Suggest You - Business

Virtual vs Bricks and Mortar
There are basically three general views in today’s world of business. The first is that the only thing stable and asset tangible is a company that possesses a building and has in stock an inventory of whatever they are selling. The next are those who have grasped to a certain degree the benefits of virtual assets but are only comfortable with these assets as long as they are representative of a bricks and mortar company. The last of course are those who have grown up with a potion of their reality virtual, and they are as comfortable with browsing a web store as they are walking through a department store, maybe even more so.There are the inevitable plus and minuses attached to each of these schools of though. Let’s di

math. Ask the Cable TV salesman how many channels he has on his system, and how many homes are connected. Then ask how many channels will have your commercials.

If there are 10,000 homes connected and the system has 25 channels and your ads will be inserted into 5 channels you will need a lot of ads to reach even a small percentage of the people. Ads are inserted into news and sports channels and entertainment and super station channels. Computers do it automatically, so the Cable company doesn't have to have people on the job 24 hours a day to run your commercial. Cable companies can insert one or one thousand commercials with a few keystrokes and with thousands of slots every day, they have no problem selling you

Learn The Easy Way-From Other People's Mistakes
We’ve all been subjected to awful speakers—some are boring, others are sanctimonious, a few are tedious. The one thing all of these rotten speakers have in common is this: listening to them is pure torture and all you can think about is how you will never get the last thirty minutes of your life back.Most of us tune out quickly once we are subjected to a lousy speaker. We pretend to take notes on our Palms only to check our email or add items to our To Do List. We daydream about our summer vacations. Occasionally, we literally fall asleep.The master communicator does none of these things. Instead, the master listens and watches the poor speaker AND watches the other audience members carefully. The master understand

Cable has grown from 13 houses connected together in 1948 to coverage of nearly 70% of all households in the U.S. With dozens, even hundreds of channels, Cable is now a major player for local advertising dollars, some for less than 5 bucks.

On the Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1960’s, most of the people shortened her name from "Mary" to "Mare". We, as a group, have a tendency to find the short cut, giving nick name to names that could stand on their own. Mary didn’t need to be any shorter, but it was cute to cut it down. Many Margarets are called Peggy, figure that one out. And many if not most John’s are called Jack.

It is little surprise that Cable became the shortened name for Community Antenna Television, CATV. In the days of CATV, local commercial inserts were not available.

Community Antenna Television, CATV originated as a service to those who lived in an area where TV was impossible to see. I visited the home of a friend’s mother in the mountains of North Carolina several decades ago. With a tall antenna and booster amplifiers, the best she could do was a fuzzy picture on ONE channel. Legends abound about who had the first community antenna. Most research says the first official CATV company began charging a fee to hook up in 1948. In those days CATV was no more than one big antenna tower on a high hill (or mountain) with a Cable running down the side and two or more homes connected.

In 1972, Charles Dolan and Gerald Levin of Sterling Manhattan Cable launched the nation’s first payTV network, Home Box Office (HBO). Cable became more than an antenna for local stations. Cable became a major player.

Today, most Cable companies have the ability to INSERT your commercial into many of the Cable networks. The networks don’t stop the show with a black screen for local commercials, instead they fill the space with ads that sell something (exercise machines, fancy knives, or something from Ron Popeil). "..order now and we’ll make the 4th payment for you!"

Local Cable commercial insertions are available 15 (or more) major networks and the list grows every month. Local advertisers can no longer afford to ignore the marketing potential, and lost cost, available through the use of Cable advertising.

Most offer a package that will put your commercial into a mix of Cable network programs at all hours of the day for as little as $5 per commercial. Yup, $5 for a commercial on ESPN, CNN Headline News or the Discovery Channel. The premium channels (those that cost extra above the standard cable package, HBO, Showtime etc.) do not allow commercials to be inserted

The Cable people sell very large packages with hundreds of commercials, splattered over all the networks allowing insertions. You have no control over where, when, or what channel your ad will appear. As a result, you get hundreds for a low price.

You can see why this is so by working the math. Ask the Cable TV salesman how many channels he has on his system, and how many homes are connected. Then ask how many channels will have your commercials.

Success Delusion
People will do something—including changing their behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interests as defined by their own values.All of us delude ourselves about our achievements, status, and contributions. We overestimate our contribution, and take credit for successes that belong to others. We have an elevated opinion of our skills and our standing among our peers. We ignore our costly failures and exaggerate our impact on net profits.These delusions are a direct result of success, not failure. We get positive reinforcement from our past successes, and we think that they portend great things in our future. This wacky delusional belief instills us with confidence, however unear

. In the days of CATV, local commercial inserts were not available.

Business Simulations: An Excellent Employee Training Tool
If you have ever run your own business you know how much of a hassle it can be to try to keep employees updated on new technology. Training can be very time consuming and expensive for both the company and the employee. This is where business simulations come into play. Using this technology you can find fun, unique, and cost effective ways to train your work force.Business simulations can be offered in software, games, charts, and other easy to use systems. The most preferred way is with games because this keeps students entertained while they learn. This means they will pay more attention to the lesson and will actually enjoy it.One very interesting business simulation environment is a lot like role playing.

d Levin of Sterling Manhattan Cable launched the nation’s first payTV network, Home Box Office (HBO). Cable became more than an antenna for local stations. Cable became a major player.

Host an Office Paper Shredding Day
We are coming up to the end of the year and the time when many of us look to clean out the clutter in the office. It may be just to fill the time during the slow holiday week but it can also be an opportunity to practice good document retention practices. Most offices have a retention policy for official company records, i.e. tax returns, employee files and bank statements. These documents are carefully filed and stored neatly in boxes in a storage area or at an offsite storage facility. Each box is labeled with the owner and the year of the document. Every year a shredding service comes in and shreds the outdated records.This is a great system for the official company documents but what about the secondary recor

, and lost cost, available through the use of Cable advertising.

Your Business Card - What Does It Say About You And Your Business?
A business card can be an extremely useful tool for marketing your business and yourself. Your business card should be professional in appearance and have several different methods to contact you. These should include telephone number, fax number, email address and mailing address. Additional contact information is a plus.One of the biggest mistakes you can make with your business cards is not handing enough of them out. Business cards are an inexpensive way of leaving a piece of yourself with a potential client.Handing you card to the right people is also very important. Get your business cards into the hands of decision makers. The people who can make the all-important buying decision are ideal candidates.<

math. Ask the Cable TV salesman how many channels he has on his system, and how many homes are connected. Then ask how many channels will have your commercials.

The major drawback of advertising on Cable is the amateurish way most Cable commercials are produced. Because of the low price for the ads, Cable companies often produce commercials with a tech school graduate and a mini cam.

Don't expect award winning commercials for five bucks. Some charge extra to produce your commercial, some offer it as a part of the package. Take a look at what they have done for others. Ask to see a demo reel. If you don’t like what you see, consider hiring your own crew to do it your way.

One way or another you will have to pay some extra to get a good commercial. Make one that will last for some time. After all it will take a long time for it to show up in all the prime slots on all the insert networks.

Professionally produced commercials can cost over $5,000 for 30 seconds and may take as long as a week for initial taping, longer for final editing.

This cost can be reduced if you perform the creative function and write your own commercials as well as furnishing talent for the ads. Some frugal advertisers have been able to hold production costs to as little as $200 per ad.

As with all commercials, make sure your name and what you do is at the beginning, at least in the middle and at the end. Phone number is not as important as name. You don’t watch TV with a pad and pencil to write down phone numbers and neither does anyone else. Get them to remember your company. Cook up a slogan.

Avoid the trap of being talked into standing in front of store and doing the ad yourself. Most Cable sales reps will trot this out first thing. Ego sells! Your friends may mention it, but it will not sell as well as a commercial featuring what you can do for those viewing at home. Remember, advertising is not about YOU, it’s about THEM. Value and benefits, value and benefits, not, "look at me and my kids".

Cable can be an effective part of your local advertising mix at a very reasonable price.

For more about advertising get my article "What the Newspaper Won't Tell You" MailTo:NewspaperAds@BigIdeasGroup.com

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American manufacturers are turning away lucrative business because they can't attract or retain enough qualified workers. This article discusses 5 ways to overcome this problem.

My definition of Items in QuickBooks is way too easy! Once you get it, you will be able to work with Items confidently.

Have you ever considered why lawyers have the biggest advertisements in the Yellow Pages? Well perhaps you should think on which advertisements do the best in the Yellow Pages and why. If you are an established business you do not need to advertise in the Yellow Pages because you have plenty of referrals from satisfied customers.

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