E2 Entrepreneur Owning Your Success Newsletter by Outridge Enterprises Inc.

Business Basics Are You Giving Back to Your Community?.....................Page 2 Marketng Madness: Are You a Brand?.....................Page 3 .

In the Office: Should You Upgrade Your Computer Components?........Page 4

The Bi-monthly Newsletter for Entrepreneurs E2 August 2011

elcome to the Entrepreneur Version of Owning Your Success Newsletter. If you are an entrepreneur then this newsletter is for you. Included in the bi-monthly newsletter will be tips on how to help move your business forward through our columns “Business Basics”, “Marketing Madness”, and “In the Office”. The regular columns will have information to help your business in those three areas.

The newsletter will be available online for free and you can have the latest issue sent right to your mailbox by signing up for a free subscription. I hope you find this information useful and when you’re done reading it feel free to share it with a friend, or better yet have them subscribe to their own version. We also have a transport version available. Check out page six of the newsletter. Enjoy! Bruce

s an entertainer/artist I like I am sure many of you get requests all of the time to donate our work or time to help out certain organizations. Depending on where you are in your career or business accepting those invitations may be helpful in promoting yourself in your field of expertise. That being said however, it can also diminish the value of your work and yourself. You may also be starting down a road that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t turn off of at a later date. I have been down that road and had to make some steep choices in who I was going to help. For a person like myself that could be very hard as I enjoy helping people, but there has to be some sort organization to your methods. In the beginning of my career I accepted many invitations to help other organizations and it did help as from a promotional standpoint, but the list kept growing making it difficult to keep up with the demand and it was starting to affect the bottom line of my business. So I had to make some decisions for myself so I did not feel guilty saying no to some and yes to others. I used to feel guilty every time I said no.

So what I did was to pick a certain amount of charities that were close to my heart each year and work with those ones only and turn down the rest. How did I do this? First my wife and I decided on three to four charities that we felt a real bond to helping. Now to clarify I am not talking about disaster relief efforts here, those we help based on funds available at the time, I am talking about the causes that are around year after year that always need help like cancer and so on. Some charities are a time donation, and others require a monetary investment. This way when you turn down other charities, you just say you are working with all of your chosen charities for the year. It makes it a bit easier to say no and also gives you some control on where your money and time goes in order to help others. I understand that everyone needs a hand, but you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be able to help everyone so it is best to help those causes that are close to your heart.

ÂŠ2011 Outridge Consulting Services / Outridge Enterprises Inc.

re You a Brand? Market Yourself Not Your Product!

Most people in business focus on their product or service. That is entirely normal due to the fact that we spend so much time with our business and if it developed from a passion such as mine it is very hard to shut it down at times. That being said however most people don’t realize that the reason people deal with you is because of you. If that is the case then when focusing on your business you should be creating a band out of yourself and not so much out of your product. Look at it this way, you meet someone and they have a great product that you would just love to buy. It fits with your needs, the price is right, and you can see the benefits for your business. The person is super nice to you, almost too nice, but you really would like the product so you decide to buy it. After a time is arranged for delivery the person meets with you and then tells you that the price has changed from what they told you, only accepts cash and won’t give a receipt to you. Now let’s say a month down the road the product stops working, and now you can’t get that guy on the phone. How do you feel? You feel like something underhanded is going on. Who knows if the product was stolen or damaged etc?

Would you recommend that your best friend buy from that person, no you wouldn’t. No matter what product or service that person offers they will always be labelled as a shyster because of the way they run their business. I see this everyday in my illustration business because many artists are unreliable at operating the business and it turns people off from dealing with them. They may be the best artist in the world. That is why so many artists are looking for someone to represent them. If you took the same scenario as above and changed the character, in other words you have a person that stuck to their word on pricing, delivered on time, made sure you were happy with the product upon delivery, then you would have a total different view of that person and their business. Even if the product broke down, if the person stepped up to the plate, repaired or arranged for an exchange you would still have a good feel for dealing with that person in the future. So remember when dealing with clients and vendors that you are the actual brand for your business. People want to deal with you because you stand behind your word; you are good to deal with and so on. Build your business on reputation and customers will follow you for the product or service.

omputer software and hardware is expensive to most people and businesses so upgrading can be a pricy decision, so people usually decide not to take on upgrading or settle for the a slightly older version. We have all done that and I am no exception but it comes to a point in time when efficiency outweighs expense and the upgrade has to be done. A lot of designers are using software that is too far behind the latest software and are probably wasting more time by using it than swallowing the pill and purchasing a new edition. If you have been in business for a while then you should have some idea of the equipment and software that is really needed for your process. Believe me mismatched software can really eat up your time and creative juices.

I recently went through this with my Wacom tablet. I have been using one that I have had for about ten years. It is a very small one and the pen doesn’t have the flexibility that many of the new products do. Although I liked using it very much I had two issues that were driving me crazy. The first was that the tablet live area was too small. I had to use a mouse in my right hand and the pen in my left hand to reposition the mouse as I moved around the screen. The second item was that the tablet surface was so slippery it was very hard to get nice clean lines in my drawings so I wouldn’t draw with it. I used it to basically colour my cartoons that had been drawn on paper. Now I was able to live with this for quite a while and was happy to do so until this year. In my art classes I have started to use my tablet and computer more for demos. The line quality wasn’t there and I had to do a lot of adjusting on the page.

The real kicker was a few weeks ago as I was working on another project for our business where I was creating the illustration from scratch right on the computer. It looked terrible and not of the quality that I was looking to have. Finally so fed up with the tablet I hopped right into the car and headed off to the computer store to check out new tablets. The new Bamboo tablet I had heard of and checked out on line, but was concerned that the tablet live area size would still be too small. In the store I found five different sizes, two were out of my price range without a thought. Two looked liked the size of my current tablet which all I could see were the same hardships I had been working through before. The last one was letter size and seemed to have the same functionality as the rest.

I bought the tablet and rushed home hoping I hadn’t made another mistake, I make many you know. The new tablet was a dream; the features, functionality, and efficiency are totally different from the old one and in fact have saved me money. If I choose to I could eliminate one whole step in my process that will save me time on projects. So that one computer upgrade will save me big dollars over my time of use with the program. So how do you know when you should upgrade? Don’t feel the need to upgrade each time a new product comes out. I generally like to upgrade on the second version of the program, not the first. Try to upgrade every three years and make a list of products that you really need. Keep any software that you use daily should be newer so that you are maximizing your efficiency. It is a challenge to stay on top of the latest stuff, but if you go about it smartly it can actually save you time and money. All the best with your upgrade and remember time is money!

Well you read the Entrepreneur Version of Owning Your Success. Did you know that we also offer a version for the transportation market? It is published under the same name and is also a bimonthly newsletter. Both issues will alternate each month and is free to receive and view online. If you know someone n the transportation market that is a professional driver, owner operator, or team supervisor then recommend they read the newsletter. It is in the same format as this one offering tips and techniques for a better career or business.

Collar to Collar magazine is published semi-annually and is available online or in a print version. This 32 page magazine offers articles to help supervisors and their staff have better careers through leadership. The goal is to improve customer service, time management, and reduce complacency with your team. Subscriptions are available for by visiting our website at www.outridge.ca and clicking on the Collar to Collar Magazine images and tabs.

ÂŠ2011 Outridge Consulting Services / Outridge Enterprises Inc.