Resources for business development

Networking for a business website

Drachsi — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 07:51:16 +0000

Things to consider when your website is finished and now the marketing starts.

Women's Life Coach, Julie Phillips - Media Kit

ladylifecoach — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:18:45 +0000

If you are looking for a speaker for your next event or meeting, an article for your blog or magazine or an advisor to help you with a study or report, I can help you.

My media kit gives you some more information about who I am, who I support and what I can do.

I am currently taking bookings for events, so please get in touch today.

ARTICLE: Fortune Favours the Relentless Marketeer

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 11:25:19 +0000

The way most people get to hear your music is by somebody somewhere telling them to listen to it. It could be friends, family, people on websites, promoters, radio pluggers, journalists, bloggers, A&R executives, graphic designers, record shop owners, music teachers, instrument manufacturers, brands, bar staff in gig venues, people at gigs, record producers, advertising creatives, filmmakers and TV shows producers. It’s highly rare that somebody will just stumble across it, yet marketing is something that few bands and artists ever do well. Apart from the successful ones.

There are many, many voices and channels through which your music can be heard, and you’ve got to try and engage as many of them as possible. It sounds obvious, but putting up a Myspace page and doing a few local gigs probably won’t do a great deal to progress your music careers. You have to be everywhere, and you need a story, an aesthetic, something that distinguishes you from the rest. And it has to be authentic.

A manager for one of my bands kept trying to get us to do something, anything beyond just showing up at a venue with a bunch of mates and playing. For some reason we weren’t that up for it. Maybe it was because we were fed up with our manager showering us with spittle every time he spoke to us up close. We didn’t have a desire to do anything but play.

We had started out strong in the beginning though. The other guitarist in the band had designed a logo for us and created a stencil to use to spraypaint the image on to the front of t-shirts, both men’s and women’s styles. We sold 7 at £10 each on our first night. Needless to say this worked for a while until we ran out of paint.

We were also asked to take a social media site each and manage it, which didn’t really work. I had actually become obsessed with Myspace a couple of years earlier when I was in my previous band, sitting there for 8 hours a day adding as many “friends” as possible. It did actually get us new fans. Some people in Essex liked our band so I arranged a gig in Chelmsford, their home town, and they all came. We got some gigs in towns around the south coast out of it, and we even had kids in various parts of America digging it too, sending us back Photoshopped images of ourselves. We looked dashing treated with a pink transparent overlay.

So I’ve been in bands where the Myspace page has worked for us (before people got really sick of bands hitting them every other day) and I’ve done the gigs and sold the t-shirts. But that was about it, and it cost me. Particularly when the hard-drinking country-rock band I was in (years before that music got cool again) had been approached after a gig by a music lawyer from Warner Bros saying it was the best thing he’d seen for ages.

It was a chaotic gig on paper – we almost pulled out because when we got to the venue we were told there was no drum kit, which there should have been. A young band on the bill managed to drive to their college and bring back what they could, which was about a half a drum kit. This meant our drummer just hit it twice as hard. Our singer was pissed off so we purposely didn’t have a set list, and we just played the heavier songs with extended jams, making the set up as we went along. We looked a mess but that angry energy produced a great gig and the lawyer, who was only at the gig because someone my Mum worked with was his girlfriend and she’d made him go as a favour, was all over us. He passed our CD on to an A&R friend of his at Parlophone Records (EMI) who actually emailed us about a week or so later asking for a gig schedule so that he could come and watch us play. The CD was doing the rounds at various music industry offices and it was a great chance.

But we had no fan base. We’d never collected many email addresses, most of those we had were friends. We hadn’t done much promotion other than leaflets on pub tables, and we really didn’t put in many ideas. The lesson here is that we’d got our way in by doing a blinding gig, and we had a good Myspace page to back it up, but in neglecting to cultivate a fan base we were just another pub band. Despite the fact EMI liked our sound, they weren’t going to waste time watching a band in a half-empty venue which was that way because the band hadn’t put the effort in. It’s not actually as clear-cut as this, the A&R guy was very busy with another band he was really pushing, but we could have helped inspire a change of mind by being more clever and committed to marketing ourselves. We had a couple more meetings with the lawyer on his request because he wanted to work with us, but there wasn’t a great deal he could hold on to in order to take the band to the next level. The band was only together for a few more months before it was finished.

These days there are so many potential ways to get yourself heard. There isn’t one elusive individual that sneakingly and frustratingly evades your continuous attempts to glean a recording contract from him, until in the end you’re so bitter and twisted that you hate every mention of the music industry. You don’t have to be chasing a phantom. There are hundreds, thousands of people out there who actually want to hear your music.

The most important person isn’t the one who signs you up. It’s You. This whole big adventure starts with you and it’s entirely up to you how far you take it. You are the one who has to tell people to listen to your music right at the very beginning. You need to tell as many people as possible where they can listen to your music, when, how and why. Communicate these four key messages as clearly, accurately and in as many different ways as possible and the message will spread through others.

Many musicians don’t really like marketing themselves too much. They think it’s against their artistic morals, that it’s beneath them, that the music will speak for itself. If you’re good, the music will speak for itself up to a point, but we all know it’s not just about the music. Most of it is, but the bit that really tips it over the edge into something exciting is the image, the aesthetics, the story, the PR and the marketing. And every great popular artist in the history of time has benefited from all of these.

We’re in an age where it’s more important than ever to market yourself, not just in the field of music but the field of everything. You’ve got to get people excited in you enough so that they become fans and sign up to your email updates, go to gigs, interact with online content and buy your merchandise and ultimately your music. Telling people where, when and how they can listen to your music is the easy part, but telling them why they should be a fan, to buy into you, is the most challenging and the most important. From a music professional’s point of view, they need to see lots of fans attending gigs and loving what the band does. But for that to happen you’ve got to engage people in a way that generates excitement, emotion, desire to become a fan – it’s the part that gets people hooked. This is what the somebody somewhere’s go and tell their friends.

The Wild Woman's Guide to Fundraising

Mazarine — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 07:58:44 +0000

To order The Wild Woman's Guide to Fundraising, or to read more about it, please go to

http://wildwomanfundraising.com/book-wildwomanfund

Social Norms? Twitter Users Follow the 79/7 Rule in the U.K.

THINKBIGBEBIG — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:34:36 +0000

The Pareto principle, more commonly known as the 80/20 rule, is the idea that roughly 80 percent of activity will be accounted for by 20 percent of the participants. Vilfredo Pareto’s initial observation at the start of the 20th century, that 80 percent of Italy’s land was owned by 20 percent of the population, has become a common rule of thumb in business, but does it hold up when tracking activity for the U.K.’s most popular social networks?

Required 35 PMP contact hours for $35 online

proxalt — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:19:55 +0000

ProXalt is still offering its Flash based 35 hour course for the Project Management Professional exam for only $35. The thirty five hours are required by PMI - the Project Management Institute - when applying to sit for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam. PMI requires proof of 35 hours or more of coursework in project management.

Since ProXalt is a Registered Educational Provider (REP) of PMI and the 35 Hour Online PMP Prep course has been formally approved by PMI, completion of the course satisfies your requirement. In the meantime, you may even learn a new thing or two!

The course is delivered in a self-paced online format. The Learning Management System (LMS) is accessible 24/7 for 30 days (additional time can be purchased; although most finish within the allotted time).

The lessons cover all the topics included in the Fourth Edition PMBOK®. The lessons are delivered in short, easily digestible segments. The exam material is abstract and often overwhelming. ProXalt does an amazing job of simplifying the material using Flash animation, text, and voiceovers. Granted, this is just an introductory course to serve as an overview of the vast, complex knowledge base incorporated in the official PMP Exam. ProXalt extends the preparation in more intense training - either live classroom 4 Day courses or live instructor-led online courses. Nonetheless, this is a very inexpensive way to explore the PMP material, get a sense of what is covered, get a sense of the exam questions and how you fair, and/or use it as supporting content to your (possible) arsenal of study material.

For $35, the ProXalt 35 hour online PMP course is easily the most cost effective commercial option anywhere.

Follow the link to begin your path towards PMP success. Or email contact@proxalt.com if you have additional questions.

Marketing Strategy Programme

frncinepickering — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:15:15 +0000

New from Clarity Marketing, out Marketing Strategy Training & Coaching Programme, especially designed for small business owners who need to stop meesing about and get their marketing strategy straight. 3-months of bespoke training and coaching aimed at making a real difference to your business.

Businesses with 2-249 employees could be able to get grant funding towards the cost of the programme.

More information on the programme at http://www.clarity-in-communication.com/marketing-services/marketingtraining.htm

The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500

andy — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:44:53 +0000

Great article (via @guykawasaki) on how the expectations of the next generation are reshaping the businesses they work for. 12 points about how the new workplace will need to reflect the principles of the social web.

Here are my favourites:
* All ideas compete on an equal footing.
* Leaders serve rather than preside.
* Resources get attracted, not allocated.

Great stuff, and all reminiscent of Ricardo Semler. Very interesting to see how this actually plays out in commercial and non-profit workplaces in the UK.

What’s your super power?

THINKBIGBEBIG — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:07:23 +0000

Another great article from Seth Godin who talks about how we should all have a super power, particularly in business. The example he gives is the Wasp
“I’m the Wasp. I have the ability to shrink to a height of several centimeters, fly by means of insectoid wings and fire energy blasts.”
Some fancy marketers might call this a positioning statement or a unique selling proposition. Of course, it’s not that. It’s just her super power.
When you meet someone, you need to have a super power. If you don’t, you’re just another handshake. Don’t say, “Hi, I’m Don, I’m from Cleveland.” Instead, try, “Hi, I’m Don, I tell stories that spread.” It’s not about touting yourself or coming on too strong. It’s about making the introduction meaningful. If I don’t know your superpower, then I don’t know how you can help me (or I can help you). Read the rest of the article on what’s your super power.

Stop reading your damn email !

greenman — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 15:24:27 +0000

I was into email about a decade ago. These days I prefer to avoid communication forms that demand my attention. I can definitely recommend ending an email (and twitter) (and RSS) addiction.

Smart Women web site

frncinepickering — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 16:43:12 +0000

Online directory for East Midlands women who work for themselves. Another great palce to create a free profile and promote yourself online.

New 2009 brochure available

Adrian — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:23:17 +0000

I know that it is only just past Christmas, but thought that you would want to be the first to know that our latest 2009 information brochure is available.

A "must have" for any serious business student or corporate training manager.

email - wilkinson-associates@telefonica.net - today & we will be delighted to send you a copy

Happy New Year!

The Folksy ruler

dougald — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:32:59 +0000

One of the things I really like about Folksy.com (the UK-based crafts marketplace) is the cool stuff they make to promote the site. Looking through their Flickr stream, there are plenty of other examples of them getting involved with the community of people who make and sell stuff through the site.

There's lots of inspiration there for us at School of Everything - and for any other startup that's trying to find playful ways to spread the word about a useful service.