Archive for January 2010

Marketing Yourself in Awkward Situations

January 25, 2010 4 comments
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Yeah we get it, everything we do is marketing ourselves yadda yadda yadda.  But what do you do in awkward situations where there is a bit of tension built up?  You know, those situations where it could end up good or bad?  How do you get the other person on your side and trusting you?

Joke around with them.  Humor relaxes people and says “hey, I’m not nearly as bad as you think I am”.

Example 1: I play hockey, I usually hate refs in hockey, I usually yell at refs in hockey, not this time.  For the first time ever in my life that I can remember, while sitting in the penalty box, quite angry at the ref to say the least, he made a joke about what I did to get the penalty.  I had no choice to laugh and to start liking him.

Example 2: The Pastor at my church has a great sense of humor, after the service you can’t help but smile and laugh with him while he makes his remarks as everyone is leaving the sanctuary.  You feel a different connection with him because he makes you laugh.

You don’t have to be
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Something is Awry at the Hill School

January 20, 2010 1 comment
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Your website is the story you want to tell the world.  Do you have a purpose for each page on your site?  Do you know who your intended audience is?  What are you trying to convince them of when they visit your site?  If you can’t answer these questions it becomes blatantly obvious when we view your site.

For the past five years the Paul J. Hill School of Business at the University of Regina has entered the JDC West competition.  JDC West is the largest student run academic case competition in Western Canada which includes prestigious schools such as the University of Alberta, Asper School of Business, and Sauder School of Business.  The complete list can be found here.

The Paul J. Hill School for the past three years have finished in second place.  This is no small feat by any means and it truly shows the quality of students that the school is producing.  For reasons beyond my comprehension you can’t find a link on the School’s website to this competition.  Not just a second place finish, they also raised $21,390.12 for charity and the faculty is more concerned with course offerings?  Something is awry.  If I want to find out
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The New Generation

January 18, 2010 1 comment
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I consider myself a part of “the new” generation.

Tell us to go somewhere and we won’t go.

Tell us to watch something and we’ll turn off the TV.

Tell us to wear something and we’ll choose to go naked.

Tell us to do it your way and we’ll find a better way.

Tell us to be a part of something and we’ll avoid it with all costs.

Tell us we can make more money doing it your way and we’ll go volunteer somewhere else.

Tell us “this is the norm” and we’ll disagree, we have our own norm.

Tell us to believe in something and we’ll make up our own belief’s, because we can.

Give us the opportunity to be innovative and creative, and we’ll surprise you every time with what we can do.

How are you managing the new generation; by telling or by giving?

Photo Credit: Anissa Thompson

Profitable or Passionate?

January 15, 2010 0 comments
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This past week I had the pleasure of working with a friend I met in University.  He has since graduated from the film program at the U of R and now owns his own business called Living Sky Media.  Riley doesn’t charge an hourly rate for filming and editing video.  He can’t.  If he did, his clients would either;

a) Pay an absurd amount of money because he works on a project until it is perfect (or very near perfect) not worrying about time.

or

b) Pay a seemingly miniscule per hour rate to account for the extra time spent making the video great.

When you are passionate about your work time doesn’t matter.  For Riley, he’d rather put in the extra effort to make the video amazing whether he’s getting paid for it or not.

Most financial and business consultants would say this is a terrible business model because it does not amount to being profitable.  If Riley’s main goal was to be profitable he wouldn’t create such amazing video’s.  Now I’m not saying that being profitable is a bad goal to have but putting your passion before profit is something that many people do not do in
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Don’t Be Earl

January 03, 2010 0 comments
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Social media isn’t just about Facebook and Twitter, though they both have proven to be among some of the best tools to carry out your internet networking fantasies. Opportunities will pass you by if you are not monitoring what others are saying about you and your organization and engaging them in a conversation.  Communication on the internet is only increasing in speed, if you choose to ignore it, you may lose.

Could you imagine if the next time you took your car in for an oil change, they told you about their customer comments section on their website; where if you leave a comment about how the service was, you get 10% off your next oil change?  Would you leave a comment?  Would you read what others have said? Please let me know below

What if we could hold companies accountable when they provide an unsatisfactory product or service?  What if you could look up what others are saying about the restaurant you’re going to tonight?  What if you looked up a new hair salon and this came up: (click on the picture to make it larger, this is what actually came up in a Google search for this
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