Choosing the right experts during your early franchising phase can translate to long-term success.

Original post by Geoffrey James

Important steps to take before buying a franchise

Original post by Geoffrey James

Do you have what it takes to be published? If so, this PR tactic can really help your business.

Original post by Geoffrey James

A behind-the-scenes look at 2007’s most essential internet marketing strategy

Original post by Geoffrey James

With April Fools’ Day around the corner, find out what practical jokes workers have pulled in their office–and how to avoid taking your tricks too far.

Original post by Geoffrey James

Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that I’m not entirely enthusiastic about the ability of some marketing groups to support the sales effort. One of marketing’s most important tasks is to create brand names that help drive sales. Sometimes this works, sometimes it’s a wash, and sometimes branding makes selling damn near impossible.

I’ve encountered some truly lousy branding decisions in my own career. For example, a while back, when France’s Group Bull tried to break into the U.S. computer market by purchasing the ailing Honeywell Information Systems, a new brand name was needed for the combined company. Marketing rounded up the usual focus groups and decided to build on Groupe Bull’s existing brand name equity. They named the merged entity “Bull Worldwide Information Systems.” I remember having a drink with a top Honeywell sales rep after the decision had been announced. “Oh, that’s just lovely,” he said, after taking a long pull at his beer, “Now I can go to a customer meeting and say ‘Hi! I’m the man from Bull W.I.S.’”

That decision was pretty lame, but in my experience the absolute dumbest branding boner came from Panasonic back in the 90s. When the company released a PC for the home market in Japan, they wanted a mascot to show that their PC was friendly, cute and approachable. The marketing team therefore secured the rights to use a character who, like Jerry Lewis in France, is more loved abroad than here at home. That character was (guess who!): Woody Woodpecker.

Yes, Panasonic named its new PC “The Woody,” and to make matters worse, decided to differentiate it from the competition by emphasizing a touch screen capability, named (wait for it…) “Touch Woody.” The day before the product was announced in Tokyo, an American woman working for the company let the marketing team know why foreign journalists kept snickering during the pre-release briefing.

It was too late to change the “Woody” name, but Panasonic executives did manage to change “Touch Woody” to “Woody Touch Screen” in the announcement materials. Just to be safe, though, the marketing group decided last minute to emphasize a different feature: the automated online support capability named (I kid you not) “Internet Pecker.”

True story.

Original post by Geoffrey James

Our comprehensive Insurance Selling Secrets course, consisting of a giant book, 5 full-length CDs, and 4 full-length DVDs, is now available.

Since we pre-launched it to our private Insurance Selling Secrets newsletter subscribers on Monday, the 500 copies are running out quickly - here’s where you can learn more about the course, and why we only produced 500 copies and plan to pull it off the market in about a week -

http://www.nevercoldcall.com/insurance

Original post by fjr@nevercoldcall.com (Frank J. Rumbauskas Jr.)

HitTail, that neat service that helps you discover which long-tail phrases you should concentrate on, has announced a premium version. The free version isn’t going away, but HitTail Plus adds some nice features (for a reasonable fee). I admit that I haven’t logged into HitTail in quite some time for a very simple […]

Original post by DazzlinDonna

You set out to build a successful company…and you’ve done it! Now, it’s time to make sure the world knows about it. Apply for the Inc Top 5,000.

All 5,000 companies will be profiled on the Inc.com website. As always, the top 500 companies will be profiled in the magazine’s Inc. 500 issue in September.

Original post by deucetwo

Speaking to an interviewer from USA Today , celebrated business personality and reality show impresario Donald Trump recently said the following: “I’ve made a lot of money on the golf course, not from playing golf but from being on the course with people I made deals with. Golf is an am…Read More

Original post by Malcolm Fleschner