Imagine this, myself of Generation “Y” in a room full of Baby Boomers at a recent networking event. One Boomer commented, “Young people just don’t want to work as hard as we do, I can’t even bribe them with money.” This conversation got me thinking about what my generation will look like in 15 years at the height of our careers when the majority of Boomers are retired.

As the average Yer’s work-week drops from 40 to 35 hours to include more leisure time, activities done outside of work will become an experience rather than a rushed chore. A trip to the grocery store will be transformed into a learning experience as buyers continue to educate themselves about nutrition in the food they are buying. Purchasing decisions will be based on notions of “healthy choices”, “eco-friendliness” and “carbon footprints”.

How is this growing trend going to influence businesses? While those who package products will need to improve labeling, will businesses see this as an opportunity to offer more participation-oriented experiences? For example, a trip to the grocery store can turn into an afternoon event if there is a speaker discussing healthy eating habits.

How are you, as a business owner and employer, going to catch the ‘eyes’ of Generation Y?
-Katrina

Lets get something straight here first and foremost - I am female: I look like a woman and I sound like a woman but yet I have been called Mr. on two separate occasions recently.

The first was an e-mail following up on a booth I visited at CES - the e-mail actually mentioned how much they had enjoyed meeting me!.

The second was in a voice mail left from someone referred to me by a service provider. The person listened (but did not hear) my message and yet still called me Mr. To spare these people the embarrassment I won’t actually mention their names or company (although they probably deserve it for their blatant ignorance) but these occurrences served to remind me how important it is in business to know your customer.

What do you think the chances of me doing business with either of these companies are? I’d say somewhere less than zero. Not only did they offend me from the start but the first had the gall to blatantly lie in their communication (enjoyed meeting me indeed) - it did nothing for their credibility.

This was originally posted in the Out-Smarts blog.

It takes no time to pay a little attention to your customer, prospect or potential client and offending someone will be counteractive to your cause.

So next time you are planning an email or phone campaign or any marketing or sales activity for that matter, give a little thought to your audience:

1. Don’t dare to assume that the recipient is male when they could be female and vice versa. If you’re not sure if someone is male or female then its often best to avoid such a salutation.

2. If you’re not sure of the spelling of a contact’s name then omit it (you should see the collection of incorrect spellings I’ve collected over the years with a name like Mhairi).

3. If in doubt either don’t take the risk or take a little time to do some detective work to find out.

A little attention to detail can go a long way in helping you open the door to business so take heed and take time to know your audience. It will be worth your while.

I recently read a great article by Robert Allen that talks about a common mistake made by many beginning marketers . Although he specifically writes about internet marketing, his key points apply to any marketing program. There are three key questions you must answer in any marketing campaign:
1. Who is your target audience?
2. What do they want?
3. How can you motivate this target audience to act now?

As this article points out, many business owners spend 90% of their time creating the perfect product and only 10% of their time finding the perfect audience. I see this all the time – painstaking hours put into product development and minimal time put into marketing. This needs to be reversed to maximize your success – spend 90% of your time finding your market. Do research to answer the 3 questions above. People don’t just buy because you have a great idea – you need to market to a niche. Once you identify a hungry market – a market that is interested in what you offer - then use your marketing campaign to motivate them to buy. You have a targeted marketing effort which always gives better results.

You can read the whole article here:

Trendwatching has come out with their Top 8 Important Consumer Trends for 2008 for businesses to capitalize on.
They are:

1. Status Spheres – status is the main buying factor

2. Premiumization – developing high end products and services in every industry

3. Snack Culture – catering to the craving for instant gratification

4. Online Oxygen – reach and touch consumers online in new ways

5. Eco-ionic – bold new design and green credentials catch customers

6. Brand Butlers – less emphasis on advertising and more on marketing that takes care of the consumer

7. Make It Yourself- more people wanting to create and personalize products

8. Crowd Mining – use customer input and sweat equity to build your brand. Check out Netflix movie ranking accuracy prize contest to see how it’s done.

Whether you run a small or big business this report has some great ideas for building business in 2008. Happy New Year!

One of the biggest challenges facing small business owners is getting PR. In fact, it is such a daunting task that many of them don’t even try. They figure they will just wait until they have a budget big enough to hire a PR consultant. I recently came across a great eBook “PR in Your Pajamas”- written by Elena Verlee, a business coach and PR expert. Although the book is promoted as ‘practical publicity for the time-strapped, cash crunched mom entrepreneur’, this practical guide is a good read for any business owner. Her no-nonsense approach to PR provides valuable advice including practical tips for building a media contact list and 10 key questions you need to ask a reporter. My favourite section of the book is “The Art of Following Up” where she gives specific tips for how to follow up with a reporter without becoming a stalker or sounding like an idiot they would never want to interview! Filled with great quotes from media people and other business owners, this book will definitely jumpstart a few PR ideas for you.

In follow up to our Google AdWords posting last week, the folks over at Out-Smarts have posted a second installment in their series of posts. This one is called Google AdWords - Which Edition. The article discusses getting started with the service and in particular choosing the right Google AdWords edition to meet your needs: Standard or Starter Edition.

GoogleAdWords is a great way to easily target your niche audience and promote your product to that audience. With hundreds of millions of Google searches performed every day it makes sense to tap into that huge potential market and thats just what GoogleAdwords lets you do.

When you next google something look at the right hand side and the top few searches of the page: these are ads (usually highlighted) placed and paid for by companies using the GoogleAdWords service.

The major benefits companies find in using this service (increased traffic notwithstanding) include:

• ability to get started on a minimum budget: as little as $5 per month;
• manage your budget effectively with monthly spend limits;
• test the waters, try different keywords and ad wording and make adjustments easily;
• you only pay for actual clicks (people who click through to visit your site);
• advertising with Google, unlike advertising in traditional media, is highly targeted by location and language;
• its relatively simple to get started
• and the service offers advanced reporting options if you are so inclined.

All in all, GoogleAdWords brings great bang for your advertising buck. Watch out for more in a series of Google AdWords blog posts at Out-Smarts.

After many requests, I am once again offering this seminar in Vancouver. If your bottom line is not performing the way you want it to, join us to learn how to:

• Identify profitable target markets and the most effective way to reach them
• Bring in more customers
• Develop a marketing system that works for you that will generate more business and more revenue

When: Saturday, September 29th, 2007 9:30AM to 12:30PM (Breakfast will be provided)
Where: Boardroom, 744 West Hastings, Vancouver

Click here for more details.

Space is limited to 12 people - the last time we offered this course it sold out in 3 days!