What I'm Going to Present at a Business School Marketing Class

I was recently invited to give a presentation at a "Principles of Marketing" class at a local university. I'm really flattered to have been asked! In thinking about what to present, I've decided that I'm going to give a detailed tour of my marketing efforts. I don't know whether these intitives will contradict what the professor teaches or not but it should be fun! Here's my partial agenda:
- Describe our business and target market
- List my current ongoing marketing initiatives (e-newsletter, website, webinars and seminars, blog, letters, postcards, holiday cards)
- Show the marketing consultant website that I subscribe to and resources therein and master direct marketer, Dan Kennedy
- Share and discuss the list of recent marketing books I've read

I'll report back to let you know how it went.

Held our first webinar and survived!

Since August, we've been holding seminars at our office in order to provide continuing value to our current clients and to bring in prospects. Today, we finally hosted our first webinar and it was successful! I'd give it a 7 out of 10. We had an audio problem for about the first 3 minutes and then we ended up veering off the commercial/business focus. I think with practice we'll be old hands and probably do really well. I was proud of my husband (co-owner and CEO of the company) for providing great information, for me for setting it up, and for our attendees who participated! All in all I think it was a valuable experience!

Email Marketing

I love using email marketing. I think it's really effective IF those who receive it actually open it. Therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare pointed out! I use Constant Contact and really enjoy doing it. But it's not the only arrow in my marketing quiver. People ignore email, block people, don't have time, forget--you name it. So, good old-fashioned mail is another option.

Getting Things Done Guru Shares His Wisdom

David Allen, well-known process and organizational guru, spoke at a conference I attended last week. I love how he lays out what the major issues are facing pretty much everyone. First, we need to identify the problems and issues we need to face. Second, we need to develop a plan of action and an outcome plan. Then, we need to DO it. And sometimes, we should decide NOT to do something and in so doing, have resolved the problem. Yea!!!

There are payroll services and then there are payroll services

For some reason, payroll has never been a smooth road for our company. We had one period where we had an awesome payroll service. That ended only because he was bought by Paychex. Before and after that one period, though, it's been bumpy. The latest payroll debacle occurred yesterday when our current payroll service, Perquest, withdrew funds from my checking account without my authorization and without documenting why, due to the fact that THEY had failed to pay appropriate Medicare, FUTA or social security taxes for a former employee. I think this borders on criminal. So, that happened yesterday and today we signed up with a PEO firm. I need to get the payroll, health insurance and worker's comp headaches off my plate!

Ruminating on the Roomba

In December, I was lucky enough to land on the Ellen De Generes show as an audience member for the bonus day of the 12 Days of Holiday Giveaways. I won many wonderful things including an iRobot Roomba which is a vacuum cleaner that drives itself. All I can say is wow--what an amazing thing! My carpets and floors haven't been this clean in years. Somewhat steep price tag but may be worth it. If I'd seen this BEFORE I'd received one as a gift, I might have bought it.

Here's the concept for IGotAnEnvelope.com:

Igotanenvelope is a continuous art project where people leave empty self-addressed stamped envelopes in public places to be picked up and filled by others, who then send them back.

Go the their site to check it out. How fun!