So business is tough!!

How many Touch Points are you utilizing to market your business?

Selling yourself, your product or your services, can be uncomfortable for some people, but for small and mid size businesses Marketing and Branding is one of the most important activities you will engage in as an entrepreneur.

Effective marketing and branding can make you seem as big, or as small as you like, and internet technology can help place you at the top of your market. That said a poor marketing and branding campaign can have just the opposite effects.

Many marketing and branding efforts are unsuccessful because they fail to incorporate all the various Touch Points of their business.

Some of you may not have heard of the term Touch Point. A Touch Point is any way that your consumer, or end-user, comes in contact with your business. It could be a webpage, a newsletter, a flyer, or from networking, to utilising the latest internet technologies to reach new audiences.

Marketing theory says that it takes, on average, between 5 to 7 exposures to your marketing materials, or Touch Points, before someone will even consider making contact with you.

There are three key points to remember when marketing and branding your business with your Touch Points - Reach, Frequency and Impact.

Reach means getting through to the right audience, in the right circumstances and at the right time. Where is your ideal customer likely to be (hang out, read, listen, watch) when they run across your marketing message?

Frequency is about giving the audience a reasonable chance for the message to sink in amid the clamour of everyday life. How many exposures or Touch Points to your information does your ideal customer need?

Impact speaks for itself, your message must have impact to cut through the numerous distractions and it must be presented at the most appropriate time. What message would your ideal customer be likely to respond to?

For 2009 ensure to check that every Touch Point for your business is utilized for maximum Reach, Frequency and Impact.

It’s a great way to ensure you maximize your marketing and branding efforts.
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Do you want to grow and market your business — even in a down economy?

Click here for more information
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Donald Robichaud
President
FloodLight Consulting
250-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

As posted on Castanet:





Marketing Coach Kelowna - Sales Coach Kelowna - Branding Coach Kelowna

Key things to remember this holiday season!

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Key things to remember this holiday season!

This past year I read some information that I would like to share with you this holiday season. The message speaks to the abundance that we have in our present lives.

Every day we deal with many pressing situations in our lives and for many of us we need to reflect on how thankful we should truly be.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthiest people.
If you woke up this morning with good health you are more fortunate than the million people who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of war unfolding all around you, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a place of worship, without fear of persecution, harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

At this time of the year it’s important to remember how fortunate we are to live in such a great country as Canada. Take time to remember all the things that allow us to prosper in our daily lives.

I wish you all the best this holiday season, and may this New Year bring you many rewards.

Happy Holidays from FloodLight Consulting,

Donald Robichaud
President
FloodLight Consulting
250-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

Increase your Productivity - Sales Consulting - Kelowna

In the last couple of weeks I have been reading many books and one in particular has struck a key note with me.

Daily I deal with clients and friends who are slaves to technology, specifically emails, cell phones and their own struggles with time management.

The book "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss is about how to radically change your lifestyle or go from 'living to work' to working (as little, but effectively as possible) and making life as big as possible.

Here is a summary from chapter seven (Interrupting Interruption and the Art of Refusal) that is focused on step-changing one's personal efficiency. With these tips you can get 15 times as much done in a normal workweek".

The key is to do things quicker, faster better and to enjoy the things that are really important in life. Interested?

Donald Robichaud- FloodLight Consulting

Eliminate time wasters:

• Severely limit e-mail consumption and production
• Turn off the audible alert if you're on Outlook or a similar program
• Turn off automatic send/receive (which delivers e-mail to your in-box as soon as someone sends them)
• Check e-mail only twice per day, once at 12:00 noon and again at 4:00 pm.
• Never check e-mail first thing in the morning…instead, complete your most important task before 11:00 am to avoid using lunch or reading e-mail as a postponement excuse.
• Before implementing the twice-daily routine, you must create an e-mail auto-response that will train your boss, co-workers, suppliers, and clients to be more effective


• Suggested e-mail template: "Due to high workload, I am currently checking and responding to e-mail twice daily at 12:00 noon (PST) and 4:00 pm (PST). If you require urgent assistance that cannot wait until either 12:00 or 4:00, please contact me via telephone @ 626-321-4107. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness. It helps me to accomplish more and serve you better."
• Do the same type of template with your phone voicemail.

Create systems to limit your availability via e-mail and phone and deflect inappropriate contact:

• Get the auto-response and voicemail script in place now, and master the various methods of evasion.
• Replace the habit of greeting "How are you?" with "How can I help you?"
• Get specific and remember – no stories
• Focus on immediate actions and practice interruption-killing policies.
• Batch activities to limit set-up cost. Where in my life can I create a routine in my life by batching?
• What tasks (like laundry, groceries, mail, payments, sales reporting, etc.) can I allot to specific times each day, week, or month so I don't squander time repeating them more often than necessary?

Need Help?

FloodLight Consulting provides objective feedback about what you need to do to get your business on track. A healthy business coach relationship provides you honest ongoing assessment of your Business Development Activities, assisting you to focus your efforts in the areas that will have the greatest long term positive impact on your business and your life. If you need help creating your goal-plan Click here!!

Donald Robichaud - FloodLight Consulting

http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/

http://www.donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

Sales Coach Kelowna

Sales Consulting - Kelowna - Networking important to business development

This is a great article about the value of joining a Networking group posted by by Lori Welbourne of The Capital News.

Donald Robichaud
FloodLight Consulting

Three years and four months ago, I was invited by one of my clients to go to a meeting hosted by Okanagan Business to Business, a local networking group he belonged to.

He told me the group met every Wednesday morning at the Holiday Inn in Westbank at 7:00 a.m.

I immediately disliked the idea and explained that I was too busy at that time of the day getting my kids ready and off to daycare. Not giving up so easily, he suggested that I change my routine for one day so I could attend a meeting to see what it was like.

Being the people-pleaser that I am, I reluctantly agreed.

That Wednesday my husband tended to the children while I had the luxury of getting just myself ready for the day. And as relaxing as that felt, I still managed to arrive at the meeting five minutes late.

Sheepishly taking a seat in a room full of strangers, I observed something I had never seen before, an organized group of business people, all there for the sole purpose of helping one another out through networking and referrals.

It was the group’s first meeting back after a summer break, so there were only about 15 people there. But it seemed like twice that many when it was my turn to get up and introduce myself.

As much as I disliked public speaking, to my surprise, it also felt a little exciting to be out of my comfort zone like that.

But what I liked most about the experience was the obvious opportunity to build relationships with other business people in the community, perhaps some people that I wouldn’t normally have contact with.

Being an advertising consultant with this newspaper, I meet a lot of people and my job is to help them with the growth of their businesses. So I guess it’s no surprise I would be attracted to an organization that nurtured that.

The famous American author Napoleon Hill once wrote: “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” That quote always made sense to me, like the old saying: what goes around comes around.

Clearly, that’s what this group was all about.

I also saw potential for it’s growth and thought of at least a dozen people who would appreciate this kind of opportunity to build relationships with other like-minded individuals.

That night I went home and asked my husband if he could take care of our kids every Wednesday if I was accepted as a member to the group. He agreed and I applied for membership the next week.

After the strong connections I made in the initial few months as a new member, I felt grateful to the group and wanted to give back. So I allowed my name to stand for an executive role for the following year.

A volunteer position, it proved to be much more work than I anticipated.

But like anything in life, what you put into it is what you get back. And as much work as I’ve put into the Okanagan Business to Business, I’ve gotten so much more in return.

It has opened doors and created opportunities that would be impossible for me to fully describe in a column as short as this one.

After serving two years on its executive, I had the honour of serving as its chairperson this past year.

After an incredibly rocky start and countless hours of communicating with one another about the direction we wanted our group to move in, we finally found a unified focus.

Through adversity we have become a much stronger team, made up of 54 local business people who share the same goal of helping one another succeed in business, and in life.

Last Wednesday was my final meeting as chairperson.

Standing in front of this group of dynamic businesspeople whom I admire and respect, I felt so much gratitude for the experiences they gave me, the life lessons I have learned and the strong relationships I have developed.

If there’s a business person out there who doesn’t belong to a networking organization of some kind, I would encourage them to find one that suits them, and then join it.

Because no matter how successful you aspire to be, or already feel you are, in business, and in life, you can never have too many good people on your side.
Marketing Coach Kelowna - Sales Coach Kelowna - Branding Coach Kelowna

Internet Consulting - What Makes for a Good Blog?

I just read a great article on "What makes for a Good Blog" written by Merlin Mann. He is a regular on the CBC show Spark hosted by Nora Young. Donald Robichaud / FloodLight Consulting

What is a blog? Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online information. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, websites and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art, photographs, videos which are part of a wider network of internet social media.

What makes for a good blog?

Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute — even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?

Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?

Good blogs are the product of “Attention times Interest.” A blog shows me where someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a story here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their specific trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.

Good blog posts are made of paragraphs. Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.

Good “non-post” blogs have style and curation. Some of the best blogs use unusual formats, employ only photos and video, or utilize the list format to artistic effect. I regret there are not more blogs that see format as the container for creativity — rather than an excuse to write less or link without context more.

Good blogs are weird. Blogs make fart noises and occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication.

Good blogs make you want to start your own blog. At some point, everyone wants to kill the Buddha and make their own obsessions the focus. This is good. It means you care.

Good blogs try. I’ve come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder. Then, there’s the other 98%. They’re still eating the free continental breakfast over at FriendFeed. A good blog is written by a blogger who thinks longer, works harder, and obsesses more. Ultimately, a good blogger tries. That’s why “good” is getting rare.

Good blogs know when to break their own rules. Duh. I made a list, didn’t I? Yes. I did. Big fan. And, yeah, you should disagree with potentially all of this. It’s because I have an opinion, and so do you. It’s why you probably have a blog.See? The system works.

David Mann @ http://www.43folders.com/2008/08/19/good-blogs
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Donald Robichaud
President FloodLight Consulting
250-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/
Marketing Coach Kelowna - Sales Coach Kelowna - Branding Coach Kelowna

What is your Obama marketing strategy 2009?

What is your strategy for using the internet to raise your profile in 2009?

Last night as I was waiting to listen to the speech of President elect Barack Obama, I received an email from Barack Obama about half an hour before his speech:

Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2008 11:38 pm
To: robichaud_don
From: info@barackobama.com
Subject: How this happened

Donald --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history. And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

Barack Obama’s campaign has redefined how to use modern technology to elect an official. They have promoted awareness and raised funds for their party. They have leveraged the internet to promote their cause on their organization’s website; Improved communication with their faithful, repurposed all speeches on YouTube and even directed campaign supporters with GPS to knock on doors for their target market.

Along the way they amassed over 640 Million dollars through donations over the internet. Barack Obama’s campaign leveraged the internet to create awareness of their brand, Barack Obama.

So as you assess 2008 and look ahead to 2009, what is your strategy for using the internet to raise your profile, market your services and increase sales?

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If you need help creating your Marketing strategy for 2009 Click here!!
-

Donald Robichaud

President FloodLight Consulting

250-768-9415

http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/

http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/

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search engine optimization SEO kelowna -Marketing Coach Kelowna - Sales Coach Kelowna - Branding Coach Kelowna

FloodLight - Marketing Consulting - Overview

search engine optimization SEO kelowna

Effective marketing is the key to a successful business operation in Kelowna, and when it comes to marketing many business owners are at a loss as to where to begin—this is where a marketing consultant proves helpful. More and more business owners are relying on marketing consultants to help their businesses establish a public image and to advertise their business’s products or services. Why are business owners turning to the creative talents of marketing consultants to market their businesses in Kelowna? Is correct marketing that important to a business’s success? Indeed; not only is marketing important to a business’s success, correct marketing: a strategy that grabs the attention of the public is critical, actually vital to the success of any business.

A marketing consultant is an individual or a company that knows precisely what actions are needed to advertise a Kelowna business’s services and/or products. Marketing consultants are trained professionals and they can literally help a business owner get their business off the ground and keep it there. Rather than rely on ineffective self-employed marketing strategies, many business owners choose to hire a trained professional to handle all of their necessary marketing. The initial investment proves ideal: a marketing consultant can handle every business marketing need and leave the business owner to tend to other needs of the business.

Marketing consultants are effective advertising solutions. A marketing consultant can be relied on to carry out every measure necessary to get a business recognized and remembered by the public. Meanwhile, if problems arise, a marketing consultant is trained to deal with them in an effective and timely fashion. What’s more, the business owner will not be caught up in the myriad marketing difficulties a business faces because the hired consultant is ever ready to deal with every situation that arises. A successful marketing campaign is one that must be appropriately planned and implemented, and a marketing consultant knows when to act accordingly.

See full article - Click Here

Donald Robichaud - FloodLight Consulting