Category: Network of Champions

Branding: When the Lowest Price Is Not Enough

I worked as a recruiter in the consumer-packaged goods industry. Every day I talked with job seekers and hiring managers who sold consumer products through retail stores.

When I reviewed qualifications, I was assessing a job seeker’s ability to make brands successful. Themes recurred in the profiles I recruited. The hiring companies were seeking people who could design and conduct successful brand campaigns.

Interviewing

When you are interviewing, you might find these ideas helpful to show companies how you can make their brands successful.

Targeted

Walmart, Costco, and Walgreens all sell pharmaceuticals. Walmart targets customers who want to buy sustainable quantities at the best price. Costco, on the other hand, targets customers who can afford to buy larger quantities to get the better price. Walgreens (and CVS) have stores in every neighborhood. They charge higher retail prices for the convenience of shopping locally.

Simple Calls to Action

Calls to action are statements that bring the customer to act. They may be explicit like the statement “Save now.”

Or the call to action may be implicit: “Offer is good while supplies last.”  The statement implies that you must buy now to reap the benefits.

Consistent

Once you know your audience, you hit them with the same message over and over. Advertising is like the Colorado river. Even when navigating through the rapids, you are not likely to see the river eroding the walls and floor of the Grand Canyon. Over time, however, the canyon becomes deeper, wider, and changes course.

Logos and Icons

The use of logos has taken on even more significance as social media has created icons and identity for their brands. Just the following letters alone are enough for people to identify major social media sites:  in, f, G+, P, and t. In order, those iconic letters represent LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and Tumblr. Twitter, of course, is the iconic birdie.

Slogans

Slogans are memorable. Here are examples.

“Expect More. Pay Less” (Target Stores) ™

“Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man.” (Ace Hardware™)

“The Most Interesting Man in the World” (XX Dos Equis™)

“Save Money. Live Better.” (Walmart™)

“Glasses in less than an hour.” (LensCrafters™)

My favorite slogan is the iPod launch slogan:  “A thousand tunes in your pocket.” (Apple™)

 

Thank you for not giving us your political opinion. ~ www.jaywren.com

The news of politics wears on people. Most Americans are tired of hearing about politics.

Looking for headlines to cover, the media hover over current events for political sound bites. Add to those soundbites the in-depth coverage of speeches and now conventions. Furthermore, candidates are starting to hit the media with advertising campaigns.

Pause Before Posting

Sharing online stories is as easy as clicking a share button. However, if the story is about politics, pause before posting. Your friends and connections are probably tired of hearing about it.

They get more than a daily dose from major media.

If you feel the need to wake people up to your cause, they are probably already tired of hearing about that cause. Apathy in politics is different from political exhaustion. People aren’t indifferent. The media have burned them out on politics.

What is Your Goal?

It is always good to remember to ask ourselves why we are on social media. Is it our goal to make new friends and expand our business network?  Is it our goal to reconnect with friends and business connections?

Or is our goal really to promote a political agenda?

Knowing the goal is important.

When politicians are on the campaign stump, the best politicians say things that draw headlines. The media people pick these things from political speeches and write their headlines. Conservative, liberal, and progressive media use headlines to draw subscribers. Promoting your career with politics is a good idea for people with political careers. It is less of a good idea for people who are not in politics.

Image: Jay Wren

LinkedIn: How to Unfollow a Connection

It is helpful to know how to unfollow a LinkedIn connection.

Do some of your connections annoy you with the things that they post on LinkedIn?  Does it annoy you that some of you connections post political opinions or that other connections post puzzles or brain teasers.  Do you have connections who spam the news feed with post after another?

Even worse, do you find that people who aren’t your connections are fulling your news feed with their post?

LinkedIn Choices: Accept, Change, or Unfollow

There are at least three things that you can do to end your frustration with the annoying things that some of your connections are doing on LinkedIn.

One thing you can do is to break the connection.  When you break your connection, you lose access to the connections in this person’s network.  You lose their persons’ first-degree connections and on a larger scale, you lose the person’s second-degree connections.  These people no longer show up in your news feed.  They no longer show up in the list of automatic invitation connections among the people “you might know.”

A second thing that you can do is to criticize your connection for annoying you.  In this case, you risk damaging a relationship that might be valuable to you later on.

A third option is to unfollow a connection.  The person will still be your connection. The process is simple.  Go to the person’s profile, find the send button, click the down arrow, and click view recent activity.  You will land on the person’s updates.  This is a very cool page.  You can not only follow and unfollow people. You can see how many total contacts they actually have!

Remember your options. Use those options to expand your network and build your relationships.

Images: Jay Wren

Event networking for introverts is never easy.  For that matter, even some extroverts feel awkward when networking face to face.  There is always that little feeling of what you don’t know.

If networking events are difficult for you, there are things that you can do to make them easier.

I prepare for networking events.  When I have not prepared, I have found myself walking around without accomplishing anything and uncertain about how to get started.  Here are some things I do before event networking.

Prepare Materials When Event Networking

I take my smartphone.  I keep my appointments on my smartphone.

However, I like to work with a pen and paper.  I take a leather-bound portfolio with a legal pad.  I take notes in pen and ink.

I carry a one inch-thick stack of business cards.  I keep my cards in one pocket.  I place the cards of the people I meet in a second pocket. When I leave an event with many new contacts, I want to put them into my expanding database of contacts.  The cards make building this database possible.  For people who do not have cards, I make notes on their contact information on my legal pad.

If there is a brochure for the event, I keep a copy of the brochure in the jacket of my portfolio.  This brochure helps me find my way around and contact people as the event moves along.

List Contacts in Advance of Event Networking

I make a list of people I specifically want to meet.  By making a list of people I want to meet, I can reduce the stress on me through preparation for seeing the people.

I can also do a better job of seeing the people I need to see.

If there is a list of companies or people in attendance, I get a copy of the list before the event.
If I am at a convention, companies have booths.  I email or call people to let them know I will come by their booth.

I do not schedule many appointments during the course of a networking event.   Too many things can come up to carry people away and cause people to miss appointments.  For the appointments I do schedule, I give people my phone number to call me when their schedule has changed during an event.

Things to Say When Event Networking

Remember some basics.

1. If speaking with new people makes you uncomfortable, prepare things to say and questions to ask.
2. Show an interest in the other person’s discussion
3. Ask the person questions about points that interest you.
4. Congratulate the person upon successes.
5. Listen with empathy.  Connect with what the person is saying from their point of view.  Ask questions about how they reached conclusions or solved problems.

The Positive Side of Being an Introvert When Event Networking

Anxiety is a signal that tells us to expect things.  If we use that signal as a message to prepare for our meetings, we can do a better job of getting ready and our meetings will go better.

Remember that everyone gets nervous sometimes.  It is part of being human.  Having a little anxiety is okay.  It is even a good thing when I use the feelings to plan and prepare for successful event marketing.