Here’s the article…

The networking events referred to are ConnectWorking and Coffee and Croissants Please join us and see how business to business networking can work for you!

What a weekend…

Have you ever watched your team play in a match, 3 games before the end of the season, that if they won that day, they had enough points to win the championship? Well that’s what I got to experience this weekend.

For those of you following this blog, you will know that Mediaglue has been sponsoring up and coming racing car driver Shae Davies. See our March 2010 archives Mediaglue goes Racing!

Having won every round of the Queensland Formula Ford Championship this year, Shae once again lead the field during the weekend’s racing at Queensland Raceway and won the 6th round  of the State Championship, thus taking out the Queensland Formula Ford Championship Series for 2010, two rounds before the season even finishes…

Way to go Shae!!!

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer’s beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer’s debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal.

So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father’s debt would be forgive n. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father’s debt would still be forgiven. But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

All the villagers were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer’s field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag. Now, imagine you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.

2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl’s dilemma can not be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers. What would you recommend to the girl to do? Well, what she did was this:

The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles. “Oh, how clumsy of me,” she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.” Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don’t attempt to think.

Try some lateral thinking…:)

I was at a business networking function this week and in a light-hearted conversation amongst a mainly female group of attendees, the subject tuned to endorphins.

One of the group, Sally Symonds who is a healthy life mentor (www.sallysymonds.com), commented that chocolate is an aphrodisiac and that the same endorphins were found in bananas. Sally added that laughter stimulated endorphins and suggested laughter was also an aphrodisiac (which probably explains why women say they like men who make them laugh…). A female colleague says, “Serve me bananas with chocolate and champagne and watch out any sexy men nearby”.

Being truly masculine, I wanted my two-bob’s worth and added a typically inane male comment about how men were far more easily read than women. (You do know that men find women quite difficult to read, don’t you?) I said that men were asleep, drunk or thinking about sex so were universally predictable. As you would imagine, the barbs started to fly and I was duly condemned for my cynicism. It did serve to keep the conversation flowing though…

In jest, I challenged Sally to write a blog article about the subject and in thinking about how to write it, I decided to look a little deeper into human behaviours and our fundamental motivations.

I will always remember a conversation with my late father who, until late in his career when he switched professions and started a successful mail order book business distributing political and economic titles, was a G.P. He said his reason for retiring from medicine was that he just couldn’t help the majority of patients he saw in his surgery.

He said patients fell into two categories, those he could help medically, and those he couldn’t. Of those he could help medically, half presented with cases that would go away even if left untreated. Aliments like the common cold for which he could prescribe antibiotics so it would go away in a week; or, if left alone, would go away in seven days.

Those he couldn’t help either had problems relating to money, or problems relation to relationships with others. Most he said, were suffering from a lack of physical intimacy with their partners. Invariably that problem was caused by tension about money. Boiled down, they had issues with sex and money.

As a professional marketer, I well understand that people react far more quickly, and spend money more readily, to overcome problems than they do on things that provide pleasure.

To quickly illustrate my point, in one of my workshops I ask if, given the choice, people would spend their very last $1,000 fixing their car’s gearbox so they can get to work, or on a short holiday. The vast majority (over 80%) say they would fix the gearbox and save again for the holiday.

I know from my readings and own tests that the three most profitable market niches are health, relationships (invariably sex again) and success (almost always translated as make more money).

From a Sally’s perspective, it’s about endorphins and how to be happy and fulfilled. From a doctor, it’ about sex and money. From a marketer, it’ about health, relationships and success.

I’d say they’re all pretty much the same things!

This conclusion begs the questions: Which are YOU selling, and how can you profit from this?

Everyone remembers Kevin Costner’s film, ‘Field of Dreams’ where Costner is encouraged to build a baseball field on his corn farm based on the promise that ‘if you build it, they will come’.

For some reason people seem to think that if they build a website, people will magically manage to find it.

Sadly, almost nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a problem we see almost weekly, where someone decides to launch a new business on the web and spend all of their available funds building a website and have nothing left to promote it.

Then they come back to us and ask why their site isn’t visible on the major search engines.

If I can impart one key message for anyone building a website, that message would be this:

Generating traffic requires time, effort and expense.

There are three ways to generate traffic to a website. They are:

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which involves the correct use of keywords both in your copy and page structure (on page optimisation), and the generation of back links from other sites (offpage optimisation).
2. Search Engine Advertising which involves the placement of adverts on Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other sites.
3. Offline promotion which is anything you do that doesn’t involve the Internet.

While you can do all of this yourself, you still need to study what you’re doing and take advise from people who know. Time equally money so if you do chose to do it yourself, be aware that there is still a cost involved. If you do chose to do it yourself, here are a couple of resources on SEO and Internet Advertising you might like to refer to:

• Search Engine Optimisation training: John Hacking’s course, SEO Uni
• Internet Advertising using Google’s AdWords program: Perry Marshall’s ‘Definitive Guide to Using Google AdWords‘

If you prefer to have someone just do it for you, then you can talk with us. Use our Contact form, or call 1300 884 757.

Debra Jarvis

Do you currently spend 80% of your time Marketing and Selling what you do?

Yes? Congratulations, you either already have a successful profitable business, you soon will have or what you are selling isn’t commercially viable.

How do we manage time? We all have the same amount of time, we can’t save it, or accumulate it, we only have now and what and how we choose to use each moment. Once it’s gone, it’s gone!

So why do some people seem to use their time more effectively? In my experience they prioritise and have systems and the good news is you can too!

What value do you assign to all the different things you do? Value = Importance. If you are a parent the value of seeing your child perform in the end-of-year school play might be higher than having dinner with a prospective client. (In my opinion a prospective client who doesn’t respect this is not worth having.)

One couple I know own a mega successful Civil Construction company. At 20, their only son is well on his way to become Australia’s’ top motor sport driver. They work their business commitments around his racing calendar. Recognising your top values and implementing a strategy (that means system) will help you achieve what’s important for you and for your business success.

A system creates boundaries to help you act in your best interests and according to your values. Sometimes people who don’t like our strategies will use guilt and obligation to get you to change your system to suit them. Recognise this and stick to your system. Focus on high value tasks that provide the outcomes you have decided to enjoy and benefit from for your life and your business!

Successful business owners spend up to 80% of their working time on Marketing and Selling first.  They then allocate time and labour resources; their own or someone else’s, to order fulfilment.

Decide on your strategy, set some targets to test it’s viability, create a system to implement it and stick with it, until you have proved it’s not viable according to the parameters you initially set or it works. You can tweak, just don’t give up, get sidetracked or jump onto the next best way unless you have proven that your carefully considered strategy is not viable. Seems simple, it is – unfortunately many of us get sidetracked looking for complex solutions, promoted by slick operators, promoting vast and rapid wealth, whose primary interest is to line their pockets with your hard earned cash.

I urge you, stick to logical and common sense strategies you understand. Avoid anyone who won’t or can’t explain their strategy in a way you understand and if they attempt to embarrass you into buying their solution – Run away from them very, very fast! Find and engage professionals you can build trusted relationships with to help you, who speak in clear, easy to understand everyday English and whom you can speak to personally!

Debra Jarvis is a facilitator of Business Development programs. To learn more visit the website: DebraJarvisSpeaks.com

I follow Rugby League team Hull KR  and Hull City ‘Tigers’ AFC. Hull City have been in the Premier League for two seasons and have struggled. This season their poor results mean they will be relegated back to the Championship League.

This video was posted on their website, it’s an interview with long term Tigers player George Boateng who discusses how the players feel about being relegated. I found it remarkably refreshing to hear that they themselves accept responsibility.

Take a few minutes to watch and listen for yourself.  It’s a great lesson in graceful acceptance of both defeat and responsibility. Here’s the video.

One design was head and shoulders above the rest. Clear, crisp, simple and quite striking. Confident that he would like it, we sent it off.

To our amazement, he came back and said it was too simple and attached a faxed sketch showing what he had in mind. His concept was complex, very detailed, very colourful and yes, while it did reflect some elements of his industry, it looked like a child’s drawing rather than a logo.

It was nothing like we had imagined from our initial briefing so we did as he asked and created it. He’s happy. And I guess at the end of the day, it’s his money, his business and his logo.

From our perspective the logo wasn’t one we felt would show his business in a professional manner. Certainly not one that the top end of town would see as representing a professional organisation.

To us, that matters and that’s what prompted the question, what is a logo?

Not necessarily being the ultimate authority, I asked Google with the search string define: logo.

I particularly liked this definition from RianDesign.com

Logo Design
What is a logo and why is it so important?

A logo is the mark that visually represents a company or organization, this forms the foundation of the corporate identity. It is a name, symbol, emblem or other graphic that is designed for easy and definitive recognition by a targeted market.

A company logo is the way that the world sees your company. People are very responsive to identifying logos and their meaning. With this said, it is very important to the success of the company that the logo is well thought out and reflects the image of the brand.

A solid logo is a simple and direct way to represent and describe your company. The most successful companies have an established identity consisting of a strong logo. A strong logo will create an increase in visibility and will result in sales.

I decided to find out which logos are the most recognised. Some few minutes of search about well recognised logos resulted in a list of 20. See how many of them you can picture:

1. Apple
2. Audi
3. Australian Broadcasting Corporation
4. Coca-Cola
5. ebay
6. FedEx
7. Ferrari
8. Ford
9. Google
10. Lego
11. McDonald’s Golden Arches
12. Mercedes Benz
13. Nike
14. Nine Network
15. Shell
16. The Olympic Rings
17. Twitter
18. Virgin
19. Volkswagen
20. Westpac

How many did you see? Please tell us by submitting your comments below.

Summary:

Consider the commonality most of these logos have. Simplicity. And from a graphic design perspective, simplicity is complex. It takes time, thought and energy.

We witnessed their heartbreaking 2 point loss to the Waratahs then their two great wins against the Crusades and the Western Force.

Over the weekend they won in South Africa against the Cheetahs and will be watching the progress of their South African tour over the next two weeks as they play aginst the Sharks and the Lions.

With four wins from six games, they might just return from South Africa six from eight.

We’re really looking forward to their next home game against the Bulls on Saturday April 17, and the last two home games against the Stormers and the Highlanders.

Yes, we are Red!