Recent Posts – Page 34 – Career Life Institute

What IS Marketing?

In a current survey of businesses, marketing is one of the main concerns. It is also one of the most confusing. Some think marketing is advertising or direct mail; others consider it sales or public relations. The truth is, marketing is all of these.

A simple definition of marketing is "how you present your business to your customers that makes you special or unique to them." The hard part is finding out exactly who your customers are, your customers' profile, and what part of your "presentation" is the most effective in motivating them to buy your product or service. This is an area you should spend a lot of time studying. Get professional help if you need statistics you can't find at the library or through surveys. From this you can begin to plan your marketing strategy.

The critical component of your marketing should be to develop a long-term customer/client mail list; research shows it is 85 percent less costly to keep an old customer than to get a new one. In this day of large discount stores, it is hard to compete through price.

Word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing tool, but one you cannot control, unless you give poor service or have a dissatisfied customer. Service is the best marketing tool to separate you from the big discount stores or competitors–service that includes product knowledge and customer education. Offering this service will get you great word-of-mouth marketing.

Some of the simple parts of marketing can be the most important and the least expensive. Tips to keep in mind:

Keep your business very clean at all times, both inside and outside;
Paint the walls pleasing and appropriate colors;
Make sure your business sign represents you well;
Retail windows should catch the eye and reflect your customers' tastes;
Keep track of your customers in a database and stay in touch with them through direct mail and phone calls.

Book Summaries: Unlimited Wealth and God Wants You to be Rich

Traditional economics says that whoever controls the world's natural resources and essential commodities controls the world. This also means that if there are only limited resources, one person's gain must be another person's loss; the richer one person is, the poorer his neighbors must be.

Economist Paul Pilzer argues that today we do not live in a resource-scarce environment – that in fact accelerated technological development has virtually eliminated scarcity. We live in a world today that Pilzer calls an Alchemic world – a world where the opportunities are unlimited, and wealth is not a finite pie to be cut up.

Just as the alchemists of old attempted to create gold from base metals, today we are able to create great value (and ultimately great wealth) from mundane and otherwise "worthless" resources. Today we can even make "computers from dirt". So what's the magic ingredient? Technology.

In 1972, the Club of Rome, a consortium of scientists, industrialists, politicians and world thinkers from 25 countries issued The Limits to Growth, a doom and gloom report warning that among other things, the world's oil resources would only last another 40 years at then current rates of consumption. Fifteen years later the reserves were estimated at nearly twice what the anticipated amount should have been.

As we enter the last years of this century, the effective supply of energy reserves by 2000 is anticipated to be 50% larger than it was in 1980. The same is true of most other commodities. So how did this happen? Technology.

First by improving our abilities to find, obtain, distribute, and store resources, and second by improving the efficiency with which we use the resources. In the case of automobiles, the simple act of replacing $300 carburetors with $25 fuel injectors doubled the fuel efficiency of new cars by 35% in less than a decade.

And, as supplies increase and technology improves, the price of products becomes less. So the relative price of oil has come back down from the huge increases of the 70's. This also shows up as being able to get more car for the price, and cars that last longer with less repairs. When's the last time someone in your office called in late because of a flat tire or a blowout? Even tires are lasting longer now.

Pilzer's optimistic books include several examples of how the principles of Alchemy work, and how to create wealth by closing the gap between the level of technology currently being used and level that is available. He is an economist I can agree with and he writes so that others can understand.

I highly recommend using these books to begin closing your own technology gap and finding ways to work smarter. By his own explanation, Unlimited Wealth is geared more towards the economist, while God Wants You to Be Rich has plenty of specific examples for the businessperson or budding entrepreneur.

Summaries by Katie Darden

God Wants You to be Rich
(Hardback) or (Paperback)

Unlimited Wealth
The Theory and Practice of
Economic Alchemy

Life’s Little Goodies: The Lie About David

David grew up poor. He started working in the 7th grade and by high school he was only going to school half days, leaving at 11 a.m. to go to work. Lack of money meant lack of educational opportunities, but he had a hunger to learn. He devoured books on human development and motivation, mental and spiritual tomes, vocabulary builders and other educational and motivational resource materials.

He was a hard worker and rose above his lack of formal education and skills to provide decently for his family, but the factory life was taking it's toll on him physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It was, in his mind, killing him.

Three years ago he bought his first computer. He worked 48 or more hours a week in the factory and worked another 40 or more hours a week teaching himself computer skills. He worked harder than he ever had in his life, logging over 100 hours a week on many, many occasions. He taught himself everything he could to find a place on the professional side of the internet. He saw it as his best bet out of the factory and lack of education that had him boxed in for so long.

David has been applying for jobs in the internet and computer fields. His lack of 'formal' education has shot him down many times but he never gave up. He had a goal and kept after it even when he didn't feel like it. That kind of drive and perseverance almost always pays off.

I'm happy to say David has finally left the factory and taken a job in the computing field. He beat out college educated applicants with 4 year degrees with his 3 years of self-taught skills.

This is a true story about determination. It's a story about believing in yourself. It's a story about finding what you love to do and following your dreams, and I've only told one lie while relating it to you. You see, David isn't a real person…

…this story is about me. All the hard work has indeed landed me a job at Mom's Computers here where I live. My official title is Internet Specialist, and I'm being paid more to do work I love, and I work from home now. It doesn't get much better than that.

I guess I'm an official nerd now, and I'm feeling pretty darn good as I write this. I hope if you have a dream you'll be inspired enough to see it through. Don't think it can't happen because I'm proof it can, but it's up to you to make it so. To get to Somewhere, you must start Here, right where you are. Even the farthest journey always starts with the first step.

"Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you." – Frank Tyger

"A break in the established order is never the work of chance. It is the outcome of a man's resolve to turn life to account." – Andre Malraux

Never give up!
~ 23 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss's first book.
~ Michael Jordan's high school basketball team cut him.
~ 21 publishers rejected M*A*S*H
~ Henry Ford went broke five times before succeeding.

Visit his website at www.boogiejack.com – and find help along with a sense of humor at this resource for do-it-yourself webmasters. Boogie Jack provides professional grade graphics, html and graphics tutorials, and much more. Spend some time and check out the entertainment and fun things like the "guess the celebrity" contest.

The Efficient Cubicle

Many of us work well in comfortable disarray, but given the martinets some of us work for, the "mare's nest" look might not be the best way to go. In the interest of maintaining your promotion prospects, you should consider making yours into an efficient cubicle: a place for everything, everything in its place. Being neat doesn't mean you have to lose your individuality, though it does mean you might have to tone it down a bit; you might want to lose the Iron Maiden poster, for example, and replace it with a couple of nice collage picture frames filled with pictures of family. (If you're careful, no one will notice if you sneak in a picture of Eddie).

Neatness on order

What does it mean to be efficient? A good 90% of efficiency is saving time. If you can find the exact file you need in five minutes, or knock out a quote in fifteen, or calculate the cheapest route from Albuquerque to Hawaii with a few keystrokes, that's efficient. Generally, in order to be this efficient, you must be organized first; and to get organized, you need to start from the beginning. Set aside a block of time so you can clean your office, sort your files, create an intuitive filing system, and in general reduce the clutter. Reorganize and restock your supplies so you can get what you need in the wink of an eye.

Next, clear away some of your distractions. There's no need to strip your cubicle down to its bare walls, but do you really need to display 30 different photos of your Alaska vacation? Download them all into a digital picture frame and there they are — all cycling one after another, in a handy frame you can put anywhere, leaving your walls for more important stuff: phone lists, project schedules, memos from the boss, and Dilbert cartoons. If your cubicle happens to have metal panels or metal walls, you can make great use of magnetic picture frames and refrigerator magnets to hang these items on the wall. But whatever you do, don't use magnets to hang stuff on your computer, unless you really need a new one. Since electronic data is nothing but magnetically-oriented electrical impulses, a nice refrigerator magnetic collection on your PC is a great way to turn it into a date-free doorstop.

Electronic Efficiency

Speaking of computers, your cubicle's efficiency should extend to its electronic devices. Take an hour to defragment your computer's hard drive, clear the cache, and do the other things necessary to speed it up, then take a little more time to reorganize your computer file directory. Nothing says efficient like printing a document out on your boss's printer five minutes after she asks for it. In addition, be sure to use any organizer software you have on your system; many email programs include both organizer and scheduling functions that can help you keep your life in order. Alternately, consider purchasing an electronic or paper-based organizer of your own, one that helps you organize your week in a flash. Few things are as effective as a good organizer for straightening out a tangled schedule.

Published with permission (FCDMInc)