People often come to us with an idea that closely follows an existing business model that at one point was revolutionary, and ask us to help them market it. They are usually drawn to the idea because of the story behind that particular business. Take Google for example. A company that has come to dominate the internet world was started by two college students with no budget, and went on to make billions. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “We’re going to be the next Google!” over the last few years, but the number is substantial. No one is going to be the next Google. There is already a Google and they are doing a pretty good job of continuing to improve their company. If you want to start a business around the concept of a search engine, you better come up with something completely different than anything else out there that fills a significant need in some way.

Any business that has achieved tremendous success did so because they did something extraordinary and revolutionary. Don’t focus on being the next Dell, eBay or Apple, instead, focus on being the first YOU and one day, people will try to model their companies after yours!

If you do any direct mail marketing, especially dimensional mail, be sure to download this handy PDF of the USPS rates and sizes.

Does your marketing strategy consist of a little newspaper advertising here, some direct mail there and maybe email marketing from time to time? If so, it’s pretty similar to that of many other small businesses. That’s not a good thing because it’s inconsistent and your marketing channels are not working together.

Marketing is a collective activity in that when multiple channels are used together, the results are almost always far greater than the sum of the channels. Direct mail, radio and television can support internet marketing to bring you results that you could never achieve with the same budget used in any one of those mediums. This is because after the creative aspect of any marketing campaign, the effectiveness is due largely to repetition and consistency. When your prospect is on their way to work and they hear your ad, they may be only slightly convinced that your product or service is right for them. When they arrive at work they’ll probably do a little more research online, and if they come across your marketing message again, they will likely become a little more convinced. Later that night when they’re watching an episode of The Big Idea on their local cable channel and they see your television ad, chances are high that they’ll be very convinced that your product or service is the right choice for their needs. Now this doesn’t mean that the will buy from you just yet, but you will be standing on significantly higher ground than your competitors at this point.

To develop a marketing campaign where all of the channels work together you’ll need to determine what your desired outcome is to be. If you’re trying to educate your prospects about a complex product or service, all of your marketing channels should be used either to drive them to your web site where they can access the applicable information or to encourage them to schedule a meeting with one of your representatives. If your goal is to push sales in a particular retail location, all of your marketing channels should be focused on driving them directly to that location. In a nutshell, choose one goal and utilize all of the marketing channels available to you to foster achieving that goal.

When you look at ultra-successful people, you’ll see a few common traits. One of these traits is that they are always marketing themselves and their companies, and you should be doing the same thing.

This doesn’t mean you have to work 24-7 but it does mean that you should always be ready to effectively promote your company. At the most basic level this mean looking presentable where ever you go, always having a stack of business cards handy and being incredibly passionate about what you do. To take it to the next level though, you can do a number of fairly simple things. For example, have your vehicle wrapped so that it acts as a mobile billboard where ever you go. You could also get involved in charity or volunteer work, both to give back to your community and to expand your network. Another option is to write a book which will establish your credibility and help to promote you even when you’re not on the clock.

The idea is to always be ready to market your company should the opportunity arise, but also to put in place a number of channels to market your company that will continue to work without any further effort on your part.

Here is a rather extensive list of web 2.0 links. Some of these applications or services can be used to help grow your business, some can be used to make daily tasks easier and some, well, some are just useless.

If you’ve been thinking about starting a business but haven’t quite worked up the nerve to take the plunge yet, quit sitting on your hands and just do it! Invest a little time to watch The Big Idea on CNBC and you’ll see what kind of success so many other people have had by doing just that. The show is full of the kind of information you need to start and run your own company along with a healthy does of inspiration.

It’s Friday morning and if you’re like many people, you may already thinking about what you’re going to do when you get off work. That’s fair since you’ve probably put in a lot of hard work this week and you deserve to spend some quality time relaxing. When it comes to business owners though, this is quite often the time for us to catch up on all the things we didn’t have the time to get to because our staff and clients need us for various reasons.

What this means to you as a business owner is that you have a far greater chance of getting to those hard to reach prospects after hours on a Friday than at any other time during the week. Do yourself a favor and spend an extra hour or two at the office today going through your contact list and trying to reach the prospects that you haven’t been able to reach yet. Even if you earn the business of only one of them, the time spent will be well worth it, especially if you are able to earn repeat business or referrals from them.

Most of us have been conditioned to believe that we need to arrive at the office at a certain time in order to be successful. While it’s definitely true that we need to put in a fair amount of hard work to make our business a success, it’s not necessarily true that we need to arrive at the crack of dawn. An early start may be important for some businesses, such as stock brokerage firms or construction companies, but for others, it may not matter at all.

What is far more important for most businesses is creativity, because it nurtures innovation and helps you stay ahead of your competitors. You can foster this by tackling the creative aspects of your business, such as marketing, strategic planning and product development at the time of day when you and your staff are at your prime. For example, I am most creative in the late hours of the night so that’s when I do these types of things. For some people, early mornings before anyone else is even out of bed may be the most productive time for these activities. By focusing on these critical aspects of your business when your energies are highest, you will achieve significantly better results than by simply trying to fit it into some arbitrary schedule.

So if your creativity is highest in the morning, by all means, get started before the sun comes up, but if you’re a night owl, don’t be afraid to work late and sleep in the next day. Your business will benefit from your newly found creativity and productivity!

This is something we hear often. Some clients and prospective clients actually believe that they have no competition.

Guess what? No matter what industry you’re in, you have competition.

If you’re the only real estate company in town you still have competition because you’re competing with all of the people that are selling their homes one their own, whether they’re using yard signs, the newspaper, internet or some other method. Even if you are the only company that offers a particular product or service, you still face competition through alternatives. A female motivational speaker focusing on empowering women may feel that she has no competition because no one else is focusing on her target market. In reality she is facing tremendous competition first with other female motivational speakers, regardless of whether they focus primarily on women or not, and then with male motivational speakers. Even though the other motivational speakers, both male and female, may be focusing on a completely different target market, she still has to overcome their name recognition and exposure to convince her prospects that she is the best choice for their needs.

This mindset is more that just a simple misconception though, because it allows you to drift into a false sense of security, ignoring threats and opportunities. On the other hand, by taking careful inventory of who your true competitors are, you’ll be able to avoid the erosion of your company’s market share more effectively while developing new sources of revenue.

The first step is to determine who your competition is and to find out why any of your prospects chose to do business with them instead of you. If they truly had a need for what you offer, there must be a reason that they chose not to take advantage of it. What did the other companies offer that you didn’t?

The second step is to find out what related products or services could be added. After all, why would you be content with a $1,000 order when you can just as easily generate a $1,500 order just by offering something that your prospects were going to invest in anyway? If you sell camping equipment, you could easily add a variety of healthy, conveniently packaged foods. It’s far better to be known as the outdoor supply store than just the store that sells tents and sleeping bags.

The third step is to offer something that no one else has. Matching your competitors’ offer is one thing, but when you can offer something that they can’t, you’ll have a serious advantage. For example, if you’re a real estate agent, you could offer the free use of a moving truck to all of your buyers and sellers. Ideally, you should own, rather than rent the truck, in which case, it would serve as your own mobile advertising platform by having it wrapped.

Let’s say I wanted a cake. I really like the big fancy cakes you see at the bakery, but I can’t justify spending all that money on one. After all, it’s just a matter of mixing up a bunch of ingredients and cooking them, how hard can that be? So I think to myself, I’ll just make my own cake, it will be just as good, cheaper, and no one will know the difference.

So I get some flour, milk, eggs, sugar, water and a few other ingredients that I found in my pantry and start mixing them vigorously in a big bowl. How much of each? I don’t know. I just put in what I felt like putting in, because how important could it really be? It’s just a cake, right? Ok, so everything is mixed up pretty well but I feel like something else could be added, and why not? It’s my cake. Well, I like steak, which I just happen to have left over in the refrigerator, along with some tuna casserole, a half of a quesadilla and a handful of peanut butter cups, so I toss these into the mix and stir it some more. I like them all, so my cake should turn out great!

Now it’s time to bake my glorious cake. I set the oven to 250 degrees and toss my masterpiece in for about 30 minutes or so. In the mean time, I’m thinking to myself how it’s ludicrous that these bakeries charge so much money for something that is clearly so easy to do. Look at me, with not a single cooking class under my belt I’ve created my own recipe on the fly, and in less than an hour I will be enjoying my very own scrumptious cake.

It’s been about 30 minutes, so I take my cake out. I had totally forgotten that I had some friends coming over, but what a perfect opportunity to share my newly learned skill. So, plates in hand I start passing out my confectionary ambrosia to each of them. They each take a bite and inform me that if they hadn’t already eaten, that they would certainly stay and eat more of my wonderful cake.

Well, it’s been a good day. I saved some money and learned how to make my own cake, which I then shared with my friends. They loved it and they told me so.

In the real world, baking a cake can be a lot like graphic design. In my previous example, I chose a random list of ingredients, mixed them together and then cooked them, which is surprisingly similar to what happens when most people do their own graphic design. You see, graphic design isn’t just about knowing what to put in and why, it’s also about knowing what not to put in and why. It’s a delicate balancing act that takes years to master.

Graphic design, like baking accounting or just about any other skill, is something that you can do yourself, but you’re going to have to take the time to learn the skills necessary to be effective. As in the example above with our retched cake, simply going through the motions is not enough. The proof is in the results. You can show your marketing materials to your friends but most of them are just going to tell you what you want to hear. In business, the only opinion that really matters is that of your clients or customers, and they’ll let you know what they think with their wallets. While it may seem like it’s too expensive to invest in the services of a professional graphic designer, sometimes it can be too expensive not to.