In-Tune News You’ll Want To Use

Deciding to move forward on a design and marketing project can be a big deal, but it doesn’t have to be. Beyond the emotional benefits of feeling more confident when promoting your business and looking more professional in front of prospects, brand recognition and a myriad of other benefits, let’s just take a look at the numbers.

For all of you number crunching, “Just bottom line it” business people out there, this bulletin will take a logical, methodical approach in helping you to decide whether to “Not go” or “go” on your next design project.

Step 1: Investments, Not Expenses

Smart business owners view design and marketing as opportunities to grow their business rather than drains that they just pour money down. Expenses, by nature are costs that you no longer expect to receive any benefit from. You should expect, not hope that your design and marketing project will yield a personal and a financial benefit to your company.

Quick Note: Now if you’ve had design and marketing projects created before and felt they weren’t worth the cost, I’d offer that the poor investment wasn’t in WHAT you did, rather WHO you invested in. Designers that aren’t experts in marketing, advertising and learning about your business are typically bad investments. To get the most out of your time and investment, you want to only work with business savvy designers who understand your business, goals, clients and competition.

Let’s assume you’re working with a terrific designer, and you’re interested in having a tri-fold brochure designed. Ask yourself, “What do I need to make back on this investment to break-even on my investment?”

Step 2: Let’s look at this example:

You will have design and printing costs = $1000

You will receive 800 units of marketing collateral at your disposal

From that marketing collateral you would expect at least 25 people to take action and buy from me (that’s just over 3%). As a business owner, you have to ask yourself, “How likely is it for me to achieve just a 3% response on my project?” “Am I likely to get just 3%?” If the answer is yes, let’s move on. If the answer is no, don’t do the project!

Let’s say your average sale is going to be $150.

Now do a few quick math calculations: Your breakeven point will be 7 people. ($1000 / 25 people)

Your Estimated Gross Revenue = Minimum # of people you expect to buy (just 3%) X Amount of average Sale

25 people X $150 average sale = $3750 Estimated gross revenue

Net Revenue is Gross - Expenses = $3750 - $1000 = $2750 Net Revenue (this is how much you made)

Your ROI, Return on Your Investment = 275%

You increased your money by 275%; was this a good project to invest in, you bet!

Step 3: The Odds and Ends You Want to Get Clear On
Beyond the ROI example, there are a few other questions you want to run through in deciding to “Go” or “Not go” on a project. These are quick, terrific tools that will help you be more decisive and more confident in those decisions.

If I do this design project, what’s the likelihood I will be able to attract more customers? What will these customers mean in terms of dollars and cents?

What will happen if I don’t do anything? Will I expect sales to go up or down if I don’t do anything?

What might it cost me in sales if I don’t do anything? Am I happy with the rate this company is growing? Do I need to take steps in order to make it grow? What do I plan to do that’s going to make something happen?

Do I feel like I am losing out in sales and market share because I am getting lost in a crowd of competitors?

If I had a strong brand and professional marketing collateral, would that allow me to not compete so fiercely on price? Would that allow me to actually charge what my products and services are worth?

Granted, I’ve oversimplified the decision here in the interest of time, but the decision to “go” or “not go” isn’t nearly as difficult as business people make it. What’s the likelihood that you’ll make back your investment? And what will happen to your company if you decide to do nothing? If you decide to ignore all of the intangible benefits from your project and just look at the ROI, you’ll be able to make quicker and more decisive decisions about your projects in the future. Let me know if this has been helpful, email me and let me know what you think.

About Jeremy:
I help small businesses build more confidence and credibility into their business brand. Through marketing and design initiatives; I help you feel better about your company. Making you feel good about your business gives you more confidence and less anxiety when you are networking, promoting or selling your business. If your business needs the reliability and talent of an in-house marketing and design department but doesn’t want additional employees, salaries and benefits, give me a call at 480.391.0704 - I have a new approach for you.

If you are looking for more free insight and inspiration, you’ll want to get in on the “Can-Do Confidence Builder”. Emailed weekly, the Confidence Builder provides you with essential marketing and design insights that help you get the most out of your investment and help you to stay one step ahead of the competition. Email me at comments@candographics.com and asked to be added to our list or visit http://www.candographics.com.

Recently, I was reviewing our website statistics. One of the sites that had a link to mine caught me by surprise. Since this is a family publication, I won’t include the name of the website. But, let’s just say it contains a four-letter word that people do not use in most business circles.

Leila Johnson owns Johnson Solutions Group in Rio Rancho, NM. She acts as Your Virtual Documentation Department. Leila is a versatile writer who works with those small businesses that don’t have the time or expertise to handle their documentation. Leila can be reached at 505-896-9379 or through her “new and improved” website at http://www.johnsongroups.com

Thoughtfully defining your business - and your differentiation - will help you to
understand who you are, what you do, and what makes you different. Not many
small businesses take the time to answer those core questions about their business,
but those answers are essential to creating a strong brand identity, focused
messaging, and effective marketing materials. Having these will make a stronger
impression on your target audience - once you stand out, they’ll be more likely to
remember you when they have a need for your products or services.

Taking this step will make you stand out from your competition. Just think of your
competition - and how they communicate about and market their businesses. So
many people are out promoting their business without knowing these basic facts
about their businesses, that if you have these elements in place, you’ll outshine your
competition.

In order to define your business’s difference, you need to:

Determine your business’s characteristics:

• Who You Are: What is your business all about? What is your mission, and
what are your values?

• What You Do: What are the unique services and/or products that you
offer?

Study and contrast your business with the competition:

• Who Is Your Competition: Who offers the same or similar services or
products as you? Who are you consistently quoting your service against, or
competing with for shelf space? These are your closest competitors, the ones with
which you should be most concerned in the definition process.

• What Makes You Different: How are you different from those
competitors? Do you have a specific area of specialty, either in the industry that you
serve, problem that you solve, or the service/product that you provide? Do you
serve a certain geographic area? Be careful to avoid the differentiators “better,”
“faster,” and “cheaper”they’re either too subjective or too difficult to maintain as
your business grows and matures. Your differentiators should stay with you for the
life of your business.

Plan for your best customers:

• Who You Can Best Help: Determine who makes up your target market.
It’s best to determine both their demographicsfacts like age, race, sex, occupation
and their psychographicstheir motivations, hobbies, desires, and other factors
that make up their personality.

• How Best to Reach Them: Once you know who you want to help, the
next step is to determine how to let them know that you can help them. This means
determining how to market your business and which types of media are best to get
your message out.

• Which Differentiators Will Compel Them: Creating differentiators will
also help your target clients to identify with you. If you tell them that you specialize
in their industry and their problem, then they’re much more likely to hire you.

Defining your difference by answering all of these questions allows you to
thoroughly understand your business and to better communicate with your
customers. When you are specific about what you do differently from your
competition, customers can easily identify you as the most appropriate business to
meet their needs. It truly simplifies your marketing, promotional, and passive
income processes.

And, when you Define Your Difference first, before creating your brand or marketing
materials, you will ensure that your brand and marketing efforts will make you stand
out from your competition just by communicating these elements of your Brand
Differentiation.

Erin Ferree, Founder and Lead Designer of elf design, is a brand identity and
marketing design strategist who creates big visibility for small businesses. Erin
helps her clients discover their brand differentiators, then designs logos, business
cards, and other collateral materials and websites to reflect that differentiation, as
well as to increase credibility and memorability. This can help you to increase your
sales and put more ease into your sales cycle. To learn more about defining your
difference, check out our eBook, Stand Out, at:

http://www.stand-out-branding.com For more information about elf design,
please visit: Logo design at http://www.elf-design.com

For a consultant, solo professional, or other type of entrepreneur, YOU are the brand. Marketing your business is about marketing YOU as the best choice for your customers’ needs.

Starting today, make sure that you are positioning yourself as the brand…the expert. Begin to make a list. What makes you different from your competition? What traits make you stand out? What do people remember most about you?

By branding YOU, you build the power of influence. Your prospects begin to perceive you as the best resource in your field. Create a tagline for you that describes your benefits - are you a straight shooter…compassionate…a big thinker…a problem solver? What things about you make you absolutely different and valuable from someone else in your industry?

When you are in the process of branding your personality, it’s time to forget about modesty. Become as visible as possible. Show up at events and speak with passion to people about what you offer. This is very difficult for some people. But there’s a saying; if you don’t toot your own horn, who else will?

Tell prospects and customers about your accomplishments and your expertise. Give case studies about other clients you have helped. Use your picture on your marketing materials. Remember, packaging counts. Everything you do and say lends itself to the brand you are creating. What you wear and how you interact with people all give a message.

Here are some key reasons for branding YOU:

- It makes you stand out from your competitors.

- It reinforces your core marketing message in the minds and hearts of your prospects and customers.

- You will be perceived as an expert.

- You can deliver your messages clearly and personally.

- It will give you a distinct voice - your own.

- Branding YOU allows you to let your personality shine!

- It strikes an emotional chord in your prospects and customers.

- You build relationships more easily - fundamentally, people want to do business with other people, not a faceless company.

YOU will bring prospects in the door and YOU will keep them coming back. Many small businesses and solo professionals present themselves without a heart and without showing their passion. They come across as mediocre and bland. Forget mediocrity. As an entrepreneur, you have a HUGE opportunity to let your passion shine through. Be yourself and be authentic!

Craft your branding around your personality, your skills, your style, and your values. Be sure to incorporate your clients as central to your brand. When the brand is YOU, you begin to INSPIRE people to work with you. Your personality will come through in all of your marketing materials.

Branding YOU will begin to build long-lasting relationships with your clients that can never be eroded by a competitor. You will have absolute loyalty because people will believe in you. Because you have branded YOU. Don’t forget - you are in charge of the brand that is YOU, so start today and get started!

Copyright 2006 Marketing Maven

Wendy Maynard, the Marketing Maven, publishes REMARKABLE MARKETING, a weekly ezine for business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs. If you’re ready to skyrocket your sales, easily attract customers, and have more fun, get your FREE TIPS now at http://www.gomarketingmaven.com

Jewelry retailers across the country are gearing up for May 1, the official start of gold month 2006. Since 2004, jewelers have used May as a platform to reach customers considering purchases for Mother’s Day, graduation, first communion, confirmation and the bridal season. In addition to the gift-giving opportunities, the campaign is also designed to inspire self-purchase, encouraging customers to update their spring and summer wardrobe with new styles of gold jewelry.

Retailers should think beyond products when they are considering ways to attract new business during gold month 2006. Because the ‘May is Gold Month’ event is really still in its infancy, it is important to establish an in-store theme to inform customers of the occasion, and any promotions the store is running in conjunction.

Here are a few tips to consider when preparing to attract new business during gold month this year:

Tell the World: Use retail signs in and outside the jewelry store to advertise gold month to people passing by. If customers are out shopping for a unique gift, they will be more likely to visit your jewelry store if there’s a retail sign telling them about your promotion.

Show them What You’ve Got: Consider a specialty jewelry display case that showcases a wide array of items featured for gold month. A special display case will be beneficial well beyond a gold month promotion. It will allow your store to highlight hand picked products for special events throughout the year.

Send the Message Home: Reinforce the gold month theme by using all gold colored jewelry packaging in the month of May. Consider custom printed jewelry boxes, shopping bags and gift bags, as well as the packaging extras like ribbons and bows to keep your store and gold month fresh in the customer’s mind.

“May is Gold Month” is your opportunity to set your company aside and capitalize on a customer base that is ready to buy. Be at your best by creating an environment that brings them in and keeps them coming back throughout the year. For additional inspiring ideas and products for your jewelry store, visit
www.nu-era.com.

“May is Gold Month” is your opportunity to set your company aside and capitalize on a customer base that is ready to buy. Be at your best by creating an environment that brings them in and keeps them coming back throughout the year. For additional inspiring ideas and products for your jewelry store, visit
http://www.nu-era.com

I’ve seen it all. The good, the bad and the ugly of Web site design. And the more I analyze what’s on the Web, the sadder I get, because the Web has become open game for Web site designers with bad taste and no plan.

On the other hand, there are many talented Web designers to choose from. But talent will only take one so far.
A designer has to understand and master the essence of design: Design with purpose, Create with purpose, and Implement with purpose.

As with the world of print, TV, and radio, a designer must design with four specific goals in mind:

Branding
Good branding makes the cash register ring. Take Fox News as a case in point. Unlike CNN or MSNBC, Fox strives to be a bit more edgy and bold — and they lead the pack. Their logo animation, bumper graphics, and over-the-shoulder graphics are bright primary colors. Even their music is a bit edgier with guitar riffs versus the subdued music tones of the other stations.

Concept
A great concept on a shoe-string budget will blow away a weak concept on a multi-million dollar budget any day. For example, how many truck or SUV commercials have you seen with guys careening through mud or snow-covered mountain passes as the words scream out “Chevy Tough” or “Ford, Built to Last.” I can’t believe executives at these car companies spend millions each year on poorly conceived advertising campaigns.

Now, see if you remember this one. A mother is about to drop her child off at school, and asks if he’d rather get dropped off at the curb instead of directly in-front of the school. The child says, “nah, that’s okay mom.” He steps down from the Hummer and strolls up to the school entrance while an older student, with his eyes glued to the Hummer, says “cool.” This is a “concept;” a very well executed concept. It strongly conveys an attitude. Even Hummer’s theme music has attitude. The branding and concept raises the Hummer’s image above the rest.

Your Web site or your client’s Web site should convey this type of branding and concept. Think outside the box. Look at other well executed designs for inspiration. Don’t look at the industry, look at the design. Just because you’re building a Web site for a golf course doesn’t mean you should only Google golf courses in your research. Look beyond. Here are some great Web site resources for creative inspiration.

http://www.commarts.com
CA-
Communication Arts, the online counterpart of Communication Arts magazine.

http://www.designinteract.com
Design Interact, The premier source of information and inspiration for the field of interactive media.
http://www.coolhomepages.com
Cool Home Pages, Great resource for designer’s block.

Communication
During my career in broadcast graphics we would churn out graphics for the evening news. Many of them were “over-the-shoulder” graphics which appeared behind the anchor as they delivered the story. The main philosophy
I constantly ingrained into my design team was:“If it doesn’t read - it doesn’t work.” In other words, if the volume of the TV is turned off, the viewer should know what the story is about without the presence of text or title.

Your Web site should project that same philosophy. Ask yourself, does it immediately communicate my message? In television your message is “one click” away from the next channel. On the World Wide Web, you’re one mouse click away from a potential customer moving on.

If you own an e-commerce site, do you expend Web real estate endlessly talking about yourself, or do you get right down to business by featuring your products?
If you own an industry or business site, do you have fancy animation with glitzy music, or does your site convey a serious professional business image?

Make sure your Web designer is communicating well with the public. Solid thinking translated into clear messages works every time.

Focus Test
Want good feedback? Want good direction? Try a grassroots focus test.

Late one evening after some finger breaking work on some all important Flash animation, the cleaning crew entered my office. I asked, “What do you guys think?” They replied, “What is it?”

I was taken back. Ouch!!! I had fallen into the old trap of not being able to see the forest for the trees. This is an all too common problem among creative types. Design work tends to be a labor of love, and you can get too close to your project without seeing the big picture.

Get feedback, it’s the breakfast of champions. Ask your team, neighbor, spouse, significant other — ask anyone but yourself. And once you step out on the ledge, make sure you’re ready for negative feedback. Learn to embrace it and use it to develop into a better professional. Growing some thick skin will also be helpful.

To see what I mean, visit www.webpagesthatsuck.com.

About the Author
http://www.visionefx.net - Visionefx President Ricardo Vidallon has been in the creative business of advertising, cable broadcast, animation and the World Wide Web for more than two decades. His work has been featured on
the Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., Fox News and NBC Entertainment. His career track in Web consultancy includes the global companies of Reynolds and Reynolds, CMGI Solutions, and Automark, Inc.

Brand Identity is simply the promise a company makes to its customers. It may be purely the function of a product, or it can be personality or values-oriented. Whatever it is, it’s something companies all over the world attempt to leverage as a way of strengthening their businesses.

Why is Brand Identity important?

A brand identity is important because it has the power to single-handedly set a company apart from its competition. And those who successfully craft their brand identities to positively affect their bottom lines know that doing so takes time, money and effort. It’s not as simple as just a logo or a tagline. In essence, brand identity is the reason you give your market to choose you…is it compelling enough? Your market will decide.

A word on revising your brand identity…
The key to a successful re-branding effort is “evolution,” not “revolution.” You must reassure your existing customers that everything they like about you will remain intact and become integral part of something even better. Don’t go to unjustified extremes for any reason because major perceived changes may destroy existing emotional ties to your brand thereby eroding valuable customer loyalty.

More than marketing, Brand Identity is the lifeblood of a company having an outward brand identity that resonates with your market is very important, but just as important is the people who make up your company understanding that brand identity and doing their part to reinforce it. Truly effective marketing starts from the inside out. Do your employees believe in the company? Do they feel like they’re an important part of it and that they have a vested stake in its success? A company with truly solid brand identity can say yes to those questions. If your company can’t, here are some steps to address the issue:

1. Get your brand personality, values and corporate culture on the same page: Marketing needs to work closely with human resources to ensure values and expectations are in sync both internally and externally.

2. Empower your employees to effective brand representatives: Align your criteria for recruiting talent and rewarding performance in such a way that promotes voluntarily brand reinforcement from your team.

3. Constantly reinforce brand-centric values and behaviors: Internal communications are a useful tool for achieving this. Like a good football coach, keep hammering the fundamentals until they’re second nature.

Your employees are your brand ambassadors and the people who determine ultimate success or failure for your company. That’s why it’s so important to get them to buy into your brand identity and take individual ownership and responsibility for it. When that kind of culture exists in a company, growth and success simply become byproducts of a happy, motivated team.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru, a leading brand consulting and market research firm located in Easton, Massachusetts, near Boston.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation. Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, Archway Marketing Services, Franklin Sports and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies. Scott can be reached at swhite@brandidentityguru.com or 508-238-4347.

Hard times create amazing successes.

Despite all the talk today of an oversupply of goods and services, industry consolidation, menacing imports, stalled prices, and shrinking margins, a few remarkable businesses have discovered how to make their brands irresistible to more and more customers. And they have done it in remarkably speedy fashion, seemingly coming out of nowhere to virtually own their markets. Consider, for example, Google, which went from being a nonsense word to a global verb and supernova of the Internet in only three years, which then led to its becoming a publicly traded company with an $80 billion market cap.

Or how about the gizmo named TiVo, which changed television viewing forever for millions of American families by creating buzz outside the typical sales and marketing channels.

Dozens of similarly surprising brands — names like American Girl, Best Buy, Chico’s, Hardiplank, and Washington Mutual — are thriving in all sorts of sectors, from manufacturing to wholesale to retail, and they have been built far more quickly and inexpensively than brands that rely solely on traditional approaches, most notably advertising. How do these luminaries do it? They overpromise and they overdeliver.

It’s a new, faster, and less-expensive approach to beating the competition that I call TouchPoint Branding. Simply put, they have made big promises to their customers, and they are delivering on them in big ways at three important points of interaction.

TouchPoint Branding begins with a unique, attention-grabbing brand promise that radically differentiates a company from its competitors. Google, for instance, vows to lead you to virtually anything you want to know, in 0.2 seconds. TiVo’s pledge is: TV — your way! American Girl promises dolls that enchant girls and teach them how to live a life of substance. And in a glutted business environment in which everyone seems to be shouting the same message simultaneously and at peak volume, exciting, breakthrough brand promises are the best way to stand out from the crowd. New companies must develop unique brand promises just to battle their way into the marketplace.

Established businesses, faced with fighting off upstarts and differentiating themselves from their rivals, have to periodically overhaul their brand promises to adjust to changes in their environments, their competitors, and their customers. But simply coming up with a unique brand promise, or overpromise, isn’t enough. When you overpromise, you will be saying that you are confident your brand will perform. You will be putting your whole reputation for honesty on the line, making a solemn contract with hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of customers. And, as wise managers know, trust is the hard currency of business success. The price for squandering it — sabotaging a brand’s promise — is always too high to pay, because, at the end of the day, the priceless intangible called integrity is the richest asset on any company’s balance sheet.

After a brand promise has been clearly established, you must also overdeliver by keeping your promises in imaginative, dynamic, and unique ways. And to do that, managers will need to get their entire organizations aligned to execute that big promise flawlessly and, above all, consistently every day with every sale or interaction. You must give your customers more than they ever expected from you at each of three critical moments of interaction — the Product TouchPoint, the Human TouchPoint, and the System TouchPoint. That’s where your advantage over competitors will emerge.

When properly executed, TouchPoint Branding enables managers at every level to inspire their employees to overdeliver on the company’s brand promise. This is the breakthrough that can revitalize your company, just as it has propelled the trailblazers I’ve written about here.

Copyright 2005 Rick Barrera

Create breakthrough brands and deliver extraordinary customer experiences with tips from Rick Barrera’s new book, Overpromise and Overdeliver; The Secrets of Unshakable Customer Loyalty. Free excerpt available at Rick’s Overpromise Website

Cram as much content into the brochure, after all
you paid for the printing and the ink - you’ve got to get the most out your investment.

Remember that even if you have the most gripping content out there, if you brochure’s layout isn’t inviting, interesting and non threatening, no one will read what you have to say. Business owners are most likely to fall into this trap when developing ads or marketing collateral it’s this one. Your parents and your grade school teachers were right - sometimes less is more.

Write what you think the important features about
your products and services are.

Oh no, please avoid this like the plague! What you want to focus on is the value as it relates to your clients and customers. Keep in mind who is buying from you; your client are, you’re not buying from yourself. If you want to know what your clients think, feel and want - ask them! If you’d like some guidance on how to ask you clients, call me, I’ll be happy to instruct you how (I’ll probably ask you a few questions as well). Everyone is tuned into the same radio station (WIIFM, what’s in it for me), so everything you include in your brochure should benefit the client from her/his perspective. Does that make sense to you?

Print your brochure to inform people

If you’re in business to sell information, skip this step, but if you’re like most small businesses, you’ll want to read this. I’ll ask business owners, “Why are you having this brochure designed? What is it going to do for you?”, they respond, “We want to keep our customers informed”. Hey, that’s great, keeping people informed is good, but it won’t bring in any sales, and most businesses wouldn’t be investing hard-earned money on something that won’t help the company grow. This is why it’s so important that you as a businessperson take a moment and clearly identify why the brochure is being designed and then setting up some objectives you hope to achieve with it.

Recently a physician contacted me about having us design a brochure for her. She didn’t have an answer to why she was considering having the brochure designed, and didn’t have any clear objectives for it. In the end she designed the brochure herself and didn’t really get anything out of it.

If you want to get the most out of your brochure investment, you have to start with a plan.

Leave it up to the prospect in what the want to
do next

Wow, I started laughing when I wrote this one; this is another outstanding way to make sure your brochure finds its way into the circular file. Of course you don’t want that to happen, so what you want to do is to articulate a clear and defined action step that you want the prospect to take after the brochure. You want to lead your prospects by the hand through your sales process. If you don’t have a sales process, call me, we’ll talk about getting you one, they are critical.

Here’s a trick, find a niece, nephew, son or daughter and ask him/her after reading the brochure, “Do you know what the brochure is asking you to do next?” If she/he doesn’t know what the action step is, you need to go back and make it clearer. The next time you read the paper or see a commercial on television, take a moment and identify the action step, you will almost ALWAYS see one in there, that’s because they are leading you down the path to buying from them. You want your brochure to do the same thing. Now there effective and ineffective action steps, so you want to make sure that the designer who is creating your brochure understands marketing and can develop the right action step to get your prospects to act.

Do it yourself to save money

Well this is a tough one; of course not everyone can afford having professional marketing materials, right? Well, if you want professional results and you’re serious about growing your business you might want to consider it. Business owners by the thousands design their own collateral materials - you can do this too. You’ll want to ask yourself,

How effective am I going to be at designing something that achieves the level of professionalism I want?

Am I going to lose out on sales because my marketing collateral looks mediocre? How much is that costing me?

In terms of dollars and cents, what results can I realistically expect if I design this myself? What kind of results could I expect if I had someone design this for me?

Just remember that your marketing materials are a reflection of your company, your character and your level of professionalism and quality. Based on who you elect to design your brochure, you have the choice to look professional, intelligent or amateurish and no so savvy. Keep in mind that people, whether choosing a date or choosing who they do business with, make up there minds within the first 10 minutes, so you want to make sure you look like the clear and undeniable choice for your prospect to do business with, and well-designed brochure from a business savvy designer can help you do this.

About Jeremy:

I help small businesses build more confidence and credibility into their business brand. Through marketing and design initiatives; I help you feel better about your company. Making you feel good about your business gives you more confidence and less anxiety when you are networking, promoting or selling your business. If your business needs the reliability and talent of an in-house marketing and design department but doesn’t want additional employees, salaries and benefits, give me a call at 480.391.0704 - I have a new approach for you.

If you are looking for more free insight and inspiration, you’ll want to get in on the “Can-Do Confidence Builder”. Emailed weekly, the Confidence Builder provides you with essential marketing and design insights that help you get the most out of your investment and help you to stay one step ahead of the competition. Email me at comments@candographics.com and asked to be added to our list or visit http://www.candographics.com

A few months ago I phoned a number of builders and renovators to research some upcoming magazine articles. Many were gracious enough to spend 5 or 10 minutes answering some questions (I always appreciate that).

One question I asked was “do you guarantee any part of your service, over and above any industry warranty program?”

The interesting thing was the responses fell into two main, but vastly different, categories:

1) “Yes we do, and here it is.”

and

2) “Sure we do…well, it’s kind of like a reputation-thing…we don’t really put it in writing but, if something goes wrong, we’ll deal with it.”

Now, here’s the really interesting part — only one person fell into the first category…everyone else fell into the second.

Pretty striking, isn’t it? Of all the builders and renovators I spoke with, only one had a guarantee over-and-above industry standard, in writing. Everyone else were basically saying “trust us, we’ll take care of it.”

Now, if you’re spending tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of dollars (or more), which are you going to respond more favorably to — “just trust us” or “trust us, and here it is in writing”?

The Miracles of Guarantees

There is a lot of good in guarantees, and not just for the consumer. As a business, you can really benefit, and differentiate yourself, with guarantees.

Here’s three reasons why you should consider them.

REASON #1: No One Else is Doing It

There is no better way to differentiate yourself than by doing something no one else will do. And why isn’t anyone else offering guarantees in writing? Simple…for the same reason you’re probably not: they’re afraid everyone will take advantage of the guarantee and drive their business into the ground.

This is the #1 reasons most businesses don’t use guarantees, and it’s completely unfounded — it fact, the exact opposite is true…and here’s why…

REASON #2: You Attract More Business

Most builders and renovators don’t want to grow their business but, rather, just get more from it. But whether you’re growing your business, or trying to make more from it, the strategy is the same: attract more so you can have your choice of projects.

What if a hundred people banged on your door Monday morning and said “we want you to do our next build / renovation.” Would you turn them away and say, “sorry…too many people” or would you say, “great…tell me what you want done, and I’ll pick the five (or ten, or thirty) that I most want to work with.”

A guarantee helps you do that.

REASON #3: You Can Charge More

The biggie! Who else is sick and tired of low profits? Who has to fight just to get a good price (and a good margin) for a project, only to see the already low profit potential decrease as the problems pile up, and the costs mount (if the low-bidders didn’t steal the project from you in the first place)?

I believe the vast majority of professional builders and renovators don’t charge enough to compensate for the value they deliver in the first place…let alone all the extra pressures that push their prices (and profits) down.

The single easiest way to increase profits is to increase price…and the single easiest way to do that is to increase the value.

One way to do that is offer a “take-it-to-the-bank, get-it-in-writing” guarantee.

If there’s a second reason why most businesses don’t include guarantees it’s because “I can’t afford it.” Well, you can afford it if you charge for it.

If someone is renovating and decides to have low-grade windows put in, they should be charged for low-grade windows, right? If, however, they decide to have high-end, sturdy, energy-efficiency windows put in, they should be charged for high-end windows…right?

So why would it be any different in any other aspect of your business? If you’re adding value, and people want that value, people will pay for it. This includes the protection, and peace of mind, guarantees give.

Set Yourself Apart…Attract More Business to Choose From While Increasing Your Profits!

Guarantees are a great way to put your prospects at ease, knowing that you’ll do the job right, and take care of them if problems should arise. But although every single builder / renovator I spoke with was “guaranteed” their work…only one was willing to put it in writing and earn the trust of their prospects.

The secret is to make sure:

. you can, and will, honour it (that should go without saying)

. know the potential cost, and frequency of the guaranteed work, so you can charge appropriately (this will be refined with time, but even if you’re just starting you can make a decent stab at it.)

and

. let your market know you guarantee your work where others don’t…you’ll become the first choice to do business with (and let the rest of the competition take on the business you don’t want).

You either do quality work or you don’t…right? So guarantee what you know you can, and let the competition wonder how you can ‘afford’ it — ’cause, when it comes from differentiating yourself and being able to defend your higher prices, you can’t afford not to.

Brett Martinson is a professional coach and consultant to the home building and renovation industry. Builders and renovators can sign up for a FREE subscription to his Successful Home Builders’ Newsletter AND receive his free, bonus 5-Part eBook, “5 Profit-Draining Mistakes Builders and Renovators Make…and How to Fix Them” at http://www.SuccessfulHomeBuilders.com