Allison Frederick

4 Secrets to Protect Your Business Presentations

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:15:34 +0000

Eventually you have to share your ideas with others in order to start to make money with it. This juncture is one of the most stressful crossroads for most people and it is one of the questions that come up most from my clients.

One high tech way to protect your idea is to prevent photocopying of your documents by using “No Copy” or “Security Paper.”

This type of security technology applies different methods to deter others from making copies of documents that should not be copied. Different paper manufactures have different ways of protecting printed documents. Here are three companies who offer different solutions.

1. “Void” labels does not destroy the text but marks the copy as an illegal copy.

2. Heat sensitive paper

3. If you have varying levels of needed security depending on the document, then you can use Micro Format Document Security Paper.

4. Copy-proof ink

These are just a couple of easy ways for you to protect your business ideas or protect your inventions. Using security paper may not be the least expensive way to distribute documents but it does increase copyright and fraud protection in addition to seeming James Bond-like.

We can help with you understand how to protect your ideas. No Hype. Just Help – call 303.522.4740 or email projectperfectnow@gmail.com for more information.

Clever Product Names Can Lead to Law Suits

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:10:08 +0000

When a product brand hits a home run, the rest of us sit by the sidelines with envy, our own product brand lingering as a single hitter or in the strike out zone.

A predacious marketer working on the “LG Strawberry and Black Cherry phone” campaign authorized the names of the new phones to be remarkably similar to the famous “Chocolate phones” produced by a competing phone manufacturer (RIM- who manufactures Blackberry phones). RIM decided that the consumer would be too confused by the Strawberry phone and the Black Cherry phone, thinking that it was related to their Chocolate phone. RIM sued for trademark infringement.

Marketing Challenge
It is tougher to be creative and unique in the global economy. So many people have already thought of your idea or name; whereas before you might have gotten away with it, today, with Internet and international selling being a breeze, copying your competition too closely can take you to court.

Many of us have been in brainstorming sessions where we analyze our competition and try to figure out why they are doing so well. We often linger on the competition’s brand name or marketing message, using their trademarked brand as a launching pad for our own creative suggestions. After all, their brand is tested and the public approves. But trying to stay too close to your competition’s marketing messages can be risky.

The Trademark Problem
As we know, trademarks serve to protect the consumer. Will they be confused by a brand? If someone goes into their local phone store and sees a phone called “Strawberry” or “Black Cherry” will they conclude that it is in the same family or phone line as the “Chocolate” phones? It seems pretty obvious that most of us would be confused. The number one rule when naming your product or company is to ask yourself whether you think a customer would easily confuse your name with your competition. If the answer is “yes,” then promptly abort that name and go back to the drawing board.

Marketing Yourself Online with Integrity: Lessons from Madame Helena Rubinstein, a Cosmetic Industry Giant

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:02:49 +0000

The beauty about online businesses is that you can work in your bedroom slippers, on a Tahiti beach, or at the local coffee shop and your customers will never know.

The anonymity of the internet is very attractive to those who operate a business or product but are a bit shy. We let the internet do the talking for us. There is; however, a danger in taking full advantage of the anonymity of the internet and that is losing your integrity.

When I write an article and post it online, does that substantiate a claim that I am an international author? Many people would say yes but I disagree. Let’s say I am enjoying a party at my best friend’s house. She introduces me to a book agent as an international best selling author because my best friend has seen my email signature that says “Allison Frederick, International Author” (this a self-proclaimed title I included in my email based on the fact that I write online).

The book agent is intrigued, wondering why she hasn’t heard of me before. She asks me about my writing. I fumble with words to try and back track from the impression my best friend gave her. I tell her I write online but then I stop. How do I compensate for the false impression she has? Do you think she would trust anything I say afterwards? I doubt it. I expect my credibility with her is ruined, all because of my own false advertising. (This is a fictitious example as I am not yet a best selling international author but I would love to be.)

Another approach people use on the internet is to make their company look significantly bigger than it is. They’ll use words like, “We here at X International, Ltd.” If your online business is comprised of you and your cat, does that warrant the use of “we” in your advertising? “We here at the Rockford Corporation meet our clients’ needs before they even know they have them.”

Such advertising language may be impressive to a potential customer at first and many online consumers do feel better about working with a larger organization than thinking they are doing business with someone in their pajamas, but it can lead to awkward conversations like the one listed above and can lead to mistrust which will ultimate destroy your reputation and your brand. How will a potential customer feel when they phone the customer service department and you are the one who answers, then they ask to speak with a supervisor, who consequently also happens to be you? Will they feel misled if they discover you are also the product fulfillment manager, bookkeeper, and chairman? People do understand that some companies have a single employee but they want to understand that upfront, not lied to through web site marketing.

Helena Rubinstein – a marketing genius who misled the public

I am reminded of the phrase “truth in adverting” as I study the business acumen of one of the first cosmetic industry giants, Helena Rubinstein (1870-1965).

Helena Rubinstein’s company, eventually bought out by L’Oreal, was a pioneer in the beauty industry in the early 19th century. She was a direct and fierce competitor of Elizabeth Arden. In my opinion, Helena took the liberty of advertising embellishment beyond a place of integrity.

Born in Poland in the 1870’s, Helena immigrated to Australia in her twenties. Eventually she established a beauty shop and sold cosmetic creams. Her own translucent skin proved to her customers that she was a product of her product (being a product of your product is another way to sell with integrity and build trust and loyalty to your brand). After looking at pictures of her, I can see why customers were attracted to her. Her skin looks gorgeous and definitely something to emulate.

Helena it seems loved a good story. She made her product in her own shop in Melbourne using ingredients native to Australia but she claimed she was an importer and the cream was from Europe. Her original recipes may have originated in Europe but it wasn’t manufactured there as she advertised to the public.

Naturally her products were protected by trade secrets but she misled the consumer by stating the ingredients came from the Carpathian Mountains outside of Krakow, Poland. (This claim reminds me of the currently faddish health drinks made from ingredients from the Amazon rain forest.) She correctly assumed that the public would be more impressed with a cream from Europe than from Australia.

I believe Madame’s (as she was called) customers were attracted to the “European” element because they lived in Australia, and we humans seem to find a “foreign” idea or product alluring. Products from elsewhere may contain “magic” and probably work better than the domestic products we’ve already tried and found to be wanting. Most of us are skeptical about advertising claims but we must still believe some of them because they still motivate us to buy.

It is so easy to make grand advertising claims and distribute them with a click of our mouse, but it is also much easier for others to investigate and to discover the truth behind these claims. Even more dangerous to the advertiser is the fact that consumers now feel empowered to spread their findings or beliefs about the falseness of a marketing message or an empty promise to other savy consusmers online. They will not hesitate to share their findings with others on a blog, chat room, in a discussion group, and even some highly motivated people may run a pay-per-click ad campaign saying “The truth about Guru X.”

Can your business afford such negative campaigning? If the public discovered the truth behind your claims, would it ruin your brand? Operating your business from a place of integrity may mean you use fewer “sensational ads” making exaggerated claims but it may mean you develop more profitable relationships with customers who become loyal to your brand.

Madame Helena Rubinstein was an incredibly intelligent, successful, and wealthy entrepreneur – despite her marketing exaggerations. She had the ability to anticipate and capitalize on many trends as the cosmetic industry grew. She was a master of publicity. She befriended journalists and editors and she hounded her public relations department to make sure they kept her company in the headlines. She also implemented many marketing devices still used today, including the concept of “dry, normal, and oily skin.” Designating skin into three different categories originated as a marketing ploy to open up markets for three separate lines of skin products.

As I read about Helena Rubinstein in the interesting book entitle “War Paint: Madame Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, Their Lives, Their Times, Their Rivalry” (2003) by Lindy Woodhead, I am fascinated not only by Helena’s business ventures, but also the story of her successful rival, self-made business woman, Elizabeth Arden. The author, Woodhead, highlights business decisions each woman made and the impact it had on their empires. She also provides an interesting backdrop of what society was like at the time.

There are many grey areas in advertising. Whenever I have doubt about what I should say, I just image how I would feel and what I would say to a customer if they “called me out” on my claims. If I am confident that I am accurately representing something, then I feel free to use colorful, exciting language. What barometer will you use for your marketing? How will you chose to promote your brand and still maintain integrity?

The Helena Rubinstein Foundation:

“The Helena Rubinstein Foundation supports programs in education, community services, arts/arts in education, and health, with a special interest in programs that benefit women and children and assist disadvantaged communities.”*

*http://www.helenarubinsteinfdn.org/guide.html

Branding in Tough Economic Times

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:43:42 +0000

Building a Brand So Sweet, it Lasts for Generations: The Story of See’s Chocolates

An inspiring business success story always gets the juices flowing as the reader feels the flow of success and wise decisions bringing them along for the ride. Combine the rush of a good story with a story about chocolate and you have an irresistible combination.

It all began with the matriarchal figure of Mary See. Mary’s recipes for chocolates and candies built the See’s Candy Empire that has wooed America since 1921. See’s Candies uses the finest quality ingredients and always has. That is one of the secrets to their success. Even during the Depression, they didn’t cut corners. Their customers can always count on a quality candy and that is why their customers keep coming back.

Does your customer have the same, quality experience over and over again?

The See Candy storyis a classic American success story. They were descendents of Ireland, whose family immigrated to Ontario. Mary’s son, Charles, was working as a salesman, selling ingredients in bulk to bakeries. There was a popular candy shop chain in Ontario and Charles felt that he could create something better. He and his family, including his mother Mary and her meticulous and loved candy recipes, moved to Los Angeles to open their own store.

It was popular in the 1920’s to brand food products with a “trust-worthy, mother or grandmother” image.

In 1921, the company that later became General Mills, created Betty Crocker, a fictitious woman who, in 1945, was voted the second most popular woman in America (behind Eleanor Roosevelt).* Charles See followed the trend that was working when he decided to use his mother’s photograph as the logo for See’s Candy. This visual tribute not only reminded Charles and the employees where their great recipes came from, it also instilled the “warm fuzzy feeling” one has when we think of a gray-haired, plump woman’s baking. We trust that it must be delicious. The logo and its emotional assurance and ability to generate fond memories of grandma’s baking in some of us, is just one example of the cleverness Charles displayed when running his company.

Does your company’s logo have a broad, emotional appeal? Recently, logos have moved into the abstract or graphic look. Could your company’s brand benefit from using a photograph? This could be one way to distinguish yourself from the crowd.

Though the 1920’s was profitable for the See’s and they had several shops, the Depression of the ’30s held them back a bit but they were able to keep their doors open and were even expanding by 1936. They renegotiated their leases, the employee salaries, and lowered the price for a pound of chocolate. ** All these measures ensured their success. Of course, they never compromised their quality so their brand was maintained.

If your business is going through lean times, have you been tempted to cut corners on your product? If you do then your customer will learn to never trust your product again.

Building a Business to Sell the Business

Many business owners dream of selling their business for a lot of money. This was true for See’s Candy. In 1972 the surviving family sold their business to one of the best businessmen in America’s History, Warren Buffett.

A strong, reliable brand will make your business more attractive to company who may want to buy you out. Branding is one of the key components for attracting a buyout.

I’ve highlighted only a few of the business decisions that led to the success of this company. Charles See was a visionary and a problem solver. He was committed to a course of action and took his family business to a level of success that few companies achieve. If you would like to learn more about this legacy and how you can apply their innovative thinking to your business, I encourage you to read “See’s Famous Old Time Candies: A Sweet Story” by Margaret Moos Pick.

References* The Betty Crocker Story, CS News book review, 2005**” See’s Famous Old Time Candies: A Sweet Story” by Margaret Moos Pick, (2005). p. 28

Couple of Social Networking Sites for Women

admin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:29:33 +0000

“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.”

- Jane Addams

Share Your Inspirational Stories - Visit the FaMiss Group featuring inspirational women on Gather.com another site is:

The Accountability Girlfriends Network

Submit Your Press Release

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:20:23 +0000

“Making your unknown known is the important thing.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

We may help you get the word out.

Tell us about:

a special event;

new book or art piece;

new product;

community contribution;

new business, website, or blog and we may feature it in our online portals.

*In providing us with this information, you verify that you are authorized to release this information. All facts, public identities, and details are your responsibility. If we share your story, Allison Frederick and all its affliates and officers are not responsible for the content, including any content that may be copyrighted.

Include:

Contact Name, phone number, email address, web page for event, event description, and 1 or 2 photos to be included if applicable. If it is an event, also include all event details including price, date, etc.

Send info to projectperfectnow@gmail.com – please do not call.

Business Plan Pitfalls – Keeping Your Ideas Safe

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:22:11 +0000

Writing a business plan can be fun and overwhelming. There are so many things to consider. Many business plans have a “risk analysis” section. In this section you may explore issues like product & service liability and market change vulnerabilities. For example, if you are starting a nutritional supplement company, you have a lot of governance from the Federal Trade Commission and Food and Drug Adminstration. Or maybe you are starting a travel destination company where an aeronautical terrorist attack could severely cripple your business. All these risks must be planned for and policies put into to place if you want your company to survive in the event that the risks became reality.

Other risks seem more subtle, so subtle that maybe they’ve never occurred to you.

What would your company do if another company stole your product name and used it to sell their own product?

What would you do if you own a small Internet commerce business and someone sues you because the software you use for your shopping cart infringes on his or her new patent?

What would you do if you were ready to expand your business into another market only to find out that your business name is trademarked by someone else?

Such risks fall into a field of law called intellectual property.

Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets make up intellectual property. Companies tend to ignore intellectual property once they pick out the name of their company (trademark) or if they do not have any patent applications for an invention.

There are two sides to intellectual property – your side and some else’s. Your company may not have a lot of intellectual property, perhaps just your company name (trademark) but other people have plenty of intellectual property and if you accidentally and unknowingly violate their intellectual property, you could find yourself in court, facing a very expensive court battle.

Who’s intellectual property do you need to watch out for in order to try and stay out of trouble?

your competitors

your vendors (especially software & other technical providers)

Your company is more likely to catch a competitor’s or vendor’s eye and they may perceive your actions as threatening if they have intellectual property protection in the areas you are working in.

We can help with you protect your ideas. No Hype. Just Help – call 303.522.4740 or email projectperfectnow@gmail.com for more information.

Test Your Business or Website – Are You Invisible?

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:29:58 +0000

The BIGGEST Loss for a Business, Cause, or Artist is to be invisible online.

Internet marketing is practically free. The costs are drastically lower than other marketing venues..

Take this test.

Go to your favorite search engine. Type in the name of your business (or your own name if you are a writer or artist). Do not put quotes around the name. Just type in the name and hit enter. What comes up? Do you?

This is how people try to search for you. They do not dig around on their desk looking for your business card, they just enter your name into the search field and hit click. If they can’t find you then they will probably be tempted to go with someone else who comes up in the search field.

Solving this problem, turning an invisible company into a visible one is what I am an expert at. Yes, some fields are competitive. I am not saying I can get your search engine rankings higher than Wikipedia, Web MD, or IMBd, or other web conglomerates, but I specialize in helping companies be visible.

Quality Articles Can Give Your Business/Name Exposure Online

This means more customers can find you which can mean more sales, which can mean that vacation in Hawaii just got a little bit closer to reality.

Call or email today to see how I can help. No Hype – Just Help! 303-522-4740 or projectperfectnow@gmail.com

Blogging Jibberish, Say What?

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:06:29 +0000

“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.” – writer Alice Kahn

Blogging language and social network language (Web 2.0), sounds like gibberish.

It is a perfect example of really smart people entertaining themselves through vocabulary. There is no reason to be intimidated; however, this list of vocabulary for blogging and Web 2.0 marketing is for beginners.

Blogging

A journal type website interface. Do not need to have a complete article or essay. Can allow others to comment on what you write and you can also set up the blog so that others can subscribe to your blog.

HTML

Code used to format websites, webpages. You do not have to know HTML to use the software on most sites.

Hyperlink

An underlined or “live” word or series of words that is used to transport the reader to a new page when they click on it.

Keywords

The words a person uses to search in a search engine.

Link Swap

Two websites agree to exchange “links” which was a technique to improve search engine results. The idea is that search engines think your site is popular if a lot of other sites “recommend” or host a link to your site. New data suggests that reciprocal links, or link swaps negate each other because the search engine companies understand that people were abusing this practice. However, large websites/directories that link to your site still seem to be an important factor to receive high search engine results. For example, your link from Myspace.com will show up very high in search engine results.

Organic Search Results

Non-paid (called sponsored) links in a search engine search. They are the natural results that are supposed to be relevant to the keywords used for the search engine search.

Ping Your Blog

Update your blog’s latest entries to sites that track blog entries. Some services offer automatic services and some you must do manually. This is an important step in blog marketing.

Reciprocal Links

See “link swap”

RSS Feed

An automatic delivery system that uses codes and subscriptions to deliver the latest news, blogs, etc. directly to your own computer. The blog you create can be delivered through a normal URL web address or through an RSS feed.

Site Description

Keyword rich descriptions about your blog or web page. Readers and search engines robots or spiders look at this information to find out what your web page is about.

Social Networking

Website communities like myspace, youtube, etc. that encourage networking people based on mutual interests. There is a movement to encourage individual website users to combine the features of each site together onto one page to serve almost like a resource page. These sites are rewarded with higher search results both within the website itself and in search engine search results. Sites like Squidoo are examples of internet social networking.

Spiders

A robotic path search engines use to “read” your webpages and keep the search engine results current. A spider or robot travels along hyperlinks on each web page.

Sponsored Ads in Search Engine Results

Paid ad listings on search engine results. Companies can bid and buy “real estate” space for particular keywords in particular geographic locations.

Tags

Another word for keywords. Many social networking sites call them tags instead of keywords. Tags are how people find you on the internet so be sure to use words that seem logical and that others would probably use in their own searches.

URL

The web address for your blog, or any webpage. Each webpage in the word has its own unique URL.

Weblog

See “blogging”

Widgets

HTML code social networking sites use to automatically place information or “buttons” on your blog. Select the widget then select the type of blog software you are using and the internet will take care of the rest.

Wikizines

Mini magazines are specific topics. Google related companies seem to be fond of this word (like Zimbio). You can start your own wikizine or contribute your blog entries to someone else’s. A good opportunity to create a hub of information if you have a particular subject you are interested in writing about.

Marketing Strategy Consultations Using a Blog

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:23:09 +0000

Do you feel like you are spending too much time writing in your blog?

Do you have a blog but you don’t think it is helping you in search engine rankings and you do not know if it is increasing your sales?

I’ve developed an efficient way to utilize a blog and online social marketing. While I use these tools to increase my online marketing exposure, I realize that there are pitfalls with these applications.

I would like to help you stop wasting time and spinning your wheels by understanding a little understood philosophy on Web 2.0 and blog utilization.

During my Blog Marketing Consultation, we will review your blog for content and effectiveness. I will share my time-saving tips with you which will make your blog work for you instead of you working for your blog.
If this sounds like a service you are willing to try then please call me at 303.522.4740 to begin your free consultation. You may also email me at projectperfectnow@gmail.com.