|
Tag Archives: Business
An Event Proposal Template You Can Use
Every event needs an event proposal. Here’s how to build a great event proposal template that you can utilize time and time again, it’s great because it’s simple and because you can modify it to fit any of your event needs.
Whether you’re planning a small department party or a grand charity gala the most appropriate way to present your event to clients or management is by creating an event proposal. This is the most serious and professional way to go about planning your event and actually the most appropriate way to keep your own organizational sanity.
What is an Event Proposal?
An event proposal is basically the business plan of your event. It starts with an “executive summary” and goes on to cover every detail of the event.
Why do I need to have an event proposal?
You need an event proposal so that everyone on your team and everyone you’re working for are clear on what the event is about, know all the details of the event and can refer to it if any questions arise during your absence.
Imagine a situation when a venue calls to confirm the dates for an event you’re organizing and you’re out of the office and can’t be reached. The event proposal is something that your team can refer to for this vital information. Yes this seems unlikely however it has happened in the past especially for events that are happening far in advance or when multiple events are running at the same time.
Keep in mind that the event proposal will be viewed by many different stakeholders; marketers, finance, potential sponsors etc. Each with their own goals and targets, therefore the proposal should be general enough to paint the overall picture yet specific for each party to be able to make decisions based on the details provided in the proposal. Click here for an example of how your stakeholders will be reading and analyzing the event proposal.
Event Proposal Template in Detail:
I find it most useful to use my own custom made event template based on a number of templates I’ve used in the past and a number of non event planning templates. When you’re presenting your event idea listen and note the questions you are being asked, then incorporate them into the event proposal.
You’ll find a great event proposal sample here.
Introduction: In this section you are introducing your event, this is where you “write to impress.” Use this space to sell your event by introducing the event concept, the event title and outline the event program.
Venue/Entertainment/Food & Beverage: This section will expand on your introduction and cover the main questions about the event; this is where you answer the 4W’s [Who, What, Where and When.]
Event Logistics: This is one of the more complex parts of the event proposal template and I suggest using an event planning template to complete this section. In this section you will explain how exactly you are going to attain what you’re promising in the first two sections. For example: how much are tickets going to cost, how are the invitations/registrations going to be managed, will this be an evening or daytime event? Will you be purchasing event liability insurance or just event cancellation insurance? Provide a detailed description of all products, giveaways, brochures, flyers, etc. intended for distribution at the event.
Finance: Your budget proposal, your anticipated expenses and anticipated revenue from the event. This is the place to state how you are going to report on the finances and how often.
Marketing: Present a general marketing strategy for your event or how you are going to work with the marketing department to market the event. Talk about your target audience and what need you are fulfilling with your event and why you think it is going to be successful. In addition: list PR companies, media coverage, celebrities and sponsors that you are going to be working with. Note: depending on the size of the event you might need to create and use a sponsorship proposal template when working with event sponsors.
Additional Points to Mention:
Key people: Who is on your team?
What departments will you be working with and who is accountable for what. List all the key people who are going to be involved in producing this event and get approval for these names. You don’t want to be planning an event mid way and discovering that your marketing manager is tied up in two other events. Click here for more great tips on event proposals.
Important to Remember: The physical appearance of the proposal is important. Make it presentable, something that you wouldn’t be ashamed to show to a company CEO. It should be professional, appealing, exciting and to the point.
Source – Event Management Tales
Public Relations vs. Marketing
The agendas of public relations and marketing are different. Marketing is interested in the market — consumers and demand. Public relations is interested in relationships — reducing conflict and improving cooperation.
Good public relations will create a healthy environment for marketing. But simply providing technical support for marketing is not the same as good public relations.
An important study on excellence in communication management identified four major public relations models:
- Promotion and publicity (one-way communication/hype)
- Applied journalism (one-way communication/credible)
- Research, persuasion (two-way communication, win/neutral)
- Dialogue, mutual solutions (two-way communication, win/win)
(More than one model may be apparent in any public relations practice. Philosophy and vision will determine which one is dominant.)
The same study found that excellent organizations were associated with three factors:
- Effective organizations treat PR as a management function.
- The most effective model of PR involves dialogue and mutual solutions.
- The commitment of key leaders and asking the right questions are critical.
The two critical questions were:
- How do we manage our interdependence with the community?
- How do we develop excellence within our organization?
The bottom line is a balance of receivables and payables. Marketing adds value by increasing income. Public relations adds value by decreasing the expenses that are necessary when issues are ignored.
Consider the alternatives to these situations:
- Activist groups being satisfied with your performance
- Customers comfortable that they can count on you
- (or) Donors being loyal to you when money is tight
- Employees respecting you as a good and fair employer
- Fewer people feeling like suing you
- Journalists knowing you to be responsive and credible
- Legislators seeing you as ethical and having public support
- Neighbors not minding your presence on their street
- Shareholders regarding you as competent and competitive
- Your industry considering you a leader
Faking it doesn’t work. Not caring and then apologizing doesn’t work. An old adage is that the “P” and the “R” in public relations stand for performance and recognition. Good relationships are genuine.
Marketing and public relations both work best when they’re treated as distinct management functions. These two functions can pull together as equals on a team, and this works to integrate the business process.
Source – Top Story
6 Ways to Track the Impact of Social Media on Public Relations
Have you used social media strategies to support your public relations efforts? Are you struggling to show whether social made a difference?
This post will focus on six metrics you can use to measure the impact of social media on public relations (PR).
Why social media and PR?
As news outlets continue to boost their online presence, public relations professionals have a tremendous opportunity toleverage social media outlets to enhance their outreach efforts.
Social media networks like Twitter provide a new level of access to reporters that open dialogue in new and exciting ways. As social media sites become the “source” for news and breaking stories, marketers are seeing media coverage spread more rapidly than ever before.
But the big question is, how can you quantify the impact that social media has on your public relations efforts?
Social media and public relations go hand in hand.
The best way to show the impact is to look at how social media has affected the costs of marketing efforts.
This can be accomplished by utilizing a few standard public relations, online advertising, search engine optimization and website metrics that can be combined to show a holistic view of the true value social media is bringing to the table.
The following list of metrics can be used toevaluate public relations or they can be used across several marketing channels toshow a cross-channel view of where social media is delivering.
#1: Cost per Impression
Social media helps to expand the reach of your message and has a tremendous impact on the number of impressions that are generated for PR stories. Therefore, when you show the change in the cost per impression with and withoutsocial media, you can make a compelling case for why social media efforts are crucial to your strategies.
Facebook Insights readily provides impression data, but it can be more difficult to measure on Twitter. TweetReach andSimply Measured both provide information on how far messages are traveling on Twitter.
TweetReach is a social analytics tool that provides detailed metrics on the impact of your Twitter conversations.
Simply Measured takes a different approach to analytics. Rather than a rigid dashboard, they empower non-technical marketers and PR professionals to become data rockstars.
You want to collect the total number of “eyeballs” that could have seen your post and divide it by the amount spentfor the outreach to determine the cost per impression.
#2: Cost per Engagement
Engagement is the one thing at which social media continues to beat every other marketing platform, time and time again. It’s almost unfair to compare social media engagement against other channels, because other marketing channels simply do not have as many opportunities to generate engagement.
Aggregate how people engaged with the content and divide it by the cost to determine the cost per engagement.
Types of engagement include shares, clicks, comments, likes and mentions. The key to understanding if an action should be measured as engagement is to ask, “Did the user physically do something in order for the action to be complete?”Action is what separates an impression from engagement.
#3: Cost per Click
Public relations can drive users to click on links that are shared through social media channels. It can be difficult to figure out the number of clicks generated from links shared by third parties, but you can calculate the number of clicks that were generated through your own messaging by using the stats from your URL shortener.
Many times, articles will contain a link that goes to your corporate website that will add another layer of clicks to the mix. You can also request the number of page views of the article from the publication that had a social media site’s referring URL.
Take the total number of clicks and divide them by the cost of the outreach to determine the cost per click. Typically, if you compare the results to other advertising channels that use a cost-per-click metric, such as online advertising, you will see that social media delivers inexpensive clicks on public relations messages.
Social media decreases the cost of public relations impact.
#4: Cost per Site Visitor
Due to the nature of online sharing, it is common to see a spike in website traffic that surrounds PR outreach. Considering that companies pay a lot for online advertising to get visitors to their site, not measuring the cost per site visitor across channels is a missed opportunity to show a positive social media impact.
To calculate the cost per site visitor, take the total number of website visits generated and divide it by the total costof the outreach. Then, compare the results to online advertising and search engine optimization costs.
#5: Cost per Inbound Link
While more companies strive to improve their search engine rankings, more public relations professionals are being asked to request “backlinks” in media articles. These backlinks drive traffic to the corporate website.
Therefore, another good metric to compare is the cost per inbound link. To calculate this metric take the total number of inbound links the article generated and divide it by the total cost of the outreach. Then, compare the results to search engine optimization costs.
#6: Cost per Subscriber
When visitors make it to your website, it’s important to measure the actions they take. More and more companies are looking for ways to convert web traffic into “subscribers” who have provided their email address, allowing an additional opportunity for follow-up marketing efforts.
Therefore, consider comparing the cost per subscriber across all of your marketing channels to understand how public relations is performing in relation to your overall marketing spend.
To calculate the cost per subscriber, take the total number of new subscribers generated and divide it by the cost of the outreach.
Final Thoughts
You’ll notice that many of these metrics are not traditional “public relations” metrics, but rather they can be utilized to create a cross-channel dashboard which will show how social media and public relations efforts complement each other and deliver “inexpensive” results.
The results tend to be inexpensive because the incremental spend to capitalize on social media is usually very small. Remember, the goal is not to show that social media is “better” than other marketing channels, but rather that your other marketing channels are performing better and more cost-effectively when social media is in the mix.
Source – Nichole Kelly, Social Media Examiner
10 tips for small business startups that want to turn dreams into reality
Think you’re the next Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg? If so, this list may not be for you. The world’s meteoric startups — the rare few that topple industries and remake society — are usually built by breaking rules, not following them.
On the other hand, you probably aren’t them. Startups that turn into multibillion-dollar companies are the business world’s equivalent of lottery winners. Stake everything you have on a dream of a jackpot, and you’re likely to end up holding worthless scraps of paper.
What follows are 10 rules for starting a small business, chosen from Slate reader submissions. The list is designed not to encourage you to chase your wildest dreams but to help you turn your more viable dreams into a real livelihood.
1. Be Realistic About Your Business Model by Patrick L.
When contemplating a business model, look around and find successful examples of that model to study. If you can’t find any, then you are either an extraordinary genius, or the business model can’t work in the real world. Choose whichever is more likely.
2. Don’t Invest Your Own Capital
If you knew with 100 percent certainty that your oil well would strike black gold, then you’d be better off borrowing the money to start it up, knowing full well that you could pay off the loan and keep all the future profits to yourself. But since most businesses are very risky ventures, especially new ones, you should take on equity partners instead (or consider crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter). That way, if things don’t pan out, you won’t be on the hook for the costs and you can move on to the next venture.
3. Be Your Own Slave Labor
Unless you are willing to work for hours on end, forgoing your own benefits and health — or unless you’re blessed with a 401(k) or a trust fund — entrepreneurship may not be for you. Many people burn through their savings, raid their children’s college money, and max out their credit cards to build a product using consultants, laborers and experts — but not all these products even make the market. You can’t hire people cheaply unless you’re willing to work cheaply yourself (at least at first).
4. Value Your Time
I mean this literally: Pick a dollar amount that your time is worth. You may not actually be paying yourself, but just having the number can help you make many day-to-day decisions. For instance, say your time is worth $60 an hour: If Costco will deliver your weekly supplies for $100, and it would take you two hours to do the shopping yourself, then Costco is the way to go.
(Editor’s note: This might sound like it contradicts Rule 3, but an economist will tell you that even slave labor has an economic value.)
5. Hire Well
Regardless of how small a business you own, eventually you will probably have to hire outside help, whether in the form of a cashier, clerk or accountant. I can think of nothing worse than a business owner who has a vision for their business yet hires employees who consistently thwart this vision. Make the hiring process as careful and deliberate and important as the starting of the business.
6. Sell on Features, Not on Price
When starting your own business, you naturally will be desperate for sales. But if all you are competing on is price, soon you will be selling at cost (or even below). Instead, master the art of explaining to your customers why your higher price is actually a better value.
7. Know Your “Nut”
Know exactly how much money you need to stay in business — everything from rent, electricity and worker’s comp insurance to coffee, toner cartridges, paper and even what you pay your tax preparer. Divide that number by the number of days a year that you’re open for business, and that’s your “nut” — the minimum amount of money you need to bring in every day. Keep track of it on a daily basis: If you have a lot of days where you don’t make your nut, you need to rethink things.
8. Embrace New Technologies
New technologies such as cloud applications and mass data storage have lowered the cost of entry for small businesses. These technology solutions are inexpensive and allow small businesses to compete with large corporations on a scale never before seen. Small businesses need to take advantage of low-cost technology tools, leaving entrepreneurs with more money to invest in their ideas.
9. Treat Your Vendors Well
Treat your high-volume vendors at least as well as your best customers. They can discount your raw materials based on volume, or even just on the relationship and the hope of future volume.
10. Be Damn Good at What You Do
An employee at a large corporation can afford to be mediocre — you can’t. Every job you do for a client has to be the best job you can do; every widget you make has to be the best widget you can make. Do that, and word will spread. Self-employment is a meritocracy.
Source – Will Oremus, The Miami Herald
How Start-ups Should think about PR
If you start a company, you have about a 50% chance of being around in five years, which is the same survival rate as if you were just diagnosed with colon cancer. Now let’s talk about PR.
When you start a business, you also start a timer that is counting down the days until your cash flow runs dry and your business fails. Regardless of how well you are financed, who sits on your board or how good you are at keeping your costs under control, there is heightened significance to every moment, dollar or action when you are starting a business.
Every dollar or hour you commit has to have a discernible return. The duration over when that return plays out may vary from company-to-company, but the return has to be there in a time that makes sense given your balance sheet and cash flow.
PR has traditionally been somewhat amorphous in terms of analyzing its return so it presents a challenge to start-ups. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know that it’s important to get people talking about or with you but it’s not always easy to justify the costs (mostly time-based) involved with generating and participating in the conversation.
The evolution of PR has accelerated over the past decade and some would say it’s become more impactful and measurable. Mid and large-market companies can now take a more quantitative approach to understanding the impact of their activities but the metrics are generally still one step away from the metric that start-ups should care about, which is dollars.
As a start-up on the clock, PR should be tied on some level to dollars generated because if PR isn’t helping to generate sales, then it’s not worth doing.
Starting from this premise, here are some additional thoughts on the how start-ups should think about PR:
1. Even if you’re not spending dollars on PR, you’re spending time on it and time is the most valuable commodity you have when starting a business. Your time could be spent building an awesome product, selling it to customers or supporting customers after the transaction to make sure they come back for more and tell their friends about your business. Every hour you spend on PR is an hour you lose on actions that you know have a discernible ROI.
2. Derive multi-faceted value from singular activities – If you are going to spend an hour on PR, then make sure you get some benefit out of it. If you spend that hour digging up a journalist to pitch, constructing a pitch, sending the pitch, not hearing back and then summarily forgetting that the hour just happened, then you have just failed. If you use that pitch as the basis for a story that you share on your blog, then you have derived some value from the effort.
Every day, you are doing things outside of PR that can be repurposed to support PR and vice versa. Keep that in mind.
If you just spent an hour writing an e-mail to a customer, explaining your perspective on something, then you have just created a story for your blog, which brings us to our next point.
3. PR can be mediated or disintermediated – It used to be that PR meant relying on someone to tell your story on your behalf to their audience. Not any more. You can tell your story to your audience yourself these days. In fact, when you’re getting started, disintermediated PR is often times better because A. You aren’t relying on anyone else to communicate on your behalf so you can be sure that your content gets out there into the public sphere, B. You can get feedback that will help you tweak your product and your marketing/sales mix and C. you can target people who will actually care about your business or product and this is important because…
4. You aren’t that special – As Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club, “You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile.” Most journalists don’t want to write about you because they know that it’s likely you won’t even be around in a couple of years and they have heard the same pitch ten times today already.
Journalists don’t want to hear you telling them why your business or product is unique and special. In fact, I don’t really want to hear that either. What both the journalists and I want to hear, is something interesting that I haven’t heard before. Don’t write 300 words about why you’re awesome and send that to a journalist, write 300 words about the research you did to determine that “awesome” is actually “not awesome” (and how this sparked your interest in starting a new brand called “not awesome”) and why that research is relevant in the context of a story. Now we’re having a conversation and the conversation is important because. . .
5. A hit isn’t the result of a pitch, it’s a manifestation of the relationship that you build with your network – When you’re engaging in mediated PR, don’t go looking for one-night stands, look for buddies. I’ve heard from my friends that one-night stands can be quite exciting. You meet someone out, flirt, hook-up then never see them again. You really don’t want to treat journalists or bloggers like this.
Journalists or bloggers are as tuned-in to your market as anyone. Building a great relationship with one can be incredibly beneficial for a lot of reasons. They can be an incredible source of information, they can point you in directions you never considered and can even lean on you for future stories and this is valuable because…
6. Even if you get a hit, it may not be a hit – I’ve talked to many entrepreneurs and small business owners who have spent too much time pitching, who have finally received a hit. The ensuing conversation often times goes like this:
Entrepreneur: “Hey, I finally got a hit in [Insert prestigious publication of your choice].”
Me: That’s awesome, did you get a lot of new customers?
Entrepreneur: I got a couple.
On a side note, I really think the value of hits is in how the hit becomes a promotional tool by reinforcing your credibility (so pimp the brand where you got the hit all over your site) and in the organic search value the link from the hit brings to your site. This is important because even after you have gotten a hit, you want to think about whether the benefit justified the cost and if it didn’t, then
7. If the experiment fails then stop and try something different – The most successful entrepreneurs who do their own PR are good because they try a bunch of things, stop doing things that don’t return and focus on things that do. It seems like a simple equation but there are complexities, mostly in the execution of the tactic, the length of time that the tactic is executed and in the framework through which return is analyzed.
In general, PR can be an extremely valuable exercise if it is performed with the right mindset. This is just a list of observations I’ve made, based on my own experience as well as from watching others. What do you think?
Source – New Influencer
12 Breeds of Clients and How to Work with Them
There are loads of different types of clients out there and chances are at some point you’ll get to meet all of them. So let’s take a look through some typical clients and see if you recognize a few of your own in there!
Client Breed #1: The Low-Tech Client
How to Spot One:
Looks confused and disoriented when discussing anything high-tech, calls rather than emails, wants everything to be faxed. The Low-tech client needs to go through everything twice to get it, but will then happily take your advice.
The Highs:
The Low-tech client will rely solely on your sage wisdom for all things technology related. They will look to you as your technology saviour and will stroke your ego with their reverence of your knowledge and advice.
The Lows:
The low-tech client will need to be handheld through everything from setting up their email to opening up PDFs. Charge accordingly. They can also be particularly frustrating if they decide to ‘work it out themselves’. A Low-tech client’s idea of how a website should work for example is often not pretty.
How to Work With One:
The low-tech client needs to be handheld. Make sure everything technical about a job is in writing for them to reread at their leisure. This will save you a lot of time explaining things repeatedly. It’s also best to just accept that you will not be using a lot of the technology that makes our lives easier these days (email, online project management etc) and should instead budget in time for phone calls, faxes and face to face meetings.
It is very easy to start to patronize your low-tech client unintentionally. As you can imagine, this can damage your relationship and even worse hurt their feelings. Make sure you balance the playing field by asking for their input in the areas they know about – their business. This will keep them happy stop them feeling the need to weigh in on your area of expertise – which can waste everybody’s time.
Finally if you work in technology, make sure that your Low-tech client knows how to use whatever product you give them!
Client Breed #2: The Disinterested Client
How To Spot One:
The uninterested client is a strange beast – where most clients can’t wait to get involved in your work, the uninterested client just wants things done with as little effort from them as possible. You’ll spot an uninterested client on first meeting when you ask them questions about their business and are met with the minimal response. The uninterested client will rarely provide requested information or materials and will often ask you to complete tasks outside your area of expertise because they “don’t have time”.
The Highs:
An uninterested client will give you a lot of creative freedom, mostly because they have no interest in being involved. Their insistence that you “take care of it” may broaden your skill set and your ability to delegate to outside contractors. You may also gain experience making it work when you don’t have the information or materials you need.
The Lows:
The uninterested client will ask you to take care of everything from copywriting (when you’re a web designer) to flyer design (when you’re a copywriter). Sadly they will often not realize that this should incur extra cost. The uninterested client sometimes marries their lack of interest with wanting things done a certain way producing a very hard to deal with client.
How to Work With One:
It is best to get into good habits early with your uninterested client. A freelancer must be pushy with an uninterested client, so get used to calling and emailing repeatedly. A friendly and humorous tone is a great help when trying to push them along. An uninterested client generally isn’t trying to be rude and unpleasant, most of the time they’re very stressed and crying out for a little help. If you can be straight with them that extra work costs extra money, either take on that extra work if you can or use it as an opportunity to outsource.
A uninterested client is a tricky client, but if you manage to take care of them they often become very loyal, happy to have someone that ‘takes care of business’. Just make sure you are straight about costs, and be clear with yourself that nagging is unavoidable.
Client Breed #3: The Hands-On Client
How To Spot One:
The hands-On client is a frustrated artist, as soon as they walk in the door they will be telling you about their skill as an artist, illustrator, photographer or writer. The hands-on client already has a very specific idea about what they want and usually has very little interest in your thoughts on the matter.
The Highs:
If you’re happy to just do exactly as they ask no matter what you might think of it, a hands-on client can be a good little earner. Almost always there is little confusion as to what the client wants to see and this can make these jobs easy.
The Lows:
If you feel you have an ethical responsibility to point out the flaws in your hands-on client’s directions, you are headed for conflict. Hands-on client’s secretly believe that they could do their job much better than you and that there is little or no specialist knowledge you could possibly impart.
One oddity about working with a hands-on client sometimes occurs when you give in your creative ambitions and agree to do it their way. All of a sudden your hands-on client may accuse you of making them do all the work or not doing your job. This can go as far as baulking on payment. Naturally this is highly infuriating.
How To Work With One:
When you find a hands-on client, the best thing to do is go with the flow. If you try to fight it you usually lose and the job winds up a lot harder than it needed to be. If your hands-on client knows exactly what they want, then power to them, recognise that and give it to them.
Often its a good idea to explicitly tell them that they seem to have a very specific idea of what they want and that you will be following their direction, however make it clear that if they would prefer; you are more than capable of doing it without their input.
Client Breed #4: The Paranoid Client
How To Spot One:
The legal papers come out almost immediately and are elaborate to say the least. A paranoid client will often not want to even discuss their project without getting you to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) and be prepared for drafted agreement to be heavily pitched in their favour.
The Highs:
If you work with a paranoid client, any legal agreement you sign should also be protecting you. So as long as you don’t breach any part the agreements you sign you should get paid.
The Lows:
You MUST get any major legal agreements looked at by a lawyer (and not the lawyer that works for them). As you would imagine, this can cost a lot of money that your client may not be willing to pay. Often within these documents are a whole list of grounds for the client dismissing you without payment. Grounds might be that you miss a deadline for whatever reason (even if the paranoid client is at fault).
From personal experience, I have always found the most paranoid clients are the ones who seem to have the most problems as well. This happens because they are always on the lookout for evidence that they are being ripped off or taken advantage of. Needless to say this means that you can easily wind up trying to straighten our points of legality with them rather than doing your job.
How To Work With One:
It is not worth working with a paranoid client for a small or low paying job. The risks far outweigh any possible gains. Besides, a personalized legal agreement is very expensive, so if they’re willing to spend a large sum on protecting their interests they should be paying you equally well.
For a large job with a big client you may wish to consider going for it, but even then factor lawyer’s fees into your quote. Most companies have legal agreements because they want to protect themselves or sensitive projects, but some paranoid clients use them in a predatory way. Remember that the paranoid client paid more to be protected, so you should quote more to make sure you get a fair deal.
Client Breed #5: The Appreciative Client
How To Spot One:
The appreciative client will shower you with praise and make you feel special – gosh I love an appreciative client!
The Highs:
The appreciative client will make your life very easy as they’ll often pick the first version of the first draft and declare it perfect. They’re very enthusiastic and generally a delight to work with.
Even when the appreciative client does not like something they often word things in ways that make you happy to continue work on the project to get it pitch perfect.
The Lows:
They’ll make the rest of your clients look bad.
How To Work With One:
Sit back and enjoy the glory. Make sure you get them a very nice Christmas gift and throw in a freebie every now and then. An appreciative client is like gold to a freelancer, so do your best work and make them feel like a VIP.
Client Breed #6: The Get-a- Good-Deal Client
How To Spot One:
The get-a-good-deal client is a wheeler-dealer and believes that the price you first give is just a starting point for negotiations. You’ll know you have a get-a-good-deal client on your hands because agreeing on a price and job description always involves a bit of to and fro. Often times get-a-good-deal clients are successful entrepreneurial types who have haggled their way to wealth.
The Highs:
Get-a-good-deal clients are often great for getting repeat and referral work having their fingers in lots of pies and you can sometimes make deals that payoff well for you as well as them.
The Lows:
If you aren’t a good negotiator or you don’t recognise a get-a-good-deal client soon enough you can wind up feeling taken advantage of as they take whatever there is to be had. Unethical get-a-good-deal client’s are usually up for ‘no harm trying’ mentality that can see them trying to get out of paying for certain things or at their worst bullying you for more work or discounts.
How To Work With One:
The best way to deal with a get-a-good-deal client is to fight fire with fire so to speak. Taking a get-a-good-deal approach back on them usually negates their strengths and ensures that you cut a fair deal. This means coming in high and then lowering your prices and being very assertive on points of payment and workload.
Client Breed #7: The I’ll-Know-It -When-I-See-It Client
How To Spot One:
The I’ll-Know-It-When-I-See-It client shares much in common with the uninterested client except in a more frustrating way. Their indecisiveness and inability to articulate what they are after makes them one of the few clients that it is generally best to steer clear of.
The Highs:
If you can produce the “It” for this type of client you can possibly win them over and turn the I’ll-Know-It-When-I-See-It client into a very appreciative and trusting client who rejoices in having found someone who has their same ‘vision’.
The Lows:
If you don’t produce the “It” this type of client can quickly become highly frustrating as you stab frantically in the dark while worrying about blowing your budget and timeframe.
To make matters worse the I’ll-Know-It-When-I-See-It client often becomes agitated or unhappy with you if you don’t magically produce “It” leading to strained relations and a project that rapidly goes south.
How To Work With One:
In order to work with a I’ll-Know-It-When-I-See-It Client you need to remember two things:
– First be VERY clear with how much revisions cost. If you don’t do this you WILL blow your budget
– Second unless you can produce “It” you could be in for a rough project, accept this fact.
Client Breed #8: The Always-Urgent Client
How To Spot One:
All their emails are ‘highest priority’ and their couriers are always red-hot. They work on weekends and late into the night and think that everyone else does too. Additionally the always-urgent client often seems to think they are your only client and that their job should therefore be your highest priority as well as theirs.
The Highs:
Since there is never any room for prolonging a job the always-urgent client will usually okay jobs relatively quickly. They often won’t have time to okay a quote so you end up charging by the hour.
The always-urgent client generally knows when they are being unreasonable and will do their best to pay you quickly, which is handy for cash flow.
The Lows:
The always-urgent client adds stress to your life, and if you want to keep them you may need to work late nights or over the weekend. You may also endure repeat late night phone calls and nonchalant requests that you build websites, organise photoshoots and produce detailed illustrations in oh… say a few hours!
How To Work With One:
The always-urgent client must be taken with a grain of salt. Everything will be desperate so you must decide when it is worth the inconvenience to yourself and your other clients. You must make it clear to the always-urgent client when their requests are unreasonable, right from the beginning. As always, keeping this light-hearted and jokey is the way to go, thereby defusing situations where you might otherwise come off as aggressive.
The always-urgent client is similar to the disinterested client in that they both require extra care. You may need to chase up the always-urgent client if you know a job is coming up in order to give yourself more time and as with the disinterested client, if you take care of them when it counts they will be loyal to you.
A word of warning though, having multiple always-urgent clients can lead to severely stressful situations as everything is needed now, now, now! So unless you thrive on pressure, you are advised to limit the number of this type of client you engage.
Client Breed #9: The Decision-By- Committee Client
How To Spot One:
Usually inhabiting the world of large corporate clients, the decision-by-committee client can still be found in smaller operations where they share their decision-making with a spouse, neighbour or dog. The decision-by-committee client is one who lacks a single point of authority and for which every decision must be approved by many people.
The Highs:
Since decision-by-committee clients don’t have anyone making firm decisions it is sometimes possible to just do whatever you think and sneak it through under the radar. This can easily backfire though, so be careful.
The Lows:
The decision-by-committee client at its worst is achingly slow to work with and when many people have their pet peeves you can wind up with a highly inferior product to show for the work. Decision-by-committee client almost always reduce to the lowest common denominator and if there is one person who dominates they are usually the one person you wish *didn’t* dominate.
How To Work With One:
Unfortunately decision-by-committee clients are a fact of life when it comes to working with large corporate clients and this is one reason why it is important to charge high when dealing with the big guys.
It helps to be firm and quickly identify the stronger members of the committee and target them for responses while trying to win them over by conceding lesser points and sticking to your main guns.
Client Breed #10: The Doormat Client
How To Spot One:
The doormat client is the client who puts up with anything and just keeps coming back. They are usually very unassertive and seem to be content waiting for ages for you to get back to them or accepting less than perfect work.
The Highs:
The doormat client is often also very appreciative which is always nice. It’s also relaxing to have a client who doesn’t mind waiting around.
The Lows:
Unfortunately doormat clients often bring out the worst in freelancers. Without the pressure of a potentially angry client a freelancer can easily become laissez-faire about their work and wind up taking advantage of the client’s passive nature.
How To Work With One:
The doormat client requires great discipline to make sure that you stick to your timeframes and deliver the goods. If your client doesn’t protect themselves then it is up to you to do so for them.
While you may wish to take advantage of their generous nature on occasions when you are stressed, you should try your best to treat them the same as every other client.
Client Breed #11: The Budget Client
How To Spot One:
Every client is on a budget, but some clients just seem that much tighter than the others. The budget client can be the result of doing a friend or relative a favour, or equally just a regular client who never has any cash.
The Highs:
Budget clients are sometimes appreciative of the work they are getting done so cheaply – though unfortunately this isn’t always the case.
The Lows:
Budget clients are cheap and at their worst still expect the same service and workload as their higher paying brethren. This makes them both annoying and bad for business.
Budget clients are at their worst when they exhibit traits from other clients such as ‘Always-Urgent’ or ‘Paranoid’, in which case it’s just not worth it.
How To Work With One:
Make sure your budget client realises they are on a budget and that therefore their work may not always be first priority and that you probably can’t get those extra changes or revisions in because it simply doesn’t make good business sense. If your budget client gets aggressive or manifests other negative traits, accept that they aren’t worth it and let them go.
Client Breed #12: The You-Should- Be-So-Lucky Client
How To Spot One:
The you-should-be-so-lucky client is much cooler than you and they know it. They generally have a cool but low paying project for you and are in an industry everyone wants to work in…think music, film and fashion industries in particular.
The Highs:
The right you-should-be-so-lucky client looks great in your portfolio, and your friends will think you’re cool. You’ll make some handy contacts and your professional credibility will probably benefit. You’ll also be hanging out with the cool kids – TAKE THAT HIGH SCHOOL!
The Lows:
You won’t be paid much and the you-should-be-so-lucky client will act like they’re doingyou the favour, not the other way around. If you do enough jobs for a you-should-be-so-lucky client you will start getting jaded about the industry and feel mistreated for your efforts.
How To Work With One:
The you-should-be-so-lucky client can be a great asset to your portfolio, but that will be the main reason to do the job. Because everybody wants this type of job (until they’ve actually got some) there are many talented but green freelancers more than happy to work for almost nothing. If you are a student this can be a great thing to do, but for a seasoned freelancer it can impact your cash flow. So pick your you-should-be-so-lucky clients carefully and use them sparingly to impact your portfolio or break up the monotony of corporate jobs. And of course, make sure you enjoy being that damn cool!
Source – Jack Knight, Freelance Switch
Perfect Pitch: How to Nail Your Elevator Speech
You ride the subway, grab a coffee, and get to the office—it’s your typical Monday morning, until,bam! You step in the elevator and find yourself face-to-face with the CEO of your dream company or the client you’ve been dying to land.
She smiles and says, “Hi. What do you do?”
Scary? Absolutely. But it could happen to you—tomorrow—and you’ll want to be prepared.
The aptly named “elevator speech” or “elevator pitch” is a concise, compelling introduction that can be communicated in the amount of time it takes someone to ride the elevator to her floor.
Even if you’re never caught heading up to the 39th with someone important, this is a good skill to master when you’re introducing yourself during an interview, a sales pitch, or a networking event. People are busy, and being able to communicate who you are and what you do quickly and effectively will ensure that you get your most important points across, no matter how short the conversation.
Not quite ready for the elevator ride of your life? Check out our step-by-step guide to crafting—and perfecting—your pitch.
1. Start with a Blank Canvas
Take a blank piece of paper and number it from one to 10. Then, fill in the most important bits of information that you want to convey about yourself, your service or product, or your company. What, exactly, do you do? What have you achieved, and what are your goals? Who does your company serve and why? Focus on the most interesting or memorable facts—the ones that really make you stand out from others.
2. Red Pen It
Using a different color pen, edit what you’ve drafted with a critical eye. Eliminate any redundancies, unnecessary or unclear information, and broad business jargon. More importantly, hone and enhance the good stuff. “I’m great at sales” isn’t likely to pique anyone’s interest, but “I’ve exceeded my sales goals every quarter for the last two years” sure might.
3. Pick a Card
Grab five index cards, and label them “Who I Am,” “What I Do,” “How I Do It,” “Why I Do It,” and “Who I Do It For.” Add each item on the list you’ve created to the card where it fits best. Ideally, you’ll have two compelling sentences underneath each heading, so fill in any gaps if you need to.
4. Get in Order
Organize the cards in a logical order, making sure the most important information is first. Remember, you often only have a few seconds to communicate with someone. If you get cut off, what would you want her to walk away remembering?
5. Add an Attention-Getter
Add an interesting fact or stat to use at the beginning of your speech. Your goal is to immediately engage someone so that he or she is intrigued and wants to learn more.
6. Practice!
Recite your pitch to close someone who can be objective, and ask for constructive feedback(although we love our friends and families, sometimes they think we can do no wrong!). What may seem clear in your mind might come across as convoluted, long-winded, or fragmented to an outside observer.
7. Record Your Pitch
Once you’ve gotten feedback and honed your pitch even further, record yourself saying it. Listen to your tone—make sure it’s friendly, non-threatening, and that you’re not talking a mile a minute (knowing you only have a few moments to speak may subconsciously increase your pace). Really listen to what you’re saying—make sure you’re not repeating words and that you’re sending the message you really want to convey.
8. Ride the Elevator
The next time you ride an elevator (alone), practice your speech. First, give yourself some time by going to the highest floor. Then, try giving your pitch from a middle floor and from the first to the third floor, too. Having to make just a few brief moments count will help you to hone the words you need and scrap the ones you don’t!
Another tip we love: create your speech using Harvard Business School’s Elevator Pitch Builder. The online tool will help you select effective words to describe yourself, walk you through creating your who, what, why, and a goal. And then it gets better: It’ll analyze your pitch for you with stats like how many seconds it will take you to present.
This week, set aside some time to craft your elevator pitch (or dust off the one you’ve used before). You just never know who you might face tomorrow morning.
Source – Laura Katen, The Daily Muse
How To Plan a Business Grand Opening, Part 3: Invite Your Guests
The easiest thing you can do right away is create a list of people you plan to invite. People you may want to invite include: potential customers; the press; neighboring businesses; your city’s chamber of commerce; government officials; vendors; employees and their guests; your friends and family; former colleagues; people who helped get your new business or location established (such as architects, loan officers, lawyers. . .).
The next step is creating, printing and mailing your invitations. Lower your costs by inviting your employees via company e-mail, bulletin board, group meeting, etc. You may want to invest in mailing lists that target potential customers. It is effective to send an invitation in the mail to complement an online invitation.
Check if the information you have on file for your guests is correct. Depending on the number of people you are inviting, it may be unrealistic to double-check all of the information. If this is the case, make sure to at least double-check the information of the people you need at your grand opening event the most.
As a general rule, expect 50% of your courtesy invites to show up. The actual number will probably be closer to 25 or 30%, but it is always better to plan for more. The percentage may be even lower if you are not targeting the right people in your invitations or are sending mass invites.
Send invitations, both print and electronic, to all local news directors and editors. That’s print, television and radio. You never know. Inviting the press can’t hurt.
Along with each invitation, you should include a personalized and hand signed letter. The letter should explain to the recipient who you are, what your business is and why your grand opening is a major event for the community. Remember that they are in the news business; if you present them with a good story, you increase your chances of getting news coverage. If you do not have an in-house PR department, consider hiring someone to take care of inviting the press.
Put someone in charge of calling to follow-up with the press and other personally invited guests. Have this person call them on the week of your grand opening event as a reminder.
When inviting the press or other high demand guests, personalize and sign each letter.
I cannot over-emphasize this. Sending a personalized letter lets the reader know your letter is not spam. Do research on each person you are inviting and have a few lines in the letter that show you know who they are. You may also be able to use information you gather to make the letter more appealing.
Be careful. Though you should be aggressively pursuing the press, remember that there is a fine line between aggressively pursuing and harassing.
Donating money to a local school or hospital, in addition to helping your community, will generate good publicity and help your efforts to garner media attention.
As you can see, a business grand opening is a lot of work. Make sure you give yourself enough preparation time so you can make changes if a problem should arise. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and your business grand opening is a big success.
Source – UPrinting
How to Plan a Business Grand Opening, Part 2: Planning Your Event
So you have set the time and place of your grand opening, now it’s time to plan your event.
Traditionally, there are speeches given by prominent figures in the company followed by a ribbon cutting ceremony. If you are a new business, you will also have the city’s chamber of commerce present you with a chamber membership.
Your business grand opening is a big day for you and you should enjoy it, but you do not want to alienate your audience. Things vary from business to business. If the attendee is an employee, he or she may enjoy a speech about what it took to get to this day. On the other hand, if the attendee is a potential customer or vendor, he or she may be bored by the speech.
Hiring an MC to intro the event and speakers is a good idea. The MC will keep the crowd lively and the program moving. If you know someone with an electrifying personality, ask if they would be willing to MC your event. If you are hiring a DJ, they too can handle the MC duties.
If possible, get a celebrity or highly accomplished guest speaker (not associated to your company) to speak at your event. This will build credibility in your audience’s eyes. You could even have this person host the event and be your MC.
Remember to use your alumni networks to your advantage. Speak to the head of your alma mater’s alumni department to see if they can help you get a guest speaker.
Is that it? What incentive is there for the regular Joe to attend? Consider having games and prizes at your grand opening event. If your company creates products, give away samples. If you are in the service industry, offer discount coupons at your event. Craft your event around the people you want to attend.
Once you have a general plan, start thinking about what you will need to throw this event. For example, you may need to rent a sound system, get carpeting, repaint areas, order food, etc.
Free food is a great draw. If you are a restaurant, consider giving free food as a means to introduce the public to your restaurant. If your company produces food products, definitely give out free samples.
If you are having your grand opening catered, check with the caterers to see if they provide utensils. Depending on where you are holding your business grand opening, you may also have to arrange for tables, chairs, etc.
Be sure to check that your grand opening is not violating any city codes or regulations. Unfortunately, these rules vary from state to state so there is no guideline I could set out.
Though it may not be required in your area, it is generally good custom that you make bathroom facilities available to your attendees. If you are throwing the grand opening somewhere that does not have access to restroom facilities, you may need to arrange with a company to provide sanitation services.
Make sure there is ample parking for your attendees. Your guests may leave if they cannot find parking. Having valet parking at your grand opening event helps prevent this problem.
Part III will be posted tomorrow…
Source – UPrinting
BIOEventsPR Official Blog 