One way to gain recognition for your community and build visibility for your business is by earning business awards. Many are self-nominated and fairly easy to apply for. Here’s a quick guide to a few of the best business awards for 2009:
Businesses that have helped jump start our economy by maintaining growth over the past three years are eligible for the Inc. Magazine 500/5000 award. Winners are invited to attend the nationally recognized Inc. 500/5000 conference, and are featured in future magazine and online stories. This award is a great chance to gain visibility for your company and to represent your community- past winners have included social mission companies, tech startups, and beauty product lines- companies in all industries with over $2m in sales for 2008 are encouraged to apply.
For those still working on breaking the $1m mark, the Make Mine a Million $ Business contest, sponsored by Count Me In, is a great way to gain the support you need to meet this benchmark. The contest operates as a “race” to the $1m sales mark, and most participants see sales increase at least 40% over the duration of the competition. The M3 race is open to women owned businesses in one of 15 categories.
Businesses already on the fast track to earn $1m- those with $500,000 or more in sales for 2008, are eligible to enter the Entrepreneur Magazine Small Business Contest. Similar to the 500/5000 conferenceInc. contest, businesses are featured in a future magazine issue or online story. Entrants are also featured on the contest website- a great way to increase visibility for your business even if you aren’t chosen as a winner.
The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award is given annually by international accounting and consulting firm Ernst and Young. Award recipients may attend special conferences and are invited into a network of past winners and prestigious entrepreneurs. The award is internationally recognized as a great achievement- check out the website and contest rules for more details.
If you don’t have the time for a lengthy application, or don’t have the sales revenue to qualify for one of the larger contests, consider Business.com’s “What Works for Business” contest. Applicants write a quick essay about a challenge they’ve overcome. Any small business owner that has overhauled their website design implemented a new online marketing strategy knows that the small things can sometimes be the toughest to take on- here’s your chance to let other entrepreneurs learn from your success. Prizes for the top essay are awarded monthly.
Finally, Ideablob.com allows you to test out business ideas for the chance to win a $10,000 award. Award money goes toward the costs of implementing the idea- if you need to purchase inventory, equipment (such as a credit card terminal) or business software to get your business off the ground, here’s a great place to get started. Awards are given monthly, and are determined by votes from members of the site’s online community.
Whether you’re a brand-new business or a seasoned business owner, there’s a contest out there for you. Most of the above have spring deadlines, so get going- apply for the award you deserve. Good luck!
Category: Branding
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Four Easy Personal Branding Tips
Article Contributed by Marcel Sim
Corporations and companies today spend millions of dollars on corporate branding. Why is corporate branding so important that it attracts so many businesses, big and small, to invest much time and money on it? Effective corporate branding can boost the bottom line of your company significantly; it has the ability to equip a new product or service with instant credibility and value in the market. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that for any serious corporation that wishes its product offerings to be successful, corporate branding is an essential and vital tool to project a strong brand and identity.
What’s in a brand anyway? I looked it up on Wikipedia, here’s what the site has to say about branding: A brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to the product and serves to create associations and expectations around it. A brand often includes a logo, fonts, color schemes, symbols, and sound, which may be developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality.
Whenever we talk about branding, we almost always think of logos and slogans. See the curved tick on your running shoes and apparel, and you’ll recognize in an instant the famous Nike “Swoosh”. What comes to your mind next? “Just Do It”. But do you know that branding can also take place at a personal level?
With personal branding, you’ll rely less on logos, slogans and sounds; it’s more of your individual values, qualities, personality and vision. In today’s business world, it’s important for you as an entrepreneur to learn to promote and market your personal brand. To gain an advantage over the competition, you need to stand out in a crowd. Here are four simple personal branding tips on how you can become your own brand:
1. Develop your own personal marketing plan.
Include your personal mission statement: what on earth are you here for? What do you hope to achieve in your lifetime? Specify your short-term and long-term goals, and plan your timeline to achieve your goals. Include detailed strategies and action steps, and don’t forget to review your personal marketing plan quarterly.
2. Build up your credibility
In whichever field or industry you’re in, aim to be the best you can be and to offer the best you can give. Make use of every opportunity to learn and hone your skills. Become the expert whom people in your professional field go to for help and advice. Give a lecture, contribute advice and articles to an e-zine, or go join your local community organization.
3. Develop and present your “elevator speech”
An elevator speech is a short, succinct description of what you do, how you do it differently from the others, and the benefits you’re able to provide to your customers. Develop yours today and present it to prospective clients whenever opportunities arise.
4. Contribute your time, talent, and money to charitable causes
Find a charitable cause which you are passionate about and is related to your particular field of expertise. Give it back to society for the help society has given to you. Donate your time by volunteering to do work for free for a local charity. Give your expertise and advice or even donate money to a charitable cause. By doing all these, you’re reinforcing your personal brand and establishing your credibility.
Your personal brand, if managed and developed properly, can become your greatest business asset. Decide today to build up your personal brand, and it’ll go a long way in your entrepreneurial career.
Most entrepreneurs and executives really want to become a published author, but few have the time or resources to write their book. Writing a book is a big commitment, and many aspiring authors just can’t seem to get started. If you fall into that category, you may decide that you need a ghostwriter or a writing coach. On the other hand, you may just need a gentle nudge to get started.
If you’d like to make this year the year you finally write your book, these 10 tips to getting your book done can help:
1. Make the Commitment – In order to write a book, you really have to decide to do it. Make the commitment to begin. Write it down as a goal with a deadline. Be intentional and take action!
2. Write One Hour a Day – Every day, make time to write – even if it’s only an hour a day. Get up a little earlier to establish a set time daily. Carve out an hour and do nothing but write!
3. Blog Your Book – If you want to chunk down your writing and make it less intimidating, try “blogging” your book. Start a blog and post your entries every day or so. Before you know it, your blog content will grow into the chapters of your book!
4. Write What You Know – Make book-writing much easier on yourself by writing what you know. Use your background, expertise and experience to create the content of your book. When you go with what you know, the writing will just flow!
5. Repurpose Existing Content – If you’ve created a seminar, speech, article or e-book, then you’ve already got some content for your book. Be sure to review your existing materials – from blog posts to e-courses – and recycle what you can.
6. Write Fast, Edit Later – Set a timer for 30-minutes and just write. Don’t put too much thought into it, just get the words down. It’s a lot easier to re-write than it is to write, so write first and edit later.
7. Develop Your Structure – Don’t jump blindly into writing without an outline or chapter structure. You may change it on the fly, but working without an outline is like working without a safety net!
8. Break Through Writer’s Block – There are many tricks for overcoming writer’s block, but most of it comes down to discipline and determination. If you’re stuck, take a break; do something different; then come back at it with a vengeance!
9. Use Writer’s Groups – Joining a writer’s group gives you accountability partners and support. Take advantage of the power of groups, whether it’s an online group or an in-person group.
10. Get Some Help – If all else fails, enlist the support of a writing coach, a collaborator or even a ghostwriter. You may want to explore the possibility of working with a co-author to split the work and make the journey more enjoyable.
Whatever tactics you choose, make this year the year you finally write that book!
Lou Bortone is an award-winning writer and video producer with over 20 years experience in marketing, branding and promotion. As an online video expert, Lou helps entrepreneurs create video for the web at www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com. In addition, Lou works as a freelance writer and professional ghostwriter, with a ghostwriting site at www.GhostwriteForYou.com and a blog at www.GhostwriteGuru.com.
One of the very first things you learn in the Guerrilla Marketing Coaching Program is that EVERY contact with your customers and prospects is marketing. Each and every point of contact – from the way you answer your phone to your e-mail signature to your website to those goofy photos you posted on Facebook – makes up your personal brand. All of it! If you don’t believe me, just Google yourself and see what you’ve put “out there.” (You can be sure that everyone else who is considering working with you is already Googling you!)
Okay, now as soon as you pull those not-so-flattering New Year’s Eve party photos down off of Facebook or Flickr, take inventory of your personal brand to ensure that you’re sending the right marketing message. How are you putting yourself out there? Is your marketing consistent? Is it intentional? Is it professional? Is there continuity in all of your marketing materials?
If you’re a copywriter and your e-mails are riddled with typos because you were just “zipping off a casual note,” what kind of message does that send? If you’re starting up a business but your e-mail address is still “Schmoopie102,” who’s going to take you seriously as an entrepreneur?
In the age of viral videos and social marketing, we’ve got to be more vigilant than ever about how we brand ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world. Obviously, this applies to our print materials, business cards, products and packaging. But it also goes for the way we act, communicate and conduct ourselves. (Jamie Lynn Spears, are you listening? So much for your “Britney’s sweet, squeaky-clean little sister” brand!)
You’ve got to guard your personal brand like you’re in a casino with hundreds of cameras trained on you. Think back to that scene in the remake of “Oceans 11” with Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia. Casino mogul Terry Benedict gets caught on camera betraying Tess and he loses her, because – in the casino – “someone’s always watching.” Same is true on the wonderful world wide web, so mind your brand!
Oh, and please don’t visit my Facebook page until I have a chance to pull those photos!
Lou Bortone is an award-winning writer and video producer with over 20 years experience in marketing, branding and promotion. As an online video expert, Lou helps entrepreneurs create video for the web at www.TheOnlineVideoGuy.com. In addition, Lou works as a freelance writer and professional ghostwriter, with a ghostwriting site at www.GhostwriteForYou.com and a blog at www.GhostwriteGuru.com.
Categories
Your Brand: Integrity & Reputation
In prior posts I’ve mentioned my audio product launch on Halloween, Transform Your Fear into POWER. Part of my marketing strategy was to form joint venture partnerships with other business owners to help promote and market my program. You’ve seen these campaigns for years and probably received many emails inviting you to buy a book, audio, or program and receiving special bonus gifts with your purchase.
Most campaigns invite each partner to contribute a bonus gift, and become an affiliate to earn passive income in return for agreeing to send out an announcement on a specific date to their email lists and community. It’s a great marketing strategy (for everyone involved) when every partner follows through.
One of my partners didn’t. It took me over a week of sending emails requesting confirmation of their participation before I was finally told, ”
Sorry, I was just too busy and have too much on my plate to support you as I had agreed.” Not the actual words. No offer to send an email out at that time to at a future point. Nothing at all.
I had been warned about including this person in my campaign because of a negative reputation and I opted to include them. Sometimes people will surprise you.
Your reputation is part of your brand. Keeping agreements and promises sends a message to others about your integrity, professionally and personally. That message tells others who you are and what you stand for. We pay less attention to what people say and more on what they do. Congruency….
* How often to you drop the ball in following up with others?
* Do you break your agreements and promises?
* Do you say yes to things you really need to say no to?
* How often do you make excuses for not following through?
* What justifications do you use? In other words, what do you tell yourself that makes it ok?
People talk. A negative comment to one person can snowball into multiple conversations. A message can be sent over the internet in a split second.
You cannot insure that no one will ever spread a rumor or have something negative to say about you. You choose to be a person of integrity in thought, feeling and deed to the best of your ability. And when you are not at your best, you show up and take responsiblity for your actions (or non-actions). Look for ways to make amends so that you can to restore your integrity and reputation. In that way you show up for yourself and the relationship or situation. Win-win.
What might you need to clean up to restore your integrity and reputation?
How do you want to be known?
Cheers!