Author: Ethan Theo

Abe WalkingBear Sanchez is an International Speaker / Trainer / Consultant on the subject of cash flow / sales enhancement and business knowledge organization and use. Founder and President of www.armg-usa.com, WalkingBear has authored hundreds of business articles, has worked with numerous companies in a wide range of industries since 1982 and has spoken at many venues including the Shakespeare Globe Theater in London.

Categories
Business Trends

3 Small Business Investments that Pay Dividends this Week

Contributed by Dr. Joey

News reports of the D.C. celebrations this week around small businesses prompted me to remember my grandfather. He was a small business owner who farmed and ran a country store.

He managed risks such as drought-producing weather, commodity price changes of milk and tobacco affected by global markets, and Labor Day weekend hold-up’s. While technology start-up’s longing to be the next Facebook to IPO are all over the news these days, my grandfather was the typical small business owner of his generation…

…and of today as well. While Mark Zuckerberg  had the time of his life last week, most of the business fuel that powers the U.S. economic engine is local, small businesses like my grandfather’s. These owners are the people we sit beside at the school’s PTO meeting, sing “Amazing Grace” with on Sundays in an adjacent pew, and will stand in line with come the November elections.

So while the Small Business Administration captures most of the national news this week touting small businesses via sound bytes, what do you say we make some news of our own?

What if we actually do something profitable that creates a Work Positive difference for our friends slogging through the daily mud of running a business?

Here are 3 small business investments you can make this week that pay immediate dividends:

Invest in local food products

One of the better government initiatives comes from the USDA’s support of locally grown food products. This direct-to-market approach is an ancient-future strategy as my grandfather sold garden-grown tomatoes in his country store. Also, he sold his milk to a regional cooperative that produced dairy products like ice cream and milk. Of course, their products tasted better to me because I knew the cows personally…

Who grows blueberries in your neck of the woods? Or, raises grass-fed, antibiotic-free beef? Or, free-range chickens and eggs? Or, honey?

In addition to a host of benefits like freshness, you receive the satisfaction of knowing that as you invest in these local food products, you support small business owners in your local community.

Invest in local home products

When I renovated an apartment for renting, I could have installed pre-fab cabinets made in a factory somewhere far away. But I remembered my grandfather doing business with a local craftsman who built everything from knotty pine cabinets to pole barns. This small business owner, like my grandfather, employed local citizens from the community, did good work, and that’s why he was the go-to guy.

Installing new cabinets? Find a local craftsman. He can probably build furniture, also. Discover work by local artisans whether it’s paintings or pottery to decorate your home. Oftentimes, they accept commissioned work.

Besides excellence in craftsmanship, you develop a relationship with the small business owner as you invest in unique, local home products. Hand out business cards when your friends compliment your décor.

Invest in local entertainment

That local band playing for the Relay for Life fundraiser in your community all have day jobs. They play to support the community, laced with dreams of the big-stage. Buy a CD from them. Maroon 5 or Carrie Underwood won’t miss it.

Those kids in the Summer Theater have rehearsed for weeks to perform. Sure, you can drive to an off-Broadway production of Wicked. Invest in the future stardom of a potential Tony-award winner from your hometown.

I love watching my nephew, Dan Uggla, start at second base for the Braves when I travel to Atlanta. But I also love watching the Rookie League Braves play in my hometown. The hot dogs are just as good as I support Wayne who runs the concessions that my daughter’s friend, Jennifer, serves as one of her summer jobs.

As you invest in local entertainment, you give a big-thumbs up to small business owners.

So while the SBA captures the Washington headlines this week, let’s you and I invest in small businesses in these 3 ways that pay immediate dividends to the benefit of our friends and neighbors.

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who help professionals discover success in the silver lining of their business and achieve their dreams. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org/speaking.

Categories
Branding

10 Reasons Company Mascots are Making a Comeback

Contributed by Longhorn Leads

It’s been a gradual switch, but you may have noticed a significant advertising development creeping into advertisements over the past few years. Company mascots are back in favor, and ad firms are using them to market brands in a whole new way. Bucking the recent trend that favored a more sophisticated approach, mascots are providing a personal touch to corporate images that was sorely lacking. Here are ten reasons why mascots are making a comeback:

1. Social media like Facebook are based around personal interaction. Mascots provide users with a “person” with whom to communicate, as opposed to a corporate PR rep. It puts the “face” in Facebook, basically.

2. The mascot is a softer sell than the more traditional marketing ploys. Who feels threatened or put off, for instance, when that cute little gecko tells us how much money we can save by switching to Geico? Approximately no one that’s who. How could you when he’s so small and cute?

3. When creating a company profile on social networking sites, mascots provide the entity whose profile is being posted, the person who will be providing the updates, etc. Having a consistent mascot spanning each social media profile gives a certain uniformity and familiarity.

4. In an economic down period, big companies are looked upon less favorably, and benefit from the good will that a friendly mascot can earn them. Putting a warm, fuzzy face on a cold, impersonal corporate entity eases the trust issue.

5. Another by-product of an uncertain economy is a public desire for the safe and familiar. Nostalgia becomes big business, and baby boomers that grew up with company mascots on TV are more welcoming of this advertising approach.

6. The huge success of company mascots like Aflac’s duck (313,500 Facebook fans, and 14,537 followers on Twitter) has convinced corporate execs that there is enormous potential in unleashing the mascot beast.

7. The Hollywood trend toward CGI and more animated motion pictures has created a culture in which the public is accustomed to responding to non-human characters in a positive way. Consequently, adults who previously might have considered them juvenile are now more receptive to the mascot concept.

8. Advertising campaigns are more entertaining when they are centered around regular mascots, like Flo from Progressive Insurance, or those funny little Frosted Mini-Wheats guys. The ads have more lasting impact on viewers than a traditional pitch.

9. Company mascots incite reaction from the public. Ad campaigns that tap into the public psyche or invite opinion or response generate more passion and, therefore, a greater brand loyalty, when voiced through an object of affection like a mascot.

10. Ongoing storylines that are made possible by giving mascots their own profiles on social media, as well as personalized updates, encourage visitors to return to the website frequently. This enhances interaction between the company and the consumer.

Mascots have made their way into almost every niche, from insurance to cereals, and have created ad campaigns that have resonated with consumers in a positive way. With all the progressive strides that adding a mascot have made for companies, it’s likely that they’ll be around for the long haul.

Categories
Success Attitude

Just Wonderful: Why We Focus on Our Weaknesses (and Fail to Develop Our Strengths)

A couple of years ago, I presented Your Talent Advantage, the psychological assessment and business development system I helped to create, to a networking group.

I thought the focus of the talk was pretty straightforward: the major points behind Perceptual Style Theory (on which our assessments are based), the six innate Perceptual Styles, natural skills versus acquired skills, and how you’re more likely to succeed when you focus on the former. So when I had finished, I was stunned when the first question was, “So, if I take your assessments, you’re just going to tell me how wonderful I am?”

What struck me was the use of the words ‘just’ and ‘wonderful’. The first, ‘just’, implies that hearing about your good qualities, natural skills, talents, and aptitudes is no big deal. The second, ‘wonderful’, amounts to a near-total dismissal of the positive in our lives. (Change the word to ‘talented’, ‘skilled’, or ‘gifted’, and see how differently the question reads!)

In retrospect, I should have been more prepared for such a question, as experience has shown me that embracing a strengths-based approach to building a business is difficult for many people.

When you work with Perceptual Style Theory every day (as I do), it is easy to forget just how radical an approach it really is. But it’s only radical because the ‘grow your weaknesses’ philosophy is so deeply ingrained in our society, for a number of reasons:

1. As a society we focus more on creating well-rounded citizens than on developing the exceptional in each of us. This is a well-intentioned approach designed to make sure that each of us can function adequately within society, but it prevents us from deeply exploring our natural skills and abilities.

2. Many of us have been taught that to focus on our own strengths (skills, talents, and achievements) is to be self-centered or narcissistic. In other words, it is a bad thing – immoral, unethical, or just not right.

3. We have so little experience with exploring our own strengths, we don’t know how to do it. On the other hand, we have loads of experience focusing on our weaknesses and trying to fix what is “wrong”.

We’ve been trained to think of what we’re good at as something “finished” or complete. If we regard life as a series of boxes, many people think of the things they’re already good at as “checked off” – after all, if you’ve already got an ‘A’ in a subject, why work to get better at it?

It’s human nature to want to evolve and grow, to improve. But the things we’re good at are not in any way finished aspects of ourselves. They are, in fact, the very best places to begin our quest to create more success and happiness in our lives.

Also, ‘wonderful’ is a hugely general term, which is often how we receive positive feedback in life, if we receive it at all. People tell us, for example, that we’re “doing great” on a project or assignment, or that we’re good at public speaking.

But how often do people tell us exactly why we nailed that project, or what we could accomplish if we made public speaking more of a priority? Accurate feedback is extremely valuable, and the feedback you receive from our assessments is startlingly accurate.

I have experienced the power of strength- based development both personally and in my work with clients, and I can tell you that the results are nothing less than spectacular. But you don’t have to take my word for it – you can start focusing on your natural talents and abilities today, and unlock the power of the positive.

About the Author:

Lynda-Ross Vega: A partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., Lynda-Ross specializes in helping entrepreneurs and coaches build dynamite teams and systems that WORK. She is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.YourTalentAdvantage.com .

Categories
Planning & Management

The Importance of Planning Before You Begin

Contributed by Katleen Richardson

As an entrepreneur, just like anyone else, you only have 24 hours in a day. This means that in order to get the most bang for your marketing buck, you need to have some idea of where you’re headed. It’s shocking how many startups and small businesses work on the assumption that more marketing of any kind will automatically be better, and they just use a time-consuming (and often expensive) shotgun approach to marketing, focusing on quantity rather than quality.

Aside from the fact that you just don’t have time to keep up that sort of everything-all-the-time marketing, it may not even be the best thing for your business. Have you ever unsubscribed from a company’s social media accounts simply because you kept hearing the same message several times over on every account, and it was too much like spam? Sending basically the same information out over many different channels is not good marketing – it’s just annoying, and it will result in a lot of wasted time and effort on your part.

It’s not just social media marketing that suffers from lack of planning, though. Any marketing you do without a plan can potentially end up being a waste of your time and resources. Are you aware of exactly what demographic your ads are reaching, or did you just go for the ad space that seemed to be the best value in terms of keeping initial costs down, allowing you to place more ads in more places?

If you feel like your marketing strategy is less of a marathon and more of a wild sprint in all directions, it may be time to take a step back and reassess. If you have yet to launch your business and are still in the organizational stages, then you can get started the right way before falling into the “more is more” trap.
Proper planning before you begin is essential if you, like most business owners, have limited time and resources at your disposal. Understanding who your audience is – and, more importantly, where they hang out – can be the key factor in having a successful marketing campaign. Your efforts would be better spent on narrowing your focus in the correct direction and then sending your message out in that direction, rather than just trying a lot of things at once and hoping for the best, or trying things one at a time in a random way.

Does this mean that you need to hire a marketing professional to help you? While that’s not strictly necessary in all cases, it may be worthwhile to spend at least some of your marketing budget making sure you get some sound advice. A lot depends on how much knowledge you have about how online marketing works, but either way, you’d be better off spending a small percentage of your available funds making sure things get planned correctly, than a much larger percentage randomly purchasing ad space that may not perform up to your expectations.

About the Author:

Katleen Richardson (http://www.marketing-advantedge.com) is an experienced leader who builds integrated strategies combining research, data analysis and creative thinking. She has delivered successful solutions for the publishing, financial and telecommunications industries, as well as for conference and training companies, and professional associations. Her approach is to design customer focused, cost-effective solutions based on cross functional collaboration and results-based metrics.

Categories
Work Life

3 Ways to Productively Work Positive

The truck in the next lane weaved toward me. I looked over. He was texting.

The car ahead of me at the now-green traffic light didn’t move. “She’s on Facebook on her phone,” my wife said.

The SUV zoomed ahead of me, and then slowed down. And again further down the interstate. Each time, the driver was on a call when I went around, and off the phone when he sped up.

And the thought popped in my head, “If these people are ‘always on’ when driving, how are they at work?”

Numerous studies indicate that our work productivity diminishes by at least 25% when we bounce from one task to another, allowing ourselves to be chronically interrupted. Technology breeds an expectation of instant responsiveness that we human beings just aren’t wired for.

Want to increase your work productivity and decrease your paralyzing overwhelm?

Slow down in these three ways to positively speed up your productivity:

Turn off email

Automatic email updates are an intrusion on your thought process.

Be honest now: you read email while on a phone call, right?

Think your caller doesn’t know

Think again. You’re failing to be 100% present. Too many “Umm’s” give you away.

Turn off the automatic email updates on your office computer, tablet, and phone. Whatever it is will wait until your prescribed time to download and answer email.

“Do not disturb”

Your desk and mobile phones have a “do not disturb” button, or “airplane mode” that blocks calls. Use them as you do problem-solving or creating. It takes your brain a little time to focus on a situation, consider a wide range of options, and discover the best one. Every time the phone rings, your mind chases the call whether you answer or not.

Give yourself a designated time to answer voice mail. Prioritize the calls and respond appropriately.

Limit social media

I’m convinced half of the bazillion Facebookers wake up posting a status while in the bathroom while the other half post with one eye closed, going to sleep. Talk about overwhelm…major corporations lose tons of bandwidth to social media daily.

Yes, have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and whatever else you want. Focus on content creation and hire someone else to manage it using incredible tools like TweetDeck or Hootsuite. Choose a specific time to be available online. Announce it and go live.

Otherwise, leave it alone.

Now what?

Slow down to speed up.

You’ve done it. You’ve increased your work productivity 25%.

Now what?

Positively become even more productive:

Walk outdoors in a green space. Sit on a park bench and listen to the birds. They’re not angry, and happy to sing for free.

Eat lunch with your spouse, your child in preschool, or a friend from Rotary Club or church. Just because…

Hand-write a thank you note to a teacher or college professor who changed your life. He probably works for next-to-nothing or she’s wondering if anybody noticed her sacrifices…especially at this time of year.

And remember—what goes around, comes around.

Slow down to speed up.

Productively Work Positive in this negative world.

About the Author:

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who help professionals discover success in the silver lining of their business and achieve their dreams. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org/speaking.