Lance Armstrong was in Edmonton last week thanks to the tireless efforts of Incite, Oomph! Events, and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.  I had the amazing opportunity to ride 100Km with him and 40 others we helped to recruit to pursue an aggressive million dollar fundraising goal. 

I have always been enamored by the "beating all odds" nature of the man, especially after my Grandfather shared Lance's book, It's Not About the Bike, with me over eight years ago.  We shared delight in watching his comeback from cancer, and then his super-human seven wins at the Tour de France, arguably the toughest cycling competition of all time.

I had planned on delivering an eloquent speech to him during my 15 minutes at the front of the peloton on the Icefields Parkway.  I had plans for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be fraught with deep insights, interesting revelations and poignant questions.  Instead, I blabbered something about my mom being upset that I wasn't able to arrange a special meeting for her during the lunch and that she always dreamed of squeezing his thighs…. somebody shoot me!    Luckily, Lance saved the day and shared some great insights with me, one of them surrounding this amazing field of social media.

Lance has been tweeting for a few years and now has over 2.8 Million followers… unbelievable!  Leaning over his bike, Lance reflected on the power of Twitter: "I tweeted about eating a Quiznos sandwich a month ago and Quiznos contacted me to thank me… apparently their global sales spiked huge over the following week!"  According to Lance, who is ranked amongst the top 15 highest paid athletes of all time, his following on Twitter has given him more clout with sponsors than his official 19,000+ global media hits.

When I asked him about the level of danger involved in doing public rides, he said that it was the tweet rides that get really crazy. "When I was in Australia in January I sent out a tweet with a day's notice indicating that I was going to do a ride out of Adelaide.  I showed up to more than 8,000 people on bikes!   The police went nuts – we basically closed parts of the city down for a few hours.  These tweet rides are pretty sketchy though. Imagine a dude on a motorized dirt bike coming at you at 90Km per hour!  Screw cancer, it's the tweet rides that are going to get me!"

Perhaps there's more to this social media thing than, "I'm riding a bike with @lancearmstrong."   Regardless, I'm going to give it a serious shot.  Follow me!*  @jaredatincite

*To follow Jared Smith on Twitter, go to www.twitter.com, enter @jaredatincite into the search bar, and click "follow".

Companies often focus on the external elements of their marketing plan, such as lead generation, conversion to sales, and revenue. Consider having an internal communication component in your plan.

Internal communication indirectly impacts your targets in two major ways. First, if your internal process doesn’t provide the right (or promised) customer experience, then any marketing you do externally will get trumped. You can spend anything you want on marketing and if the experience is not what it should be, the negative word-of-mouth will nullify your efforts. Internal communication should be used to refine the customer experience.

The second way it impacts your targets is through your employees. Your employees have a direct impact on customer loyalty and your business’s growth, especially if it is based on building off of your existing customers. We all know that selling to existing clients is more profitable in the long run. Internal communication helps you develop your employees into loyalty development officers.

A good internal communication strategy can be broken out into two areas of focus: environment and behaviours.

Your company environment should be set up for your employees to succeed. Do they have the right tools? Do they have pride in their workspace? Have a third-party organization conduct some research on your behalf to gauge this. Theme the responses and change one or two things that you think will have the biggest impact.

Behaviour is more complex. If there are internal behaviours that you need to change or tweak, consider an approach that uses three ingredients (as recommended by Dan and Chip Heath in their book titled “Switch”):

1. Appeal to your team’s left brain by giving them concrete direction that is attainable. There is a big difference between saying “we need to provide better service” and “return each call within two to four hours.” Build a list of three to six tangible action items that your team needs to do in the next year.
2. Appeal to your team’s right brain by giving them an emotional outcome. For example, “by providing better customer service, you’re positioning yourself as a caregiver, someone who can solve problems for people…”
3. Give them a process to follow. If you give them all the steps and processes to follow, then they’re less likely to spin their wheels and get stuck. Think of forms, guidelines, checklists—any documentation or flow charts that will help them see how to get to the outcome.

Don’t forget to measure the success of your initiatives through an internal survey. The survey can help you track your employees’ satisfaction of the work environment and tools you’ve provided them.

Internal communication is an important component of loyalty. Which organizations do you know of that have the perfect balance between internal and external communications?

One of the most important changes that “Web 2.0” has brought to the online space is RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). Such websites are basically applications, with some popular examples being Hotmail, Yahoo Chat, Google Docs, or Sharepoint. The best part about these “Web apps” is that there's no installation process involved. A key to the Internet’s success lies in the fact that information is available “up there in the clouds”, meaning that you can access the same content, regardless of the device you use, and of course, there's no need to back up your data.

With the advent of RIAs and multi-device accessibility, your company may want to take the next step with its website and go mobile. But, when should a website go mobile, and should it go mobile at all?

From Desktop to Device

There are two important differences to consider when you jump from a desktop computer to a mobile device:

• Size matters. Yes, you can access any site on your iPhone, Android, or newer Blackberry devices, but try to interact with larger websites via zooming, and it becomes more difficult and less friendly. Besides, they take quite some time to load.
• Interaction is completely different. Most mobile devices are now touch-based. We’re even starting to use new terms when we interact with them, like tap instead of click and pinch to zoom.

When you begin the process of building a mobile version of your current website, keep in mind the following points:

• Know who your users are. (Who’ll be visiting your site and how’re they going to access it?)
• Keep it clean and simple. Mobile bandwidth is limited compared to desktop computers. Remember those days of the 56K modem?
• Write short text. If we already scan pages on a desktop computer, imagine how quickly we’ll go through content on a mobile phone.
• Always offer a link to the full site. Sometimes you just want to have the full website experience.
• Consider why people access your site “on the go.” On a mobile device, it’s likely that people are looking for an address first and not the company profile.
• Factor in orientation changes. You can switch from landscape to portrait mode in almost any mobile device now.

Mobile Apps or Mobile Sites?

The problem with mobile applications is that they are built for one specific device type. Creating different apps for the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry can get really expensive because you need three different development projects. Each platform has its own interface rules, programming language, and so on. So, a mobile website makes more sense in those cases where you don’t require apps, as it is a cost-effective way to connect with those audience members who are always on the go. If the content requires some additional functionality like a camera phone, GPS location, or other hardware-specific feature, then you may want to consider building an application.

Are Mobile Websites Better?

It depends. Mobile apps can use some specific things that websites can't (e.g., your phone can notify you when new content is up, your phone features specific hardware like a camera or a GPS). Since there's more than one way to access and enter the mobile space, you have to decide which platform works better for your end-users’ needs and the project at hand.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

This famous quote by Plato holds a lot of truth in the marketing and advertising world. It is also one of the most challenging things to overcome. How do you make successful, or “beautiful,” creative? And, more importantly, who should you make it beautiful for?

At Incite, there are typically four to five different groups all involved in the design process: the account executive, the creative team, the client, and the client’s boss. All of these groups are working together to make something speak to the target audience. The biggest trouble is when these groups start wanting what they like, and they forget the main objective, which is to design something that will attract and engage the target audience.

The key point of the quote is that it’s “…in the eye of the BEHOLDER.”In this case, it’s the target audience, not the designer and not any of the other groups. To accomplish creative that is beautiful to your target audience, you must be strategic and do the appropriate research. It is also important to take yourself out of the equation when developing or evaluating the creative (for all groups involved) and trust the research.

Typical scenario:

• Client (48-year-old male) wants his 4 page brochure done in the company’s corporate colours of blue and black
• Designer (31-year-old female) wants to create a folder/brochure with fancy die-cuts done in the corporate colours but wants to bring in an orange
• Target audience (39-year-old female) would rather look at a website for more information instead of a brochure and dislikes blue and black

Remember, beauty is not in the eye of the designer or owner (who may not even be anywhere near the demographic of the beholder), but rather in the eye of the target audience.

It seems everyone knows a “designer” these days. You probably know an interior decorator who became an interior designer. This has some merit, since interior design evolved from interior decoration. However, I’m sure nobody ever handed you a business card describing himself/herself as a Web decorator. Browse around the Web and you’ll notice the work of a number of Web decorators who perhaps should have.

When it’s time to refresh your company’s website, you select and invite talented people to make recommendations and bid for the job. Some designers imagine your website as a physical space with aging carpet, peeling paint, and dated fixtures. Their process would be as follows:

• They listen to you speak about areas and features before going away to plan.
• They return proudly with gorgeous mood boards showing your new website in high style.

These mood boards show the same areas and features, now with sleek new fixtures and gorgeous flooring, backed by a few carefully selected paint chips.

Other designers do all of this and also revise your brand in the process. Now the mood boards look even better, and your new corporate colours are jaw-dropping. In the words of typographer Robert Bringhurst, both groups of designers “took your fancy ideas out of the crummy containers they were trapped in.” But, what if the problem isn’t the container?

Design refers as much to the construction of what is being designed as it does to the plan for constructing it. If what I referred to above sounds like your company and website, then I hope a third designer comes in with the following approach:

• Ignores the space and website as it currently stands
• Ignores the containers your ideas are in
• Focuses only on the ideas themselves

To get the best out of a new design, your designer should be centering the discussion on your people, the work they do, and the clients they do it for. What ideally happens here? Why is this website needed? After many questions, a plan develops. The best design results from taking steps that include research, brainstorming, design, development, and user testing. After all, the product can only be as good as the process.

A solid process yields solid results. You might pay more for such a process, but the resulting product will be targeted at your business and its goals, and that’s worth more in the long run.

Still trying to figure out what Twitter is, how it works and why you should use it? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.

Last night I went for dinner with some friends and we somehow got on the topic of Twitter. For me, it was an easy conversation since in my industry (marketing), we talk about Twitter all the time. For my friends, however, who work in various industries ranging from criminology and engineering to medicine and education, they had a hard time understanding the purpose of Twitter and why people are on it.

So as a result of last night, below are my four tips on how to turn “Twitter What?” into “Twitter Yes!”:

1. Start Using It. The best way to learn about Twitter and feel comfortable with it, is to sign-up and start playing around.

2. Start Tweeting. I agree it can be hard to find time to use Twitter. To start, try to make it a habit to tweet at least once a day. Here are some ideas on what you can be tweeting:

• Promote other content (websites you like, articles you come across, cool videos )
• Promote your content (your company’s blog, volunteer events you’re involved with.)
• Retweet (retweet what other people are tweeting about)
• Tag your tweets to make them more relevant and searchable. For example, if your tweet is about the upcoming fringe festival in Edmonton use tags such as #yeg and #fringefestival. You can invent any tag you think is relevant and include it as part of your tweet.

3. Start to Follow. Search for topics that are of interest to you using the Twitter search. Filter through the results to determine which individuals you would like to follow. Another avenue is to follow people your followers are following.

4. Get Followed. Make sure your profile is properly setup so that people have a good understanding of who you are. Build credibility by tweeting information that you find valuable and if possible, start to interact with those individuals who you follow but don’t necessarily follow you back. By striking up intelligent conversation with them, they might be more willing to start following you.

Do you have any other tips on how best to get started using Twitter? If so, please share!

For more resources on Twitter, check out HubSpot’s marketing hub: www.hubspot.com/twitter-marketing-hub/

People move fast on the Web. They’re busy, they don’t have a lot of time, and they have short attention spans; this makes them more impatient. They want to be able to find information that’s useful to them.

When you have just 10 seconds to grab the user’s attention with your content, you need to make your point and you need to do it FAST.

Here are some tips* to help you get your point across clearly and quickly:

• Put the most important information at the top
• Organize content into SHORT paragraphs (5 lines or less, maximum 20 words per sentence)
• Make sure you understand who your reader base is (so you can write directly to them)
• Avoid jargon, exaggerated claims, and cute or clever lines (they prevent the reader from getting to the main point quickly)
• Write meaningful headlines and subheads (and keep them short!)
• Use clear, concise, and correct language (poorly written copy slows readers down)
• Put yourself in your readers’ shoes (will they care about what you wrote?)
• Don’t copy and paste your print brochure word-for-word

Writing long scrolling pages of confusing, non-useful, and “fluffy” or self-serving content will only drive your audience away from your website. If, after 55 seconds (less than a minute!) of browsing your site, a user still doesn’t understand what your company or your product does, then you need to revisit your content.

The good thing about websites is that they’re dynamic. It’s never too late to develop succinct, clear, and useful website content. People will continue to surf the Web at rates faster than we can blink but, if you present content that’s useful and to the point, they may slow down long enough to check out your site and get to know you.

*Sourced from:

“Website Content Writing Tips.” Entheosweb.com. Entheos. n.d. http://www.entheosweb.com/content_writing/tips.asp

Rollins, Corey. “IMC: Expert Panel Tips on Writing for the Web.” techvibes.com. Techvibes. 12 Sep. 2008. http://www.techvibes.com/blog/imc-expert-pannel-tips-on-writing-for-the-web

“10 Writing Tips for Designers.” Webdesigner Depot.com. Webdesigner Depot. 23 Feb. 2009. http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/02/10-writing-tips-for-web-designers/

It’s an important distinction to make—sales isn’t marketing.

When drilling down to the basics:

• Marketing focuses on the long-term brand and sales focuses on the short-term sales.
• Marketing plans facilitate the brand, experience, and relationship; sales finds opportunities to create, follow up, and build on relationships.
• Marketing’s ultimate goal is to develop and define the product, while sales’ ultimate goal is to close a transaction or deal.

Both sales and marketing are valuable to an organization, with relationships acting as the common thread between them. Sales and marketing need to work closely together so that their efforts complement each other.

Too often, however, the functions get jumbled. The sales goals drive the marketing, and in turn, the marketing efforts become more about simply selling the product and less about selling the brand.

I used to work for a gym where the sales goals drove the marketing efforts. Each month we came up with a sales promotion or incentive.

• If membership sales were down, we increased the frequency of our ads.
• If sales were really down, we gave existing members an incentive to refer a friend.

We were training the market to evaluate us based on our incentive, or price, and not on the experience we offered.

At monthly meetings, we didn’t focus on the number of cancellations, how we could prevent people from cancelling, or, more importantly, how we could make the gym an experience the member valued beyond burning calories. We thought about the product—the membership contract—and never about the experience and relationship the member had with the gym. Once members signed our contract, they were left to fend for themselves in a sea of weights and pulley contraptions.

Our marketing efforts should have been focused on creating tools and programs that would influence the experience and relationship—in other words, the brand. And, on the sales side, we should have been selling the brand, not the contract terms.

We failed to use the powerful connection between sales and marketing. Marketing should support sales. Marketing should help develop the brand and the tools that make the sales job easier. In a recent branding discussion, Kurian Tharakan of Acton Consulting explained this connection with the following analogy:

“Marketing sets the volleyball so that sales can spike.”

Both sales and marketing are important, and when the two work together, the client experience becomes infinitely better and the sales become stronger too.

Summer has arrived! And, with its arrival comes what is often a heart-stopping, bring-you-to-your-knees, please-don’t-make-me experience for many women—swimsuit shopping. (cue dreading music)

Despite my best efforts to schedule a root canal without anaesthesia (as a more appealing option to bikini shopping), I finally bit the bullet and ventured into a cute boutique in downtown Edmonton called Offshores. With hands sweating, heart pounding, and as many skinny thoughts as I could muster, I went in expecting the worst. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.

Now, guys—you are probably tuning out right about now—pay attention. There are some important lessons here for any business that deals with people.

Here is Offshores’ approach:

Know Your Client’s Fears

Offshores recognizes that many women are self-critical, so they take extra steps to make customers feel more comfortable and attractive by dimming the lights.

This made a big difference in my comfort level and my perception of their products; If a certain product doesn’t work for me (i.e., I don’t think it looks good on me), I won’t buy it.

Be Honest, But Supportive

Upon arrival, the staff told me “Don’t worry, we will be honest.” This can be a double-edged sword for many service providers. Yes, be honest, but don’t be critical!

Offshores zoned in on my assets and helped me enhance them. They did not pick at my flaws; this made me feel like they were on my side.

The wonderful experience I had at Offshores (which I had heard of through word-of-mouth) has spurred me to tell others about the store. The effort Offshores makes to ensure that customers are supported—and that they leave not only with a swimsuit, but with a smile on their face—is invaluable advertising.

Anyone can sell a bikini. Helping someone feel better about herself in the process? Holy Cow!

“Think outside the box!” That’s been the motto of modern business and the plea of post-modern pop-culture. But as we learned at this month’s TEN gathering, the key to giving a solid media interview is keeping it inside the box.

Social media has fast-forwarded the traditional 24-hour news cycle into real-time. News is near instantaneous and stories get updated throughout the day. This means that theoretically, you have multiple opportunities to influence what’s being said.

So how can you do this? Develop relationships with media professionals—writers, editors, reporters. Use social media tools to engage them on a regular basis. Once they come to know you as an expert, you’ll be on the top of their mind as a potential source. When a story breaks, they’ll have someone to go to immediately.

The better your relationships with media professionals in your community, the more opportunity you’ll have to control what is being said.

So, you’ve established a good rapport with a reporter, and they’ve asked you to do an interview. How do you prepare? By keeping in mind the power of three and using a little box.

When preparing for the interview, organize your thoughts around three points:

1) Context: provide the background so that people know where you’re coming from

2) Action: three simple and straightforward key messages

3) Vision: the idea or thought or emotion that you want to leave people with

For example, here’s what that might look like for a representative from a downtown clean-up program:

1) Context: We feel that our downtown is a mess, and we’re concerned about it.

2) Action:

• We’re going to pick up three pieces of garbage a day, and we want everyone else to do the same.
• If this happens, we could remove three garbage bins worth of garbage from our streets each day!
• Clean downtowns are safer; they increase quality of life, and are better for tourism.

3) Vision: “We have the cleanest downtown in Canada.”

Now, draw a square around your three points; they are your box, what you will present to the media. Your goal during the interview is to keep the conversation about the topics in your box. Soon, you’ll find that reporters will come to you more often because you present such a strong story—one that practically writes itself.

Take advantage of today’s instantaneous news cycle by developing relationships with the people writing the stories; become known as an expert that they can source when a story breaks. If you present your story in a neatly packaged box, you’ll increase the chances of watching it take-off successfully.

Learn more about TEN.

Companies spend a lot of time and money developing their brand and defining their brand values. After branding, there will be moments when you feel the need to sacrifice those brand values for short-term gain. The costs of doing so may be greater than you think.

Take my friend for example. He just got a new job as a driver. As a new employee, he spent a lot of time in safety training and was exposed to internal messaging indicating that safety is number one. Expectation set. His safety will never be compromised, right?

Last week, he had problems with his truck and asked that the truck be repaired so that he can do his job properly and safely. His manager decided that the downtime would cost too much and opted to have him continue his route without the repair for another two weeks!

Consider the call that manager made. He’s just wasted a lot MORE money than what he thought he saved. First, the company spends thousands of dollars on safety seminars, internal communication on safety, and marketing that promotes “safety” to new prospective employees. Instances like this one communicate that safety is not important after all. For the company, it’s money down the toilet.

Second, now that expectations have not been met, a new counter-culture of safety develops, one of “only when we feel like it.” This could lead to more careless behaviour from employees and more on-the-job accidents.

Third, the negative word-of-mouth spreads. My friend told three people, who then told three other people. You know how it is. Now, the organization needs to work harder to communicate that it is a safe company; it’s fighting an uphill battle against the negative perception which has developed.

Before you make a concession to sacrifice one of your brand values for a short-term, tactical gain, consider what it will do to your company and brand. In the end, you could be losing much more than what you’ll gain.

During a recent trip to New York, I learned a major lesson in marketing. And no, not from any of the overwhelming number of ads crowding Times Square, but from a small deli. While eating “Ah, There’s the Reuben” at the Carnegie Deli, I realized how the principle of this small deli can be applied to businesses, large and small, across all industries.

The Carnegie Deli stands out from hundreds of other New York delis. It is one of New York’s most popular attractions, yet shockingly, it doesn’t spend any money advertising. The Carnegie Deli has succeeded not because of a great gimmick or creative advertising campaigns, but because of a phenomenal business principle:

Do one thing and do it better than everyone else.

The Carnegie Deli has been recognized for its corned beef and pastrami sandwiches by numerous columnists, avid eaters, and travellers from all over the world.

• While many delis bring meat in from other suppliers, the Carnegie Deli cures its own meat.
• While other delis take shortcuts smoking the meat, Carnegie Deli does it the old-fashioned way to give it the best flavour.
• While other delis manipulate the size of their sandwiches by their methods of stacking the meat, the Carnegie Deli continues to make its sandwiches larger and larger (its sandwiches range from five- to eight-and-a-half inches tall).

The word of mouth created by the Carnegie Deli has generated more publicity than any print ad or billboard ever could.

Put your effort into making sure your one thing is better than your competitors’. The spontaneous conversations you create could become your sole form of advertising.

“Good is the enemy of great.” This is the first line in Jim Collins must read book “Good to Great.” He suggests that when we become satisfied with good, we don’t push for great and in so doing set the stage for our own demise.

Good is easy. Good is comfortable. Good typically means doing it the same as we did last time. This is especially true when it comes to service. The problem is that we as customers have become more demanding. Good service is simply expected. We are no longer satisfied with good.

So, what makes service great? A recent family dinner to a local restaurant to celebrate my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary highlighted three key elements to truly great service.

1. Authentic. It needs to be genuine and delivered with a personal touch that can’t be taught. In fact, if you try and train everyone to do the same thing you become less authentic. We brought our 15-month old son to the restaurant with us. Good service would have offered us a high chair, a kid’s menu and maybe some crayons. Great service saw the server on her hands and knees playing peek-a-boo and the hostess making a tin foil hat for my son to wear.
2. Unexpected. To stand out, you have to catch people by surprise. If we see it coming, the impact is less profound. Good service would have had brought out a cake for dessert to help us celebrate the special occasion. Great service had the chef come out from the kitchen to ask my parents for their favorite ingredients. He then proceeded to make a custom dessert just for them!
3. Remarkable. When you break the word down it means something to remark about. Halfway through dinner my sister went to the washroom. When she returned, she proceeded to tell us about the glass tile, the fountain, the twelve types of hand lotion, and the candles. Everyone else suddenly had to go too. When they returned they also raved about the unbelievable bathroom experience. In fact, we are still telling everyone we know.

Don’t settle for good. Seek out ways to make your company’s service more authentic, unexpected and remarkable. Great service is what brings customers back…and really great makes them bring their friends!

In recent years, Edmonton was having an identity crisis. We are one of the fastest growing cities in Canada and the pulse of the country’s economy. The City of Edmonton realized that in order to keep up with this growth, we needed to attract and retain the best and brightest. They decided we needed a better way to tell our city’s story... we needed a new brand.

So what to do? .... How about a new slogan? Perhaps an ad campaign?

No... the communicators at City Hall realized that no slogan or tagline could accurately portray the essence of what Edmonton means to its citizens.

For example, while “Gateway to the North” or “City of Champions”, both of which are old slogans used by the City, may be appealing to the oil and gas sector or 80’s sports fans, they say little of how we are today. They ignore our multiculturalism, our arts community, our river valley and environmental stewardship, and our educational institutions. These are all things that make Edmonton such a great place to live—according to Edmontonians. It’s impossible to capture the true Edmonton in a few words.

The City also realized that while there was a lot of internal love for our city, others hadn’t heard the news. Edmontonians weren’t shouting our praises from the rooftops – we are too modest for that.

This posed a real opportunity. Our own citizens are our best ambassadors, but they weren’t telling their stories. We needed to collect these stories and share them with the world.

So the City of Edmonton turned to social media and launched www.edmontonstories.ca.

Not only is this fast becoming a tool for people from elsewhere to learn about Edmonton, it’s becoming a tool for Edmontonians to learn more about ourselves and our City – the more we know about the City that we love, the more we will share.

This is a great lesson to businesses about the importance of looking to your existing clients to be ambassadors before attempting to reach for new ones. Find out what your base likes about your service offerings and what could be improved – let them be heard and act on their recommendations.

Leverage their experiences to attract new clientele and not only will you attract new clients, you will solidify the relationships you have with your client base. Then use the tools that work best for both to get the word out.

Kudos to the City of Edmonton for this innovative marketing tool!

Discussion at this month’s TEN gathering focused on a topic familiar to many business owners, especially to those whose businesses have experienced significant growth in a short period of time: the identity crisis.

Here’s the situation: if your company has grown quickly through the addition of multiple products or services, and each one targets a distinct audience, should you:

Create multiple brands for each product and service?

or

Operate with one brand that encompasses all aspects of your business?

With a brand for each product or service, you might be able to speak more directly to each of your target audiences, but with one all-encompassing brand, you have the opportunity to carry more weight in the marketplace and take advantage of cross-promotional opportunities.

Realistically, the arguments for and against each option varies greatly depending on your product mix, audience segments, and current and desired position in the market place. But two important points emerged from the TEN discussion:

1. An identity crisis—not knowing who you are as a company—is typically a symptom of not knowing how you are perceived by your clients and target audience(s).
2. An identity crisis is also a symptom of not clearly knowing where you want to be in the future.

Business owners that find themselves in the midst of an identity crisis should pause, and take a step back to re-evaluate their business. Take a brief time-out to reset the bricks and mortar so that your business has the support to continue growing in a way that is both manageable and profitable.

During this pause, inform yourself:

• Find out what your audience thinks of you, how they find you, and what they really need from you. (You might be surprised to find that you’re over-valuing your current brand.)
• Think about your goals as a company; where do you want to be in five years, ten years? (Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.)

Once you’ve established a plan for where you want to take your business, and armed yourself with accurate knowledge about how your business is perceived in the marketplace, you will be able to make an informed decision about which direction to take your brand(s).