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Effective Logo Design that Reaches Your Target Audience

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Guest Post
by Christopher Wallace

The Best Logo for the Best Customers

In today’s fast-paced, competitive environment, getting your business noticed is not only a top priority but also a critical one. The marketplace is getting more crowded all the time and every business is in competition for the most precious commodity out there—customer attention. And when you think about it, what better way can there be to get that attention than an effective logo?

Next time you see the Golden Arches or the Playboy Bunny, notice how these images instantly convey messages about their brands that a thousand well-written words could never come close to matching. What about your favorite sports team? Try watching a game without seeing the team logo. You can’t. Instead, count how many times you see that logo displayed—on the players’ uniforms, in the stadium, on the programs—just about everywhere. Are logos important? You bet they are!

So what makes an effective logo? People have their opinions. Some favor simplicity, while others insist that pizzazz is king. Some think letters, numbers, and symbols are all you should see. Others favor pictures and drawings. Some insist on including the business name, while others prefer to let the audience figure things out for themselves. Which of these is the right approach?

Well, the plain fact is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. It all depends on your business and the demographic you are targeting. A dynamic, eye-catching, attention-grabbing, and memorable logo can do wonders for your business. But it can also be useless if it doesn’t attract the customers you are trying to reach. Here are some common things to remember when trying to find the right logo for your business:

  1. Make it adaptable. Think about all the places your logo will need to be displayed—and then make sure the logo is designed in a way that makes it stand out in every setting. A few things you should consider: Does the logo still look good when you shrink it down? Will it retain its appeal when the colors are removed and it appears in greyscale or black and white? Can it stand out against the backgrounds of the different places where it will be showcased?
  2. Make it original. You may have the best-looking logo on the planet. But if somebody else thought of it first, then it’s not really yours at all. Before you go with it, do some research! Is there already a logo out there that looks a lot like yours? If so, you run two risks: (1) the possibility of a lawsuit; and (2) the likelihood of confusion between your brand and the other one. Before settling on something, do some checking online. One good resource to use is Tineye. Another is Google images.
  3. Make it timeless. Avoid saddling your logo with trendy images that will soon be out of date. An ideal logo should be able to withstand the test of time. If you have to change your logo every couple of years, then your brand will never have a chance to cement itself in people’s minds. Ask yourself this: how many logos do you see today that include images of bell bottom pants or cassette tapes? Remember that today’s trendy craze is usually tomorrow’s old news.
  4. Make it relevant. You know what your business does. But that doesn’t mean that others know. Your logo needs to communicate your product or service. You want it to become your calling card for brand recognition and loyalty. If customers look at your logo and scratch their heads because they can’t figure out what you sell or what you do, you will very quickly be forgotten. Make sure there is a recognizable tie-in relating your logo to your business.
  5. Make it meaningful to the right people. The important thing here is to completely understand your target audience. This means understanding not only your target demographic (i.e., gender, age group, household income range, marital status, etc.) but also what makes them tick. You want to understand how your target audience approaches life, what traits they exhibit, and what their attitudes are. Are they risk-takers? Do they like to spend money? Are they tech-savvy? Only after you know answers to questions like these will you be able to design a logo that reflects both their profile and their feelings.

In today’s business climate, a sharp and distinctive logo is a must. It will make your business stand out but it can also do a lot more. It can inspire trust, create brand loyalty, and generate instant recognition of your business. But it will only do these things if it is designed with a lot of care and forethought. That logo may look like just a little piece of art but in reality it can make a huge difference to your bottom line.

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Christopher Wallace, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, has more than 20 years experience in sales and marketing. At Amsterdam, a leading provider of personalized pens , promotional pens , and other personalized items such as imprinted apparel and customized calendars, Christopher is focused on providing quality marketing materials to small, mid-size, and large businesses.

Thank you, Christoper! Your list is thought provoking! Great timing for this. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Why Working From Home May Not Work For You

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A Guest Post by
Rachel Carlson

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Work Sweet Work?

Ah, the dream of working from home. So many perks – not having to get up early, no commute, no annoying co-workers, eating from your own fridge, break whenever you want, keep an eye on your kids – you don’t even have to get dressed if you don’t want to. Unless you’re one of the “lucky” people who actually have this privilege (between 2.8 and 44.4 million people in the U.S. work from home depending on who you ask), you’re probably reading this from a cubicle and dreaming of “freedom.” But hold on – working from home isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. I’ve been working from home for several years now, and I can tell you that it’s definitely not for everyone. Let’s start with the biggest hurdle…

Distractions

People who work from home don’t have a traditional boss looking over their shoulder. A freelance writer, for example, probably doesn’t have any boss at all. A medical biller probably has a boss, but the boss isn’t physically in the room, checking to see if work is being completed. This sounds great at first, but it really leads to a pressing question: do you have the motivation and focus to accomplish what you need to do? Remember that you’re on your computer – will you really write that report, or will you spend three hours watching YouTube videos? Even if you think you’re motivated, other little things can add up – by the time you’ve checked your email, looked at your social networks, poured a cup of coffee, taken the dog out, searched for your keys, made a trip to the grocery store, and taken the dog out again, you suddenly realize you’ve lost two hours.

So, be honest with yourself – some people need a standard work environment to get things done. To help you decide if this applies to you, ask yourself these questions:

  • How did you function in school when you had a big assignment? Did you wait until the last second to do it? Did you spend hours on a small assignment because you’d write one sentence and then go out and do other things?
  • Do you have a space in your house/apartment that you can devote solely to work? Or will you be trying to work three feet away from that tempting XBox?
  • How will your pets distract you?
  • How much time do you spend on social networks? Do you automatically open Facebook whenever you open your browser?

Of course, these things can be overcome. In the past, I checked my email constantly while trying to get things done. But creating a schedule, logging out of email and social networks, creating a designated workspace, and setting goals for each day has helped immensely. Just be sure you’re absolutely ready to take the plunge.

Hidden Costs

Cutting out the cost of a commute can be a huge financial relief, but working from home will cause you to spend more money on certain things:

  • Food – You’ll need to keep your refrigerator stocked more than usual if you don’t want to be running out for food all the time.
  • Internet – Obviously, you’ll need an internet connection. But having a clear wireless internet connection will help preserve your sanity. Being tied down to one spot while working from home is not only unhealthy, but it can also prevent you from working in other areas to be less distracted. (Sometimes I go out to my living room couch or the kitchen table if I’m having trouble focusing.)
  • Bills – You’ll be using more electricity, water, and heat/air conditioning when you work from home. It’s likely you’ll also have higher phone bills depending on how much you’ll be required to talk to others.
  • Equipment – Setting up a home office can get expensive. You’ll need to get a comfortable chair, a decent desk, and possibly some extra shelving. Also, your life will revolve around your computer. If something breaks down, you’ll need to shell out the money to fix it immediately. (Just the costs of printer ink can add up.)
  • Time – This is intangible, but if you’re unmotivated and suffering from distraction, you can end up working some very long hours to get work accomplished.

Of course, some companies will pay for some of these expenses. But if you’re freelancing, you’re on your own. So, if you’re considering working from home, be sure to weigh these costs against your current situation – and write off what you can at tax time.

Physical and Mental Health

As mentioned earlier, it’s dangerous to just sit around all day. Your current job might at least require you to move to other areas of the office now and then – maybe some stairs are even involved. Chances are, however, that you’ll be moving a lot less when you start working from home. Maybe this won’t bother you, but if you’re health-conscious, you’ll definitely want to consider this aspect of the job.

Finally, think about this statement: when you’re at home, you’re at work. This still weighs on my mind sometimes. While many office workers take their work home, it can still be nice to go to a physically different and comforting place at the end of the day. “Work-from-homers” have much less separation. If you tend to worry a lot about deadlines, or if unfinished work really bothers you, working from home might not be for you. You may find yourself constantly thinking, “I should be working right now.” So, be sure you can seriously separate work from your personal life – even if they both occur in the same place.

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Author’s Bio:
Rachel Carlson is a writer and student that works from home. While she spends a lot of her time writing, she also helps different companies like Clear Wireless with gaining exposure through various blogs and websites. She has recently started a new Twitter account and is finally going to give it a real shot. She can be followed at @carlson_rachel.

Thanks, Rachel. It takes a clear mind and focus to get out a blog post about distractions. Great job! 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

GenConnect’s Laurel House and Liz Strauss Talk Owning It

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Who Gets You Where You’re Going

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In a lovely conversation with GenConnect’s Laurel House at BlogHer in August, we explored the questions:

  • How do you choose the people to be your team?
  • How do you move from behind the screen to behind the microphone?
  • What does it mean to “own it”?

Take a look …

How do you recognize the people who won’t let you fail?

Check out GenConnect – the place to connect with life’s experts.
You’ll find Laurel on Twitter as @QuickieChick

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How to Use Strategy to Build Opportunity into Your Life Now!

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Making Random Decisions Is as Reliable as Luck

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Get up in the morning, get working, solve today’s problems go have fun is that the way life is working for you? Facing each day with a single-day view will get you through a life or a career, but at the end you may find that many of those days might have put to better use.

If you think of it making random decisions probably has about the same long-term results as relying on luck.

Strategy is a longer view, a stronger view, and a more useful way of leveraging opportunity too.

20 Everyday Situations That Strategy Could Turn to Opportunity Right Now!

With a mind toward strategy, you can leverage the opportunity in any situation, fix the problem your facing, open the door that isn’t moving and get things working FOR you. Strategy is not some high-falutin’ sort of thinking that only great minds do.

It’s a method of solving problems. Did you ever want to …

  1. be more visible in your circle?
  2. become the first, trusted source at what you do?
  3. settle a conflict without becoming part of it?
  4. help solve a problem with friend, family or coworkers?
  5. enlist powerful people to your cause?
  6. get sponsors for an event or meeting?
  7. quit a bad habit or change unhealthy thinking?
  8. get out of debt or pay off a loan?
  9. negotiate a new or better position?
  10. get upgraded to a better hotel room?
  11. change how people see you?
  12. raise money for your cause?
  13. get a meeting with someone you admire?
  14. find a new career that fits you?
  15. organize a group trip?
  16. motivate people to join you in something cool?
  17. get a raise you deserve or raise your rates without worry
  18. start doing what you were meant to do with you life?
  19. do damage control?
  20. start investing in a retirement you look forward to?

Too often we walk into all of the above situations without putting together a system for finding success. A clear strategy could turn any of those 20 (or most other) everyday situations into an opportunity rather than leaving the outcome to instincts and chance.

What Isn’t Strategy and What It Is

We use the word strategy as a synonym for the word way or the word plan. It’s not right, but it sounds cool. Bet you’ve heard people say things like this …

  • I’ve figured out how to use two tools to offer a new strategy for making money online.
  • My strategy is to say “yes” and then do whatever I want.
  • Our strategy this year is to focus on growing by 50%.
  • It was a bad strategy to spend money on that vacation.
  • Our long-term strategy is marry well and have a house with a great view.

Those are not strategies. Some aren’t even decisions or plans.

Strategy is more and more useful in our lives than most folks expect.

Strategy isn’t a business tool. It’s not a single goal, or a choice, or good idea, or a description of what we’re going to do. Strategy is a practical system that changes how we view and interact with the world.

Next time you have a situation that offers a change of any kind bring some strategy with you before you respond. Here’s how to do that.

  • Think about the outcome that you want to achieve — your goals.
  • Think about the people involved and what motivates them — their goals.
  • Think about your position and what you bring that adds value to THEIR goals.
  • Think about what you might offer to align your goals with theirs.
  • Think about how you can turn your what you want — your opportunity into a benefit for them.

Start by listening to what you know and asking questions to hear more about what they know. Offer a few suggestions that are unfinished, allowing everyone to participate in defining a great outcome. Call the group to action. Then claim and celebrate the agreed upon result! The hardest part is thinking it through before you begin.

How have you used strategy to build opportunity into your life right now?

Be irresistible!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

What is the Proper Way to Let an Employee Go?

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If you’ve ever gotten a layoff or fired notice, you know the range of emotions that overtake you.

Unless this was a forgone conclusion, you are likely feeling surprise, anger, bewilderment and more. One of the first questions you likely ask is why did I lose my job when things seemed to be going well at work?

With the economy still trying to take flight, losing a job in 2011 takes on even more significance, especially with no end in sight to when things will get better.

How Did You Learn of Your Dismissal?

I can speak from experience to being laid off, quite frankly to my surprise.

Working as an online editor for Insurance Journal magazine in San Diego beginning in 2001, I had been there just under five years when it all unraveled.

Working from home on a Friday, I had received an email from my manager about doing a conference call with her and the CEO that morning, no details provided. As fate would have it, the reporter curiosity in me came out that morning for several reasons:

  • I had just been in the office working the day before and everything was fine;
  • We never did conference calls on a Friday and if we did, it involved all of the team;
  • I had not received any complaints, concerns, etc. leading up to this call.

So, I emailed the manager back and asked her what we would be discussing that day. The next communication from her was that I was being laid off as a result of my position being eliminated, no more, no less. Given that the position was an important one for a company looking to increase its online presence, the shock of the layoff hit home even more.

Being realistic, I know that layoffs happen every day in this country and around the world. What caught me by surprise, however, was the way this company chose to handle this matter.

Rather than the publisher being man enough to tell me face-to-face the previous day when I was in the office and even briefly spoke with him, he let his daughter-in-law do the dirty work behind the comfort of a computer.

Employers and Employees

Needless to say, I lost a lot of respect for this publisher who I thought liked the work I was doing, not to mention who would have brought me aside if there were an issue we needed to hash out.

While employers are not bound to give the real reason of why someone is let go, it is the honorable thing to do, especially when their decision has a number of ramifications for the employee. Yes, knowing the real reason may not make things better, but it at least prepares you for the next job and what to do and not to do.

Even though I have worked other jobs since that day six years ago, my trust level of employers will never be the same.

Yes, the company paid me for five years, but I gave a lot to that company in return and then some. A simple man-to-man explanation for the dismissal would have been better than taking the easy way out and having someone lower down on the totem pool do it.

So, have you ever been laid off or fired and felt the way it was handled was inappropriate?

Photo credit: 247wallst.com

Dave Thomas writes extensively for B2b lead generation online resource Resource Nation that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs. He is an expert writer on items like direct mail companies and is based in San Diego, California.

 

What Great Interviewers Ask to Always Hire the Best

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Guest Post
by Riley Kissel

Insight on Interviews from Stan Duncan, SVP, Westfield

People power boils down to one thing: potential. Just ask Stan Duncan Senior Executive Vice President of U.S. Human Resources and Global Head of Management for Westfield. Rome could always have been built with enough hands, but those hands needed a dream to follow and voices to guide them. In the 20-plus years that Stan Duncan has worked with human resources divisions in several multinational companies, he’s learned a thing or two about what makes a good job candidate. He’s learned which specific resources are vital to those who are ultimately hired and, more importantly, which questions to ask those candidates.

Duncan says that it’s all about asking the candidate to tell you what they want, what they have done, what will make them successful and “why.”

According to Duncan, having a prospective employee reveal what they see as their own abilities and competence is a surefire way to not only get a raw understanding of their talents and pros and cons, but also to get an understanding of their ability to adapt and their potential to last in the long term. “We aren’t looking for super-humans; in my two decades as an HR executive, I’ve yet to meet one. We want people who are talented, but most importantly, willing to grow and change as the company grows and changes, too.” I believe people who know a lot about themselves do the best selling themselves in an interview. Basically, make sure you’re introducing yourself, presenting the real you in the interview.

Duncan is certainly not shy about his two decades’ of experience as an interviewer. That was proven when he was asked what he’s learned about hiring the right people: “Doing this for 20 years certainly helps you see the big picture; it’s all about potential.” Duncan has been around long enough to see what works for the long-term and what only succeeds in the short term, and his reflections have resulted in him founding an HR model that prizes a prospective worker’s long-term potential over short-term spunk.

“Working in human resources for companies that focus on everything from career apparel, managed services, aerospace glass manufacturing to chemical agent creation has allowed me to see what always stays the same despite the change in labor practices, techniques, and strategies. Human resources are universal in that HR personnel are always seeking out that potential for a long-term employee presence once they’re hired. That’s because longevity in employment means a stronger, more developed team, which increases the likelihood that each member reaches their potential due to the longstanding support of one another.”

The beauty of Ancient Rome would never have been erected by unorganized stone cutters with no collective vision, no matter how many were hanging around looking for work, which demonstrates the power of potential. Without a guiding vision, the kind that an institution like Westfield has and HR leaders like Duncan possess, the potential of individual talent to serve something greater is often wasted. Asking the right questions and paying close attention as human resources workers is the only way to uncover that potential and make sure the talent stays around long enough to make an impact. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and your company won’t be, either. Let Stan Duncan’s success show you what can be accomplished in 20 years if you put your mind to it.
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Riley Kissel is a freelance writer who covers many industries with style. You can find out more about him at RileyKissel.com

Thanks, Riley, for new insights on a critical topic.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!