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Firstly, WELCOME to all our new subscribers to “Biz Growth Express” – I’m delighted you have joined our community. 

If you are in the United States, we hope you are having a great Labor Day weekend!

Each week you will receive this on-line news letter with details of this week’s expert teleconference, the next “Biz Growth Live” call and tips that I personally find helpful in growing my business – and I hope that you do to.

We feature a live event, new product or recommended resource that we believe will assist you in building your brand and growing your business.

Our goal is your success, providing you with strategies, inspiration and tips that you can adapt, adopt and apply to grow your business.

IN THIS WEEK’S “BIZ GROWTH EXPRESS”

- Details of the “Biz Growth Live” call for 5 September 2006 – join us to learn how you can win an iPOD Nano ™ and access our new special report “The Definitive A-A of Branding”
- Personal reflections – One step at a time
- Feature article – Are your clients blind to your brand?
- Featured resources and programmes
- Advance notice – “Biz Growth Live” 11 September 2006

BIZ GROWTH LIVE TELECONFERENCE – MONDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 2006

GUEST EXPERT – KRISHNA DE

SUBJECT – WHAT’S YOUR BRAND?

Do you want to differentiate yourself from your competition?  How do you position yourself as an expert and build YOUR brand?
 
I’ve a special announcement to make just for those members of the “Biz Growth Live” community who join me on the call.  And I’ll be sharing how you can access a copy of our new special report “The definitive A-Z of Branding” and how you can win a NEW IPOD NANO.

So if you looking for the inside track to building a strong brand, don’t miss this week’s call.

Submit your question about branding here.

Please note attendance is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis on the day of the call. This pre-call announcement does not ensure your place.

To secure your spot, please plan to dial in promptly as we will start on time.

Note: If for any reason you join the conference call and Krishna and the guest speaker are not on line, we will revert to our backup service and will resume the call at 10 minutes past the hour.  Unless otherwise notified, we will make available a recording of the call on the archive page.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS – ONE STEP AT A TIME

‘The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.’ William Faulkner.

Today is our last day in Spain – it has been wonderful for us to have time together as a family, for the children to go swimming every day and for us to be able to “live outside” every day in a wonderful climate.  The girls have become even more confident swimmers – well they like to consider themselves as mermaids!

But it didn’t happen all at once.  Just six years ago when Elisha our eldest daughter was born, we started by getting her accustomed to the swimming pool and she began swimming lessons at just a few months of age. 

She progressed from being fully supported, to wearing arm bands, to having a float, to being able to swim for short periods of time in the deep end.  This summer vacation, she is now confidently swimming unaided all the time in the deep end of the pool – her capability having developed as she was swimming every day.

Strong brands like a strong capability in swimming, they don’t develop with out being nurtured and encouraged.  What supports the development of your corporate, employer or personal brand is nurturing it every day.

So don’t be overwhelmed if your business is new or in it’s early stages of growth, or if you have now decided it’s time to build a stronger brand.

Strong brands take time and are built step by step.

So my reflection for this week is to ensure that every step I take in building my brand on-line or off-line is purposeful and attuned to my vision. 

What steps can you take each day to build YOUR brand?

FEATURE ARTICLE – ARE YOUR CLIENTS BLIND TO YOUR BRAND?

Did you realise that the choice of colour that you use in corporate identity, your office or what you wear says something about you?

The choice of colour can either enhance or detract from your corporate or personal marketing message.

I was recently taking a look at a web site of a media and PR expert in the UK and was quite suprised by the colours that he chose to use for his corporate identity and web site – it was red and green.

There are a number of areas I would encourage him to refine if he were my client in terms of building a stronger brand on-line, but I would start with the colours he is using on his web site.

Consider clients and potential clients who are “colour blind”?

Now the words “colour blindness” are misleading.  People who cannot see all colours are not “blind” – they have a challenge in differentiating greens, yellows, oranges and reds.

Colour blindness is a term often used in our vocabulary, but how often do we take into consideration the needs of someone who is challenged in this way, for example in the colours we use for our corporate identity on our web site or on powerpoint slides for a presentation?

Many different colours can cause problems for some one who is “colour blind”. 

Here’s the science bit for those of you who are interested … people with normal colour vision are able to differentiate colour through 3 colour sensitive light receptors in the eye.  The receptors are sensitive respectively to red, green and blue incident light.

Someone who is “colour blind” may have one or more receptors missing or more frequently the receptor responses are less separated so that colour differences cannot be perceived or can only be seen with great difficulty.

In the most common form – ‘red-green’ colour blindness, this means that someone  will have difficulty distinguishing colour differences in the red-green part of the spectrum so that separating reds, greens and yellows is extremely difficult.

If someone is looking at your materials on a PC – be that your presentation slides or your web site, on a PC screen, yellow, green and pale blue colours will actually appear much brighter than they will print, because most PC screens are very insensitive to red.

In the same way that colour television signals produce a black and white image on a black and white television, if a “colour blind” person cannot respond to a particular colour they will see a grey image.  In this case the brightness of the original colour will determine how light or dark that grey appears.

Many tasks that we do each day rely on us being able to separate things by their colour.  

For example, someone may only be able to tell red and green traffic lights apart by their position (red above green).  In normal daylight this may be easy to do, but in poor weather conditions it may be much more difficult to know which is which.

Most everyday things can be done without colour vision being a problem, but some people with colour vision problems say they have some difficulties such as not being able to see whether fruit such as apricots are ripe. 

Some changes have been made in everyday life for the benefit of colour blind people – if you are in the UK you may remember that some years ago, the colours of electrical mains wires in the UK used to be red (live), black (neutral) and green (earth).  These were changed to brown (live), blue (neutral) and green/yellow (earth) to avoid potentially dangerous confusion of the live and earth wires.

Whilst “colour blindness” occurs in about 8% of males and only about 0.4% of females (UK statistics) it is one important consideration when considering the colour of your corporate identity or your marketing materials. 

The guidance is simple isn’t it?  “Red and green should never be seen” as the old wives’ tale goes.  So if your corporate identity, marketing or presentation materials include red and green, it may be worth reviewing them.

We’ll be covering more about the visual identity of strong brands including the psychology of the colour of your brand in our forthcoming 6 week branding programme, Get BrandID? which starts on 28 September 2006.  You can find out more about the programme and avail of our early pricing here.

And if you join us for today’s “Biz Growth Live” call, I’ll be announcing a special offer just of our “Biz Growth” community.

So here’s your assignment this week to further strengthen and build YOUR brand on-line:

1. review your on-line and off line marketing materials – are they consistent with your corporate identity?
2. do they attract your ideal clients or will they deter them from contacting you?
3. determine your action plan for refining your corporate identity and marketing materials in the next 90 days.

FEATURED RESOURCES AND PROGRAMME

GET BRANDID?

Searching for the blue print for building YOUR brand?  Then join our 6 week brand building teleseminar programme, starting 28 September, 2006 – further details are here.

A PASSION FOR PRODUCTS?

Fast track your passive revenue success and join me at the live-in-person workshops being held in Dublin on 11 October 2006 and in Cork on the 12 October 2006.  Further information and access to a FREE AUDIO PROGRAMME on information products is available here.

BRANDSTART

Make sure your brand is on the fast track with BrandStart for newly established professional practices

BRANDSTORM

Take your brand to the next level with BrandStorm if you want to review your brand strategy to strengthen the interpretation of your brand both on-line and off-line

NO COST BRANDING RESOURCES

MISSED A PAST NEWS LETTER?

You will find archives of our news letter here

DAILY TIPS TO BUILD YOUR CORPORATE, EMPLOYER OR PERSONAL BRAND

Subscribe to our blog feed

THE ONE STOP BRANDING SOLUTION

Ask me any question you have about branding – just post your question here

NEXT “BIZ GROWTH LIVE” TELECONFERENECE

DATE – 11 September 2006
GUEST EXPERT – Krishna De, on how to turn what you know into cashflow

SUBJECT – Would you like to develop a practice that provided for additional revenue streams but without a lot of capital investment or increase to your overheads?
 
In next week’s call we will be discussing how to turn what you know into cash flow by creating your branded information product plan.

So if you looking for the inside track to growing your business, establishing yourself as the expert in the market place but with less stress and being able to enjoy more time off, don’t miss next week’s call.

Wishing you continued success, so until next week.

Best wishes,

Krishna De
Bringing YOUR vision to life!
If you have friends and colleagues who would like to join the weekly teleconference call, they would be very welcome – please invite them to register here.

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2006.  All rights reserved.

“Biz Growth Express” is a Oneocean Publication.  Oneocean Ltd is a leading business development consultancy with a difference – we focus on the unique strengths of an organisation and its people to unlock extraordinary performance and growth.

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish extracts from “Biz Growth Express” in your own online ezine or news letter, providing the article is printed in its entirety and is left unedited and you include the copyright notice and the following statement:

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2006. All rights reserved. Reprinted from “Biz Growth Express”, a Oneocean Ltd publication for leaders in professional services practices, featuring inspiration, strategies and tips to build your brand, attract your ideal clients and enjoy greater success with less stress.

Subscribe today at http://www.bizgrowthlive.com/ and access free weekly teleconferences where we interview experts from across the globe on how to build your brand and expand your professional and personal success.