Dodo Loves Marketing

The conventional career path lacks forgiveness. As the employee climbs from rung to rung, the rungs are burned behind him. If he climbs onto a rung and struggles, he knows that his reputation will suffer and his job will be in jeopardy. There is no turning back. By punishing career missteps so severely, this path discourages everyone from taking bold career steps. In conventional wisdom’s world, taking bold career steps in order to discover a latent talent or to refine an existing one is almost as foolhardy as volunteering to learn the trapeze without a safety net. ..more

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b. Satisfactions

Everyone breathes different psychological oxygen. What is fulfilling for one person is asphyxiating for another.

Great accountants love the fact that two plus two equals four every time they do it. Great salespeople get a kick out of turning a no into a yes. Great flight attendants gravitate toward the tired, angry business traveler or the boisterous school sports team at the back, because they enjoy turning around the tough customers. ..more

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Here are two, of the infinite number of possible answers:

“I think it is very important to be persistent, particularly if you really believe in your ideas. We really encourage that kind of candor here. With my team, if I have a suggestion that others disagree with, I know they will expect me to keep supporting my idea until somebody comes up with a better one. In fact, it happens all the time.” ..more

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1. MAKE SURE THE TALENT INTERVIEW STANDS ALONE

Recruiting can be a complicated process. The candidate has to learn about you, the company, the role, and the details of his compensation. You have to check his résumé, make him an offer; he may counter, you then resubmit your offer; and so the negotiating continues until finally you both feel comfortable enough to commit. This process is important, but all of it should be handled separately from the talent interview. ..more

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Licensing, registration and inspection

It is amazing how many businesses require some form of licensing, registration or inspection. Bed and breakfast establishments, for instance, may need to be inspected by fire officers, to be registered with the local authority, and may even need planning permission and official approval of their signs from local planning officers. That’s before they start taking on catering, in which case there is another host of rules to contend with. These rules have been set up for the public good, wisely or otherwise. But many people do not know about them. Unfortunately, ignorance is no defence and you could end up being fined heavily if, for instance, your kitchen is not up to environmental health standards for a catering business, or if you are an unregistered childminder. If you make toys which do not comply with safety standards or sell clothes without the correct labelling, you could also end up in hot water. ..more

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Most people cringe at the thought of giving a speech or chairing a meeting. The limelight is on you and everyone is watching and listening. Who wouldn’t feel at least a bit on edge under these circumstances? While many can muster their courage to get through these events, there are some who find their limbs shaking and their foreheads perspiring at the very thought of the next public speaking occasion. ..more

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Shyness affects just about everyone under certain situations. While most people cope reasonably well with occasional shyness, there are some who live in a personal prison, unable to reach out and make friends or relate positively to others. Being shy at work can severely limit work effectiveness, unless of course, you work generally on your own with little or no contact with others.

Shy people present themselves at work in many varied ways. There is the quiet wallflower who fades into the background and is not often noticed. At the opposite extreme, there is the raging extrovert who can be loud, aggressive and abrasive, but who finds it difficult to relate on an intimate level to others. In between, there are many other people, such as the knocker, the person who knocks or degrades others. ..more

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There are thousands of grants and low interest loans available for small businesses. The problem is finding out what they are and whether your business qualifies. Some fields are more liberally provided with grants than others. For instance, the Crafts Council has a setting-up scheme which allows selected craftspeople to receive a grant of £2,500 for maintenance and up to £5,000 for equipment (they pay half of equipment costs), provided they apply within two years of setting up. While this would not cover your start-up costs entirely, it could certainly be a very useful addition. Other areas where grants may be forthcoming include : ..more

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Lots of people give money every once in a while—usually when someone asks for it. But the real power in giving comes when you give every month to the same causes. The best kind of giving adds up, little by little, month to month, year to year, like a savings account. But with giving, you’re saving more than money. If you’d like to give a portion of your income regularly, here are some steps to help you get started.

GETTING STARTED

1. PICK A PERCENTAGE

Choose a percentage of your income that you’d like to give each month. Work with that bonehead-easy budget I showed you to make sure that you can afford the amount you commit to. ..more

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The climate of some organizations is more conducive to informal cooperation than that of others. But, whatever the tone of relationships where you work, your job will go more smoothly if you build a trusting rapport with your colleagues and other employees. Here are some ways you can benefit from widening your personal network:

• Exchange of information. What’s the top brass thinking? How is a multide partmental project really going? What personnel changes are in the wind, and what implications does that have for your group? Who has been talking to whom? Answers to questions like these are often gotten faster through casual conversation than through official channels. ..more
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The 8″ x 10″ glossy, black-and-white photograph

If you are going to submit a photo with your news release, you can have a good professional photographer take it for you or you can put a roll of black-and-white film in your camera and do it yourself. Photograph only the images that support your news release and take many shots to ensure at least one good photo will result.

Try to adjust your major points of interest so they will appear everywhere except in the centre of the photo. Position these focal points about one-third in from the edges, approximately on the Golden Line.

Have small prints made and examine them for good impact, clarity, interest and relevance. Then the best of them should beblown up to form an 8″ x 10″ (postcard-sized) glossy. Get several copies made if you are sending your release to more than one news organisation. ..more

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‘Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.’

Have you ever tried to eat at a restaurant the day after it’s been well reviewed in the local newspaper? The lines can reach around the block; such is the power of free publicity.

In addition to increasing visibility in your community, press coverage can be copied and used as part of your mailing package to prospective clients. When your company appears in a magazine that is printed in four colours, have the front cover reprinted as well as the piece inside that is about you. The promotional effect of using a colour copy of the article is enormous compared to a dull black and white reprint. In this way the article about you becomes a permanent part of your promotional material and can be seen by people who missed it when it appeared in the media.

You can generate good publicity by taking the following steps:

1 Read through your local newspaper. Look at the length (number of words) of its articles and what subjects are seen to be of interest to its readers. If you live in a major metropolitan area, don’t limit yourself to the largest newspaper or the major radio or television stations. Study local suburban papers and smaller radio stations to determine if they are the right mediums for your news release. ..more

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‘The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get to the office.’

As was said earlier, always write to thank everyone who has helped you: the person who sent you the company’s annual report and promotional literature, the gatekeeper who helped you get the appointment, the person you met with and anyone else in the organisation who referred you.

Tell those who were not at the meeting how it went, thank them and, if another action has resulted, write to tell them how that turned out. Think how often you have helped other people and how sometimes (often?) the silence afterwards was deafening.

Vary your thanks. It is all too easy to send a typed note on a company letterhead. All that is required is a signature, an envelope and a stamp. There must be many millions of these going around the world daily, achieving little in the way of impact.

You can make sure your thank you will be remembered if you do it in a way that shows you really noticed the kindness and assistance received: you can send a handwritten note-card.

If you are not sure that your handwriting is easy to read, use a calligraphy pen instead. Practise the calligraphy strokes with the help of the instruction leaflet. The improvement will be extraordinary. The pens can be bought at any stationers. Be sure to get one with a refillable bladder, not just the small plastic cartridges that _run out quickly.

Buy good quality ink in a businesslike colour such as blue or blue-black. Pure black looks a little grim for thank-you notes. Do not use different colours such as brown or green, as they are not acceptable in business. Lately I have found felt-tipped calligraphy pens, and they are the best. But be sure to buy several at a time (they are under R10) because they suddenly run out.

Look around for memorable note-cards; the kind that are blank inside. You can find these at a bookstore, museum or art-gallery bookshop. Make sure they look so attractive that people will hesitate to throw them in the wastepaper basket. I found some Japanese lacquer screen cards in black and gold at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They cost no more than other quite ordinary cards but looked much more special. Even a year later, these cards were still on display when I visited certain offices.

Keep a big box of your memorable cards close by. Try to choose cards that appeal to both men and women or have a box for each. Make sure the cards are congruent with the image of your company you want people to receive. A few minutes and a few cards later, you will have added considerably to the memories of your meeting.

The moment you feel a thank you is due, handwrite a card and send it off. It’s like paying your bills; you get a wonderful feeling of: ‘I’ve done it and it’s out of the way.’

And remember that you can use this technique with prospects and clients when you have been unable to reach them by phone, just to say, ‘Sorry I missed you, I’ll be in touch within three months.’

Consider sending postcards to clients and ‘warm’ prospects when you are away on business or on holiday. I send one to the client and one to the gatekeeper, with my contact details and the date of my return. I will already have given the details to both, but a bright card has more impact and is easier to find than the original note. To prospects the message is simpler: ‘I am away, but will be in contact when I get back.’

Do you find it difficult to say thank you in a way that shows genuine appreciation? It can be as difficult to say thank you in a sincere way as it is to leave a message on an answering machine. Those of us who are usually competent with business language sometimes disintegrate when we have to write a card or leave a clear message on a machine.

Nevertheless, it is important to personalise your thank you and this is not difficult to do if you use this simple technique: set up a mental picture of the person you’re going to contact and prepare a message as though they were standing in front of you.

Now it will be easier for you to say or write, ‘You were very kind and I appreciated your time and patience. Thank you for your help.’ Or even, ‘Thanks, you were great. Much appreciated.’

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Mailing and phoning around 200 people over a three-month period (60 working days) means you only have to make a few mailings and follow-up phone calls per day.

Never mail a huge amount all at once as you will get so far behind in trying to contact people for an appointment that you will be overwhelmed and stop trying. Instead, mail three or four each night and, after an interval of about a week, phone those three or four people. If you don’t reach them on the first try, try once more that day.

If you reach them, terrific! If you don’t, send a note-card saying, ‘Sorry I missed you.’ Just keep moving. Do not get bogged down by worrying about the 200 people as a whole. Simply see them as small lots of three or four mailings and a few phone calls per day. ..more

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‘Come quickly, I’m tasting stars.’

In neuro-linguistics, persuasive writing is yours for the doing. By incorporating visual, auditory, feeling and some gustatory words into your copy, you can involve all your readers, just as easily as you can when speaking — more easily, perhaps, because you are able to rewrite words for a printed page, whereas it is difficult to take back the spoken word.

‘Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger.’

As a useful beginning to using these three or four languages, go to your files and pull out letters, reports, brochures, flyers and even invitations that have been sent out in the past few months. Rewrite them, slipping in the three or four languages that you have learned from the past few pages. See if the copy now leaps off the page. ..more

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The left-hand side of the brain is the analytical side of the brain that deals with detail, facts and figures. The right-hand side is the creative, sensitive, feeling side of the brain. It follows that where you place an item is important so that the viewers will react in the way you want them to. For instance, a contract should be placed on the right-hand side in order to transfer the logic, facts and detail to the left-hand side of the brain, thereby preparing the person to read and understand.

Creative work, such as a new advertising campaign or colour schemes for decorating an office or home should be placed to the left-hand side, so that the information goes through to the right- hand side of the brain, thus getting the viewer in a state of readiness for the creative decisions to be made. ..more

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How do you keep track of who is in your downline? All networkers, when they join a network, are given a personalised number. This number identifies them as belonging to a particular network. You may ask: ‘But how can I keep track of all the people in my downline?’ The answer is that you don’t need to. In network marketing each individual works three levels deep. You are directly responsible for the distributors you recruit (level one), the people they recruit (level two) and the people they, in turn, recruit (level three). That’s not too much to manage. ..more

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You must be clear on the differences between illegal pyramid scams and network marketing. Here are the factors that make for a genuine network marketing company:

• The company must be a bona fide retail organisation which markets legitimate products or services to the consumer.
• The company should offer quality products or services for which there is a genuine demand.
• The price of the goods sold must be fair and competitive.
• There must be no up-front investment requirements other than a low-cost starter sales kit.
• There should be no minimum purchase requirements to join the network other than those essential to do some trade. ..more
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Network marketing is a completely legitimate business. It has nothing to do with ‘pyramid selling‘ or chain-letter-type scams which have made newspaper headlines. Indeed, the worst excesses of pyramid operations have been largely stopped through legislation and consumer education.

For example, in the United Kingdom, legislation was passed in 1973 which detailed:

• what could be said in advertisements
• which promises could be made
• which information could be included in documents issued by promoters
• what the rights of distributors were
• undesirable practices such as charging for training.
• that network marketing companies were also required to buy back certain stock from their distributors on termination of any contract.

These regulations have been extremely effective in ridding the system of abuse. ..more

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Do you use quiet times or waiting periods productively? If you have an appointment to see a prospect and arrive 10 minutes early, one option is to knock on the door and hope to start early. But if that person is just finishing supper and expecting you 10 minutes later, she may resent the intrusion. Use that time to brush up on your product knowledge.

Do you work in a systematic way? At home arrange your work area and office effectively. Keep a filing system, contact book or daily diary. Have a neat stock room and a small but well laid out display. With regard to paperwork, if you handle the same piece of paper twice, you are probably being ineffective. Don’t write if a phone call will do. Don’t hesitate to use the wastepaper basket to get rid of ‘junk’ rather than filing it. ..more

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