Think retailers are the only ones that should offer gift certificates, think again.

Every business can find a way to extend some form of gift certificate to clients and prospects. Think about the marketing factors at play with this tool. You allow others to pass your marketing message or gain some additional benefit from the relationship they have with your firm - service and product businesses alike can benefit from that way of thinking.

No matter what your firm offers, you can create gift certificates, with real value, and offer them to your clients to buy and use as gifts.

What about as a referral tool?

Two or three times a year send a mailing to your clients and strategic partners and enclose several gift certificates for your products or services (don’t call them coupons, coupons are for yogurt.) Ask the recipients to pass these along to anyone they know who might want to take advantage of the value they offer. And, tell your client that for each one of these that comes back in the door, they will receive some amount off of their next purchase. There is a little tracking involved in this tactic, but the instant rush of new business will make it worth setting up a simple process to accomplish this.

This tool stimulates thinking about your brand and makes you easier to refer - both good marketing things.

ducttapemarketing.com

A leader’s job often includes changing your people’s attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
   
2. Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.
   
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
   
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
   
5. Let the other person save face.
   
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be “hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”
   
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
   
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
   
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
   

Trade shows offer inventors and entrepreneurs the opportunity to reach a large number of potential buyers and retailers.

The most important thing you can do before attending a trade show is to make sure you choose the right one. Be sure to make your choice based on the potential returns.

To choose appropriate trade shows, consider the following:

• Ask your best customers (or target customers) which trade shows they attend.
• Consider cost.
• Examine the nature of the attendees.

To find potential trade shows in your industry, visit tsnn.com, where you can search by industry, show name, date or state. You should also visit the website of the industry association related to your product; most sponsor trade shows for members and buyers to come together.

msnbc.com

Designer Adam Ellis has reinvented the ice cream truck. In doing so, he’s reinvented a street vending business. Boutique flavors, a chandelier on the inside, and a truck that customers can write on, this is the ice cream truck overhauled, inside and out. An awesomely unique truck begs to be explored, and clearly has something different to offer.

Adam’s truck reminds adults of their childhood - but with a twist. Ice Cream trucks have pretty much disappeared from the suburban landscape. What Adam has done is taken a good idea that’s expired - and reinvented the concept for a different time.

How does this relate to your business? You’re probably looking at something within your environment that you take for granted. That blends into the background. That has long been forgotten, or no longer useful. Examine your business - your marketplace, and your environment, and ask, what could we reinvent? What could we do differently than anyone else in our business?

Being different allows you to capture the interest of potential customers, retain the love of your evangelists, and stand out in your marketplace. And sometimes it’s as simple as reinventing the ordinary things right in front of you.

Smart Biz Blog

Chris Reed is founder and chief executive of Reed’s Inc., which produces a line of natural sodas. And he’s a fan — some might say a fanatic — of the pungent herb.

Each year, his company chops 1 million pounds of fresh ginger, enough to fill 28 big-rig trailers. In addition to sugared ginger candies and ice creams, he produces six ginger brews: Spiced Apple, Raspberry Ginger, Cherry Ginger, Original Ginger, Premium Ginger and Extra Ginger, the last of which packs 26 grams’ worth of the stuff.

In a business dominated by Coke and Pepsi, healthful soda sounds like a contradiction. But unusual beverage companies such as Reed’s are etching out a niche within the carbonated beverage industry, which sells about $28 billion worth of drinks annually to U.S. consumers, according to ACNielsen.

Natural sodas saw 36.5% sales growth in conventional food stores and 12.4% in natural food stores during the last year.

LA Times

Have you ever wondered …

• Why even the highest priced or lowest quality products sometimes outsell their competitors’?
• Why and how your prospects buy the products or services they do, even if their choices seem irrational or impractical?
• Why some brands have a devoted cult-like following while others have zero loyalty?

Will The Real Decision Maker (In Your Brain) Please Stand Up? — According to neuroscientists, there are 3 main parts to the brain, each functioning as a brain unto itself. These “three brains” - nestled inside one another — are as follows.

• The “Human” (”New,” or outer-most) Brain: Most evolved part of the brain known as the cortex. Responsible for logic, learning, language, conscious thoughts and our personalities.
• The “Mammalian” (Middle) Brain: Also known as the limbic system. Deals with our emotions, moods, memory and hormones.
• The “Reptilian” (Old) Brain: Also known as the R Complex controls our basic survival functions, such as hunger, breathing, flight-or-fight reactions and staying out of harm’s way.

Our “old” brain often overrides our voice of logic and drives all buying decisions for reasons beyond our conscious awareness. To influence your customer’s buying decisions, you must learn how the “old” brain operates and speak its “language.” Below are 7 key insights about the old brain that can add to your bottom line.

1. The old brain is driven by emotions.
2. The old brain “decides” on the basis of the gain vs. pain tradeoff.
3. The old brain is highly influenced by beginnings and endings.
4. The old brain is visually oriented and responds rapidly to images.
5. The old brain perceives the “pain of buying” in relative, not absolute, terms.
6. The old brain understands only what is tangible, physical and concrete.
7. The old brain’s control over buying decisions varies from culture to culture.

While neuromarketing is still in its infancy, it has the potential to revolutionize the way we market our products/services. The most important point is to use it for the right reasons. That is, as a way to better understand your customers and ultimately to better serve them. When used in this way, it can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line.

Business Know How

My baking company is growing incredibly fast, and I often feel I could use a little advice. How can I form an advisory board? -Stephanie Vandegrift, Stephanie’s Premium Bakery, Dallas

Dear Stephanie: “Start with a list of experts you can call on individually,” says Dorothy Adams, a board member of the Stamford chapter of the Connecticut Venture Group (cvg.org), who has served on several advisory boards.

To tackle strategic questions such as growth, someone with investment-banking expertise would be helpful. A fellow business owner whose marketing savvy you admire might be another smart choice. Explain that you’d like to ask them for advice now and then. They’ll probably be flattered.

“No payment is really expected,” she says. “It’s a nice idea to offer them payment in kind. You could thank your advisors with cookies.” You may also want to check out the Alternative Board-TAB (TABSanAntonio.com). It brings the leaders of non-competing businesses together to exchange advice.

FSB Magazine

For business owners, the $1.6 trillion “Mommy Market” is well worth pursuing. In the book Trillion Dollar Moms, Maria Bailey and Bonnie Ulman teach you how to take advantage of this lucrative market. They describe three generations of moms: baby boomer moms, Gen X moms and Millennial new moms. If your company is still marketing to soccer moms, you’re missing two-thirds of the mom market.

Their book examines how recent generational shifts have impacted the buying behaviors of today’s mothers and moms-to-be.

1. Focus on networks
2. Embrace technology
3. Offer education
4. Save them time
5. Get to the point
6. Market to the individual

Want more information on marketing to moms? There’s a Marketing2Moms course offered by Moms in Business. It’s a 16-week e-mail course that’ll help you understand and market to today’s mom.

Entrepreneur

If you want to be an entrepreneur, you’re in good company. An average of 464,000 adults a month create new businesses, according to the most recent statistics available from the Kauffman Foundation, which tracks and promotes entrepreneurship. Technorati Profile

But starting a business is a complicated, risky, all-consuming effort. Indeed, just two-thirds of new small businesses survive at least two years, and only 44 percent survive at least four years, according to a study by the U.S. Small Business Association.

1. Determine if you’re an entrepreneur or just a wannabe.
2. Pinpoint an opportunity.
3. Make sure there’s a market for your idea.
4. Write a business plan.
5. Determine your business structure.
6. Look for funding.

Fortune

What happens to businesses when people expect to get things free? Especially small businesses? Surprisingly, an increasing part of our economy is based on the concept that customers get something for nothing.

The Internet is the prime example. Sure, you may (or may not) have to pay to access the Internet, but once you’re there, you expect to get information, entertainment, advice all free. Good for you. Good for companies that sell technology to Internet companies. But is it good for companies that create the information, entertainment, provide the advice?

Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail, explained the economics of giving stuff away in his keynote address. Anderson’s a proponent of the concept of giving things away free, and his next book, “Free: The Economics of Abundance and the Price of Zero,” is likely to further spread the gospel of that business model.

Moreover, people don’t value what they get free. Even Anderson recognizes this, “When the price of something falls to zero, you get waste.” People value what they pay for. A person who pays $100 for a ticket to an event is likely to show up; when they get it free, they’re just as likely to be a no-show. That’s why I advise entrepreneurs that even when you give your products or services away, especially to a prospect or current customer, you should always indicate the price, then waive it. It shows the true value.

Small companies are not in the same position to give stuff away free — whether it’s a physical product, intellectual property (content, music, art, consulting), or time. Their resources, both of money and time, are far more limited.

But the reality is that the “free” movement will continue, and small companies are going to have to grapple with this challenge. New business models are going to have to emerge for small entrepreneurial companies to survive.

By RHONDA ABRAMS @ Gannett News Service

Beverly Sills, America’s best known opera soprano, died yesterday and I was struck by a quote she made during a past New York Times interview.

“I always had a theory that people became a superstar because they could do one thing better than anybody else in the world,” she said. “I think there was an aria in Julius Caesar called ‘Se Pieta,’ and I used to think I sung that aria better than anybody.”

I love that notion - now think about your business. What one thing can you claim to do better than your competition, better than anyone else in the world. You’ve probably got to shed trying to be all things and strip your business down to doing just one thing better than anyone else.

Maybe you already do one thing, maybe you need to figure your one thing out - either way, narrow the focus of your communication to something you can claim to own and own it.

Duct Tape Marketing

Top five expressions people use when they are talking about networking that can make you cringe:

1. Schmoozing — this word makes networking seem so slimy and insincere. Networking is about teaching your contacts to believe in your character and competence so they want to work with you, send business your way or hire you
2. 30 Second Commercial — while you want to “sell yourself” you don’t want to appear as too much of a hard sell
3. Pick Your Brains — this expression makes the authors think of vultures coming in for the kill; and wish that people would instead say “I’d like to get your thoughts about something.”
4. Work a Room — this phrase sounds as if you intend to work people over and take all you can. Instead, focus on listening and showing others what they can count on you for and what kinds of opportunities to send your way.
5. Information Interview — You can make networking a way of life — at professional meetings, backyard barbeques and all kinds of professional and social venues.

All 10 expressions by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon.

powerhomebiz.com

Here’s a checklist to make sure that your MySpace page is optimized to generate leads for you.

They all center around one huge rule: You must bring the business conversation away from MySpace. As long as you are on MySpace, you have to play by its members’ rules.

1. The first thing you must have is a form to get your visitors email addresses. You will increase your sign-up five-fold if you give them some sort of incentive to give their email address. Promote this by posting bulletins.
2. Syndication code. MySpace users are Web savvy. They know how to edit basic html and add it to their MySpace page. You want to have a pre-made banner ad with a link to your Web site and supply the html code so that if one of your MySpace friends wants to post your ad on his/her page, doing so is very easy.
3. There must be an obvious link to your Web site.
4. A reason to come back. Have fun on that one.

Here’s a little wisdom so you don’t have to learn the hard way. The most important advice I can give you is to never send unsolicited messages to other MySpace users.

marketingprofs.com

Successful selling at trade shows depends upon two things. One is your products and personnel: How good are your products and services, and how well do your people represent them. The second has nothing to do with you at all. It has everything to do with secrets.

Not all attendees are the same, and not every buyer on the floor shares these secrets. But most do, whether they’d like to admit it or not. These secrets are strong unifying factors that influence their buying decisions. If you, as a smart and savvy trade show exhibitor, know what these secrets are and tailor your exhibit appropriately, you’ll come away with higher sales numbers every time.

If you could hear your attendee’s deepest, most secret thoughts, they might go something like this:

• We’re impatient
• We’re lazy
• We’re Egotistical
• We hate math
• We liked to be pushed

businessknowhow.com