Evolution Magazine July/August 2014

Issue 12 | July /August 2014

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volution Business, Tech and More

5 TEAM Ways To Build A Better

Improved Customer Experience With

CRM

Lane Ethridge Business Trendsetter

STOP Start

Searching For Investors Engaging You Network With Crowdfunding The

Power

Of

Email Marketing

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volution Business, Tech and More

Evolution Magazine JULY/AUGUST 2014

Published By Evolve Media Group Inc.

Evolve MEdia Group Inc. DARNELL G DAVIS - CEO Editor In Chief DONNIE BRYANT Photography EVOLUTION MAGAZINE Staff Editors BRENDA KARDOCK DONNIE BRYANT Graphic Designer EVOLUTION TEAM RENEE MARTHALER Evolution Contributors DONNIE BRYANT SCOTT GINSBURG DEBI SILBER KEVIN WILSON DERICK JONES SLYVIA BROWDER

Evolution Magazine is a trademark of the Evolve Media Group Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or in full is strictly prohibited. Evolution Magazine is a monthly digital publication with limited print copies available in designated markets. Evolution Magazine welcomes all contributions. Evolution Magazine assumes no responsibility for content or advertisement. No representation is made as to the accuracy hereof and is produced subject to errors and omissions.

Questions and feedback:

Evolve Media Group Inc. 29 South Law Street - Allentown, PA 18105 Phone: (347) 669 2EVO Email: info@Evomag.co Online: www..Evomag.co 2 Evolution Magazine/July/August 2014

VIEW THE DIGITAL VERSION ON ISSUU.

featured articles

4 8 editorial Lowercase Branding

Financing your business throughCrowdfunding

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email marketing how it can improve website traffic

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Business Trendsetter :ane Ethridge

www.evomag.co

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lower case branding Donnie Bryant Editor In Chief

From branding consultants to how-to books to home-study courses, there’s a lot of talk these days about branding. It’s a big business, and good brands can ensure the success of big businesses. That’s why everyone wants to get it right: Play this card right, they say, and your company will experience success like never before.

Let me get this out of the way: There is nothing wrong with branding. You absolutely should have a strong brand.

In fact, you’re creating a brand whether you know it or not. You might as well be intentional about it and make a good one.

The point is this: My concern is that we’ll begin to focus on creating brands and messages rather than on doing great business. The customer should be “uppercase,” since they are who really matter. The business should be built around taking care of them. The brand is “lowercase.” The brand doesn’t exist for its own pleasure; the brand is about the customer.

That said, there are important ways to establish or strengthen a company’s identity without forgetting a company’s main objectives.

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What’s a Brand, Really?

A brand is simply the identity of a company, product or service as perceived by consumers. There are powerful brands like Nike. People around the world instantly recognize their logo, know their slogan by heart and value their products. In fact, it is the brand that gives the product its heightened perceived value. Having shoes is nice; having Nikes is something special.

Why is Coca-Cola so popular? How can Starbucks charge so much more for coffee than the competition and still have “enthusiastically satisfied” (Starbucks’ own words) customers during hard economic times? And more importantly, how can you start to do the same thing?

Branding Rule #1: It’s Not About You. Sales and Marketing 101 teaches us that customers don’t want to buy drills; they want holes. Elmer Wheeler said, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” The same is true about building a brand. You don’t create a world-class identity by trying to create a world-class identity.

Don’t focus on yourself or your business.

Concentrate on the people you’re trying to influence. What do people desperately want? How can you give it to them?

Can you associate your product with something that people already go crazy for?

Branding Rule #2: Admit Your Awesomeness.

Make the strongest statements you can about how your audience will benefit from buying from you. Why would you water down the truth about your awesomeness? If you follow Branding Rule #3, you have a product or service that genuinely improves people’s lives. You have to get them to buy it for them to experience the improvement, though. You’re doing your prospects a serious disservice by downplaying the good you can do for them.

Never promise more than you can deliver, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot by under-promising either. If you don’t stand out as the best provider of what you sell, your customers might overlook you and buy from someone less committed to meeting their needs. Don’t let that happen. It’s up to you to make the big promise.

Branding Rule #4: Do over-deliver.

Surprise your customers with how awesome their experience with your company, product or service is. If you promise that they’ll double their Mandarin vocabulary in 30 days by taking your course, delight your patrons by tripling it.

When people get more than they ask for, they can’t wait to tell someone about their experience, and your quest for worldrenown for your brand will take off. Commit to making a great product or giving a great service. Don’t focus on getting what you can from your customers. If you want to be the next Mercedes-Benz, give 10 times more value than you plan to get back from your clients. You could probably make some good, fast money by shortchanging everyone and cutting corners on quality to maximize profits. However, you will never build a sustainable, respectable brand by doing business like that, and you will have traded in your integrity and good name for a quick buck.

Branding Rule #5: Make purposeful statements about who you are as a company.

about who you actually are — maybe more. Roy Williams wrote in one of his Monday Morning Memos, “Brands are identity reinforcement, just like art and architecture and music. Brands are a way of shouting ‘This is me!’” There will never be one unified brand identity; everyone will have their own interpretations of your company’s direction and message. In some cases, people may not come to the correct conclusions about your company.

Here are some thoughts to consider when drafting your brand messaging: • Always be truthful.

• Though you’re talking about yourself, you must identify with the customer.

• Tell them who you are and why it matters to them.

• Have one overall message: one thing you stand for, oppose, believe in or are working toward.

• Encourage interaction. Make your customers part of your “movement.”

• Never be boring. Be bold and unique.

• Find something only you can say, and say it.

Your brand is as much about how people identify with you as it is www.evomag.co

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5

Ways Team Commitment Can Impact

Team Building

By Scott Siders

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The importance of team commitment is often overlooked by managers when they’re developing teams. They bring together employees with the right skill sets and give them a task, set goals and expect the best. But they forget about the role commitment plays in building teams to achieve personal , departmental, and organizational success.

There are five questions managers should consider when evaluating the level of team commitment .

1 Do team members actually want to be part of the team?

Do the team members perceive that they had a choice in deciding whether to work with the team? Although the type and size of a company, department dynamics, project type, and team member skills are among the many factors that contribute to putting teams together making participation feel mandatory can reduce team commitment.

Motivation is a key component of creating team commitment; give members a reason to want to engage by empowering them to help set the direction, define goals, and make decisions. Team members are almost always more committed to a project when they are encouraged to "own" it by a manager who sets expectations and provides guidance then trusts the team to execute its own strategies.

2 Do team members feel valued?

Another way to increase team commitment is to communicate an employee’s individual value to the team and the entire team’s value to the organization. Managers can also strengthen team commitment if each member sees the value of the team in the development of their skills and career.

3 Do team members believe the mission, vision, and goals of the team are important?

Team members want to feel like they are part of something larger than themselves, and want to know how achieving the team’s goals fits into the overall mission of the organization.

They also want to know their individual skills and contributions to the team are critical to accomplishing its objectives.

4 Do team members know their roles and responsibilities?

A manager must be able to clearly articulate expectations of team members and how fulfilling their specific roles and responsibilities will impact the success or failure of the team.

Team commitment will be boosted by explicitly connecting individual performance with a shared expected outcome.

5 Do team members receive recognition for accomplishing individual and team goals?

Even seemingly small amounts of recognition along the way can make a big impact on team commitment and give team members the confidence, encouragement, and motivation to continue working hard to reach the desired goals.

Rewarding performance at significant project milestones also improves morale.

Managers who keep a pulse on the level of team commitment and ensure it always remains at a high level are rewarded by better productivity and greater success of the team and what they contribute to the entire organization.

If you want to learn more about how team commitment impacts the process of building effective work teams, visit www.ThinkBlueThinking.com. www.evomag.co 7

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Crowdfunding A Revolutionary Alternative Funding Source for Small Businesses

Sylvia Browder

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revolutionary source of funding sweeping across the internet in droves is... crowdfunding! According to Growthink.com, US $100m was pledged in 2011 on the crowdfunding site kickstarter.com alone, launching over 27,000 projects at a 46% success rate. Now that’s impressive!

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When you are starting or growing a small business, the main stumbling block typically comes down to capital. It's extremely difficult to have or find the resources necessary to raise the amount of money you need to get your business off the ground.

Funding is a very important element to the success of any business remaining relevant in a competitive marketplace. If you’ve applied for a traditional loan, SBA Micro Loan, Unsecured Line of Credit, or even a Credit Card to no avail, then perhaps your next step is to consider this hot new trend in financing.

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is a cutting-edge way of raising the much needed money required by businesses to sustain themselves or to begin in the first place. Typically, a small group of investors finds out about a project independently of one another. These investors want the project to succeed, and invest a particular amount of money (often small, but can be very large) to build the project's capital. If enough money is raised by the investors, the project can be implemented. Often investors receive perks like t-shirts, products related to the project, or an advanced release of the project itself. Many platforms can take advantage of crowdfunding: from political campaigns, serviceor product-based businesses, artists, scientific researchers and software developers.

3 Business Preparation Tips for Crowdfunding: Select the Best Platform: There are many crowdfunding platforms available, with new ones forming daily. It is important to choose the one that can best fit your project funding needs.

Create a ‘WIFM’ Reward Program: Remember “What’s In It For Me?” Well, if you want to have a successful campaign, you’d better come up with some juicy rewards for prospective investors. The reward you create should be based on the type of campaign you are running. For example, Crescent Theater was forced to upgrade its equipment and as a part of their reward program, the lowest reward offer is a free movie pass.

3 ways that Crowdfunding can help you: Independence from Banking Institutions: Banks are sitting on their cash and aren’t lending to start-up or small businesses that need capital. At a recent lecture at George Washington University, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke innocuously remarked that lately “small businesses have … found it difficult to get credit.” Most banks have high unreachable expectations along with a daunting process. Crowdfunding offers a more realistic approach to funding.

Free Publicity: An opportunity to publicly raise funds for your business idea or existing company to myriad potential investors by way of the internet is astounding! Many entrepreneurs yearn for a chance to receive the type of publicity crowdfunding offers. If well handled, the publicity can greatly catapult your business to immense success Validation: Validation of concept is empowering. People will generally invest in opportunities that are viable. So, every c your business idea is important. To know that there are people globally who believe in your contribution you receive from people simply means that they believe in the opportunity's validity!

Design a Stellar Marketing Strategy: Consider multiple ways to connect with potential investors. The key is creating a diverse marketing campaign. Many companies, Google included, favor videos. You can also add a slide presentation, a podcast or a simple written message

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the Gun:

Selling

Your New Idea

Derrick Jones www.presidentspilotsentrepreneurs.com

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eth Godin once said the time to start selling your book is three years before writing it. Most writers and aspiring entrepreneurs come up with an idea, leap into the project, and try to figure out how to sell it after the fact. A far better approach is to build a platform of interest in advance and put out samples or snippets to get your fans salivating. Then, release the final product to large fanfare. “Build it and they will come” only works in Hollywood folks.

Henry Ford’s biggest problem with his first attempt at the automobile was spending all of his time on the engineering and mechanics of his new idea, while ignoring the need for marketing. Sound familiar? He failed because the general public was not ready for his approach. By the time he made his third attempt, he had primed the public. A group of investors swooped in at the crucial moment to keep the Ford Motor Company afloat. The rest, as they say, is history. More than 100 years later, entrepreneurs continue to make the same mistake. Some even keep their

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projects secret on purpose. Ask a new entrepreneur why the secrecy and they often respond, “But what if someone steals my idea?”

Sigh.

all to himself, Oliver is everywhere talking about WeMontage, and his efforts are finally paying off. Had he opted to keep it all to himself, he would still be at his kitchen table struggling.

No One Wants to Steal Your Idea

Those Who Matter

Identify Weak Ideas Early

Most importantly, create a strong network for a product before introducing it. If you insist on building your wiz bang widget in an undisclosed location, do not be surprised when the world ignores you as you emerge triumphant from your cave.

This may come as a shock to many of you, but most ideas are crap. Why risk stealing a bad idea? Still, buried in this heap is a gem or two. If you have a genuinely good idea, you may not be the only one thinking about it. Secrecy stops you from receiving much-needed feedback. While you come up with new ways to protect your gem, another innovator may be across town talking up his or her own version.

One of the benefits of sharing your idea is the feedback you’ll receive. You may discover you are attempting to solve a problem that does not exist. Or, like my buddy James Oliver(@JamesOliver) over at WeMontage, you may receive validation that you are indeed on to something. Far from keeping his baby

Spend your time getting feedback from potential investors, those in your market and other influencers. This is not the time to get the opinion of friends and relatives who do not understand your market.

Instead, interact with potential competitors and local business organizations. This is the opposite extreme of keeping everything to yourself.

How Email Marketing Can Improve Your Website Traffic Rebekah Henson

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any businesses treat email marketing as an outbound strategy; procuring a list and sending out messages with hopes for a good response. Ideally, email marketing should be inbound and offering clear value to customers encouraging them to come back for repeat business - as well as repeat website traffic. Inbound email marketing can effectively grow your site’s traffic in two ways: through attraction and retention. Getting into your prospects’ inboxes is the first step, and staying there seals the deal. Think of email marketing as a relationship with your customers to keep them engaging with your brand, clicking through to your site and sharing your content with others which generates the extra traffic that drives sales.

Attraction

YouTube videos aren’t the only online content that can go viral and generate traffic. Blog posts, articles and even your email content can spread to a wider audience if you’re delivering relevant value to the inbox. Making your emails shareable can increase your traffic growth as subscribers share your content with others, attracting new subscribers who will also convert to new site visitors.

Viral email content is about the value you send to the inbox. Don’t just pitch your product or service; engage subscribers in a conversation with information that’s relevant to their interests.

Survey subscribers about their interests to send targeted content they’ll want to share. Include sharing links for social networks in your emails in addition to encouraging subscribers to forward your

content to others. When your articles are worth reading or your deals are relevant, your subscribers can generate more traffic for you by sharing your content with their networks you may not have otherwise penetrated.

click through rates will measure your success at getting subscribers to return to your site. The trick is getting them to open your emails and click through to your site in your messages. Here are some tips to get them opening and clicking:

Retention

Spend time crafting your subject lines to get your emails opened. Ask a question or tease your message content to pique your readers’ curiosity.

More traffic means higher search ranking, and higher search ranking means more business. Repeat traffic is especially good for your site’s reputation. This is where email marketing comes in, encouraging repeat traffic to your site by placing you in your customers’ inboxes so they’ll remember who you are. Think about it: the average internet user visits at least 85 web pages in a day, according to data from Nielson. Once a visitor leaves your page, you’re as good as forgotten unless they bookmark you or remember to come back later. Email marketing increases your chances of being remembered by putting your name in their inboxes on a regular basis to jog their memory.

Sending a follow up series (auto responders) or a broadcast newsletter are proactive ways to start a conversation that keeps you in front of your subscribers and invites them back for more. They’ll likely visit your site again depending on the value your messages offer.Your emails’

Phrase your call to action to inspire subscribers to click to your site and make sure it’s placed visibly in your email. Don’t scare them off with your wording - a gentle nudge to “Find out more” often performs better than abrasive calls to “Buy now!”Need readers for your blog?

Turn your blog content into a newsletter sent as a weekly or monthly digest, but don’t publish full articles. Use a teasing lead instead to entice subscribers to click through for the full article.

Once you’re in the inbox, the trick is staying there to keep subscribers clicking and engaging with your content. Stumped on how to build the relationship? Here’s a hint: It’s all about the value. Value makes your emails worth reading and worth sharing; that will drive the traffic and it all starts with the relevance you send to the inbox www.evomag.co 13

Business Trendsetter

Lane Ethridge Three Feet From The Fast Lane

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www.evomag.co

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“

Ultimately, our actions determine our future and our mindset determines our destiny. I will continue to create a living legacy, not for me, but for the "Me's" who needed me like I did the mentors in my life.

“

www.evomag.co

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Recently Evolution Magazine had the opportunity to have a inspirational conversation with Entrepreneur and Motivational Speaker - Lane Ethridge.

Lane’s story was so inspiring and uplifting we had to make him July/ August’s “Business Trendsetter”

Evolution Magazine: As true with any success story it all has to start somewhere. Share a little bit about yourself and how your business began.

Lane: Life has a powerful way of reminding us about the times in our lives that help us get to this exact point in life. When I moved to San Diego in 2009 I left everything I knew to move 3500 miles to a complete unknown. I had no job, no real money saved up and no real plan laid out. I had my girlfriend by my side and a dream of seeing what the world had to offer.

Four months after moving to SD, my

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girlfriend and I broke up and unbeknownst to her I was less than 30 days from proposing. Now I’m living in new city with no connections, broke, broken up…but not BROKEN!!

I had to start making money. I began caddying at the wealthiest golf resort in Rancho Santa Fe. Why? I wanted to be around wealthy people and surround myself with the movers and shakers. While I didn’t have deep pockets, I had a deep desire to learn from those who did. As I was continuing to learn from those who I was carrying bags for… the baggage in my life continued piling up. But I remained positive and hopeful. I knew that I was destined for a life that would exemplify the gifts and talents I was given. I just had to figure out the avenue to pursue and passionately achieve success.

Evolution Magazine: When did the shift happen in your life, where you realized that you were on to something and success was just over the hill?

Lane: As life usually does, an opportunity presented itself and my first entrepreneurial endeavor in San Diego was flipping houses. At that point I was at the beginning of my personal growth journey because I was financially broke, but knew I wasn't broken. I read "Think and Grow Rich" which led me to read "Three Feet From Gold." That book had such a big impact in my life I carried a yard stick everywhere for the next 10 months.

Yes, seriously - it was by side everywhere, every day for 300 days. It kind of became my ‘Shtick.’

While building a real estate portfolio, I had more success at our firm than any other salesperson. I followed a plan, put my head down and worked harder than anyone else. The persistence and determination resulted in success and I was asked to speak at a real estate event in front of a hundred investors. Of course carrying my yard stick, I had a group of guys approach me after my presentation.

They asked why I was carrying a yard stick on stage. I explained I had been

carrying it for 300 days as a reminder that I am worthy of greatness and that golden opportunities would present themselves if I continued striving for greatness. At that moment, one of the guys reached out his hand, looked me in the eye and said, “My name is Greg Reid, I am the author of ‘Three Feet From Gold.’” Greg was the next speaker at our event!!! The opportunity of meeting the author of the very book that impacted my life so greatly shifted my paradigm forever; I went from wanting to make a lot of money to wanting to make a huge difference. Since that moment, Greg and I have been friends. He has taught me invaluable life lessons and I am thankful for his commitment to changing lives.

As we continued to build a relationship, Greg asked me to become the VP of Millionaire Mentor and together wrote a book with Les Brown and Bran Tracy which ultimately hit National Bestseller.

And now I have people coming up to me letting me know that book is changing their lives. It’s a full circle ripple effect and the honor of affecting lives through a journey that built me to be a leader is continuing to encourage me to lead a life of continued encouragement for others.

It's a reminder to never ever give up and that everything we do leads us to meet the people who are supposed to be in our lives. Ultimately, our actions determine our future and our mindset determines our destiny. I will continue to create a living legacy, not for me, but for the "Me's" who needed me like I did the mentors in my life.

Stay tuned in for more from Lane as we explore success in the right lane. Visit www.EvoMag.co for our interview with Lane as he shares a few key success tips.

www.LaneEthridge.com www.evomag.co

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