations, and to provide unexpected value systematically and regularly.
Management of client expectations begins with your very first contact. How you introduce yourself and your business, the messages you provide in your marketing materials and your reputation combine to create a set of expectations in the mind of your client.
And that set of expectations is why your client hires you. If you don’t live up to those expectations, no matter whether or not they are realistic, your perceived value instantly decreases.
Hence, it is incumbent upon you to unearth all expectations held by your client that will ultimately affect her evaluation of your service. Where it’s appropriate, you need to help your client revise her expectations of you. This is an on-going process as you interact with your client over time. But you mustn’t ever forget to attend to the task of managing client expectations.
Adding unexpected value is easy and has a great impact on the positive perception of your business. This can be done in a myriad of ways, depending on what your actual service is just be sure that the unexpected things you do or give your clients are aligned with who you are and what your business is. A couple of ways you might give unexpected value are:
– Giving your home phone number to clients when you’re working on a project that requires late hours or weekend work (i.e., making yourself available outside of regular business hours).
– Keeping a file of information you come across in the newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet that is pertinent and valuable to your clients. Regularly sending this information to your prospects and clients even though they may never hire you.
– Going the extra mile with your services regardless of the short-term expense to you.
– Delighting and surprising your clients in a personal, yet professional, manner such as with a Happy Completion-of-Project card or a new business journal.
– Providing extra services either exclusively for your active clients or at a reduced rate for them.
2. Ensure your client’s success.
This path starts by ensuring that the service you provide is actually going to solve your client’s problem. To do that, you need to perform a thorough discovery process. As part of your discovery process, you’ll determine if this project is ideal for you, and if the problems it presents are ones you can magnificently and happily solve.
You’ll do your best work on projects you find intriguing, interesting, and just a bit of a challenge to your expertise. If the project will bore you or overwhelm you, I recommend you refer it on to someone else who is better suited to it. Give your clients the best opportunity to be successful by ensuring they have the right person for the job, even when that isn’t you. Your client will respect you for this, be surprised by it, and hire you when a more appropriate project arises.
Once you accept a project, proactively reduce the risk your client faces. Your client is expected to provide a solution that meets certain criteria in the areas of schedule, cost, and quality. Be sure you fully understand what those criteria are. Every project needs to rank schedule, cost, and quality in order of importance to the project. The primary criteria could be any of these three. If you have agreed to provide a solution for a fixed fee, manage the scope of the project and your expenses so that you don’t exceed the project fee. If you have agreed to a target delivery date, manage the scope of the project and the resources allocated to the project to ensure the date is met.
And, if you have agreed to a standard of quality, manage the schedule and resources to ensure the standard is met. You can only hold one primary criterion at a time the other two are movable. Of course, the ideal is to meet all three criteria. Help your client’s projects come in on time, in budget, and with exceptional quality.
Don’t just provide your service provide your expertise and your wisdom. Help your clients find an easier, safer, less expensive or quicker way to accomplish their objectives.
3. Toot your own horn.
If your client doesn’t know all that you’re providing her or her project, how can she possibly fully appreciate you? Clients are busy people and they frequently don’t see everything you provide. So it’s up to you to make sure that they know what you’re doing.
But first you need to know what it is that you deliver for your clients. You aren’t just providing technical writing, graphic design, editing or whatever. You are providing solutions, new perspectives, structures, planning, alternatives, strategies, resources, energy, processes, procedures, and more.
Once you know what you provide, find several ways to communicate it to your clients. For example, you can add a hand-written and personalized note on your invoice to the effect of "Terry I really enjoyed the opportunity to brainstorm options to ABC process with you. Looking forward to our continued great relationship." Or set up several different email signatures, each one focused on an intangible you provide.
If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody else will!
Copyright 2004, Rose Hill, Inc
Rose Hill, Founder and Owner,of Biz Whiz Expert (http://www.SoloBizVille.com) and Team Member of Solo-E.Com (http://www.Solo-E.Com) has been self-employed since 1990. Knowing how to run corporate departments and how to market corporate entities, products, and services did nothing to prepare her for successfully running and marketing a one-person business. That is why Rose created the SoloBizVille and SoloBizU community — to specifically to help solo entrepreneurs jumpstart their business success without all the trial-and-error learning.
Find more articles like this at http://www.Solo-E.com, the lifestyle-inspired online learning and connection community. Visit now to receive a free copy of our special report, The Four Secrets of Solo Entrepreneur Success, plus a complimentary 30-day membership.
LED scoreboards can be utilized in most of the sporting event for eye-catching effects replace traditional scoreboards. This high- tech lighting system is both energy – efficient and able to produce a very bright light.
LED scoreboard are manufactured using the advanced technology called LED stands for light emitting diode which becoming the technology of choice in almost all the areas of the world. LED’s outshine any other method of programmable signage in every way imaginable. They require inherently low power usage. LED’s possess superior view ability, which is always a significant factor in the visual market of signs.
LED scoreboards are available for football, soccer, rugby, cricket, basketball, water polo, track and field, and weightlifting competitions. These displays are very much effective to show the scores and live updates. Moreover Monitor scoreboards are low cost, high quality, easy to use, and require little or no regular maintenance.
With the leading manufacture, Jayex Technology You can have a custom scoreboard for less than you expect which uses power line modem technology to transmit the commands to the scoreboard over the existing power lines. This makes installation as easy as plugging in the scoreboard.
About The Author
Paula Jones
Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia.
Electronic reader boards are the most efficient way to convey the information. Therefore these nowadays are widely accepted all over the world. These have found admirers in all sorts of places, and continuous in serving in unlikely areas too. in the world of finance, sports, research, and many others, electronic reader boards are sovereign.
Electronic reader boards are used as indoor and outdoor boards. Larger reader boards do not only advertises the dealerships, but also all of the many community activities that take place. They prove to be one that meets the auto mall requirements while not being offensive to the city council.
These electronic reader boards are used for financial trading. They give financial professionals the power to access unlimited financial data instantly. This quick service can speed up the task and is the only was these professionals can remain updated of market flux.
Behind the popularity of these Electronic reader boards, the technology is the main point of consideration which makes them speeder and effective.
Electronic reader board can be connected to local power supply and have the ability to receive information from virtually any source. The information can be broadcasted and viewed by customer, employees and the world with no halt.
Moreover the clarity and brightness are the features which makes readers more attractive and eye-catching.
Electronic reader board comes in many size and height according to the manufacturers limit. One of the leading manufacturer Jayex Technology gives full option in size, height and color of the text. not even with pre-defined models, but they with custom needs also.
About The Author
Paula Jones
Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia.
Electronic display signs are used nowadays in great extent to display important information instantly all over the world, which uses LED technology, which stands for light- emitting diodes. These are widely used in the worlds of commerce, government and even non-profit organizations.
Electronic display signs are widely used in every metropolitan cities and most others cities too. This shows their popularity even in unlikely places as well. This is only because they allow the outlet to simply and clearly present the information to the world, which can be clearly seen from great distance.
One of the unimagined area, Churches, uses this technology where they employ these electronic displays, which helps lead worshippers in song. These electronic display sign are remarkably easy to use and can be updated through data entered via an infra-red remote keypad or through a computer. Of course, they can be programmed to get automatically updated. Jayex technology limited is the one, leader in proving this.
These electronic displays utilized four line of text (it can be more or less depending on the size and height of the character chosen) with fix limit of characters per line. Jayex offers several models which varies in height of character, color system, graphic options, LED intensity and dimming capability.
About The Author
Paula Jones
Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia.
Moving Message Signs are a unique, attention-grabbing way to communicate and motivate. They are used for eye-catching shop-front or under awning advertising, promotions of products or services, directing and/or welcoming customers, displaying safety and emergency information, directing customers to specific service areas or entrances etc.
Moving message signs need the most sophisticated software and hardware to enable them to make them active and run quickly. They are user friendly and easy to program a wide variety of text and graphics.
Programming important messages and changing them whenever you like using the handy wireless remote control is the most feasible feature with which custom requirements are satisfied. Special features include user programmable logos and graphics as well as variance in flashing effects and speed.
Jayex Technology provides standard range of moving message signs build to meet customer’s requirements. Easy installation, wall mounting or any other options with handy accessories are the unique features of this company. Simple programming techniques via portable keyboard, or remotely by personal computer or modem are the added advantage.
The moving message signs comes in variety of range, that differ in size, height of character and color of the text or graphic to be displayed. Also multi color option can be chosen to make the screen more effective and eye-catching.
About The Author
Paula Jones
Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia.
Wide range of electronic Key venues around the globe has turned to Electronic score boards that not only look breathtaking from every angle and distance, but provide consistently reliable performance year in and year out.
Different type of sports including athletics, track cycling, running events, street cycling and mountain bike, swimming, synchronized swimming, diving as well as inline skating, water polo, ball spots, motor sports, alpine skiing, cross country and biathlon are some of the areas where Electronic score boards perfect fits solutions for. Adopting the current technologies these boards provides high brightness flat panel screens and is an added advantage.
Electronics Scoreboards offers good sound and effective lights, which totally change the effect of the game. In football, basketball, hockey, volleyball where the time is so important and it is displayed continuously on the scoreboards reducing with every seconds. Then leave the game with the realistic sound of the buzzer as time ends!
Now let the board does the work for you. At the present, there is no time to keep counting everything in your head while you are playing. When you always keep counting the score in your mind then how can you concentrate your mind in the game? That is not your job. Let the board to do instead of you.
Some Electronic Scoreboards features a powerful horn system (in automatic mode), which is used to signal the start and end of a game, and the start and end of an intermission period. Such systems have manual ‘override’ facility, enabling the horn to be used at any time during a game for fouls, emergencies, etc.
Electronic Scoreboards use high brightness LEDs for maximum visibility and definition with a full-color spectrum, increased brightness and a great choice of designs.
In LED technology, display modules comprising red, green and blue LEDs make up each pixel. Each module can have between three or four LEDs in it (one red, one green and one blue) or dozens of them and typically range from 4mm to 4cm (about 0.2in to 1.5in). To build a scoreboard using LED technology, thousands of these LED modules are integrated in a rectangular grid. The size of the screen depends on the size of the LED modules.
Excellent technology, outstanding visual clarity, easy set up and use are the aspects which attracts most sports events to install which the event is being executed.
A pioneer in the world of Electronic signs, Jayex Technology specializes in developing customized visual display solutions for the sports along having scoreboards available in the store. Specializing in solution for all sports venues, Jayex Technology are suppliers of solutions for scoring, sports timing, message display information centres and clocks/time systems.
Electronic score boards display systems are housed in smart, lightweight, wall-mounted enclosure built using polypropylene panels on an extruded aluminium frame.
About The Author
Paula Jones
Jayex Technology Limited, based in London specialise in advanced information display systems. Established in 1978 we have pioneered the development of the LED display market and now have over 18,000 customers worldwide. We offer, probably the largest range of models from small single line signs to big screen Megavision screens that can display live video and action replay in stadia.
