Lessons from the Power Brands

Lessons from Power Brands You have heard of power brands like Harley-Davidson, Nordstrom, and Domino’s Pizza. Their names evoke specific emotions and feelings. Each of these brands stands for something special. They are modern day version of original branding, “burning a unique mark”. Can these power brands teach you how to get more clients or increase profits from your own business? In this issue of The Small Business Tool Box, I will share two of Rob Frankel’s branding standards from The Revenge of Brand X. Compare your business efforts against these two standards and see what you can learn. The first Law of Big Time Branding: Brands are not about you. Brands are about them.(1) Tell me about your brand. Were you going to tell me about products and services you developed? Were you going to tell me about your qualifications and what you have to offer your clients? Were you going to tell me how you identified needs of your clients and how you convince, prod or otherwise sell them your products and services? Branding is all about them, not you. Your brand must be about solving client’s problems, their wants, their pains. Do you know what they really want? Knowing your client is more than knowing demographics, i.e. how many people eat chocolate; it is knowing why they love eating chocolate! Branding is all about finding solutions to your client’s problems. Power brands do this extremely well. Think of brand, Head and Shoulders Shampoo. It clearly communicates purpose of eliminating your dandruff problem. There are many brands of shampoos on market shelves. But if you want a shampoo that gets rid of your dandruff, where do you turn. Does your product or service do same for your clients? Branding is not about getting your targets to choose you over your competition. Branding is about getting your prospects to see you as only solution to their problem. (2)

So You Want To Start a Home Business

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SO YOU WANT TO START A HOME BUSINESS A Honest Account By Tom Maloney WAIKIKI IT SOLUTIONS

Introduction

Two Years ago I was fed up working long hours for somebody else for a pittance, not getting any praise or support, was surfing net and came across an article on setting up a home business. This article stated that by following a few basic principles and paying a few bucks I would become an Internet Millionaire overnight, well within six months. Oh Yeah, we have all heard that one haven’t we? Anyway being naive I was sucked in and yes you got it right first time, I made approximately 27c for an outlay of around $34,747:24c, not bad at a first attempt to make money, I lost $34,746.97, not a very good introduction to making money on Internet.

This heavy loss resulted from spending money on placing ads in paid programmes (hum! That’s a topic for another article watch this space), using paid and free search engines (another article coming), buying leads that were ‘so called opt in leads’ (another article coming) yes you got it right again, they were not and I was reported for spamming (and yet another article coming) so on and so on for over a year. What you ask, is this got to do with me wanting to start a home business? Well read on and I will start to explain what I went through, how I started my Home Business, when I started to make money and how I am progressing. Oh and watch this space for further articles on all different connotations of leads, adds, search engines, ezines, etc, etc.