J.D. Salinger dies at 91 – Holy Kaw!

J.D. Salinger, the legendary and reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, has died at the age of 91. According to statement from the author’s literary representation and read by his son, Salinger passed away from natural causes at his Cornish, New Hampshire home on Wednesday.

Read more about the interesting life of Salinger, from his Manhattan upbringing to serving in World War II to his quiet retirement.

(Via Huffington Post)

Pick up your pen and learn more on writing.

via holykaw.alltop.com

Posted via web from Randomness in random order

Impact of Video

Great article from the September 14th, 2009 Edition of BtoB Magazine that talks about the impact of video for marketing and lead generation.

“All the collateral material we produce doesn’t have the same impact as video.”

This is my favorite quote from the article from Steven Link, Exec VP-Marketing of Midwest Employers Casualty Co.

Exciting to see someone celebrating their success in using video to effectively grow their market with their customers.

Mini Power Presenter

While we were out at the NSA Convention, our booth was next to the booth for Honeywell’s Street Smart Technology Group.

At first I was wondering what Honeywell had to exhibit to a group of Professional Speakers, but then I saw the cool tools that they had that almost anyone with computer and presentation software should have.

After hanging out with him for a couple days we did some discussing, and he sent us one of these.  I am so excited to use it I had to write a quick little post on it.  If you are interested in getting one of these I highly recommend clicking here, and enter the promotion code: NSA

2 Ears 2 Eyes 1 Mouth

There is a reason that you have 2 ears, 2 eyes and only 1 mouth.  The reason is that you need to listen and look twice as much as you speak.  I have heard this for quite some time, and it really rings true.

I know this is not a new topic, but in these days we need a constant reminder.  If you are working on a new product or marketing your services you should focus a great amount of effort to listen and look at the details from your audience before you speak back to them.

All too often we rush through things to get them done for what we want, but don’t take the time to listen to what your audience needs or wants.  Or even look to what they are telling us.

Here are 7 steps to follow to help structure yourself to best utilize your naturally given features:

1. Plan – Develop a hypothesis of what you think you will find from the next steps.
2. Survey – Official or not, but ask questions to help determine what it is your audience is looking for from you.
3. Analyze – Dig through the results of your survey to narrow down the answers.
4. Survey Again – Similar to step 1, but you need to ask more questions to get past the surface, find objections, or to find the deep down reasons for the answers in step 1.
5. Analyze Again –  Dig through the results of your second survey to see if the answers you’re getting match the other data.
6. Compare – Side-by-side you need to compare your hypothesis to the answers of the 2 surveys to determine what you thought versus what you’ve found in listening to what the surveys (and your audience) wants.
7. Act – Now that you have listened at least 2 times you are able to properly put your product or marketing message together that will really help to skyrocket your successes to higher levels.  Don’t believe it, I challenge you to try.

Still having some difficulty?  Try to implement a few triggers each day for the next 30 days to remind you to listen, listen, look, look, then speak.

PDF Preparation of Files

It can be a helpful tip or a life saver in a time crunch, but setting up your files correctly before, during, and after making a PDF will help to make sure everything prints the way you want it to print.

When dealing with native files, it is always best to convert them to PDF on the originating computer.

Though many programs integrate an Adobe Acrobat link into their toolbars (for convenience), we find this method un-desirable, as it captures all manner of information which is not needed for most print purposes. In fact, on occasion, it can change the appearance of the document as it seeks to make it suitable for a variety of options such as web page publishing.

We have always (with very few exceptions) found it better to use the “Print” function and choose the
“Distiller” or a PDF option as my printer.

National Speakers Association Convention

We are really excited to be able to attend and exhibit at the National Speakers Association Annual Convention in sunny Arizona from July 18th – 21st.

If you are going to be out there stop by and visit us, we would love to meet and talk with you!

Packaging: Stock or Custom? Part 1

When, how and why does it make sense to either use a custom made packaging or use something that is a stock type of packaging? The answer is not an easy one because it really depends on the entire situation. One factor that will help to determine this is the overall quantity needed.

Quantity:

If you have a small run project, most of the time it would be best to use a stock type of packaging that can be customized with a special cover, label, or something else to make it from a stock product to be your package. The great thing is that even though a stock type of packaging can be commonly used, there are a wide variety of choices to help make your product stand out.

If you want a custom packaged product with only a short run you may be faced with extremely high setup costs, or really high per unit costs. A general basis for determining short run versus a larger run is that a short run is usually less than 1,000 total finished pieces; where as, a larger run would generally be greater than 1,000 total finished pieces.

If you have a larger run project it may be better to have a custom solution to not only stand out with something unique, but it may even help with the perceived value and in some cases fit into your overall budget. Do you need to reinvent the wheel? No, not at all. You can take some existing designs or templates and make the artwork work to make it truly unique to your product. With a larger run project it does allow for almost an unlimited amount of choices, so narrowing them down can be a challenge. Don’t worry we enjoy helping to find the right solution.

To see some examples of packaging click here and search around for some of the choices that are available.

Stay tuned for next part of this series where we will discuss perceived value.

“Primary Partners” with Embedded Video

There is nothing better than a compliment.

We are really happy to announce and post this video testimonial from one of our greatest partners/customers/friends.

Click on the image above, or you can click here.

A big thanks to David Hlavac and the entire HotTopic Media Team!

“Primary Partners”

There is nothing better than a compliment.

We are really happy to announce and post this video testimonial from one of our greatest partners/customers/friends.

Click on the image below, or you can click here

A big thanks to David Hlavac and the entire HotTopic Media Team!