By Al Lautenslager  | Entrepreneur.com

When I walked into the dry cleaners the other day to drop off my shirts, I found a $5-off coupon on the counter for the pizza shop two doors down. I decided I wanted pizza, so I walked down to the pizza shop, redeemed my coupon, and found a coupon on their counter for $5 off at the dry-cleaning place I was just at. These two establishments were sending traffic to each other; they had formed a strategic business alliance. In the world of Guerrilla Marketing, this is known as fusion marketing. As entrepreneurs, we always think we have to do things alone, but its amazing the synergy available from collaborating or aligning with others. Fusion marketing can take your business to levels you never thought possible before now. Those that are likely collaborators or fusion marketing alliances are power partners. A “power partner” is a business that has a similar target market as yours but doesn’t really compete with you. Examples of this are an estate planning attorney and a life insurance salesperson; a graphic designer and a printer; a real estate professional and a mortgage broker; a wedding photographer and a caterer or disc jockey. I think when you look at these examples you start to get the idea. The number of power partners or fusion marketing partners is only limited by your imagination. Fusion arrangements can come in many forms in addition to the coupon example above–you can join your mailing list with your partners and do a joint mailing; you can make joint sales calls; you can offer an incentive from your alliance partner for each purchase of your product and vice-versa for your partner.

I know a printer who offers a free pizza coupon or free ice cream coupon on the back page of their notepads. The pizza place and ice cream store get the benefit of the distribution of the notepads to the printing company’s prospects, and the printing company gets the benefit of offering their prospects something for free.

Easy Steps to Setting Up Your Own Fusion Marketing Arrangement
Here are easy steps you can take to set up your own fusion marketing arrangements:

• Step 1: Define your power partners. A power partner is someone who has similar prospects as you and who could benefit from the same type of prospects, but isn’t in the same business. Examples: landscaper/builder, realtor/mortgage broker, network marketer/entrepreneur, massage therapist/chiropractor.
• Step 2: Figure out with your power partner what your offer will be. Maybe the printer gives a two-for-one offer while the designer offers to design a logo along with the design piece of a direct-mail piece. Maybe the attorney offers a free consultation on wills while the insurance salesperson offers a tips list on avoiding probate tax. Maybe the massage therapist offers a free midday office visit for a massage break while the chiropractor offers a back adjustment. Figure out what joint offer makes sense.
• Step 3: Write up a general letter of agreement. This doesn’t have to be a major-league legal document, but the one thing that hinders an alliance is lack of communication. This assures who does what and gets what. It can be a simple e-mail exchange.
• Step 4: Package it up. Write all the verbiage: the marketing copy, sales letter, press releases (if appropriate), e-mail letters, etc. Either have both businesses write it up and compare notes or have one write it and let the other approve. Be creative here. Be benefit-oriented. What’s in it for the prospect?
• Step 5: Combine mailing lists and communicate to both sets. Don’t worry about who has more or less–just combine them. When I put my list together with your list we both have a list much bigger than if we did it alone. You can do this with direct mail or e-mail; obviously e-mail is cheaper.
• Step 6: Be responsive to any responses. Fulfill offers; make it easy to sign up, to buy, to take the next step and keep track. Follow up and attention will convert prospects into paying customers. Share leads and conversions for future follow-up and future marketing.
• Step 7: Follow up. Both businesses should continue marketing to each of the converted people as follow-up marketing.

That’s all there really is to it. It’s a straight set of deliberate, planned-out steps, with a high degree of communication and execution. That’s what all marketing is, and the more it’s spelled out and planned out, the higher probability someone will act upon in. That’s what all the marketing I get involved in does–this is the key to marketing. It’s not going to happen overnight but with steps, plans and accountability, you’ll increase your revenue. I prove it to myself every day, and I prove it to my clients.

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By Jennifer Wang | Entrepreneur.com

In a sluggish economy, running leaner is a must, but not every money-saving measure is a good one. These experts discuss the moves you shouldn’t make during tough times, even if they seem like easy ways to cut costs.

Finances
Having started his own business during the 2001 economic recession, Virgin Money USA CEO Asheesh Advani knows how to trim expenditures to keep a company afloat through a downturn.

“The natural thing for business owners to ask is, ‘Do you cut marketing, overhead or staff?’ I think the right answer is to do a little bit of all three, but to be very careful on cutting what actually protects you on the downside,” he says, noting that cost savings should never come at the expense of the ability to execute a long-term vision.

As for startup financing, don’t bother with venture capital. “It’s not the right market to attempt this,” Advani says. “Rely instead on family, friends and angel investors as your main sources of capital, and go to many people for smaller amounts of money. It’s very much about finding investors who are patient and supportive, and usually people who have invested a small amount rather than a large amount will be willing to wait longer for repayment.”

Human Resources
Penny Morey, founder of human resources consulting firm RemarkAbleHR, believes that the biggest errors in judgment relate to poor communication on management’s part.

“Instead of [employees] focusing on what they’re supposed to be doing and helping the company to succeed . . . they tend to be looking for jobs, panicking and spending their time talking to each other about the bad news in the economy,” she says.

Morey suggests regular meetings with employees–weekly if possible. And certainly if the work force has been reduced, management should sit down with those left behind and acknowledge the changes.

“It’s not easy, but you can still boost morale,” Morey says. “To me, people can be on your side or feel excluded, and most people want to be part of the solution if given the chance.”

Forthright communication is also the best method of damage control. If salary and benefits are being decreased, Morey advises putting together a strategy to convey the decision-making process.

“If management is taking a salary cut along with everyone else, communicate it. People just want to know they’re being treated fairly.”

Putting together a benefits statement is another way to emphasize positive thinking. “Include a summary of vacation, paid time off, insurance–show what the company is still doing to take the focus off what’s being taken away.”

It’s important to think long-term, Morey says. Performance evaluations, even if no longer tied to monetary incentives, still need to be done.

“You need to make sure people are still setting goals and working toward them, and employees will want to know how they’re doing and what’s expected of them going forward.”

Technology
Business owners with websites shouldn’t cut corners on things that relate to quality of service, says Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of the Computing Technology Industry Association.

“Don’t downgrade from T1 to DSL,” he says. “Make sure you’re maintaining the security of customers’ data, and keep your infrastructure in place. Don’t hold off on buying a better piece of equipment.”

A better strategy is to actually examine service offerings that will help small-business owners eliminate the need to invest in their own IT tools. “Companies can offload obligation to maintain equipment and software through managed services and bring stability to their bottom lines,” he says.

According to Thibodeux, it’s also an opportunity for businesses to reposition themselves for the anticipated green technology revolution.

“It’s a good time to see how you can increase energy efficiency and look for better sustainable technology.”

Marketing
“Mistake No. 1 is thinking that marketing is the best place to cut when businesses are looking to tighten their belts,” says Ann Hadley, chief content officer at MarketProfs. “But it’s not the time to jettison marketing. If business is slow and you’re reining in your plan to get your name out there, it means fewer leads, less business and, ultimately, less income.”

In fact, increasing the frequency of communications with customers can boost revenue and stimulate demand for your offerings, especially if competitors are busy slashing prices instead of promoting the quality of their services. Marketing can also encourage customers to make purchases.

“If you sell washing machines, for example, and people don’t want to buy new models, you can stress how much they’ll save on maintenance and electricity with a more energy-efficient model,” she says.

In addition, Hadley cautions business owners against taking on marketing responsibilities themselves.

“For an entrepreneur, what you contribute first and foremost is your vision and leadership, and if you get mired in taking over someone else’s job, you’ll probably be less effective as a leader.”

To Hadley, the most important thing is to think past the immediate pain and position for the post-recession period. “The economy will go up and down, but now is a good time to be an industry leader, just like it is in every kind of environment.”

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Does your brochure pass Darrell Zahorsky’s Design Trash Test? Zahorsky, About.com’s Small Business Information expert, challenges you to put your brochure to the design test.

Design Trash Test

You only get one chance to make a favorable impression with your brochure design. An effective brochure design that communicates to your prospects isn’t about spending your entire ad budget on design and development. It requires the use of good brochure design and brochure writing principles.

Take just 5 minutes to discover if your brochure design will pass the trash test. Score your brochure with a + or -.

5:00 Appeal to Emotions: The old adage in marketing is that consumers buy based on emotions and justify with logic. Does your brochure design strike an emotional chord with your prospects? Appeal to the heart of your markets emotion by connecting with their pains or desires.

4:00 Be Professional: Is your brochure design professional or cheap? Adding poor quality graphics or clip art quickly downgrades the brochure.

Use good quality photos, images, and graphics to avoid the trash.

3:40 Be Personal: A winning brochure design connects personally with your audience. If your brochure spends more time talking about how great your small business is versus life from the customer’s perspective, it will more than likely end in the trash.

3:00 Achieve Readability: Your brochure design should be pleasing to the eye and include bullet points, arrows, boxes or any other graphics to improve the readability of your marketing piece.

2:30 Speak the Language: An effective brochure design will speak in the customer’s language. It’s vital to remove any technical language your customer doesn’t understand. The simpler your communications are, the easier to connect with your target market.

2:00 Lead with Benefits: A sure bet to have your brochure trashed is by feature dumping throughout the text or copy. Customers don’t care if your series 700 widget has a multi-function control panel. Grab your target market’s emotion by selling the benefits such as time savings, enhanced productivity, or any other powerful benefit.

1:20 Have a Single Message: It’s tempting for the inexperienced brochure writer to want to include as much information as possible in the copy of the brochure. However, using your brochure to close the sale by packing it with a barge of messages only confuses your market and ensures your marketing dollars end up in the trash. Focus your brochure on delivering on a clear, compelling message.

0:50 Focus on a Product or Service: Your brochure is likely to be trashed if it reads more like a catalogue than being focused on a single service or product you offer. The more choices you offer your prospects, the greater the chance you will confuse and lose them.

0:20 Make an Action Call: Your brochure should direct the customer to take a specific action such as a phone call for more information or to visit your website. If your brochure lacks a call to action, you can be sure it’s heading for the trash can.

0:00 Add Your Score: Now add up the +’s and -’s. If you have more than 3 -’s your brochure is heading for the garbage can and it’s time for a makeover.

Avoid the common mistake to pack your brochure with endless information and lack of focus. Spend the same amount of effort in designing and writing your brochure as any other function in your small business. If your skills are lacking outsourcing can improve your odds of winning the business of your prospective customers.

At BrochureBuilders.com we specialize in designing brochures with purpose. To see samples of our work along with pricing visit our brochure design gallery.

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Top 5 Business Card Blunders

Nothing is more important to making a good first branding impression than your business card. In addition to the information included, a card’s look and feel also sends a strong message about your business. That’s why I’m perplexed by the many poorly designed business cards I see these days. Just because you can log on to various websites, “design” and print cards for free, doesn’t mean you should.The cardinal rule to creating a good business card is to ensure that it reflects your company’s image. From a branding perspective, this means it should match the look and feel of your logo. Yes, you want your card to be unique. Yes, you want people to remember you by it. But if you break the cardinal rule in pursuit of uniqueness, all people will remember seeing is an unusual business card. They won’t remember your brand or its attributes.

So in the interest of sparing you a potential branding misstep, here are the top five blunders I’ve seen new companies make when creating their business cards:

• Choosing low-quality paper stock. Inexpensive paper stock may save you money, but it often leaves you with a card that feels cheap. Touch is an important sense and plays a role in memory recall. How you appeal to this sense depends on your company’s image. For example, B2B companies wanting to convey reliability should use a substantial, mid-weight stock.
• Using a design template that does not match the logo. Assuming you want a business card to be taken seriously and help brand your company, you need a design that works with your logo. In other words, be extremely careful with template-based designs. If the templates weren’t developed specifically to match your logo–and most aren’t–they probably won’t. Many entrepreneurs fall in love with an over-designed template that distracts from their logo, or one that features an unrelated photograph. Photographs work well in marketing brochures, but if they appear on a business card, they will distract from your logo.
• Adding too much color to the card. When you want to get someone’s attention, do you scream? Probably not, if you want to avoid scaring them. So why scare potential customers with a super-bright, rainbow-colored card? Color is your biggest asset in branding your company. Research indicates that color is the most important factor in memory recall. Tie your business to one or two specific colors; this color should also appear in your logo.
• Making the card too unique. You want your card to stand out, certainly, but not so much that its difference makes people uncomfortable. Complex dye-cuts, extremely oversized cards, and odd card stocks (like metal) should be used only by companies engaged in highly customized or creative endeavors. Custom embossing, rounded corners, or varnishes are better touches for most companies. While it’s tempting to create an oversized card, keep in mind that many people still use Rolodexes or tuck cards into their wallets–both difficult to do with unusually sized cards. Function overrides form.
• Making the logo gigantic. In general, the bigger the company, the smaller its logo appears on business cards. If you want to look like a Fortune 500, size your logo appropriately. Instead of enlarging your logo for emphasis, employ white space to bring attention to it.

If you’re looking to make a lasting impression, don’t cheapen your first impression. Build a better business card and you’ll build a better business.

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As you give thought to sprucing up your brochure design, business cards, logo, and website, also consider what Inc.’s Michele Miller has to say about branding. In her article “Telling a Good Story,” she recommends businesses pay more attention to their brand story and what makes you stand out in a powerful and meaningful way. She says,

“If you had to tell you story, what would it be? Would it have the right balance of fantasy, whimsy and fact? When creating your story, remember to:

Be authentic. The examples above are success stories because they draw from the “heart” of the company — J. Peterman’s love for storytelling, Gert Boyle’s tough nature, and One Hour’s commitment to saving the customer time. Anyone can make up a story, but the customer’s innate sense of authenticity is what transforms a story into a brand message. Spend a good deal of time looking back at your history and personal values in determining why you’re even in the business you’re in. What’s your passion, and how can you tell customers about it?

Be consistent. It’s not enough just to tell a story; you must live it everyday through everything you do. I’ve written about the fact that every touch point of your business is a marketing opportunity. Columbia Sportswear wouldn’t be the success it is today if the company talked about toughness, and then the zippers on their parkas disintegrated after a week. One Hour knew it had to have its operations structure in place to deliver on its promise of timeliness. From message to delivery to customer service, every element of your company has to align with your story.

The companies we call “super brands” use their unique (and sometimes personal) story to connect with customers in a way that makes them feel special; customers feel that they’re in-the-know about who the brand is and what it offers. Do your customers really know you? And does the message get reinforced in everything you do? You can tell, and deliver on, a good story, even on the smallest of marketing budgets. It’s a remarkable marketing strategy for a remarkable business — yours.”

She’s right. Do your customers really know who you are? Is your branding consistent, from every email to your business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and brochures? Everything that leaves your office door is an opportunity to tell your story. Read the rest of Michele’s article about how to tell your business’ story here.

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For most, the basic questions are the easiest to answer. What were your biggest successes? What challenged you the most? Was business more or less profitable? What will you do this year to take your company to the next level? Successful small business owners know that the basic questions are important to ask and answer throughout the year. The most successful small business owners however, take this opportunity not only to review the basics, but also to dig deeper into their business beliefs, core entrepreneurial values, self-dialogue, and subconscious motivations. Consider these three ways to get to the core of your business success.

1. First, take a look at the goals you accomplished last year. After giving yourself a pat on the back, evaluate those goals and how you managed to tackle them. Consider what it was about those goals that made them doable. Which tasks were most easily completed? Did you hire professionals and other key people to facilitate your goal? Did you reach a crisis point that rendered you unable to ignore a sensitive issue any longer?
2. Next, give careful consideration to those things that hindered your personal as well as professional growth last year. Were your expectations reasonable and based on sound business principles? Were they communicated clearly to those who most needed to know? Did your personal life suffer for the sake of your business? Did you make a thorough plan, only to falter in its execution?
3. Finally, resolve to duplicate (and expand on) the things that worked and give up (and replace) the things that did not. Being keenly aware of the reasons behind your achievements will help you set yourself up for further success. Determine what most gets in your way and put systems in place that will help you handle those issues effectively. Do you lose focus halfway through the day? Are you more likely to stay on track when you plan your day the evening before? Is indecision keeping you from moving forward? Something as simple as a flow chart or decision tree can facilitate the decision making process.

As an entrepreneur, you already know there is no shortcut to success. But going below the surface is a skill that could easily save you some time, and some heartache. Learning what drives you — or derails you — is knowledge you cannot afford to ignore.

Below are other helpful articles to help you position your business for success in 2008.

• New Year Resolutions for Small Businesses
• Top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Business Success
• New Year, New Payroll
• Three Entrepreneur Resolutions for 2008

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Jan. 2, 2008, 12:37PM
Margin tax will pack punch
State is likely to collect more than double the franchise levy

By AÏSSATOU SIDIMÉ
San Antonio Express-news

When the new Texas margin tax kicks in this year, many businesses will get hit with a surprise tax bill costing them several thousand dollars.

Under a new state law that replaces the franchise tax with a margin tax, businesses will pay based on gross revenues. The number of companies paying taxes will rise to 900,000 in May 2008 from 700,000 in 2007. The amount of state business taxes paid is expected to more than double to $11.9 billion during the next two years versus $5.7 billion for the last two-year period under the outgoing franchise tax, according to the Texas Comptroller’s Office.

And a business could have to pay a margin tax even if it loses money, according to federal tax calculations.

“A lot of taxpayers will be caught off guard by their new tax liability,” said Clint Munsell, a certified public accountant at Sol Schwartz & Associates in San Antonio.

The franchise tax was levied on net income or capital and applied only to corporations and limited liability companies based in Texas. The franchise tax also allowed deductions for salaries, benefits, administrative costs and rents. As a result, less than 10 percent of all companies paid the tax.

The Texas Legislature created the margin tax during a special session in 2006 to close the loopholes and to generate revenue to cover a school funding deficit created by reducing local school property taxes.

Under the margin tax, most entities that were exempt will now have to pay (more…)

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