Getting Clutter Under Control

I have a lot of stuff-too much stuff from the looks of things around here. The books shelves are packed dangerously high and deep, and with a great deal more stuff than just books. Pictures and photos that range in dates from my parents’ childhood to the latest pics I got for Christmas from my brother and his wife and his two kids, looking way too cute. (It had to be photo-shopped, because they normally don’t look like cute like that!) But anyway, that is just a description of one of the many piles of stuff that festoons this place that I like to think of home, no matter how messy it is. It got me thinking though. When exactly is enough enough? When do you know when you have too much stuff? And on top of that what do you do with it when you realize it’s gotten to that level, and you actually have to do something about it? There are a few things I think are simple and easy signposts to recognize it’s time to downsize some of your stuff. Read on to learn more.

Taking a Good Look

If you clean and after you are done you still don’t have a lot of room to walk around, you might have too much stuff. If you find stuff that you haven’t seen in a few years and think I haven’t seen that in years! I was wondering what happened to that … regardless of what it is, you might have too much stuff. Take a look around and be really honest with yourself.

Decision Making Process

The hard part will be deciding what to keep and what to trash to gain control of the clutter. If your only problem is like mine, all those photos, garbage is usually the right decision. In the digital age there is almost no reason to keep photos like that. Old photos of Grandma as she came off of the Carpathia are another story entirely, but if you have questions about something and you aren’t sure you should keep it, that is a sign that it has outlived it’s usefulness, and that usually means the only correct answer is goodbye. If the furniture is worthless and beaten up and you can afford better stuff or it’s simply taking up space you want to use for something else, by all means, toss it.

Downsize

Now this is the hard part. You might really have to bite the bullet and get rid of stuff that you really love. Bite the bullet. Do it. If you do it fast it’ll be like a pulling a Band-Aid off of hairy skin. It will only sting for a second and then the pain is gone, especially if it’s something small like that clearly photo shopped pic of my brother’s kids. Trust me, they’ll take more pictures. They always take more pictures! 

Storage

But what if it’s something that you can actually use, and know you will want for later? Like furniture or that insanely large collection of sports plaques that your husband simply can’t bear to part with? You could go with self-storage. For a fairly small fee depending on the size you want, you can safely store the stuff that you actually need but don’t have room for. For less than one hundred dollars, you can usually get a space large enough for most anything.

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The branding behaviour of high-growth start-ups

The most powerful brands mean something to people; they have values and are emotionally attractive to their target audience

Examples of powerful brands include social photo-sharing site, Instagram, which sold to Facebook for $1bn aged after just 18 months. Or there’s the UK consumer brand, Ella’s Kitchen, which in eight years has grown to have a 20% share of the UK baby food market and a turnover of £100m.

The learnings are the same. These companies set out to create a new market or completely disrupt an old one. To do this you need to have a very clear idea of who you are and what you are doing, and this is all about branding.

Branding is often misconstrued to be the visual elements that represent your business. But to create effective brands, the real work starts long before the creative people are let loose with their colouring pencils.

Here are the five principles that create stand-out brands from day one:

Who are you? What do you stand for?

Your brand positioning is the essence of what you are about, and what you want others to see you as. It should concisely sum up your brand — without fussy words, lengthy sentences, or explanatory sub-headings, with language that emulates the impression you are trying to create. Crack this and your positioning builds to be emotive and more than the sum of its parts.

Paul Lindley, founder of Ella’s Kitchen, developed a brand positioning that effortlessly sums up his mission to revolutionise kids’ eating habits by making healthy food tasty and fun. This compelling positioning can be seen in the company’s tactile packaging, the naming of their products as ‘The Red One’ and ‘The Yellow One’ and in their innovative approach.

Mean something to someone but not everyone

Never fall into the trap of trying to be liked by everyone. Head down this road (and many do) and you’ll be vanilla and not meaning anything to anybody.

Successful brands focus their energy on a distinct target audience looking to create a passionate bond with them, even though they may be hated by others. One of the most publicly extreme examples is from Mike Jefferies, CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch who famously said “We hire good-looking people in our stores... good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people." 

Controversial as it is, they have marketing to generation-Y absolutely nailed — they understand them and focus on them only. The opposite of love is not hate — it is complacency — and complacent customers are not loyal. So decide who your “someone” is — define them as one person and make, do and say everything with them in mind.

Define how you act

Whether you prefer to think of it as brand values, beliefs or business ways of working, capturing the way you want to act is vital to creating a scalable business. Left undefined, the way the founders or management team do things gets lost through the business and the customer experience becomes lacklustre. 

How you act covers two areas — how you talk to consumers, and how you want everyone to act within your company. Moo.com revolutionised the B2B stationery printing market with a simple online platform brought to life with a friendly tone-of-voice.

Defining how you want people in your business to act often comes down to ethics or values, but some businesses — such as Innocent — develop one central “way” running across the team and to customers. They have job titles like chief mixer (for the product technologist), chief writer (for copy writer) which brings the personality that makes Innocent special.

Understand your visual codes

For every brand behemoth like Coca-Cola, there are thousands of newer brands trying to stand out and attract the attention of potential customers.

Your visual codes are those elements of your brand that customers associate with your product or service. They include a logo but it doesn’t stop there. Your colour scheme, fonts, imagery and tone make up the brand codes that signal to customers it is you.

Create strong enough visual codes and your customers will know it is you even when you play with your codes — just like Google does with their daily doodles. This is how you can know the brand in a TV advert even before they expose the logo or product.

If you have a story, use it

Most entrepreneurial brands have one consistent thing — a powerful start-up story — and it can add depth and integrity to a brand for customers.

At Ella’s Kitchen, Paul Lindley’s job title is simply Ella’s Dad because he started the business to solve the problem of his daughter’s dislike of healthy foods. At bespoke tailoring companyA Suit That Fits, the wonderful story of co-founder Warren teaching in Nepal underpins the ethical manufacture that continues to this day — and customers relate to the brand more because of this.

Branding is a complex and emotionally-led business, but it has tremendous power in its ability to connect with customers and drive that all-important thing called “loyalty” that every high-growth business wants.

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Can your marketing make people feel good?

Many small business owners feel uncomfortable about marketing. Some positively hate it.

A new client of ours — the head of a very successful consultancy — has shied away from marketing for years because to him, it feels intrinsically wrong. In his eyes, markeing is putting on an act, pretending to be something you’re not. Like many people, he thinks there’s a dishonesty at the heart of marketing that doesn’t sit easily with the way he feels about himself or his business.

He’s not the only one. Pretending to be something you’re not is never a good feeling.

Don’t be a pushy marketer

We all have a short fuse when it comes to being marketed at by pushy marketers — cold callers, spammy emails, incessant amazing never-to-be-repeated deals (until tomorrow, that is, when you get them again). And that means we don’t want to be that pushy person ourselves 

We say look at marketing differently. When you approach marketing from the standpoint of ‘how can we help our customers better?’ rather than ‘how can we sell more stuff?’ it becomes easier. And, it works more effectively. It’s easy to switch off from a marketing message, it’s not so easy to switch off from something that genuinely answers a question that’s been really bugging you.

Right now, it would be impossible for me not to click on something that showed me how to get my 16-year-old son to revise.

You’ll stop seeing it as pushing, lying, or manipulation if you don’t push, lie or manipulate. Create marketing content that is genuinely helpful and you take the pressure off yourself.

Of course feel-good marketing is only possible if what you’re selling makes a difference. But that doesn’t mean you have to be Greenpeace, it just means you genuinely want to improve your customers’ lives.

Do good to feel good. That’s feel-good marketing.

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What makes people buy?

What factors help a customer to buy?

There are a wide variety of things that influence a purchase decision – budget, timing and personal psychology to name a few; but there is one fundamental factor that brings all these influences together – value.

Value is a subjective perception created through a blend of need, price and the belief that one product is better than another. Good value is seen as a high quality solution which meets all of a customer’s needs at a reasonable price.

Here’s how need, price and belief play into a perception of value:

Need

I see a pair of hiking boots on offer and I recognise the brand; but the fact that I don’t go hiking means that I won’t value them highly.

Some marketing works to convince the consumer that they have a need. For example, if I’d read an article explaining how hiking boots improved posture, helped stimulate blood flow and were good for your feet, then by the time I saw the boots I may have developed a “need” for them.

Grooming potential customers this way is an excellent way of enhancing the perceived value for your product or service and can help you break into new markets.

Price

Set your price point as high as you can; this helps to enhance the perceived value of your product.

A big mistake is to slash prices. This can work, particularly when it comes to more exclusive discounts, but offering a huge discount lowers the perceived value of the product. Who is going to pay “full price” for a sofa at DFS when most of the year they are offering 50% off?

Belief in product

The price point will often lead customers to believe one product is better than another. However, people will not be willing to pay a higher price if they do not believe in the product; the two factors work in tandem.

Belief is about your brand, your marketing and their knowledge of the product range. It is what 80% of your marketing budget helps to create. And it is the one area over which you have the most control.

So how do you go about creating this belief in your product or service?

There is no single method, but there is a core concept: “Tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I’ll remember, involve me and I will understand.”

Tell me

People may forget the specifics but they will be primed to receive your brand, and priming can be important in establishing credibility.

For example, you conduct a PR campaign where you write thought-provoking articles relating to your product or service. In the article you describe the problem (establish a need), drop some hints as to a solution (brand priming) and get it featured in an established trade magazine (credibility).

Show me

Visual memory is more powerful for most people than verbal memory, particularly when “show me” still involves some verbal explanation – “show and tell”. Exhibitions and trade shows are great for this.

Involve me

“Involving” your prospect creates an experience that uses all three types of memory/learning: verbal, visual and kinesthetic (touching and using) to create an almost unbreakable belief in your product. If you are there to tell the prospect the benefits, you can create a need. At the same time you show how the product or service meets those needs visually. Then, the final step, you let the prospect try with the product, get them involved in using it and create anexperience.

Creating a complete and immersive experience of your product or service increases recall, generates belief in the product and, in the end, turns prospective customers into brand ambassadors. You aren’t as likely to share the fact that you saw some new product, but you will want to tell people what you just tried out - experiences are made to be shared.

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Affiliate marketing: Using social media

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways a company can bring in more business. It helps a company to, more or less, get more referral business, which we all know is the best kind. But as an affiliate marketer, building up enough readers for your blog to make any money doing affiliate marketing can be really tough. And keeping your current readers interested is another challenge in and of itself. How are you going to make any money as a pay per call affiliate if you can’t keep people coming back for more? Fortunately, using social media can help you boost your numbers and help you bring in more cash.

Loyal readership

The key to doing well as an affiliate marketer is to have a loyal readership. This means you have to constantly work on and develop your relationship with your readers, according to Entrepreneur. You need to spend time posting on social media sites every day, and make sure you respond to all posts from your fans on social media. On top of that, taking time to share what your fans have to say once in a while will show it is a two-way street and that you care about them as much as they care about you. This kind of relationship building is very simple through social media because it allows you to communicate with your customers just as easily as they communicate with you. You’ll get much more loyal fans as you engage with them rather than just always expecting it to be a one-way street.

Engage in all types of social media

There are a lot of people with a Facebook who don’t do any other kind of social media. The same can be said for Pinterest or Instagram. Even Twitter has a lot of following that you won’t find anywhere else. Though it can seem overwhelming to stay on top of all these social media platforms, it will help you to reach everyone rather than the select few on the platform you are most comfortable with. It is better to be on one than on none though, so don’t avoid social media simply because it seems overwhelming. Find one that works for you (especially if you are just starting), and engage as much as possible with your readers. Soon, it will pay off.

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All You Need to Know About Custom T-Shirt

The current generation remain conscious about what they wear and how they look in the same. The fashion industry is raising high as the people are showing their utmost interest in it. There is separate fashion for both men and women, but what make them stand together in a row is the T-Shirt. It is the thing that is preferred by both the categories the most. However, the look and feel of the T-Shirt remain different for both male and female. But, when it comes to customization, there is no barrier, they can get custom T-Shirts in Canada the way they want.

Why Customization?

People of this advanced era want everything their way, whether it is wallpaper in the smart-phone or the apparel they wear. Customization allows them to present their thoughts on their favorite apparel. When we talked to the people who are in the business of customizing the things, they told us that the market share of the customized apparel is rapidly increasing. The orders we get for the customization are mostly the apparels. Thus, to be in the trend while staying unique, it is essential to go for custom apparels.

Effect

When you wear a customized T-Shirt based on your thoughts and creative ideas, you feel great and confidence. In addition, you also stand out of the crowd. If you are a person who want to stand unique everywhere, then customized T-Shirt can do the same for you.

Cost

The cost of the customizing a T-Shirt depends upon the what image or text you want to have on it. If it is a large image or have more number of texts, then customization cost will be high. However, the cost is not that high and falls in the budget limit of the masses. Thus, customized product can be purchased by both masses and classes.

Types

There are different types of print that can bring the design of your choice on the T-Shirt. Cloth being good material for printing can be printed through all printing options, which mainly include – Screen Printing, Rubber Print and Embroidery. The cost of printing is different of each category. People mostly prefer screen printing on the cloth as it is quick and cheaper in cost. Also, it provide clear print of the image or the text.

What is Trending?

Picture of the cartoon characters, super heroes and trending events are in trend when it comes to customized T-Shirt. However, a lot of people come with their own unique thought and idea. However, the trending customization ideas, include – smileys, super-heroes, self made quotes and own pictures. If you don't like the trending ideas than you can try some old yet interesting ideas, like – picture of your favorite celebrity, bikes and whatsoever you like. You can also try two pictures, which include a celebrity that resemble with you in any sense, and other picture can be yours.

When it comes to creativity, sky is the limit. Be as creative as you can and show the world your sense of innovation.

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All This Talk About The Fold – Good Content STILL King

Last week, a bit of a Twitter storm erupted over one person’s insistence that the “fold” is meaningless for modern web design. And it got me to thinking…. Does the fold mean ...

Last week, a bit of a Twitter storm erupted over one person’s insistence that the “fold” is meaningless for modern web design. And it got me to thinking….

Does the fold mean anything? No.

And here is why. I’ve read a lot of articles about conversion rates and how it relates to keeping your content above the fold and it comes down to one thing:

Is the content GOOD ENOUGH to make the reader do what you want them to do — sign up, etc. — which is your call to action.

Came across a great post that goes into greater detail on this and gives some great statistics.

Higher conversion rates have nothing to do with whether the button is above the fold, and everything to do with whether the button is below the right amount of good copy. More..

Wait what?

When you stop to think about it, it makes absolute sense. A visitor will not stay on your site past first glance if there isn’t compelling content quickly available. Never before has the phrase “make a good first impression because you won’t get a second chance” been more true. You got about 15 seconds to attract and keep your visitor. That’s it!

So maybe that ties into the above the fold argument. But cramming all the bells and whistles into such a small area tends to look … Crowded. It screams ME ME ME! LOOK AT ME!!! Nobody enjoys neediness, even in a website.

Good Content is King

And so it comes back to the importance of good content. If you grab the visitors attention with great content you can keep them interested and then reel them in with a solid call to action … Ignoring that old fold!

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Business Possibilities of Corn Varieties

Corn is a rich source of carbohydrates, proteins and sugar as well as vitamins and minerals and no wonder people all over the world like to consume it in various forms. The entire corn plant has some .

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Corn is a rich source of carbohydrates, proteins and sugar as well as vitamins and minerals and no wonder people all over the world like to consume it in various forms. The entire corn plant has some purpose to serve for us humans. Corn also called maize can be consumed in its natural form with minimal processing or made into different types of end products using advanced processing means, machines and technology. Hence processing requirements for different types of corn products can range from minimal, like just cleaning or separating the seeds, to advanced requirements. Different end products of corn serve different purposes, the raw materials for producing these different types of end products, that is the natural corn or parts of the corn plant are also available in different varieties. In order to attain the desired end product it is important to select the right inputs or raw materials from a plethora of input varieties. This magnificent plant offers scope for a lot of permutations and combinations, variations and inventions and has a huge and differentiated product market due to its food value and varieties. As food consumers we are already familiar with the different types of corn foods like cornflakes, popcorn, corn wheat, sweet corn soup, baby corn preparations, corn flour and a host of other products, each corn food can have further sub variants, like popular sub variants of sweet corn include the standard, sugary extender, synergistic and augmented super sweet, each of these sub variants are available in different colors of yellow, white, bi color and multi-color. Knowledge of each of the variants can be useful for making different types of corn based recipes. For example the varieties with more sugar content can be used as natural sweetening agents instead of sugar or to add a sweet tinge to flavors, low sugar content varieties can be used for making recipes for people who want to avoid sugar and calories and for the diabetic. Besides being a human food, corn also serves other purposes like fodder food for cattle, in preparing wine based beverages, in several types of chemicals and as bio fuels.

Corn has been known to mankind since prehistoric times. Its origin is believed to be in Mesoamerica, mainly in Mexico. The ancient people of this region learnt to grow different varieties of this plant and even developed some early methods of processing, by 2500 B.C. The world started knowing about this wonderful plant through travelers and traders and slowly thereafter agriculture of corn was adopted first in Europe and then throughout the world. Corn naturally grew in different varieties due to differences in terrain and climate, humans further studied the plant and developed more varieties and hybrids and genetically modified variants. These variants were developed with advanced planting technology methods and were fortified with more food value. U.S.A –the largest producer of corn in the world grows 85% of the corn of the genetically modified type. These days, synergistic plant growing technology is being used to produce different types of corn grains in a single plant. Time of harvesting and some other factors also influence the corn variety, as for example to get baby corn the plant has to be harvested much early.

These days many people are growing corn using organic methods. Organic methods rely more on preventive rather than cure based methods and stress much on the proper tending and care of plants, instead of inorganic pesticides and fertilizers natural alternatives are used. In some maize plants, the shoots accumulate a powerful antibiotic substance called DIMBOA which is a natural pest repeller. Other varieties of these plants which do not have this substance can be altered so as to have them through hybrid and genetic modifying plant growing techniques. Such knowledge of natural phenomenon is aggregated under organic farming methods. Corn can be grown in fields as well as in the garden. Organic farming methods are a favorite of the gardeners because they grow their plants with care and tend them like babies. Organic products have been found to be more healthy and tasteful than inorganic products which may contain harmful and toxic substances due to indiscriminate use of inorganic materials. Producers who require different varieties of corn for processing often prefer to have them grown organically through contract farming agreements. In this way they are able to assure the quality of the raw materials which ultimately affects the quality of their end products.

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Impotance of Marketing

Consumers get an opportunity to know about various products that are available    in the market.                                                         

Marketing fosters healthy competition among brands and this increases the            level of competence among firms.                                 

Consumers are able to enjoy better products and they are at affordable prices.                                                                         

Gives chance to companies of all sizes to survive.                             

Precise identification of what consumers demand.                              

Saves cost for organization.

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4Ps

The marketer E. Jerome McCarthy proposed a four Ps classification in 1960, which has since been used by marketers throughout the world.

Classification

Category	Definition
Product	A product is seen as an item that satisfies what a consumer demands. It is a tangible good or an intangible service.Tangible products are those that have an independent physical existence. Typical examples of mass-produced, tangible objects are the motor car and the disposable razor. A less obvious but ubiquitous mass-produced service is acomputer operating system. Every product is subject to a life-cycle including a growth phase followed by a maturity phase and finally an eventual period of decline as sales falls. Marketers must do careful research on how long the life cycle of the product they are marketing is likely to be and focus their attention on different challenges that arise as the product move. The marketer must also consider the product mix. Marketers can expand the current product mix by increasing a certain product line's depth or by increasing the number of product lines. Marketers should consider how to position the product, how to exploit the brand, how to exploit the company's resources and how to configure the product mix so that each product complements the other. The marketer must also consider product development strategies.[1]
Price	The amount a customer pays for the product. The price is very important as it determines the company's profit and hence, survival. Adjusting the price has a profound impact on the marketing strategy, and depending on the price elasticity of the product, often it will affect the demand and sales as well. The marketer should set a price that complements the other elements of the marketing mix. When setting a price, the marketer must be aware of the customer perceived value for the product. Three basic pricing strategies are: market skimming pricing, market penetration pricing and neutral pricing. The 'reference value' (where the consumer refers to the prices of competing products) and the 'differential value' (the consumer's view of this product's attributes versus the attributes of other products) must be taken into account.
Promotion	All of the methods of communication that a marketer may use to provide information to different parties about the product. Promotion comprises elements such as: advertising, public relations, sales organisation and sales promotion. Advertising covers any communication that is paid for, from cinema commercials, radio and Internet advertisements through print media and billboards. Public relations is where the communication is not directly paid for and includes press releases, sponsorship deals, exhibitions, conferences, seminars or trade fairs and events. Word-of-mouth is any apparently informal communication about the product by ordinary individuals, satisfied customers or people specifically engaged to create word of mouth momentum. Sales staff often plays an important role in word of mouth and public relations (see 'product' above).
Distribution(Place)	Refers to providing the product at a place which is convenient for consumers to access. Various strategies such as intensive distribution, selective distribution, exclusive distribution and franchising can be used by the marketer to complement the other aspects of the marketing mix.

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