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I was in the market for a new logo for my consulting business, and I talked to a friend of mine who is a creative design director to get an idea of how much it might cost. Holy cow… it was a lot more that I had imagined given that I’m a one-person shop. Then I realized (thankfully) that my friend, Brad, deals with big companies with big budgets. My budget was similar, but with a couple of zeros taken out.
So what’s an entrepreneur to do? I turned to crowd-sourcing. And what an amazing experience it turned out to be.
Here’s how I got started – primitive, but effective — I googled a couple of websites and looked over what they had to offer, but one caught my eye because the price was right and the turnaround was great – http://www.logodesignguru.com/.
Now, I really hadn’t heard of them before, but I did notice that a couple of businesses that I thought were pretty reputable had ‘liked’ them on their Facebook pages, so that provided some credibility.
I created an account, named the price that I was willing to pay, completed a design brief, and within a day, I had 4 different designs to look at, and within 5 days, I had 40 different designs. It was great! What was nice about having them trickle in was that I could add my comments about what I liked and didn’t like about the posted designs, so those designers could make tweaks and other designers could have more direction about my preferences.
What was fun was waking up every morning and having new designs to review. It was fairly easy to choose the final one because, like looking for houses, ‘you just know.’
After narrowing it down to one design, I was also able to talk directly with the designer and ask for more specific things like a black and white version and a version with a different tagline, etc. And all of this took only 14 days (you see new designs for 7 days, and then you take the next 7 days to narrow it down to one design).
Bottom line: it was fast, easy, fairly priced and offered a wide array of designs to choose from. And it was fun.
So, check out my new logo and tell me what you think. It’s in the header section of my website: http://CavanaghConsulting.com. I’d love to hear your comments.
You’re not a high-tech business these days unless you have a Facebook Fan Page. But I have to say, adopting to the new FB timeline for my consulting business fan page has brought on a little apprehension.
Why? Well, I didn’t really know how the new format would look and what the new features would do, but at the same time, I was really looking forward to exploring a new way to present my business to the online world.
Well, today’s the day… I got ‘Timelined’… and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the new layout and the new features.
I love the large space given to the cover image. It’s so visually appealing and allows me to instantly present a clear visual about my business. I also like that the placement of the tabs is more intuitive, and it just seems easier for people’s eyes to fall on them versus when they were on the left nav.
Check out how these companies are using their FB Fan Page to their advantage:
Nike , Dove
My challenge now is to think of more creative ways to use this big space and the available tabs, especially since there’s been a big shift towards representing your business with photos (Pinterest anyone?) and videos.
So, come back often and see what changes my fan page has undergone as I explore and try out the different options available.
Why is it that most new product ideas never go anywhere? Are never implemented? Even when they could positively change the direction of a company?
I believe it is because these ideas are not properly managed. And what’s managed is what actually happens.
Lee Iacocca said, “We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”
In the book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, they discuss the idea that anyone can think of new ideas. “But unless you translate big thoughts into concrete steps for action, they’re pointless. Without execution, the breakthrough thinking breaks down, learning adds no value, people don’t meet their stretch goals, and the revolution stops dead in its tracks. What you get is change for the worse, because failure drains the energy from your organization. Repeated failure destroys it.”
Do you think people can learn to become a change agent – a person who can implement these big ideas?
I do. Especially if they are the type who readily adapts to change, who understands the need for diplomacy, and is a natural leader.
Yes, we’ve all heard the great stories of companies that use social media and make millions of dollars by promoting certain events or sale items. And we’ve all had the same reaction….I need to do Social Media.
So, here I am, learning as much as I can about social media. I am working for a client to help her launch into SM and in doing so realized that she didn’t have some of the basics down. What is her mission statement? Who is her target audience? What are her marketing goals for the year?
Without knowing these things, it’s pretty hard to start using Twitter and Facebook. You just won’t know what to talk about and you’ll misuse your time.
Here’s how I look at it. Social media is great, AND, social media is just a series of communication vehicles that you can use to build a stronger relationship with your target audience.
What’s different about them, however, is that you can also use them to collect information from your target audience…in real time! You can gather all sorts of data:
- age
- name
- location (city, state, zip)
- product preferences
- product needs
- beliefs about your company and your products
- ideas on how to improve your products
- level of loyalty
- reasons why they would/would not recommend you
What fabulous, free market research! As with anything, you need to take it with a grain of salt and make sure the resonders are representative of your target audience. But if anything, you’ll get customer insights that you may not have had before.
So, thinking of using social media? Do your homework first and solidify your company vision, product positioning, target audience and marketing goals, then go on to see how social media tools can be used to help you reach these targets and gain new customer insights.
Here is a blog I follow that I always find insightful: http://blog.hubspot.com/ Enjoy!
Wow…what a whirlwind of information. I’ve just gone through the process of picking new website template and hosting companies. So, what I thought would be a week-long process took quite a bit longer. I had been using Network Solutions for my consulting website and I liked their product, but I thought I could get a better deal by looking around. With Network Solutions, I used a website template which was very easy to use, and they provided the hosting so the set-up was very quick and painless. When I asked other business people which vendor they used for their websites, a number of people had mentioned WordPress.
Now I had only thought of WordPress for blogs. What I didn’t realize was that they actually have 2 sides to their business. One side (www.wordpress.com ) provides free blogs and blog templates, and the other side (www.wordpress.org ) provides free website templates, blog templates and a content management system. You do have to find your own hosting vendor, but they partner with a number of good, affordable vendors and the process is well integrated into their website deployment process.
The more people I talked to about WordPress, the more fanatics I saw. It was really something. Everytime I talked to someone who uses WordPress it was like I was talking to the person who created it….that’s how much loyalty they had. So, I jumped in and gave it a shot. It was a whole new world of terminology, capabilities, etc and I very quickly was over my head. But, the fanatics talked me into staying and here I am — a person who has created a website and blog on WordPress and has lived to tell about it.
Now that I’ve gone through the process, I’m glad to be on the other side, but I feel like there’s still a mountain to climb if I want to learn about more advanced capabilities (more plug-ins, widgets….see, I’m getting the lingo down pretty well!). What makes me feel OK about all this is that there is a huge user community out there that’s willing to help. I got a lot of help from a Meet Up group on WordPress (thanks Sallie, Noel, and Anca) and someone tipped me off that I could google most any question (the more specific the better) and see how other people have handled the same issue.
So there, I’m not alone in this WordPress journey and I can now focus on the content of my blog….creating a forum for fellow marketers to discuss new trends, emerging technology and great case studies. More to follow on these topics in my next entry.
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