Expand Your Sphere of Influence with LinkedIn

Want to expand your professional influence? LinkedIn.com may be your perfect solution. With well over two thousand UK members joining each day, LinkedIn.com is a social networking website for motivated employees and entrepreneurs. Make a few contacts in the network, and you’ll stand to substantially expand your sphere of influence (or professional ‘know-who’ according to LinkedIn insiders).

Especially for anyone operating their own business or franchise, it can be rather difficult to meet new and influential people each day. Through online networking though, you can work the virtual room in mere moments, making valuable contacts whom may be eager to do business or offer advice.

Don’t forget, online social networks are a fabulous way to gain free publicity and increase your clientele or membership. By posting your resume, interests, and references on LinkedIn, you may also make some great business partners (and maybe reunite with old friends and colleagues).

Of course, most people look to LinkedIn to further their careers and not their social lives, so avoid getting too personal in your profile. Save the goofy pictures and irrelevant hobbies for sites like Facebook.

You can become a member for free at http://www.linkedin.com/home today and start meeting and greeting. Every contact increases your online visibility; so don’t be shy about sending plenty of virtual how-do-you-dos.

Ad Inspiration: Burger King Wallets

Savvy marketers have to think outside the box – many boxes in fact. The television, magazine page, and Macbook flatscreen are just a few of the boxes that great ads must burst out of to make a truly memorable impression. And because the modern media is so saturated with ads already, some companies are getting especially creative.

A splendid example of ad ingenuity is a recent Burger King promotion in the US that is getting international attention. The fast-food chain has been depositing wallets on the streets of large cities that contain notes urging finders to keep everything inside.

These contents include:
Money, ranging between one and one hundred US dollars
A map to nearby Burger King locations
A Burger King gift card
A driver’s licence belonging to The King (Burger King’s wacky mascot)
Fake receipts

Apparently Burger King plans to dispense nearly 5,000 faux-leather wallets in the coming weeks.

Whilst other companies are spinning and sweating looking for ways to appeal to consumers with lean budgets, Burger King has found a way to have a little fun with the economic crisis. Part stimulus package, part publicity stunt, the bifocal effect of the promotion is well under way. With heaps of free media coverage and plenty of word of mouth excitement, this clever campaign will likely pay off in a King-size way.

If you’ve been looking for a way to drop the hint about your great business, consider taking a lesson from the BK playbook. Playful, topical promotions that get people talking always energise consumers (and let’s face it, most of us could use more reasons to smile).

What ads inspire your marketing strategies? Post your thoughts below!

Service Industries May Be the Key to Comfortable Living

As our savings get smaller and smaller, our schedules seem to get tighter and tighter. In periods of economic strain, there's little time to relax and whilst we struggle to make the most of our professional lives, our personal lives invariably suffer. Before flashy commodities, prime real estate, and impressive investments, people today seek comfort. This may explain why some financial experts have predicted a significant turn of our economy toward service-related industries.

Years ago the dual-income household was an exception, not the rule. For every suit-and-tie professional there was likely to be a dedicated homemaker to tend to chores, meals, and child care. Weekends were more faithfully observed and people made a little more time for their own enjoyment. More leisure time meant it was easier to meet others and forge beneficial marital partnerships. Of course times weren't perfect, but things like hot meals and good conversation certainly didn't seem so expendable as today. But that's not to say we don't still desire them.

Clever franchisees all over the world realise that people will pay big to regain personal comforts they may have lost to long work hours. Take a look at some of today's fastest-growing franchises and see for yourself:

Professional Introductions/Dating Services

Catering Companies

Residential Cleaning

Tutoring/Childcare

Lawn Care

Dry Cleaning

Every one of these franchises offers relief to busy professionals who may feel too crunched to personally manage every aspect of their frenzied lives. Leave it to the true professionals to know when to outsource!

Long before our current economic predicament, service industries began their rapid growth and, because inflation and a climbing standard of living keep pushing us all to work harder, it's the kind of growth that is sustainable in the long term. Furthermore, franchisees who provide a helpful service tend to spend less funds on advertising and receive a whole lot more customer gratitude.

Getting Feedback That Counts

Recently we talked a bit about customer focused marketing and the need to frequently answer the customer’s inevitable query, “What’s in it for me?” Of course, it’s rather difficult to effectively market to customers if you are not fully in touch with their specific concerns. The best way to understand what the customer wants is to ask him. Logical enough, right? Alas, what’s not so simple is getting the customer to answer.

The tried and true tactic to gather customer feedback is a satisfaction survey. So what does it take to make a survey really count?

Shorter is sweeter. Getting a customer to do the work of a paid focus group is no simple task, and frankly it conveys to him that you do not value his time. Limit your survey to five really meaty questions. Trust me, you’ll get more thorough answers and many more responses.

Don’t mince words. Make every question clear, concise, and open-ended. Whilst a multi-part question may detract from clarity, a “yes or no” question won’t yield useful answers. Another effective approach is asking a series of multiple-choice questions, which can do a lot for convenience (just be sure to offer a good range of responses, positive and negative).

Clarify your expectations. Ask yourself (and your colleagues) what kind of information you are hoping to gather. You may be able to gather demographic, product, and customer service data from some very pointed questions, but it may be in your best interest to focus surveys on one specific area of interest at a time.

Take advantage of free tools. Smart Survey UK is just one of many web-based survey tools that can assist in your data quest. You can send interactive surveys out to customers via e-mail in the form of survey requests, or in most cases link to the survey in your signature.

Offer an incentive. In some cases it may be enough to use the old “help us help you” line, but if you really want to rake in the responses you ought to get creative. An exclusive discount or entry in a drawing can be a cheap and effective way to entice Feedback Scrooges, but it never hurts to use your imagination and affordable resources.

Expert Tips for an Efficient Office

Administrative assistants keep big offices organised, efficient, and tidy. However, most small businesses operate without the kind of administrative support available to large corporations. If you’ve recently made the transition from cramped cubicle to home office, you may find it helpful to take a glance at these pro tips provided by real administrative gurus.

File as you go. “I can’t tell you how much time this will save in the long term. We tell ourselves we’ll file later, but is there ever really a good time? Make filing an intuitive part of your routine—train yourself to do it automatically. If a client or partner calls or pops in, you’ll come off as calm and professional when you know exactly where everything is located.”

Single Home. “Every stapler, file, and pen should have one spot on your desk to reside, and it should always return there. Give all of your supplies a single home and you’ll never be caught off guard. Most people waste time and money hunting down and replacing elusive items.”

Virtually spotless. “Keep your virtual space as tidy as your physical space. Have standard places and formats for all of your virtual documents. Create new folders and subfolders when necessary and use them to your advantage. Clutter on your computer desktop is every bit as distracting and stress inducing as a three-dimensional mess.”

Plant a reminder. “My boss is especially untidy and it was always difficult to locate files and contacts in her messy office. For Christmas last year, I bought my boss a plant, hoping it would encourage her to nourish her workspace. Now, if she neglects to open the blinds, make proper space, and water the soil, the plant literally responds by wilting. It’s almost been a year and every time she sees that little thing start to droop she knows she needs to attend to her space. Trust me; an office plant is a canary in the coal mine for disarray.”

Start the day head on. “If there’s a task you’re dreading, putting it off will only allow your anxiety to fester. Begin each work day by jotting down the day’s toughest chore, then complete it and cross it out before making the rest of your To Do List. You’ll now have more energy (and less stress) with which to take on the workday.”