A few years ago I pitched my branding process to a mid-size Canadian City mayor. Suffice to say he loved the presentation and the opportunities it would open up. The one item that buried the project was his short-sightedness. Knowing upfront that there were deficiencies in the brand, he didn’t appreciate my comment that those deficiencies would have to be fixed so that their brand had a better chance of being authentic to it’s target audience. The fastest route to failure is to tout something powerful and then have your buyer discover it was all just advertising spin. The city…

Your brand is this – your brand is that. Some would have you believe that your brand is this OR that. The fact is your brand is everything. I enjoy speaking with businesses on branding and helping them to understand the what their focus should be in branding. It is almost without exception that business people assume that a brand doesn’t extend much beyond the visual elements. Most think your brand is your logo and marketing materials. When you think of it, that’s a lot of pretty heavy lifting for something visual. If that perception were true, brand problems would…

It’s that time of year already, where everyone has to do their taxes. Most people, about 54 percent of filers in the USA, end up getting a refund. When you receive the money, you’ll need to think about what you should do with it. Since you’re a small business owner the most likely thing you should do with it is invest it into your business. Photo Credit © Depositphotos.com/phodopus Pay Off Revolving Credit First things first, if you have any interest bearing loans over six percent you should pay it off. If you do you’re earning that percentage on your…

Everyone loves a good story, right? Many brands are using this to their advantage by creating powerful stories based around the brand. See how 4 brands are putting this strategy to work for them and making it big.

If you’re out there selling something – stop it right now! Stop selling and start branding. Your brand has a story to tell. Educate your buyer so they have all the knowledge they need to make an intelligent decision. If you start selling, they’ll just roll their eyes and try to get away from you. They won’t trust you. Find out where their anxiety lies, and show them a way out with knowledge. Encourage them to compare. You’re approach will be refreshing to what they see. I take myself as an example. I position myself as the branding expert. I…

This is the third case in a series about using Facebook Groups to grow your brand, engage with your community and of course, ultimately, market your business. Today’s case is: 90 Day Low Carb Challenge and Bonus: Weekly Marketing Challenge founded and managed by Lynn Terry At the time of writing, this group is over 40,000 members strong. A mind boggling number. Lynn is a natural at engaging her people so let’s find out how she does it. Why Did You Start Your Facebook Groups? ”If you build it, they will come” only works for Kevin Costner. 🙂 When it…

This is the second case in a series about using Facebook Groups to grow your brand, engage with your community and of course, ultimately, market your business. Today’s case is: Internet Marketing Super Friends, founded by Mike Hill. Why did you start the Internet Marketing Super Friends Facebook Group? To prove that we could take the largest group of people who were thought of to be “greedy” and make “giving is the highest currency”. Why Facebook Groups over a forum on your own site? Because everyone was doing forums and not coming to the people where they were! I had…

This is the first case in a series about using Facebook Groups to grow your brand, engage with your community and of course, ultimately, market your business. Today’s case is: Foodaplenty Blog Network, managed by: Foodaplenty At time of writing, the group is at 420 people with new members joining everyday. It’s among one that’s very active on Facebook but beyond that. Foodaplenty does a great job of involving their members in various projects that are outside of Facebook like their Must-Try Favorite Recipes from Foodaplenty Blog Network Members. Very smart! So we asked them how they do it. Why…

It is true there are plenty of other social networks that are very popular, many of them have specific targets and depending on your business, they could be more effective for you. At this time, Facebook is still a major destination for anyone online, around over the world. That’s pretty hard to ignore. How to we make use for Facbook for business? There’s Facebook Pages, which apparently are no longer very effective. There’s Facebook advertising, however they are also getting stricter by the day on their advertising rules. It’s not uncommon to hear about people having their ad accounts shut…