Purple Diamond Marketing Blog

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.  All I am I owe to my mother.  I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her. ~ George Washington.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day and as many of the local retailers are scrambling to make a profit on this recognized day of honoring your mother, I decided to devote my marketing blog topic on how your parents have impacted the success of your business.   As the quote above from our first president points out, George Washington’s mother had a profound impact on the success of his life.  What impact did your mother or father have on the success of your business?

My father passed away in 1992, but he was the role model I used for my life in terms of career success.  He was a self made man who didn’t have anything handed to him.  He brought his enthusiasm and passion for life in to his dream of having his own business.  With six kids he was able to accomplish more than most people would dream of accomplishing. His business grew steadily even during a couple of recessions and during the paper shortage of the early 1970’s that affected the printing and design business that he was in.  He had a natural ability to connect with people and to service customers in a way that he seldom lost accounts.  People could see he was genuine and caring and a smart business man.

My mother was the nurturer in the family and I recognized that you need this as the glue to hold everything together in your home and business.  Someone has to do the day to day work of making sure everyone is looked after and if something needed to be fixed, my mother was the one who either got one of us to do it or hired a professional to handle it.  She was great at managing people and projects even though she never worked outside the home all the years of my life.  Both of my parents were advocates for education and making sure their team of 6 kids had opportunity to gain knowledge and skills that would carry us through our life.  My Dad understood that you were never done learning and this has been the foundation to my own business model as I continue to gain more skills as today’s technology constantly changes the landscape in the marketing and advertising field.

Why is all of this important for a business owner to see about their parents beyond the Mother’s Day holiday theme?  Most of what we have today is because of who we were when we were small and the biggest influence on our life and our business is our parents.  We take the best of them and make it our own.  We also try to avoid the parts we may not have liked, but often that gets rolled up in to all of this, too.  So, if you had a parent who was afraid to take risks and never dared to own their own business and you saw this as a negative, you may wish to thank them today for you starting your own company.  And, if you, like me, had a mother who was obsessive about making sure things got fixed, the mortgage paid and that the house was picked-up and in order.  Well, I guess, like me, you need to say “THANKS MOM” for teaching me to  prioritize bills and manage projects, all while presenting an orderly appearance.

Look closely at how much your business has been influenced by your parents and be sure to  stop in at a local retailer today to buy your Mother a Mother’s Day gift!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

This past year I have been the director of the Educational Seminars for the Beverly Chamber and yesterday we had an excellent speaker, Keith Boudreau of The Growth Coach, who shared his knowledge about Strategic Marketing.  As a marketing coach and owner of an advertising agency you might think it odd that I was thrilled to attend this seminar and listen to Keith, but this was one of the pearls of wisdom Keith shared with the group and that I have said from day one….don’t let your ego get in the way of your success.  Being open to the idea that you may not know everything and attending educational seminars, hiring a marketing coach or a business consultant can give you greater insight in to what might be holding you back in your business.  Take advantage of the resources in your area and attend educational seminars that will help you in business…recognize that even an expert listens to other experts!

Today’s business environment and landscape has changed drastically since many CEO’s were in college studying the basics in preparation to the position they are in today.  Many of the computer software tools we all use in our business didn’t exist when we were in college.  And, some of the most successful entrepreneurs did not even go to college, but what these individuals knew from the start was that they needed to be open to listening to others and asking questions of their customers and hiring a strong team of business professionals to support them.   Growing in wisdom takes an open mind.  If you are not attending seminars and keeping up with the latest and greatest in your field, then you may wish to choose a field you are more passionate about because yesterday’s seminar was attended by some of the most successful businesses in the chamber.  If you are wondering why these businesses continue to remain strong and not lose market share during difficult times, you may wish to ask their CEO if he has attended an educational seminar lately or hired a consultant to help his business.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Yesterday, I had news that a friend of mine who I went to college with passed away.  He had lost his job last year when the economy tanked and was having no success being hired in a competitive market where a 51 year old with plenty of knowledge and experience was what a company was looking for.  Interview after interview he discovered that the positions were being filled with candidates that were not even born when he started in the business.  So, what does an individual do or a business do when it appears that no one is hiring or buying your product?  Reinvent yourself,  reinvent your business!

Most people and businesses get stuck holding on too tightly to what they believe is their “goal”, when the real “end point” for what they desire is to make money and feel a sense of accomplishment and enjoy doing it.  They might have an old business plan or marketing strategy to get the results they need based on what the world was like 5 years ago.  The market and attitudes have changed so much in 5 years and that old plan is not working at all.  Some businesses are trying to adapt that initial plan by making a few minor changes, but they still have not gotten the results they were expecting.  If you attend a business networking event and talk with owners they will tell you that times are tough and they are not doing the numbers they once did.  Well, this is a new time and your chance for a new you! You can continue to do the same things over and over again and if you are still not getting the results you want, will you do it again? The sad thing is many people do just that and they wonder why they have lost their passion for their business and their life.

Look at the LONG list of activities your business does each week. How much of that list excites you? Do you spend over 50% of your time handling projects that zap your energy and leave you feeling less than interested in your business?  Get rid of that list!  If the activity is an essential part of the business like bookkeeping and you really struggle with looking at the numbers, then hire a professional bookkeeper or an accountant to take that off your list.  If you are overwhelmed with emails all day long and it is eating up your productive work time  consider getting an assistant or maybe look for a virtual assistant who you can hire part-time to organize your emails.  If your business holds weekly meetings as a way to review the past week’s performance and it results in people feeling less than inspired, stop the meetings or at least change the focus of them to new ideas that will motivate and drive business! The key to success in anything is that the element of “passion” is present.  If you have lost your passion for what you are doing and the services or products you are providing no longer get you fired-up, how do you expect to get consumers interested in them?

Ask for input from those around you [your staff, your friends, your clients] and make a list of everything that you do TODAY that is the best in your field and that you are proud to offer as a product or service.  If there is nothing on that list it is time to “reinvent yourself”  so that you find something that you feel deeply passionate about and can be the best at so that when you are presenting that product or service you know that it is connecting with today’s market and providing an essential element to the economics of your area.

Part of transforming yourself or your business successfully is being aware of the things that are holding you back and having the courage to let go and transform!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

Tonight, I will be attending another local chamber networking event and this morning I will be on set most of the day helping to shoot a TV commercial I wrote for  my client.  I started my work day this morning at 5:15 am.  Why do I mention all of this? Because tonight when I attend the networking event I will be walking in the door with a smile, a name badge with my company name and logo branded on it, and a pocket full of business cards!  Every day I take my “A” game to work with me and on the days I am not up to presenting my “A” game, I recognize that this is when I need to take a mental health day to regroup and energize.  If you own a business and you are not presenting your best self in public it most likely is costing you sales or clients.

Have you ever walked the floor of a Trade Show and noticed that there are some presenters at booths who have energy and are actively working the room to draw in leads while others look like they would rather have a root canal than to be attending the event? Which one engages you in conversation? Missed opportunities in a competitive economy can be death to a business. Excuses and lack of enthusiasm because you are not doing the business you once did during a better economy is not working for you or your business. Make a choice today to smile more, talk positively about your business and be prepared to connect with future clients at any time. If you have been stuck in your office too long and you have been living the life of a vampire who seldom sees the sun it is time for you to take a customer or business contact to lunch.  Be sure to include “fun” in your work day and if you can not find that “A” game for your business, then it is time for you to consider working with a Life Coach or someone who can help you to find what it is that brings a smile to your face.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The past couple of months I have been handling the advertising and promotions of an event that is taking place today and tomorrow and because the client has run this event in the past he has an excellent system set-up with his website registration for finding out where people heard about the event.  This is an advertising agency dream to already have the system in place and ready to go from day one to be able to calculate exact numbers of how people heard of the event.  The radio and TV account executives would be happy to know that though the internet does drive considerable traffic with the on-line social networking sites like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter and with the help of email campaigns, the TV and radio commercials that aired still got results!

This doesn’t mean that if you are a business about to launch an advertising campaign that you can leave out the internet and just use one of the traditional forms of media like radio spots or a TV commercial, but it does mean that to expand your reach using a combination is the best solution. For instance, if you have created a TV commercial and have placed it strategically on the networks and areas that your target market will most likely view it, be sure to have your web designer add that same commercial to your website!  Make sure that you load the TV commercial to Facebook and share links to your site from other on-line social networking sites and encourage people to check your TV spot out on your website.  Also, use Twitter to drive traffic to your site if you are running sale specials or an event.

The radio commercials, especially on stations that have strong loyal listeners such as talk radio and sports radio stations are key to driving traffic to both your website and your store location. However, this requires an easy domain name to remember since often people are listening to the radio while driving.  With technology being mobile these days, and the streaming radio via the internet, you can see instant traffic to your website after your radio spot airs.  Of course, the message must be appealing and the reason to engage with your site must be part of the commercial spot, but the data is there…..TV and Radio commercials are still working and they are enhanced with the use of the internet.

If you are unsure of what is the best way to promote your product or services or advertise a big sale, consult with an advertising agency or marketing coach to help you define a strategy that will work for you and your budget!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

How much of my budget should I devote to advertising my business? This is a question I am asked quite often and the answer can vary depending on the business and what their goals are for their marketing and advertising efforts.  However, most of my clients who have been successful in business have stuck with the 20%+ rule.  They have devoted faithfully 20% and sometimes more of their budget to advertising which has kept their name out in front of their competitors and allowed them to strengthen their brand and sales.

There is a temptation to pull back and stop investing in advertising in slow economic times, but to attain and maintain customers you need to be in front of them.  This means that in addition to investing at least 1/5th of your budget to smart advertising campaigns, you also need to get out of your office and connect face to face with potential clients at networking events and on-line social networking sites to reach potential clients.  How much time should you be investing for this?  Well, some businesses will need more time since they may have introduced new products or have a new business which needs more exposure, but most successful businesses will regularly use at least 20% of their time to attend business networking groups, connect on-line regularly with their connections and connect with their client base one on one to increase sales. The key is to always be working your business like you just opened your doors.  When you cut back on your advertising and you stop attending events or connecting with businesses on-line, the sales pipeline gets smaller and the climb back to where you once were in business is twice as hard.

If you want to increase sales it requires investing in your business and that starts with smart marketing and advertising campaigns!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

The past few months I have noticed a shift in the business opportunities that are coming my way.  Calls from business owners who are asking for help with advertising and they are ready to devote a significant portion of their budget to promote their business on TV and radio and the internet.  For an advertising agency that would seem like the norm, but Purple Diamond started March 1st of 2008 and if the company didn’t create an affordable one one-one-one marketing coaching service that November for local business owners during the slow economy their would be no Purple Diamond. Being able to collect data, analyze the trends and make smart decisions based on what you are seeing is part of having a successful business.  If you are a procrastinator who is reluctant to embrace change and you are banking on business getting better “some day” without taking steps to make this happen today,  you may have a long wait for that “some day”.  So, what do you do when your business takes a turn?

For my business the first turn was in 2008 when I recognized that many of the clients who were advertising in TV and radio and on Billboards and other traditional media services had pulled their advertising budgets to pay for day to day business expenses to off-set the drop in sales that were occurring with record unemployment.  I used the knowledge I had from working for an  internet company prior to Purple Diamond to create a new service because I saw that there was a need for business owners to still actively work on their marketing for their company.  I called the service “marketing coaching” and I worked with the CEO on any part of marketing they needed to help their business, but most requested help with social on-line networking on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter and to determine if a Blog was right for their business.  This kept the cash flow going for my own business and relationship building throughout the business community, along with brand awareness for Purple Diamond and today my business is healthy with a steady group of marketing coaching clients and many of the traditional advertising clients are ready to launch TV and radio campaigns and banner ads on popular internet sites and the phone is ringing!

So, do you have a new  services or product that you can launch today that will sell in this market? Or, have you considered a marketing campaign that expands to a new market that you have never considered?  If you have always sold locally maybe looking at how the internet could expand your reach to even an international market? If you have cut away your marketing and advertising budget reconsider this. Doing nothing often gets you nothing and unless that is what you want for your business it is time to get daring and bold with your advertising.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

How do you decide where you should advertise your business each year?  For some businesses they are working off an old media plan or schedule  that was created over 5 years ago and because of the slow economy they have reduced their advertising budgets which has left their strategy outdated and no longer useful.  If your marketing is suffering from the “scattered with no direction” approach and you are working off an old spreadsheet of where you “used to” spend your advertising annual budget, it is time to get a marketing check-up and be willing to let go of the “old” to make way for the “new” and more effective approach!

[note: Hiring a Marketing Consultant or Coach to help you with the following process is highly recommended!]

1.) Look closely at your numbers and WHERE you spent advertising dollars in the past and if the rate on investment was enough to consider that media source again.

2.) Consider what your “realistic” current budget is for advertising and commit to that figure, but look for ways to cut costs in other areas of your business so that you can add to your annual advertising budget during a time you need it the most.

3.) Define your “target market” so that you eliminate wasteful advertising and focus on the best media options for your service or product.

4.) Look at the entire year and when it is key for your business to advertise.  If you are a retailer who sells more around holidays you must work this in your budget; if you have a seasonal business then consider how many weeks you need to advertise to have the most impact, but still be affordable;  and if you are a business who sells B2B, look to see if your clients buying patterns define when you need to advertise more or less.

5.) Take a survey with your existing clients to see what publications they read, networking groups they belong to, radio stations they listen to and TV shows they watch and if they belong to on-line social networking groups like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.

6.) Look closely at where your competitors are advertising and make a list.

7.) Think outside the box…..look for new ways to reach your target market in a way that will be memorable, still within your budget and offer you a chance to make enough of a splash so that people notice!

8.) Retire what doesn’t work, but replace it with something new. [Ex. If you have spent $10,000 every year in the newspaper, but your target market is no longer reading the paper.....make sure you put the same $10K in to another form of advertising.]

9.) Match your marketing to your territory so that you are not wasting resources with areas that will not bring in sales.  Look at targeting by zip code or zones depending on what you have defined as your target group.

10.) Create a spreadsheet that helps you to organize and coordinate advertising and marketing efforts for the entire year so that you can execute your plan and have more time to execute the ad campaigns and negotiate better rates.

Finally, remember that when your efforts are scattered and with little focus chances are your results will reflect the same!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

We have all heard that this is the year for on-line social networking and having a blog, but is a blog right for you?  To start one requires a serious commitment on the part of the blogger and the time to keep the blog active with consistent postings or it could reflect poorly on the blogger.  Blogging can be like dieting!

Like dieting, you understand the importance of taking care of your health and maintaining a healthy weight and eating right is all part of that.  Blogs are the same, they can have a tremendous impact for the health of your business in that it allows you to communicate and build a loyal following to the brand of your business without spending money on advertisement that most consumers are trying to avoid.  The blog gives you a voice and also consistent traffic to your website that could lead to more business and it also helps your site with popularity ratings which improves your status or ranking with on-line searches.  However, not everyone is blogging or those who are may not be consistent and this reminds me of dieting [something I have done most of my life without too much success].  Right after the New Year you meet so many excited dieters who have dreams of fitting in to a smaller bathing suit by spring or losing some weight and feeling healthier. The local weight loss groups are standing room only and the advertisement on TV is filled with the latest and greatest diets and exercise equipment that will bring you instant success on the road to being healthy, or so they claim.

Does everyone fail at diets or having a blog? No! The key to being successful at both is to develop a system that will work for you in that you incorporate the new activity in your daily life.  This blog post is being written at 5am and if I went to the athletic club I know I would find people working out before they are heading to work or at the end of their busy work day.  For the serious blogger and dieter, finding a time that works for your schedule to include the new activity helps you to be successful.  You have to plan for blogging even though the activity does not require much preparation other than having an idea to write about and access to your WordPress account or whatever program you are using for your blog.  However, please know that I have seen many serious minded business owners vow to post regularly on their blog and when I check their sites the last entry is far from current because it just has not become the priority to the day to day operation of their business.  To blog consistently you have to be willing to schedule time to write the post much like eating healthy or working out at a health club.  Unless you have been writing your entire life this new activity will be challenging on days that you are busy [what day are you not busy?] and on days when you are handling big projects with lots of added stress that inhibits your ability to come up with a new blog topic to post about.

The one thing I will say to those who have started a blog and now realize that you just are not cut out for blogging or do not have the resources to hire someone who will write your blog for your business, ask your web designer to remove the active link or tab on your home page to your blog.  Having your website indicate that there is a blog and allowing people to click on to the site and see the last entry was 6 or 8 months ago is not helping your business.  And, for those who are reading this and want to have a blog you have to know when you will have time to actually write the posts. You may love to work out in the early mornings which shows you can keep to a schedule and are committed to remaining healthy, but when will you write your blog posts to keep you business blog healthy and up to date? The key to success in blogging is having time in your schedule to commit to blogging or being willing, as I do, to get up early in the morning or work later in the evening to create a new entry to my blog.

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

This past Saturday my daughter was married at the Crestview in Woburn, MA and as I posted many of the photos of the day to my Facebook page I thought about how we planned the event so that it would be memorable to all who attended.  The bride’s outfit and hair a perfect picture for a magical day for all to remember, the special readings at the service, the funny jokes that were said during the vows,  the delicious appetizers and meals, the cake so pretty you almost didn’t want to cut it, the  white roses that were placed everywhere,  the music that got everyone dancing and commenting on what a great selection,  and as a lasting reminder beyond the photos each  guest went home with a favor gift of a horse and carriage frame that represented the fairy tale wedding that they just attended…..each detail planned for one special day so that the wedding would be one all would remember in a positive way! This is what GREAT marketing is all about…..being MEMORABLE!

How memorable is your business? When you attend a chamber event or reconnect with someone via the phone or on-line do they remember who you are or do you have to remind them of where you met? Can they say your tag-line or identify your brand from a few times of meeting you? Do you get phone calls, website visits, or orders after you have launched a marketing campaign? Though some of us prefer to remain private in our personal life  being memorable as a business is the core element to success.  You need to share the story of your company in a way that prospects will remember you. The best TV commercials or radio jingles are the ones you hear others recite from memory. When I walk in to a business function and several business owners recite my tagline of  “Success wears the Purple Diamond” and they comment on my purple outfit and then ask me about my marketing coaching services or the latest TV campaign I have done for a client I know that I am making a lasting impression. My brand of helping business owners be successful is catching on rapidly for a business that is just 2 years old.

So, if you are wondering if you are memorable as a business, test to see if you are by attending a networking event this week  in which you have had an opportunity to say your elevator speech and mingle with other business owners that you have never met for at least 20 minutes.  Leave the event with a handful of business cards. Wait a couple of days and then make some phone calls to see if anyone connected with you. If you find that you are spending more time on the phone reminding them of the conversation you had at the networking event or retelling them your name and all about your business then it might be a red flag that you are not memorable as a business or business owner.  If this keeps happening you may wish to consider working with a marketing coach to help you create a story about your business that will be memorable and lasting and have people wanting to call YOU!

All my best to your success!

~Charlene

“Success wears the Purple Diamond!”

*Congratulations to my daughter Nicole and my new son-in-law Richard on their new marriage. The day, 3-6-2010,  was one I will NEVER forget!!!