June, 2013 | BizSieve.com

Brand Strategy: What It Is and Why Your Business Can’t Afford to Go Without One

Simply defined, brand strategy entails everything that goes into communicating and delivering your brand and your company’s message. Two things go into strong branding: consistency and strategy. Think about Sprite versus lemon-lime soda. Because people are exposed more to the brand, Sprite, they find it intrinsically more valuable. Other ways to build value into your brand is by associating some emotion or persons with the brand. For example, makeup ads regularly use actresses to advertise their products. So how do you develop a brand strategy? Where do you even start?

Answer Some Basic Questions

Before you start figuring out how to represent your brand or how to market your brand, you have to determine what your company stands for. How do the services and features of your products appeal to or benefit your prospective clients? You need to determine how you are unique from your competitors, because that will be an important consideration in how you sell yourself. What do customers already think of your business? How does what customers believe relate to what you want them to think of your business? For example, consider the car manufacturer, KIA. At first, customers saw KIA as nothing more than an economy car. KIA responded to customer belief by launching an ad campaign that featured KIA as a car associated with a luxury lifestyle. They addressed a customer belief by shifting their ad themes.

Fabricate the Definition

Once you’ve defined your brand, your job is to put it into material form. You need a good logo and good key words that you can use as catchphrases you want associated with your brand. Even on your blog, make sure that your brand is coming through. Forbes.com uses Warby Parker’s blog tagline as an example: “Musings, inspirations, and fun stuff from your friends at Warby Parker.” The tagline shows their fun and creative spirit, which is part of their brand.

Once you have your brand keywords, teach them to your employees. Make sure they are constantly using those words in order to create a cohesive vision of what your company is. Integrate your brand into everything that your business does. Include it on what employees wear; include it on e-mails; include it on all literature created for the business. In short, make sure that your logo gets out there. A logo needs to be recognizable.

Next time you think that branding doesn’t matter if you have a good product, check out the difference between Coca-Cola’s product sales and the generic brand sitting next to it in the grocery store. It’s not enough to offer a good product or service anymore. Clients are drawn to brands they understand, relate to, and desire. Determine your mission statement and turn that into a provocative logo and appealing catchphrase. And that’s not enough. Make sure that you incorporate your brand into every single aspect of your business.

About the Author: Susan Braud writes for several online colleges that offer MBA’s. Check out Best Online MBA.net and mba rankings.net for more information.

Disabled Access Considerations When Moving Your Business To The High Street

These days, thanks to modern technology, many businesses start their lives online. It is a good way of keeping costs down while the business becomes established. As it grows over time the natural move is to have permanent headquarters or a retail outlet that is physical rather than digital.

As online entrepreneurs know one area that is now under UK law is ensuring the website is disabled access friendly. If the site isn’t accessible your business could face legal action and be sued for discrimination. As you move into permanent premises you must also carry over the accessibility and this is an area you can work on right from the moment you get handed the keys.

A Large Task But It Doesn’t Have to be Daunting

Now you may feel a little out of your depth when it comes to improving the accessibility of your new premises. However, just because the task may seem huge it doesn’t mean that you can afford to ignore it or push it to the back of your to do list. By failing to conduct suitable changes to make the property more accessible you leave yourself open to being sued by employees or customers that feel you are discriminating against them.

There is help available out there so don’t go thinking that you need to read the Equality Act inside and out. The experts will be able to give you the information you need based upon your business, the size and location of your premises and be able to use your budget as a guideline to work out what is affordable. If it is impossible to make dramatic changes all at once the expert may be able to help you by establishing what needs to be worked on as a priority, how you can save money, where to source affordable goods, equipment and labour and what could wait a bit longer.

Doing Renovations Before You Move In?

When you undertake any renovations you must consider the disability access. This is why working with an access consultant right from the get go will benefit you greatly. You can hire them for very little money and their services can help you in many different areas. Make sure that you hire a consultant who is more than happy to discuss any necessary work with your architects and designers. This saves time and money by reducing the need to redo work later for additional costs.

You may have to request planning permission and this can be a long and drawn out process. After months of waiting many applicants have their plans turned down, another frustration. Access consultants are able to help you through the planning permission process. Showing that some parts of the design are required to provide a much better service for the community, by allowing improved access, can help to push through successful planning applications. So when you come to looking for a professional expert to help you, ask them whether they would be happy to help you in this area should it be necessary in the future.

Thinking of the Needs of Everyone

As a modern online business you made sure that your website was user friendly. Now as you have grown and decided to open a physical business you must carry those work ethics and legal responsibilities over to your new premises. Use the consultants to conduct an audit and they will be able to help you spot urgent and required improvements that will allow everyone to make use of your services successfully. By doing so you ensure that your doors are open to everyone and you can become a strong player in your community and your industry by refusing to discriminate.

About the Author: Aki Hashimoto is a business consultant and mentor. She has found that using access audits is the simplest way to overcome the legal documentation and start making steps to create improved disability access.

Old Tricks And Traditional Skills Still Vital To 21st Businesses

You would think, with this being the bright shiny and thoroughly wired 21st Century that the more traditional skills associated with the secretarial world would be thoroughly redundant. However, despite the fact that our lives are dominated by computers, tablets, Smartphone’s and a whole range of peripherals and apps that can be added to them, some traditional skills remain in high demand. From copy typing to audio typing and transcription services, traditional skills still remain in high demand. The latter, in particular, remains a crucial part of content creation for many industries, from humble minute taking to full scale TV transcriptions. Transcription services today are also an important feature for conference organisers and transcription offers a number of significant advantages.

The Bigger Picture

Recording and filming any event was, in the past, a difficult task which required a significant number of professionals and an equally large (and cumbersome) amount of equipment. Today any event, from a pop concert to conference can be (and is) recorded on a phone and the film is often uploaded to the web in seconds. However convenient this may seem it does not replace the need for accurate and professional filming or transcription. In large conference centres where a number of speakers may be talking at one time, or where question and answer sessions are part of the presentation, both professional filming and transcription still have significant advantages. Unlike audio or video files, fully transcribed events offer users a fast look up for significant points and sections. With transcriptions now available digitally, the simple use of the find function can take you straight to the point in a way that no amount of film footage can.

Old Skills and New Methods Combined

Post event publications of transcribed documents have a number of advantages. In terms of web publication, transcription offers a handy SEO tool. The broader the scope of your written content, the more opportunities for lead generation via search engines; again in a way which means that video content alone will not be as beneficial. Also the more traditional print press, while happy to receive audio or visual material, will often rely on transcribed versions of a presentation or conference to make their own jobs easier and making things easy for journalists means they’ll be able to find time to fit your piece in.

Applied Technology

Although transcription is an old skill, long pre-dating the internet, the technological revolution has made the process of finding reliable transcription services easier and more affordable. Most transcription services operate online and transcribers themselves can be located just about anywhere in the world. This has driven down the costs of professional transcription and can open up opportunities for these services. This means any content you need to promote in overseas markets can be quickly made available in a variety of formats or languages. The process is speeded up to almost light speed thanks to modern technology. This gives modern businesses a greater and faster reach than in the past, making it possible for firms of any size to go global.

New Opportunities

While transcription services offer advantages to a range of industries they offer specific advantages to conference organisers in any field. Post conference transcripts can be marketed alongside podcasts as part of a full package for both attendees needing to refer back to the conference and as a valuable product in their own right to sell to a wider market. Working with a professional and established provider makes sense in this context and planning ahead will also make the process run more smoothly. Contacting a transcription service provider well in advance and involving them in the planning of the event will help you both to create a package that suits your needs which will result in a quick and efficient turnaround on the end product. Despite the massive advances in technology and the opportunities that it has opened up for business it seems that some of the oldest tricks are still the best.

About the Author: Pipa Rose is a freelance writer who has a keen interest in business. While technology has made business presentations and conferences far easier and more accessible for many, she believes that many traditional skills such as transcription services still play a crucial role.

5 Great Ways To Skive Off Work Without Getting In Trouble

It’s hard getting up every day and driving into the office. You have to wait in traffic and it’s stressful. You then have to sit at the same desk doing the same thing over and over again. I bet you look at the clock on a constant basis because you want to go home, but it doesn’t make the time pass any quicker. It will actually slow it down and your day will feel like it’s going on forever, but you can’t help yourself. When will the day ever end?

Maybe you don’t need to look at the clock every 5 minutes. You’re in work until it’s time to go home whether you like it or not. I would tell you to start enjoying your work more, but it might not be possible. If all else fails you should learn to skive because it will give you a little break every once in a while. You need to be sneaky about it to avoid getting in trouble, so we’re going to look at a few ways to do it so your boss will never know.

Put a photo on top of your computer

If you have a photo inside a glass frame on the top of your computer you will be able to see if someone is coming. You can play on the Internet and if anyone walks behind you it will take a few seconds to switch back over to your work. Just make sure your employer doesn’t have any employee monitoring software installed on the computer because they will know exactly what you’re doing. Remember that work still needs to be done, so don’t get carried away.

Finish your work quicker

You might only have a certain amount of jobs to get done in a day. If you finished them quicker you would have the rest of the day to chill out. It’s obviously nice to help your workmates who are a little slower than you, but if they never offer to help you it’s possible you might not want to help them. You don’t necessarily have to sit doing nothing until the end of the day. You could look over your work to make sure it’s perfect, but at least you won’t need to start a new task from scratch.

Carry something about with you

Some of your friends might work in different departments and you won’t be able to email them if there is monitoring software installed on your computer, but you can go and speak to them. Just walk about with paper in your hand and you will look like you’re doing something important. You obviously won’t be able to spend ages away from your desk, but you will get a nice 5 minute break on occasion.

A fake emergency

Later on in the afternoon you might have had enough. You can’t take the stress anymore and you need to get out of there, but how can you do it without raising any suspicions? Text one of your friends and ask them to call your work phone. Pretend they have given you some bad news and it will give you a good excuse as to why you need to leave early. Your child might have been involved in an imaginary fight at school and you need to go pick them up.

Sit back and relax

Whenever you are in a meeting it’s a great time to sit back and relax. This only applies if you’re not the one doing all the speaking. You can just listen to what people are saying, but don’t get too involved in the discussion. Don’t ask any questions at the end and it means the whole meeting will have passed without you doing anything. If someone asks you a question you can just give them a quick reply and they will hopefully move on.

About the Author: James Kirby is an employee of WellResearchedReviews.com and he is a blogging enthusiast. He likes to write on a wide range of topics that interest him, be it lifestyle, technology or his personal experiences.