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Dual-Action Branding: 5 Branding Materials That Do Double Duty!

It is common to think brands can be boiled down to color schemes and logos. But, they are so much more. Your brand is your business. It is your public face. It is your constant relationship builder. It communicates who you are, what you do and what you stand for.

Most likely, you have spent a lot of time, energy and money developing a strong brand. Why? Because it is the message you want to communicate with clients and prospects.

While you certainly want to use this branding as the foundation for designing and decorating your business’ location, website and graphics, why stop there? By incorporating your brand into all of your business’ materials, you can maximize your return on investment (ROI). This is especially true when you utilize branded materials.

What are Branded Materials?

Branded materials are any item (physical or digital) which is decorated with your company logo (aka branding stamp). While some of these, such as a sign above your door, simply mark your location, others are products your business uses on a regular basis.

By branding products you, your employees, and your customers will use anyways, you can:

Instantly create additional advertising for your business
Enjoy lower costs for materials (when you buy in bulk)
Develop brand recognition among consumers
Foster strong customer relationships linked closely to your brand

Brand Products that do Double Duty

Business cards are wonderful, and stationery is great. Both of these necessary business items should be branded. But, both of these items really only serve one purpose – sending/handing to a client or prospect.

These five branded materials provide more than one function for your business:

1. Pens

No matter how techy your business is, it’s nearly impossible to function without pens. Sometimes, you just need to write things down on real paper. Whether you and your employees are in the office or on the go, branded pens are a great way to continue sharing your message. They also make great, lasting, leave-behinds as people are likely to keep using them for some time.

2. Coasters

Coasters are one of those small, branded touches which help your business continue to communicate its brand while also keeping your space clean.

3. Cups, Mugs and To-Go Coffee Cups

Nearly everyone drinks coffee or some sort of warm beverage. Cups, mugs and to-go coffee cups are an excellent way to keep your brand visibly in your employees’ hands at all times.

4. iPhone Cases

Even though pens are a necessity, the digital, smartphone age is taking over. Going somewhere without your handheld device is often compared to walking around in your birthday suit. Supplying your employees with an attractively branded iPhone case will help you stay front and center. (Added love goes to the boss who also supplies their employees with an iPhone.)

5. Printed Shade Cloths

Shade cloths help control dust and debris in a variety of situations such as construction sites, large events and outdoor lunch gatherings. They can be attached to fending, scaffolding and buildings. While plain shade cloths can be attained, branded shade cloths maximize your business’ exposure and give it a professional look and feel.

About the Author: Nicole is a branding and marketing expert, and has been helping businesses brand their companies for years. In her experience, Site Shade offers the best printed shades she could find.

Growing Small Business with Leadership Skills

When you are in a small business, every success you get to taste the flavour of, owes a lot to the strong team and the team leader that contribute to the overall success of your business. It is a well known fact that the effective team leaders are largely responsible for digging out the best from their team and out of their colleagues. They play a crucial role in accomplishing the goals that are being set for the different groups working in the team or the organisation. There’s certainly more to the team building and the management that the entrepreneurs and the business leaders are concerned with. A good team work always helps the leaders get to achieve the pinnacle of success and often stay at the top of the game.

business leadership — photo credit: pedrosimoes7 via photopin cc

What really makes a good team stand against all the competition that the business faces in the market? Here we are summarising the outlook behind the entire idea with 4 major points that act as key elements in building the successful business teams. Let’s take a look:

1# Focus

It sounds as simple as it is spelled but it is as easy to lose as it sounds like it won’t. There are millions of questions that appear so easy to talk about and answer such as “what are we doing here?”, “what is our goal?”, etc. It is important for the business entrepreneurs to first define a goal and then measure the impact that all those business decisions are going to make. Do they help the team achieve the goals? Do they bring you any close to the dreams? Are you working in the direction of accomplishing it? If you have logical answers to these, you are probably on the right track. Also, focus on the efforts of your team, doesn’t matter whether you are expanding or simply focussing on growth.

2# Unity

Ensuring that everyone is treated on the same platform makes way for promotion of a no-discrimination policy. This will require you to communicate on a regular basis and ensure that all the team members are aware of their roles and the tasks they are expected to perform. This gives rise to scope for promotion of team harmony and also ensures that the duplication of tasks and efforts is prevented. This is also important while you are hiring new team members; find out whether they fit into the entire chemistry of the team before they are taken in. It’s the unity in the team that not only assures the company of even a most unexpected success but also plays an instrumental role in binding the teams together.

3# Direction

If your ultimate destination is success, make sure that your team knows how they are going to achieve it. Assign them tasks that push you step by step towards the final goal; you will need to support the team wherever they need your assistance. Encourage and assist them and this is exactly where your expertise lies. If you can’t lead your team, there may be people questioning you on your leadership skills and that’s where you seem to fail. Set the direction and help your team walk on the right path. You lead them and they believe in you! That’s leadership in plain and simple way.

4# Excellence

Achieving excellence in all the tasks you do makes sure that you are determined to achieve goals. Good teams have a habit of pushing their bars of excellence a little more each time and with each achievement. Set high standards for your team and it will be fun taking up challenges for achieving the goal. Now this does not mean that you will only need to evaluate the success of your team and its progress; seek opinion from other groups, organisations and business leaders that have been inspiring you.

Finally, it’s good to remember that achieving success does not really close the book anyway. If you have succeeded as a leader then definitely there still remains to be a lot of room for improvement simply because nothing is perfect and nothing is stagnant either. Always maintain your zeal for keeping a lookout for that extra bit that can do wonders for your team and ultimately for your business. Keep striving for excellence and promote that essential bit of excellence and focus on your efforts and all that you can do to gain an edge over your competitors.

About the Author: Colin Boykins is a blogger and social media addict. He is currently associated with the UK’s most trusted supplier of security posts – Parking-Posts.com.

From Arts To War Games, It is Time to Get Excited About Team Building!

What’s missing from team building today? Imagination! Don’t book your local sports hall and hire a load of gym mats or make chairs out of newspapers, do something exciting! Bring some thrill to your workplace and get the office enthusiasm kicked up a notch.

creative team building — photo credit: tim caynes via photopin cc

Adrenaline Pumping Extreme Sports

Give your team something to plan for and look forward to with a foray into extreme living. A sponsored event is a great way to get everyone in the office involved and invested and it’s a great way to raise money. Get a few enthusiastic go-getters together and send them off on a hike up a mountain or running a marathon, it’ll bring them together and anyone who doesn’t want to be involved can fundraise and sponsor. Give your staff an incentive: sponsor the athletes and all funds go towards that stylish new coffee machine in the staff room or a posh meal out for the whole team; alternatively, for the philanthropists among you, get everyone to vote for their favourite charities and send the money raised to a worthy cause.

Release Frustrations With War Games

Now we’re talking, they’ll be no groans in the office on team building Saturday if you’re taking them out for an afternoon of paintball! Pick their teams at random and get people mixing, the atmosphere gets very real very fast so they’ll have to start trusting each other and working as a unit to ‘survive’. Paintballing has always been popular and your team can let their individual skills shine, you’ll have strategists, defenders and people with a soldier’s spirit who will take the lead and bring their side to victory! At the end of the day get everyone together down at the pub for a wind down and a relax after a hard day in the trenches.

Having Fun And Keeping Costs Low

We all know it’s a recession but team building doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, gather everyone together in the boardroom and get them laughing and talking.

Little white lies: this is a great way to get everyone to know each other a little bit better. Have everyone in the office write down 2 interesting facts or stories about themselves and 1 lie, go around the room and have everyone read out their list of statements while the rest of the team votes on which one is the lie, the person who’s lie gets the fewest votes wins! Everyone learns a bit more about each other but do try to keep the statements office appropriate!

Minefield: give your team some time away from their desks for free. Place random objects around a field or car park, use: furniture, bags of rubbish, office plants, other employees, anything you can think of. The objects act as mines and your staff are put in pairs, put one in a blindfold and get their partner to direct them across the minefield without being blown up (it’s harder than it sounds).

Get Arty In The Office

For a unique team building experience that will stand the test of time have your team channel their inner Picasso. Get your team to express themselves by having them paint a group mural, you can split them into groups and have them each design a section or do it all together and once it’s done why not hang it in reception? Let your team de-stress and get messy! You can really find your own style, if you run a library why not paint Dickens? Or if you work in a city then get into some graffiti. Whatever your inspiration art is a great way to bring people together, whatever our differences we all appreciate the process of creating something. The beauty of it is everyone can get involved; whatever your age or ability no one is hindered and what you can do with art is limitless so you can really let your team run wild, you’ll learn more about each other, have fun together and create something you can enjoy every single day.

Team building should be something we look forward to, it should be like office Christmas, not something we dread. Do something special on your next team building excursion and do more than boost morale, make memories.

About the Author: This post was written by Emma Smith on behalf of Graffiti Pro’s, Graffiti artisis who want to bring some excitment back to team building!

Why Creating Your Own Corporate Training Videos Can Save Time And Money

Keeping your staff trained can be a very demanding thing. Whether it is a new piece of software you are rolling out or some new equipment, or training on a new policy, finding the resources to do it and then scheduling training for everyone who needs it can be a mammoth project. Even for a relatively small business, it will result in a costly lack of productivity while everybody sits through the training and picks up the new skills, and then of course there are the logistical demands of finding a place suitable to deliver it all.

If you have a training need in your company, there is often a lot to be gained by producing a training video instead of delivering training in the usual, classroom style way. Here are some of the benefits to making a video to fill your training gap:

You Can Outsource Production

Even if the training is very specific to your company, there is no reason why you can’t hire a video production company to make it for you. This means that you don’t need to tie up your own resources more than necessary to get the training done. You can meet with a production company, explain your requirements and review and approve the script using far less of your own people’s time than devising a classroom training course, sorting out the logistics and scheduling and having one of your own people deliver it. Professional video production may not be as expensive as you might think, and if you balance out the cost in terms of man hours saved you will find it to be very cost effective if your demands aren’t too complex.

You Can Let Staff View It However They Want To

Some people learn faster than others, and by making the video available and mandatory, you can let people watch it more than once if they don’t pick up on the details the first time. This makes things a lot less stressful for staff who find it hard to keep up in classroom training courses and worry they won’t come away with enough knowledge, and will make it less frustrating for fast learners or those already familiar with the content as they won’t be held back by others asking for things to be explained again.

No Logistical Issues!

Simply tell staff that they have to watch the video at least once within a certain time frame and let them fit it into their own working day, at their own desks! No finding times that suit different groups, no looking for suitable meeting rooms that are free, and no breaking up people’s flow of work and reducing productivity. If you are worried about verifying that everyone actually has watched the video, there are ways of checking this when it is posted on your intranet. You can even have someone in your web team create a quick quiz people have to fill out at the end to prove they have learned the salient points from the film.

Corporate video production for training can be a real time and money saver, and can also be more appealing to trainees, so next time you are faced with a training need, consider it as an alternative to a major program of classroom sessions!

About the Author: Phil Raymonds, an online marketing professional, prefers using the latest software and medium to get his ideas across. He is passionate about video photography and editing.

Maintaining Company Culture Remotely

When you have employees working remotely from various different locations, it can be difficult to maintain a consistent company culture. Your company culture is comprised of how each person thinks, makes decisions, works, and communicates – and it can have important ramifications for how productive and satisfied your workers are.

You can maintain your company’s attitude and values remotely by recruiting the right people, communicating effectively, and promoting an inclusive atmosphere for both local and off-site workers.

culture management — photo credit: niels-mulder via photopin cc

Recruitment

Leading with your culture in your recruitment strategy can ensure that you hire remote workers who hold the same values, goals, work ethic, and attitude as the rest of your company. The more you can ensure that your new hires fit with your culture from the start, the more likely you’ll be able to continue promoting that culture in your relationship with both local and remote employees.

Your job listing have to convey not only the position and the requirements of the job, but also information about the company itself and its values. Use your job applicant recruiting software to post listings that sell your company and use language that is appropriate for your company culture.

Look for potential employees who have the right attitude for working from a distance. If you plan to give your remote workers free reign over their projects, look for candidates who excel at time management and self-motivation. Should you desire more day-to-day managerial control, find candidates who are excellent communicators and good at taking direction.

Open-ended interview questions that seek to determine what kind of work style and environment the candidate is most comfortable with. Whether the interview takes place in person, over the phone, or through your office’s video conferencing software, it is integral that you assess potential remote employees beyond a resume read-through.
Don’t neglect reference checks. Try to get a sense of what kind of values the candidate has and how well those fit with your company.

Communication

Communication is key in any business, but it is especially important in one that deals with a mobile or remote workforce. The more closely you communicate with your employees, the better you will be able to maintain the relationship according to your company’s culture and values.

Make sure your remote workers have the right communication skills. They should be comfortable using web conferencing, telephone, email, and social media to touch base with their managers.
Chat clients – whether cloud-based, located within the email client, or installed on the desktop – help employees communicate more efficiently. They can message their team members or managers instantly in order to ask a quick question or get into a lengthy discussion.

Inclusion

One of the dangers of hiring remote workers is their exclusion, due to location, from their coworkers and the rest of the company. You can increase the inclusiveness of your company by implementing an enterprise social network (known as “Facebook for business”).

Employees use the platform as a means of communication inside of and between different departments, helping them to align goals, increase productivity, and promote interdepartmental cooperation and collaboration. Since the discussion is all taking place on the web, it matters little whether the participants are located across the office or across the country.
Since all conversations are open, everyone can see what everyone else is working on. Coworkers can provide input and align their own work to fit better with company-wide efforts. Everyone –whether local or remote – feels more tied to the company, its goals, and its culture.

Although it may be difficult to promote your company culture with employees working remotely, the right strategy and tools can make it much easier. Work on hiring employees who have values that align with yours, communicate with them regularly in accordance with those values, and help them feel included with the rest of the company.

About the Author: Megan Webb-Morgan is a business blogger who focuses on startups and small businesses. She writes for lead-generation provider Resource Nation. You can find Resource Nation on Facebook and Twitter!