stuff4business.com

I do hope you can keep a secret… But whilst visiting the modernmechanix blog site I came across the perfect gift for my wife…

I can just imagine her delight as she drags this from under the Christmas tree, I’m sure her tennis club friends will be absolutely green with envy.

I have bought her all the associated attachments, so she’ll have the whole ensemble.

Some women may call me chauvinistic… I say, Don’t worry your pretty little heads with big words like that! (oh well, there goes 50% of my daily readership)

It makes me wonder how the next generation will regard our “cutting edge” Advertising promotions 30 years from now. 

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

I often rave on about the necessity of effective Advertising to demonstrate the major benefit to potential customers, and to use graphics as a visual short hand to convey the message in a glance…

Here is a great example of this in practice. By doing so, they have shifted a simple billboard into a sign that will be noticed, and will be discussed.

In one glance you get both the brand and the message in a memorable manner, and at no more cost (probably a lot less) than an expensively produced photo treatment that merely merges into the rest of the Advertising clutter.

As a viewer, we give silently admire and award mental points to advertisers who cleverly engage us.

What are you doing to make sure your Advertising engages your potential customers?

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

Following the previous post on covering up articles to draw attention to them, I thought this alternative process would be of interest.

It achieves the same degree of attention, again by posing a visual question to engage the viewer.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

The artist Christo, the guy that traveled around the world wrapping famous landmarks in huge sheets of fabric, understood the power of partial concealment.

When you wrap something, but the viewer still knows what it is partially concealed, it has far more effective than if left uncovered and in full view.

Partial concealment of an object triggers something in our brain. It can be used to set up very powerful visual questions that later, your attached copy satisfies.

In the example above, you immediately want to know why some person has covered a car in bandages, then after reading that it is Advertising a story about Egyptian mummies on the Discovery Channel you “GET IT” and it is a pleasurable experience, it triggers a sort of self congratulatory satisfaction in the viewers mind.

The point is, you have been engaged in their (the advertisers) thinking process, and you have solved the visual question (they posed)

Don’t dismiss this wrapping stuff lightly, it is a very powerful Advertising technique, you should ask yourself what object you could wrap this way and place in high traffic areas to grab and engage the attention of your potential customers.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

Here’s a clever idea I read about recently…

Purchase a whole bundle of very cheap wallets direct from an importer, into them, put some coupons for whatever you wish to promote along with a letter that explains: that to reward their honesty you offering them … your offer…

drop these wallets arounfd your community in high traffic locations, ensuring more are dropped as required. It’s a fun way to get your message across get potential customers involved in your promotion.

It’s obviously not going to work (economically) for low ticket items, but would make a great letter box drop for real estate agents and car dealers looking for something a little different to break through the monotonous clutter.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

If you are getting a little tired of the patronizing looks you get when you drive your nice new, superbly fuel efficient, miniature car around… maybe this could be your answer to re-establishing your reputation for “Uba cool”

At least it would generate some attention grabbing second glances. After all, there’s something distinctly wimpy about these things in their normal attire.

I know they say size doesn’t matter, but until they convince the rest of the world, there is probably a place to “grubby up” these cute little efficiency devices a little.

I recently discovered these vehicles have one additional benefit not yet being advertised. They make excellent teenage disciplinary devices.

All you have to do is threaten to pick up your teenagers from school or social event in one.

All cynicism aside (only for a quick moment) some very creative designs are now being applied to these economical vehicles, turning them into very effective attention grabbing, portable billboards.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

Consumer Reports (a consumer advocacy group) recently began an Advertising campaign aimed at creating consumer awareness about the disadvantages of gift cards.

They claim that among the disadvantages is the fact that so many go unclaimed - $8 billion worth in 2006.

I guess the retailers who provide the cards are not exactly hurrying to join them in their efforts to warn consumers.

Who knows, this could start a whole new board on the stock exchange, a place where you can buy discounted, unredeemed gift cards.

Regardless of their well intentioned disdain, Gift Cards remain a powerful promotional tool.

They satisfy a real consumer need, to give a gift that is flexible to the recipients wants and needs, and provide the business owner a great way to attract the friends and families of existing customers to their stores.

As to weather they are redeemed or not, I would suggest that it is no different than customers buying gifts that are not wanted or ever used by the recipient.

Mind you, $8 Billion dollars is one hell of a lot of “thought that DIDN’T count”  

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

What would happen if your key team members resigned tomorrow?

O.K. you would dive for the Valium and phone your favorite recruitment agent, But that’s not going to solve your immediate problems.

If these key team members, that are now threatening the very survival of your business are your bookeeper and or your best sales person the disruption could be terminal, or at the very least, play havoc with your newly acquired golf score.

When you study businesses that find themselves suddenly thrust into this black hole, you find one common cause.

Their owners have failed to delegate responsibility, they have instead abdicated responsibility.

ABDICATION VS DELEGATION

To understand this a little better we need to go back in time a little, and look at what happens to most businesses as they begin to succeed and grow.

Most businesses start off with owners who are enthusiastic and prepared to work ridiculously long hours to succeed.

With a bit of luck and an enormous amount of hard work, the business starts to generate sales and profit. Over time, the business and profits grow, and at some point, the business owner needs help, so they decide to get rid of the tasks they no longer want to perform, in most businesses, this is the book keeping stuff and the sales stuff.

So, they employ an expert book keeper (often a close family friend who won’t blab the figures) and a sales expert, you know the sort of person, one of those smooth talking delighters who could sell “Ice to Eskimos”.

This frees up the owner from the mundane tactical “Doing It” stuff so they can concentrate on the “Big Picture” strategic stuff , and to take some well earned and deserved “Life Style” rewards.

Most people think this “Life Style” stuff is the problem, it seldom is. Most businesses do function better when their owners take a step back to refresh themselves and focus more on growth strategies.

SO, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

It is HOW these “experts” are introduced into your business. It’s about delegating responsibility not abdicating it.

If you simply employ an expert and let them “Do their own expert thing” thinking they are the expert and they shouldn’t interfere with how they get their great results, you are in fact, losing control of that part of your business.

Sure, it may be generating the results you want (in the short term) but you have lost control of that part of your business. They (the expert) now own that section of their business, and over time, you will pay dearly for that loss of control.

It may cost you constant salary increases, but worse still, it exposes you and your business to the severe disruptions of a sudden resignation.

SO, WHATS THE SOLUTION?

Systems. Everybody in your business must be working to a system. Every expert in your business must understand, from the very beginning, a prime part of their role is to create a written system for their position.

They must be told from day one, that if they wish to grow their career within your business, they must prove that they can duplicate their expertise.

Only this way, can you maintain control of your business. The test of an expert system (on say book keeping) is: You can take any traditionally trained book keeper and introduce them into your business and have them “up to speed” within 10 days.

APPLY THE DOUBLE DECKER BUS TEST TODAY…

Take a close look at every key member of your team and ask yourself “If they were hit by a double decker bus on their way to work tomorrow, what effect would that have on your business?” If your answer is that it would cause a severe disruption, you need a system for that position, FAST.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

Last week I posted a photo of the clever use of an escalator as an Advertising device…

Since then I have been sent several new photo’s I think are equally an equally clever way to capture attention of this major flow of traffic in shopping centers.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.

Here’s a clever way to create a low cost, high impact billboard…

It will grab much more attention than most of the expensive photographic treatments because it’s: more colorful, unexpected and the pages move in the breeze. The beauty of this is you can make these up on backing boards off site then install them to fit a variety of locations.

One word of warning, I would not rely on the standard sticky stuff on Post it Notes, I would invest in some double sided tape and use plastic notes if I wanted it to last trough the rain.

.

… Don’t miss any of our twice daily postings of NEW IDEAS, Subscribe NOW in your RSS reader

.