Here’s my vote 

for the all-time top

branding theme lines.

     I get asked all the time about branding themes and theme lines because they are the single most important set of words a business can have, and because they are the hardest of all words to write if they are to have great impact.

     The only business writing forms that come close in terms of difficulty and potential power are advertising billboards, website banners, and new venture business plans.

     In fact, the simpler they seem, the harder they are to write. Contrary to popular opinion, no one just goes into a closet for a couple of hours and comes out with these brilliant messages.

     In fact, it can often take weeks of fine-tuning to get to the kinds of branding theme lines represented here.

     The following list of 19 (Will yours be #20?) are all perfect examples of the art and science of marketing word craftsmanship, and I submit them here for your enjoyment, consideration (see if you figure out what they all have in common; answer at end), and most assuredly for inspiration:

• You deserve a break today at MacDonald’s.

• Think outside the bun – Taco Bell

• You’re in good hands with Allstate.

• American Express – Don’t leave home without it.

• AT&T – Reach out and touch someone.

• Greyhound: Leave the driving to us.

• Campbell’s Soup is M’m M’m Good!

• Clairol – Does she or doesn’t she?

• Energizer Batteries – It keeps going, and going, and going…

• General Electric – We bring good things to life.

• Kleenex – Don’t put a cold in your pocket!

• Lay’s Potato Chips – Betcha can’t eat just one!

• Maxwell House – Good to the last drop.

• Morton Salt – When it rains, it pours.

• New York Times – All the news that’s fit to print

• Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee

• Schlitz – The beer that made Milwaukee famous.

• Sun Microsystems – We put the . in dot.com

• Armour Hot Dogs – The dog kids love to bite.

      Besides all of these having a certain positive and proactive message to share that directly relates to or ties to the benefits of the products and services offered, they also each possess a definite word delivery rhythm that is easier felt than explained . . . almost a poetic balance with a direct or directly implied promise attached.

     And what else do you notice?

     Because there are no rules in business, and least of all in marketing, there are always exceptions. In this list, however, as will be found in almost every other comparable list of outstanding branding identities, please also note that each uses seven words or less.

     And those that include the company or brand name within those seven words or less are the true diamonds in the forest of glass!

What are some of YOUR suggestions for this list? Click on “Comments” below and include them in the window! The best will be added to a sequel list!

302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You. 

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL

LIKE A SCHLUNK,

SOMETIMES YOU DON’T!

It’s what you DO with bad feelings that counts!

     It doesn’t matter who you are, how great your reputation, how elevated your life-position, or how religious or nutrition-conscious you behave. Nor does it matter how physically fit, mentally alert, or in love with the world you may be.

     You will have bad days in life (and groups of bad days) when you feel like a schlunk because you screwed-up a business or personal relationship or situation.

     The thing is that many times the wheels come off, or the bottom falls out, or the roof caves in. . . accidentally. And sometimes, uh, maybe accidentally-on-purpose.

     But getting straightened out and back on track, demands concerted effort, intended purpose, and proactive pursuit. Recovery is never accidental. It requires conscious awareness that behavior is a choice.

     It also requires a plan. The most effective plans are those wrapped around the military OST management model:

OBJECTIVE/STRATEGY/TACTICS

Your “OBJECTIVE” is your goal. To be effective it needs to adhere to ALL of the following 5 criteria:

• Specific

• Flexible

• Realistic

• Due-Dated

• In Writing

     This applies to both business and personal goal-setting. Without all five, it’s merely a wish (and, with apologies to Tinkerbell and The Wizard of Oz, wishing does NOT make it so!)

     Your “STRATEGY” is your thinking avenue or approach to reaching or achieving your Objective or goal. It is the thought process part of your plan.

     Your “TACTICS” are the implementations or executions of your Strategies. They are the actual “do it” steps you take to initiate and maintain your plan. This is the point of bringing about action.

     If you’ve done this right, you’ll remember the goal criteria list includes “flexibility” which translates to being ready and able to choose to change directions or move objectives as situations and people require.

Most people fail at goal-setting and pursuit because they think goals are in concrete and that failure to reach them is too demeaning and discouraging. But keeping goals flexible means adjusting them and/or the circumstances to achieve them.

     The easy part is making it all work. The hard part is getting started. Getting started is a choice!

# # #

 931-854-0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT Day for Someone !

Been Tweaked? 

     If  you haven’t had a professional examine the words you’re using for your business — to communicate, explain, describe, sell, plan, promote, publicize, print, email, broadcast, and blast across the Internet — you’re missing great potential sales, revenues, and profits.

     And you may be adding untold hidden expenses every day, even every hour.

     You could very well be the best at what you do, but if you’re not trained and experienced as a skilled professional business marketing writer, it won’t matter.

      It takes only one slightly wrong word to UNdo all your years of hard work, to UNdo the strength or promise of your customer or investor bases, to UNdo your employee, supplier, and community relations.

     But here’s the best kept secret of successful businesses and practices in your industry and profession:

They’ve all been tweaked! 

     Every highly profitable revenue-charged business and professional practice is measured by its leadership, reputation, productivity, and the words it uses.

Research proves time and again that what your business says (and the ways that your business says what it says) makes the difference between success and failure

. . . on the Internet; in emails, news releases; promotional, ad, branding and marketing campaigns; mission and vision statements; employee and sales training; supplier, investor, and referrer motivational programs

. . . on the front lines and telephone lines with customers, clients, patients, and prospects.

     How does one get her or his business “tweaked”? Where do you start? You start by submitting rough or revised drafts for professional review and input. The finished product is the revised return of a polished document, ad, release, web page, branding theme line, business plan narrative, layman translation from technical material, ebook, training outline, whatever.

It’s a process that raises your ideas up a notch

and puts you ahead of the competition!

     The good news is you need NOTspend a fortune to get tweaked. Many mid and large size companies that use internal Tweakers, also hire outside firms to tweak and prepare their messages (often at outrageous fees of $10,000 to $20,000 a month!). But this is SMALL business. And no one else can represent your business ideas as well as you.

     You don’t need high-priced outside service firms to tell you what to say. You need a budget-conscious, experienced, professional Tweaker who can take what you’ve done and put it in the right language and context for the market you want to target.

     Some, like having preventive maintenance visits, get a “Tweak Cleaning” twice a year. Some are happy with an annual “Tweak Insurance” Review. Still others want “On-Call Tweakability.” Oh, and if you’ve read this far, you must be interested. So yes, I tweak.

# # #

Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT Day for someone!

People today only buy

what makes sense.

 Don’t believe it!

Excerpted from comments by Hal Alpiar published in today’s issue of  COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY ISSN: 1544-8312 Better Business Communication Judy Vorfeld – www.ossweb.com March-April-May 2010 – Issue # 74

     Assessments surfacing about today’s consumers being more savvy, more rational-minded, more interested in authenticity, and less susceptible to some of the more trite expressions that have long passed their days of influence is – in most entrepreneurial minds — 100% correct.

     Where business owners and managers need to depart though from what is being said is that these kinds of comments tend to lead owners and managers down the path of focusing their business marketing messages on rational, logical, unemotional, product and service features alone (i.e., ingredients, warranties, greenness, discounts, etc.) when — in fact — every consumer purchase has been repeatedly proven to be emotionally-triggered.

     That is not to say that price is not important or that features and rational chunks of sales pitches and marketing pieces should be abandoned or sidetracked. This kind of information is required by consumers as justification for their purchases — and more so today than ever before because of speed-of-light information access, and an economy that demands closer dollar-value scrutiny.

      Case in point (which, in concept, applies equally to every conceivable product or service purchase) . . .

      You probably tell everyone all the reasons that you buy a particular vehicle: it gets great mileage; it is ranked among the top in safety tests; the manufacturer is reliable; the warranties are among the best available; parts are easily and inexpensively replaced and service is readily available. And monthly payments? They’re at an all-time low. Sounds great, right? Kind of makes rational, unemotional, authentic mouths water? (Or at least drool a little?)

     The truth is (which you would never own up to in public) that the real deep-down reasons you bought the vehicle are that you think you look good driving it, and that the salesperson wasn’t pushy.

     These dynamics, by the way, are the same for seemingly rational purchases like insurance policies, accounting services, a can of beans, or the daily newspaper.

     So, the bottom line is that while rational, logical information needs to be presented as a marketing cornerstone, it’s always going to be an emotional trigger that makes the sale. But we shouldn’t abandon one approach for the other. They need to work in tandem. It’s what makes great marketing so challenging, and why so few really understand how to do it effectively.

# # #

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

Sounding Important

Counts For Nothing!

     Yes, even in this “knee-deep-in-muck” economy, when smart people are being more innovative and more customer conscious, there are still pompous idiots floating around the business world with no backs to pat except their own. One would think that at least a sliver of reality might have set in, but there they go, parading by in all their ornamental pomp and ceremonial circumstance: The EGOpreneurs.

     Know any?

     Maybe I’m just imagining things when I check out an online business profile and read about how many years of great experience will come to play when a needy (and the suggestion is, incompetent) business owner is smart enough to engage this person’s consulting services instead of (the only suggested alternative) floundering around on her or his own.

     The consultant of course chooses to completely disregard that Mr. or Ms. Business Owner just happened to have succeeded at bringing his or her business this far to start with. But that’s not important if you’re smart enough to hire this guy because Mr. Egopreneur Consultant here has worked with some of the biggest name companies in existence. Aren’t you impressed?

     Hey, “20+ years” of being a “revenue generation strategist”  is nothing to sneeze at. (He figures out ways to make money; it’s not likely he knows anything about how to implement the strategies but, well, he figures that’s what you’re good for.) Besides, you might want to give Wonder Boy some slack because he’s so highly trained to fit your needs.

     The exampleI cite boasts of degrees in religion and political science (oh, and a minor in anthropology). Hard to imagine anyone not succeeding with that combination. I mean first you can rip people off, and then pray for them when you dig up their bones in a few years. C’mon, relevance and track-record are what count. As the old sports agent movie made famous: “Show me the money!”

     Yes, I have preached long and hard to business owners and sales professionals that you only get one chance at a first impression. The point though is that the best impression anyone can make is the one that doesn’t TRY to make an impression. Proven performance speaks louder than words.

     AUTHENTICITY is the word that comes to mind . . . along with: GENUINENESS (skipping the BS). TRANSPARENCY (no hidden agendas; you see what you get). EMPATHY (putting oneself in another’s shoes). REALITY (not living in or talking incessantly about past or future fantasylands). FLEXIBILITY (being ready and able to avoid expectations and go with the flow).

     These six important qualities are the intangibles that define the difference between success and failure, and that point up the separation between people you choose to do business with over people you choose not to do business with. Use all six to weigh the conviction of your involvement with others.

     If you want to make a difference with your business, in other’s lives and your own, steer clear of EGOpreneurs. They give entrepreneurs a bad name, and all their talking counts for nothing.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT Day for someone!

Could Your Family

Or Business 

Get To 2011 Without

A Budget?

So what makes Congress think America doesn’t need one?

     We The People — the business owners and operators and managers and entrepreneurs and sales professionals — of the United States of America need to vent!

     We would like to understand how it could be possible that you, the Congressional Representatives of the geographic districts that our business interests occupy, are at the doorstep of foregoing a national budget this year. PLEASE explain.

     For the benefit of those not yet up to speed on this issue because you’ve been struggling with your own budgets, The Hill newspaper has just proclaimed that Congress may fail to even try to pass a budget this year because the Congressional majority claims that “they’ve pushed too many tough votes through the House to force another one before Election Day.”

     Rarely do I have much good to report coming out of organizations like the SBA, the BBB, the NFIB, or the C of C, but I just saw a copy of a letter from US Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President Bill Miller that deserves three cheers from all of us. He challenges that feeble excuse quoted in The Hill with the following:

Tough votes? You mean like bending the rules and twisting arms to pass a flawed healthcare bill that America doesn’t want and can’t afford?

Or like rushing a vote on a financial overhaul bill that would create one of the largest bureaucracies in American history?

Giving up the budget process is their choice. It’s politics, plain and simple. And we deserve better… if Congress fails to pass a budget, it will show that it is simply unable to govern

… No budget equals failure. And right now, that’s something our country, our workers, and our employers cannot afford.” 

     How is it even possible that ANYone, even a politician, could imagine a budget-less organization — let alone a national government– being able to arrogantly continue charging forward while sinking deeper into the depths of economic quicksand?

     With continuing misplaced priorities and increases in frivolous federal spending, we — the business owners and operators and managers and entrepreneurs and sales professionals — are being driven aimlessly into the face of an all-powerful global economic storm… and not even a budget on the horizon?

     How would our own businesses do with no sense of financial direction or planning? One need not be a rocket scientist to see that our national and state economies are on shaky (to say the least!) ground in the midst of turbulent times.

     Yet we have elected politicians who have no business skills,  knowledge or experience, no sense of how to turn this mess around. All of us with small businesses already know that more spending of more money we don’t have, with no plan, is not going to do it!

     The only answer is:  A) To push members of Congress (with emails, letters and calls) to do the jobs our tax dollars are paying them to do and pass a budget we can afford, then B) VOTE THEM OUT IN NOVEMBER before they destroy all of our businesses.  

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

When you undertake

to organize, manage,

and assume the risks

of owning and running

a business…

. . . you are not just taking a leap of faith.

You are taking the leap with a full plate in hand.

Imagine a waiter balancing a tray full of dinners on one hand and carrying a “table jack” with the other, while deftly jumping across a six-foot moat into a flame-edge-bordered room packed with ravenously hungry people, and no idea of who ordered what.

     Whew!

     Well, if the guy is the owner of the restaurant, odds are the right people will get the right food, others will get some complimentary food with appreciative remarks and everyone will end up coming back.

     If it’s a giant chain restaurant, the wrong people will get the wrong meals, nobody else will be acknowledged and the only ones who return will be coming back for the cheap prices only. 

     It seems appropriate on National Prayer Day (yes, that’s today in case you forgot to say some) to be addressing leaps of faith, even if it is in conjunction with a business focus. Entrepreneurial enterprises are, after all, among some of the world’s greatest benefactors of prayer and leadership faith.

     Most small business owners do most everything that needs to be done by themselves. They sell; they finance; they organize; they manage; they innovate; they manage and serve customers and clients; they market, promote, and publicize. Entrepreneurial “personalities” rarely if ever match corporate counterparts (and most would agree there really are no direct counterparts anyway).

     Entrepreneurs tend to be entrepreneurs because they simply don’t fit the orderly, entrenched, established, procedural, authoritative and controlling mindset that corporate muckity-mucks seem to thrive on. Corporate guys are invested in the status quo. Whoa! Don’t make waves!

     Senior executive vice presidents and directors of anything are up to their you-know-whats in burdensome and tedious reliance on planning and analyzing . . . activities that are viewed by upstart business venture principals as paralyzing behavior.

     By contrast, entrepreneurs thrive on innovation, action, and high enthusiasm. When a small business owner consults with her market research department, she is talking to herself as she cruises through Bing and Google.

     Okay, so right about now, I know there are a smattering of grumbling corporate people (mostly, it seems, brothers-in-law of entrepreneurs!) who are punching their monitors and yelling that times have changed and big business is now leading the way in innovation and brand loyalty and new market development and communications and high-level training. Bull.

     Automakers? Banks? Pharmaceutical giants? Oil companies? Mainstream media? Consumer product manufacturers? Need we go further? How many of these do you see taking leaps of faith?

     The monster donut-maker guys may think America runson their junk food, but they’re dreaming (their coffee’s not even good!).

     America runs on small business and entrepreneurial spirit, on Mom and Pop Stores, basement and kitchen table and garage businesses, one-man-band services, farm families, commercial and residential contractors, and techies in bathrobes working out of their bedroom closets. 

     That’s what we’re all about. That’s what will turn this economy around. That’s who we need to be remembering in our prayers today and every day. Small business and entrepreneurial pursuits are the foundation of America’s past and the keys to America’s future.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops because “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

“Is what I’m doing right

this minute, leading me 

 to where I want to go?”

I kept this sign above my desk for many years. It helped keep me focused. It prompted staff and visitors to think twice about how we were using time. It’s hard to justify much water cooler chit-chat while appointments, online research and paperwork pace around your workspace awaiting your return.

Running a business is a balancing act to begin with. The mercilessly ticking clock demands even more. Business owners and managers are only as effective as their ability to manage and productively use time.

Mail carriers sort, doctors triage, retailers catalog, military personnel classify, librarians alphabetize, and the rest of us stumble through –organizing, arranging and categorizing– as a preamble to prioritizing.

The process of taking what you have and organizing it, combining appropriate interests along the way, then ultimately determining the rank order of importance is a lifeline to action! It sets leaders up to attack the first most important task first, and the second most important task second, and so forth. All good, logical, rational thinking here.

Unfortunately, unless you’re an accountant, life is not logical and rational. Stuff inevitably happens that pushes all the logic out the tenth floor window. If you’re not prepared for such uproars, you’ll get dragged out with it. And ten floors is not enough time to open your chute, but enough free-fall to play smash-face.

If your past solution approach has traditionally been to start listening to your LED watch and –as if it was a doomed rabbit– giving it violent hound dog shakes with a startled look on your face, you may want to consider some alternative that involves a booster shot of proactive planning.

Motivational guru Brian Tracy tells us that for “every minute spent in planning saves ten minutes in execution.”

Planning is only a waste of time if you choose for it to be and fail to follow the path you cut out, or fail to adjust it to best fit the circumstances.

One major key to planning and time management success is to always have a contingency arrangement thought out. Why? Because you can almost bet there will be interruptions, and often unexpected emergencies. Just as fire drills have often been credited with saving lives, contingency plans often save businesses.

  In other words, stay tuned in to what’s happening in real time, but always be prepared to be sidetracked. Thoreau once talked about being “forever on the alert.” Not bad advice all these many years later.

# # #

931.854.0474    Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

DREAMERS DREAM

AND TRYERS TRY,

BUT DOERS

GET IT DONE! 

     A “Vision Statement” addresses the ultimate objectives or finish line of your business pursuits, and can serve to point your business in a meaningful direction.

     A “Mission Statement” underscores commitment to move toward that finish line, and usually suggests or outlines the pieces of strategy your business needs to follow to get where you want to go.

Great, right? Business owners need all that stuff to pump up the troops and prompt droves of prospects –like Clark Kent peeling off the suit and glasses to burst on the scene as Superman– to run to the cash register and become instant paying customers, right?

Here’s how I size up my own training/coaching/consulting prospects: those who gush forth their vision and mission statements at every turn need my help; they are like kids with new toys, caught up in the moment and oblivious to the fact that what’s important in business is getting things done, not talking about getting things done.

These wannabe visionaries who can readily run amuck with their pocketsful of guiding light statements, often seem to get themselves preoccupied with communicating their aspirations to the rest of the world (in their emails, ads, blog and social media posts, websites, promotional literature, phone messages, and news releases).

They need instead to simply redirect that energy into taking realistic steps for achieving the dreams they’ve verbalized. Somewhere along the way, some company got the idea that the public really cares about the details of their goal pursuits and future plans. Reality check: They don’t.

Generally speaking, small business owners and managers will do best to keep their vision and mission statements to themselves and their employees (and perhaps investors). Hopeful and strategic business thinking are usually best shared with the world-at-large when the world-at-large recognizes the brand as a household name.

To spew private small business goal-focused messages out to the public with the hopes of surreptitiously soliciting, exploiting, and rallying business is like using a shovel for a hammer; sometimes it might work, but it’s not what shovels are intended for.

Anyway, these are the kinds of clients I can easily impact; they are already doing something and simply need to channel their energies more productively. It takes only a few forward thrusts of action to start to make things that really count begin to happen.

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals!

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

MONEY

DOESN’T GROW

 ON YOUR BOSS’S

TREES EITHER.

(SETS OF WORDS TO CHERRY-PICK FROM AND ADAPT AS NEEDED)

     DEAR EMPLOYEE: I know you are a basically honest person or you wouldn’t still be employed where you are, doing what you do. And I greatly appreciate your loyalty.

     This message is intended in the spirit of seeing the business you work for, and your own career pursuits –both– experience unprecedented success in the months and years ahead.  

     You should, first of all, know that –as the Boss– I am working for myself and my family, and for you and your family, and for everyone else involved, to provide the best possible product and service quality for the best possible dollar value to our customers.

     I am doing this when we’re closed as well as when we’re open. There’s hardly more than a few minutes ever pass, day or night, that I am not thinking about ways to improve our business, and ways to provide more opportunities for growth to employees, suppliers, and customers.

     I am writing this to enlist your increased support in attitude and productivity. I can only feel comfortable in making this request because you have proven yourself capable, and you have demonstrated your ongoing commitment to sustain yourself and your family by being conscientious and by working hard.

     Now I am going to ask you to accept increased responsibility without increased compensation, but with the increased assurance that when your extra-effort help starts to kick in, I will be certain to see that you are appropriately rewarded with corresponding job security. The more effort we get from everyone, the more opportunities will surface for participating in management leadership teams. 

     The product of our combined extra efforts will lead to more productive and more protected jobs with greater compensation.

     For me to hold up my end of the deal, I need you to start now acting like more of the leader and teammate you have demonstrated you are capable of being. When you observe personnel, system, or equipment breakdowns that you know how to deal with, step in and deal with them. When you are not sure about what to do, come ask. Sweeping problems under the rug only produces bigger problems.

     When you are aware of someone padding their hours, not honoring the terms of their employment, acting lackadaisical or disinterested, filching supply items, or treating equipment abusively, you are doing this business and your own career a disservice by looking the other way.

     I am not urging risky confrontation or that you play “tattle-tale,” but I am suggesting you consider that avoiding the reality of what’s going on is akin to avoiding your responsibility to do the best you can do to help your own family. Only by protecting and nurturing the interests of this company, can your career here be expected to grow and thrive.

     You see, I am not made of money any more than you. You may look at how I live and conclude that it’s like cruise control compared to all your hard peddling. I assure you, the hidden stress makes it a no-contest situation.

     Dealing with the banks, investors, lawyers, bill collectors, insurance agents, the landlord, over-the-top government controls and regulations (and all the accompanying paperwork) is not fun and games. I have no complaints. It’s what I do.

     But for us to get out of this economic crunch, I am going to need you to pull more than your usual share to help me help us to turn things around so that all of us can enjoy greater freedom. Are you with me? What three things can you do this week to help us get this renewed mission started?      

Click Here to work with Hal!

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day!