How Can You Differentiate Yourself From the Competition

1. How good are you on a scale of 1-10?
2. How good are you compared to the competition?
3. How good does the market think you are?
4. How good do the customers think you are?
5. How good do you rate your own sales ability?
6. How well do you speak?
7. How well do you transfer your message?
8. How well do you bring new ideas to the customer?
9. How well do you close the deal?
10. How well do you follow up?
11. How well do you differentiate yourself?
12. How well do you create relationships? Read the rest of this entry

April 2009, 6000 new businesses started in British Columbia, 35,000 in Canada. (http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1576582).

Hard to believe but it also changed the face of the unemployment figures for the month and the first time in several months where this figure has not increased.

Why? Well the unemployment figures represent people unemployed looking for employment if you start a new business you are taken off the stats of the unemployed. Some consider Self Employment the last resort if you are out of work. Read the rest of this entry

I like to think there are 2 prerequisites that are no brainers when it comes to deciding whether or not you take the leap from that cozy, no-end in sight, badly managed, dead-end job to your new business endeavour. Sure you’ll be soon wondering where your next contract will come from or when your next customer will walk through the door of your shop but you will be self employed.

The 2 considerations are Passion and Timing! Read the rest of this entry

Information is the engine that drives successful marketing campaigns. Information about competitors, market conditions, mergers and acquisitions, trends in your local market or the international marketplace.

Imagination looks beyond today to incorporate market trends and predictions to ensure that today’s marketing campaign isn’t tomorrow’s pet rock.

Integration brings together your business goals, your specific needs, the business intelligence you’ve amassed, the content you need to deliver, the look and feel that represent your corporate identity and the right media to tell the story.

“People of the world, unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs! People of the world, be courageous, dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave.”
- Chairman Mao

I feel this is the battle cry of Burnaby politics, those of the NDP candidates and their minions running city hall. In Chairman Mao’s quote replace U.S. aggressors with Liberals, the centrist party. Out of 22 elected officials in Burnaby 19 are left wing NDP/Union backed hacks. Good for them you may say, they win elections. Sure but while other candidates raise money for their election campaigns these people have well-oiled special interest unions throwing money at them.

In my previous Blog, ‘Burnaby’s Incestuous Politics” I noted the nepotism of husband being the Mayor and wife running for MLA for the NDP. How about Mondee Redmon, vast experience as a ‘school trustee’ -wow- and one of the in-house folks suffering from big fish-in-a -small pond syndrome.

Living in Burnaby with these politicians makes me feel so alienated at times, cause the rest of the world doesn’t see things the way folks do in Burnaby, maybe I’m a Vancouverite at heart- but wait, isn’t the Mayor of Vancouver a former NDP MLA?