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Okay. Raise your hand if you think brand management is just for BIG companies (like Target, McDonalds or Ford.) Wow! That’s a lot of hands! Well, guess what? You’re all wrong.

Brand issues are important to ALL companies for the simple reason that people buy from other people. People have personalities. Branding establishes and communicates a company’s personality (sometimes referred to as company image.)

Think about YOUR company. What personality or image do you want to present to customers and prospects? Should it be warm, friendly, and down-to-earth? Polished, knowledgeable, and sophisticated?

Does your company’s current logo and literature design reflect the image you want to present? Is your company’s personality presented consistently in all forms of communication?

Are you overwhelmed now? Let me simplify. There are four key steps in brand management:

1) Positioning - identify your company’s unique benefits and image.

2) Planning - develop a road map for your brand identity programs.

3) Protection - guard the integrity of your brand.

4) Promotion - build awareness of and preference for your brand.

Brand management is an ongoing process, not a destination. Bad news: the work is never done. Good news: if you do the positioning and planning up front, protection and promotion programs flow naturally.

About The Author

Claire Cunningham, president of Clairvoyant Communications, Inc., has 20+ years’ experience developing and implementing successful business-to-business marketing and communications programs. Sign up for Claire’s monthly newsletter, Communique, at www.clairvoyantcommunications.com Claire can be reached at 763-479-3499 or e-mail to claire@claircomm.com.

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For those of you who don’t know what an FFA site is,
it’s basically a website where you can post a link/add
to your website for free. Generally it is also posted
to many other sites at the same time and hopefully
somebody sees your link…free advertising in other
words. When you post a link, you are also giving
permission (whether you know it or not) to receive
confirmation e-mails back from the site owner.

What seems to happen though, is many people see this as
free advertising and get angry when, not only do they
not see a flood of sales come pouring in, but they
start receiving other people’s offers. I know when that
first happened to me, I couldn’t figure out what was
going on and was frustrated.

Let’s back up a moment and look at the bigger picture
of what an FFA site is and its TRUE purpose. The true
purpose of an FFA site is for the owner of that site to
promote his/her business. It’s really not just because
he’s a nice guy giving people a free advertising place.

(If it were such a goldmine in pulling in sales, he
would be doing it himself). That is just the bait,
getting people to his site to post their links,
thinking they are getting free advertising, so he can
respond with “confirmation” of your link, and his
business ad.

Those confirmation e-mails are NOT spam. You had to
agree to receive them in order to post your link. Who
is reading these ads anyway? Is posting to FFA’s a
total waste of time? Not necessarily, you do get an
occasional sale, people do go to post their links and
sometimes take a quick look through the links to see
what’s there while they’re posting.

So what’s the answer? Get your own FFA site to promote

your business. There are many excellent resources out
there. I have found from personal experience however,
that many of the services offering FFA’s sites, offer
a free version or a paid upgrade. The phrase “You get
what you pay for” comes to mind with these. I’ve used
several kinds and found that the paid upgrades more
than paid for themselves in sales. Shop around however
to compare between companies.

You can promote any product through this method;
information products, crafts, vitamins, whatever. You
could have the very best on the entire internet, but if
nobody sees your offer, it’s not going to get the sales
you desire. It takes traffic to get sales. These sites
are options for driving those numbers to your site.
Free classified ads sites are also in this same
category with the same purpose and can be worth
pursuing.

Best wishes to your promoting!
By Valerie Garner-Mother, grandmother and candlemaker /
owner of Joyful Designs in Soy (Candles). She loves to write
on a variety of topics with a warm, and engaging style.
http://www.joyfuldesignsinsoy.com

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Good business is about communication… not just what you say but…

Early Monday morning the phone rang in my office; it was very early for a business call. I answered “Good morning, Nancy Fraser” there was a short pause on the line and then a voice asked, “Is this Gloria?”. When I said no, she hung up. Good communication is also about listening.

Unfortunately this kind of interaction happens thousands and thousands of times a day and not always in situations like this where there is nothing to be lost. In fact, it’s a wonder business happens at all when you consider that we each speak using terms and jargon that may be common in our industry and unintelligible to our customers. Couple that with the poor listening skills we all have and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Do you ever wonder how much your customer really hears and what they think, how much they understand or care about?

When you are in business for yourself, you are in sales whether you like it or not. If you are not selling directly, you are selling through your marketing and advertising. As a business owner/salesperson do you listen to your customer or do you follow your own agenda? Does it sometimes seem that you and the customer are not participating in the same conversation? Do you ever blame them for not understanding what you are saying?

What’s wrong with this picture? How can we change it to our benefit?

1. We are all responsible for our communication. Express what you want to say clearly and succinctly, no jargon or buzz words.

2. Ask for the listener’s opinion, expertise or help.

3. Focus on what is being said to you, without thinking about what you will say next.

4. Match your body language and expression with what you are saying.

5. Speak at a similar speed and intensity as the person you are conversing with.

6. Relax, stay detached.

7. Ask for clarification if you don’t understand.

8. Don’t compete for talking time.

9. You may have a different viewpoint but show through your ability to listen and ask “on topic” questions that you are interested in understanding their point of view.

10. Don’t assume the other party has the same belief system that you do. They may draw different conclusions than you based on their previous experience.

Marketing is about being able to identify the wants and needs of your target market and provide solutions that your customer perceives are better than your competitors. Find out what motivates them to act and you will be able to form a relationship that works for you and your customer. Your ability to listen and understand what is being said is your key to success.

Best Buy is a great example of how well listening works with the success of the customer centric sales model they have implimented.

“Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.” –Plutarch Greek biographer & moralist (46 AD - 120 AD)

Nancy Fraser is the president of Nota Bene Consulting, a marketing and advertising communication firm specializing in building brands through the expression of a companies personality from logo to web to advertising and marketing materials. http://www.notable-marketing.com

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