I wrote a post on Fast Company a while back on the long term impact of cutting prices. I have pasted an excerpt of the post below but the whole article can be read here.

“Anytime sales are low, it is the entrepreneur’s natural instinct to find creative ways to boost sales. When all else fails, small business owners are often faced with the choice of bearing the cost of decreased sales until consumer shopping picks up again, or cut prices to incentivize sales.

Anytime sales are low, it is the entrepreneur’s natural instinct to find creative ways to boost sales. When all else fails, small business owners are often faced with the choice of bearing the cost of decreased sales until consumer shopping picks up again, or cut prices to incentivize sales.

While cutting prices may seem attractive in the short-run as the decrease in profit margins can be offset by the increase in the amount of sales made, one must carefully consider the long term impacts of decreasing prices.

There are many cost-cutting consequences which can be analyzed, but there are two in particular which I would like to discuss in this post: readjusting prices and the implications lower prices may have on the perceived quality of the products that you sell. The ideas are simple enough; however, it is vital that they are carefully incorporated into the analysis of your company’s financial future, using your company’s specific financial information, industry reports, and sales figures, when considering a reduction in prices.”

I recently wrote a post for John Chow on a case study of HTC and how they effectively ran a social media marketing campaign. The full post can be read here but I have pasted an excerpt below.

“An increasing number of social media websites are finding that the only real way to structure advertisements so that they have any significant ROI for sponsors is to integrate them into the social nature of the website itself. StumbleUpon did this through the use of “paid stumbles” where they charged $.05 a visitor from the StumbleUpon toolbar and Digg rolled out a similar program soon after showcasing “sponsored stories” amongst the other submissions on the home page.

If you are going to pay to advertise on social media websites, this is the way it is to be done. This is the only way to force readers to seriously consider clicking on your “advertisement” as it is essentially part of the content, essentially being the key word. To retain any sort of credibility, any social media website adopting such advertising forms will display a visible, although often times discrete, “sponsored post” message to let users know the link is an ad. However, since the ad is part of the content, users can’t help but to take notice of it and thus if intrigued they will click. This is a far cry from traditional sidebar banner advertisements which many users will glance over without any consideration.”

My number one rule of networking: don’t sell. Or at least, don’t blatantly sell. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen someone approach a well known figure in the industry they have never met and the first thing they try to do is sell the established individual on a product or idea. I can relate to the urge to do this. After all, chances are you have invested your time and money into a project and this person has the ability to help you get investment to further development or get information about your product to a large and/or influential audience. They have the power to make your product a success, so how could you not approach them?

However, take a minute to step into their shoes. If you were constantly being pitched ideas and start-ups and someone you have never met before approaches you and starts to sell you on their idea, how would you react? Would you give them the time of day? More often then not, people wouldn’t.

Now look at a different scenario. One where your fan introduces themselves and tells you about their background and how you’ve helped them find the passion and work on their product. This person then takes the time to take a genuine interest in who you are and what you do so that they can get to know you better. They may even mention they are working on a project and ask for your feedback and input. After you have gotten to build a relationship with them, they ask you for some help with some aspect of their idea. Now how would you react? I’m guessing you would be more likely to help.

People will always help friends over strangers (obviously) so take the time to build a relationship with someone before you ask for favors and you will most likely receive a greater amount of aid from those you seek it from.

Below I have a series of three very well created sports-related advertisements for Big Babol Gum. The ads artistically demonstrate the “chewiness” and “stretchability” of the gum. Of the three, I feel that the basketball one is the most effective. Which is your favorite?

I just have one question for every entrepreneur or freelancer who deals with corporate or repeat clients, does your client see you as cost of doing business, just another line on their expense reports, or as a long-term investment? Based on your answer to this question for every client you are currently working with and any client who approaches you in the future, who should you be focusing on?

This is a question I wished I asked myself about three years back when I was running a public relations company for local small business owners and web entrepreneurs. Answering this question for everyone of my clients would have really helped me prioritize and focus on the right aspects of my business.

There were so many clients who simply viewed my services as just a cost, a service they would purchase once or twice, simply to get the word out quickly about their product. I would write and deliver the press release, and then move on. However, there were also those clients who were in it for the long-haul. Those clients who wanted to form a long-term relationship, and thus more lucrative partnership, to not only get the word out once, but also develop three month or six month or even one year plans for ongoing public relations work.

These were the clients I should have been solely working with as it would be the clients who invested in me that would bring in the greatest amount of revenue and referral business, growing sales and building my brand in the industry. Time wasted on trying to adjust the view of the companies who saw my services as merely another cost so that they would see me as an investment would have been better spent working on making sure that the companies who had already invested in me achieved an even better ROI.

I recently wrote a guest post for Small Business Opportunities about the importance of focusing on one aspect of your business instead of trying to do everything for everyone all at once. The full post can be read here but I have pasted a short excerpt below.

“I think one problem area that a lot of small business owners run into is that they try to do a little bit of everything and in turn end up doing nothing exceptionally well. They have a general lack of focus and thus don’t stand out. The logic behind the decision is obvious enough: in order to capture the whole market and increase the pool of potential customers, entrepreneurs want to create versions of their product that cater to as many people as possible. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs don’t have the resources to do this from the get go and instead end up creating a series of inferior products which stay on the shelves.

I ran into a similar problem when I ran a public relations firm. I tried to offer as many services as I could, from press release writing to social media marketing to SEO and beyond. The problem was I didn’t have the resources to run such widespread marketing campaigns for my clients and found myself under performing and losing customers.”