If you’re like me, new year’s resolutions are exciting and motivating… for a little while. The beginning is always easy, but motivation and perseverance quickly lose their luster as the year moves past the first few weeks. For me, the secret is keeping my goal in front of my face. You’ve heard the the carrot and the horse analogy. Keep a carrot dangling in front of your horse, and he’ll keep on walking.
So you’re the horse (sorry… no offense) and you’ve got your favorite carrot all picked out on January 1 (your resolution)… but how to keep that delicious orange vegetable hanging in front of you for the rest of the year? Enter: Google Calendar.
If you don’t already have a Google account, I suggest you go get one right now. It’s a quick, 30 second process. Once you’ve got your account all set, check out the different tools it offers besides just an email account. You’ve got a calendar, documents (online word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc). We’ll use the calendar to create a repeating event “reminder” that will give us a little nudge in the side, keeping us accountable to the goal. Plus, you’ll learn a few things along the way.
The rest of this post will be in video format since it’s easier to just show you what I mean.
Color is one of the most powerful methods of design, however it is not entirely universal. Colors that entice North America are different than those that entice India. Find our what colors affect your shoppers.
I found myself at the mall last Tuesday – shopping for presents for my family. One of the nice things about working from home is that I can head out for the occasional jaunt to Starbucks or run some errands during the day. Somehow, everyone else seemed to have gotten the same memo: Go buy stuff at the mall. It was packed. People were crazy.
For a moment I stood in the middle of the walkway, between two little kiosks with the pushy sales people selling microwavable bags filled with rice and another one selling battery powered cigarettes. I wish there had been a camera up in the ceiling capturing the scene from above. It’s that time of year when we’re all buying stuff to give away to one another. That’s all part of the fun though, right?
Sort of. In that moment in the mall I looked up to the glass ceiling in the mall, up past the “happy holiday” signs, up to the clouds hanging in frosty winter air. I remembered for a moment, that this life isn’t all about me. I started asking myself why I was buying all this stuff. Somehow a set of expectations have been set in place that says we need to go spend a ton of money to buy stuff we don’t need to give away to friends and family who will in turn feel obligated to match our contribution in return. The truth is, I have everything that I need. I’ve got enough to pay my bills, and a family who loves me. I’ve got a warm house and no lack of food or clothes. I don’t need anything.
Don’t get me wrong – I love Christmas. We’re celebrating the entrance of Jesus Christ into this world – a gift from God that changed my life. So the question is: since it’s His birthday, should we not give to Him instead of making wish lists for ourselves? It’s certainly not my birthday.
So enough with my saga, and to the point. If any of this resonates with you, let’s do something a little radical. Let’s figure out about how much we spend on each of our family members for Christmas – and do something with that money to represent your gift to the Christ of Christmas. By all means, give gifts in love to your family and friends… but do something specifically to say thank you to celebrate Jesus. Buy warm jackets for some homeless kids. Sponsor a child in a 3rd world country with food, medicine, and education. Pay for the elderly person’s groceries in front of you in line next time you’re at the supermarket. You pick. Just do it selflessly and in joy.
I guarantee it will be the absolute best gift you’ll give – and receive this year.
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. Galatians 4
Do you have a Twitter account but not sure how to make good use of it? Build your following, reputation, and customer’s trust with these simple practices:
Share. Share photos and behind the scenes info about your business. Even better, give a glimpse of developing projects and events. Users come to Twitter to get and share the latest, so give it to them!
Listen. Regularly monitor the comments about your company, brand, and products.
Ask. Ask questions of your followers to glean valuable insights and show that you are listening.
Respond. Respond to compliments and feedback in real time
Reward. Tweet updates about special offers, discounts and time-sensitive deals.
Demonstrate wider leadership and know-how. Reference articles and links about the bigger picture as it relates to your business.
Champion your stakeholders. Retweet and reply publicly to great tweets posted by your followers and customers.
Establish the right voice. Twitter users tend to prefer a direct, genuine, and of course, a likable tone from your business, but think about your voice as you Tweet. How do you want your business to appear to the Twitter community?
In the California gold rush in the mid 1800′s many people flocked to the area to look for gold. The people who were really making money weren’t the gold diggers, but the businesses selling shovels and equipment. Learn how you can apply this principle to your business in this video by BigCommerce.
There’s a problem with the way most companies are “marketing” their products and services.
Companies don’t focus on anyone and at the same time try to reach everyone
No one is asking the customer what they want. Business owners are afraid to talk to their customers.
Too many businesses focus on price, rather than focusing on value
Marketing has the potential to make or break your company. Products that are marketed well almost always outsell products that aren’t.
A 7 Step Marketing Plan
Create your typical customer profile
Position your products to appeal to your ideal customer
Spread the word to people who fit your typical customer profile
WOW them immediately after buying
Follow up with lots of free, useful stuff
Ask for a testimonial
Repeat steps 3-6 indefinitely
(The information in this post is from a series of marketing talks by Mitchell Harper of BigCommerce. You can watch his videos below for an in depth review.)
Sales people have a roadmap of the sales process, often called the Sales Funnel. The Sales Funnel is a metaphor for the typical process, from contact with many potential customers to the eventual payment of a single customer. It’s time we designers treat ourselves to our own funnel metaphor:
The Design Funnel.
The Design Funnel doesn’t introduce any new tools. It’s simply a roadmap of when a designer can use which tools to stimulate better work. As a matter of fact, many successful creatives use similar processes on a daily basis.
Here are the steps:
Define values and goals
Discover moods and metaphors through association
Generate ideas and define a concept
Create a visual language
“Design” it
Between each step comes the same sub-step: Verify that you’re on the right track. Why is most design bad design? Because most designers “jump into the funnel” at step 4 or 5. These are the steps involving “using Photoshop” and other fun, tool-based stuff. The funnel, on the other hand, focuses on the hard mental work involved in designing.
“Ben is one of the best designers I have worked with. It is rare that someone can take a basic idea from the customer and create a great looking end product that needs little or no revision. Ben is that type of designer and I give him the highest possible recommendation. Host Merchant Services & 302 Properties”
Keep a carrot dangling in front of your horse, and he’ll keep on walking.