PROSPECT: “OK then, good to talk to you.”

PROSPECT: “Hey Dan, how is your business?”

DAN: “Not bad! Sure, last year I took a hit, but I’m digging back out of it. I’ve brought some new clients on board this year and I’m filling my pipeline with more prospects.”

PROSPECT: “Good for you!  What have you done to make the difference from this year to last year?”

To quote Monty Python, “RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!”  Nobody wants to talk to Joe. Even if Joe is telling the truth, nobody wants to go there.  Let’s put business aside for a minute and put ourselves in any conversation at a party or a ball game or golf outing and you spend a significant amount of time with several people. Now you’re driving home and thinking back about Joe and Dan.  Dan was a breath of fresh air when compared to Joe. In the future I’ll be sure to avoid Joe because he’s just flat out depressing. Dan, on the other hand, is the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to hear more about Dan and his strategies. I want to be like that guy. I’ll be sure to follow up with Dan.

We are all in the same game of growing our business and we’re all fighting the same battles. Being positive and staying positive is hard work but it also becomes a habit if you work at it.  What is the payoff of being positive (+) verses being negative (-)? Whatever the event is, you are constantly networking whether you realize it or not. Let’s take a look at the impact:

NETWORKING:

(+) Prospects will be more likely to engage and stay engaged in conversation.

(-)  Prospects will disengage and run away and never come back.

(+) Prospects will have favorable memories of you after the event and may tell their contacts about you.

(-)  Prospects will remember how negative you were and try to forget you.

(+) Prospects will be more likely to introduce you to other colleagues at the event.

(-)  Prospects will not want to associate themselves with you and your negativity and certainly don’t want to be responsible for bringing the downer into somebody else’s world.

(+) You leave the prospect with a positive subconscious feeling about you and your business.

(-)  The prospect is trying to get you out of their mind as quickly as possible. You’ve become forgettable, or worse, you will be remembered to be avoided.

(+) Positive events that occur the following week may remind the prospect of the good conversation they had with you at the event.

(-)  When something bad happens to the prospect the following week that will cause them to say “Joe was right” and you are associated with negative events.

(+) When you call to follow up with the prospect you hear “Sure Dan, I’d be happy to meet with you! Wednesday is good for me.” The prospect will make time for you.

(-) When you call to follow up with the prospect you hear “I’m really tied up for the next couple week Joe. Follow up with me in a couple week.” They go out of their way to avoid you.

So when somebody asks how your business is doing, take an extra minute and be positive about your answer.

Will you marry me? NO? (I’ve heard that before…but I digress).OK…I don’t want to get married, but I do want to build a relationship where we know each other, like each other, and trust each other enough to do business together. When we find someone we are attracted to, obviously we don’t run up to them on the street and ask for their hand in marriage and guarantee live-happily-ever-after bliss. Building a business relationship is no different. If you’re jumping into social media or making cold calls and asking for a new client’s hand in business wedlock, maybe you’ve got the wrong approach.Here is the wrong approach:

ME: “Hi, I’m Dan! I’m a Solutionist! Can I have all of your business?”

YOU: “NO! Go away!” (again, I’m having flashbacks).

A better approach is this:

ME: “Hi Paul, I see you know Bill Gates, I think he may be a good prospect and I can save him money. Can you make an introduction for me?”

YOU: “Hi Bill, I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine. He’s saved me money and he may be able to save you money. His name is Dan! He’s A Solutionist!”

BILL: “Never heard of him Paul, but if you recommend him, I’ll meet with him.”

The key to building a long-term client base is to create long-term relationships. The new prospect may be a total jerk, but you don’t know that until you do a LITTLE business together. But you can’t do a LITTLE business together until they know you a LITTLE bit. On the other hand, the prospect may think you are a jerk as well. If either or both are true, then that relationship is not a good fit…and we haven’t even started talking about your product. Asking for an introduction through a mutual contact may be able to avert this problem.

PAUL: “Dan, I know what you can do for Bill, but I don’t think he could hang intellectually with your sarcastic wit. It’s probably not a good fit.” (That’s Paul’s polite way of saving my valuable time and money.)

When we start dating, maybe we are introduced to each other through a friend. We start with a conversation over coffee, then maybe dinner, then a movie, then we can begin a relationship. A business relationship is not unlike a courting process. The first contact could be or is becoming more likely a connection via a social media site or, I know it sounds crazy, you may make first contact with a phone call (crazy huh?). When you are jumping onto the social media bandwagon and finding a lot of new prospects, please remember what my Mom used to tell me. “Remember your manners young man!”

• Be polite - Don’t be pushy.
• Provide information - Don’t be selling.
• Look to give something - Don’t look to get something.
• Help others make connections - Don’t force yourself on others.
• Ask questions about others - Don’t be self-aggrandizing.
• Look to learn - Don’t look to impress.

Sometime I am the master of the obvious, but I hope you found some value in this article. But if we do end up doing business together, remember that my Mom told me to be polite, she never said anything about sarcasm (wink wink).

If you are getting involved in social media, be sure you are committed to the “social” part. It’s called social media for a reason and that is because you are supposed to socialize; to connect; to introduce; to meet; to learn; to engage. Is it NOT called “Lurking Media” or “Talk to the Hand Media”.

Social media is exactly like a networking event. Here are some tips for being a better networker and getting more from your social media:

• Show up. It sounds silly doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised at how many people want to make new contacts, but never network.
• Introduce yourself, but don’t start your sales pitch. Shoving your business down somebody’s throat is a turnoff. Go stand in the corner with the lurker.
• Before you throw the iron bars of your privacy settings around your profile, remember that this is social media. You don’t have to reveal intimate details, but leave your privacy settings open enough that other can determine if you are somebody they would like to engage. If somebody looks at your profile and finds “Dan only shares his information with his wife and his mom”, then chances are you are going to move along right past Dan to the next person and never give Dan a second thought.
• Ask questions. Be genuinely interested in the person you have just met. Find out about their business, what their challenges are, and why they are there. You may have nothing in common with them, but you also may know somebody who does. The more you are interested in the other person, the more that person will find you interesting. After all, people love to talk about themselves.
• Get involved in topics of discussion or even start a discussion. The more you contribute RELEVANT information, the more you will be seen as the expert on the topic.
• Thank people for engaging in discussion and that you appreciated their input.
• If you really want to make an impact, go out of your way to get back to them with information or a contact that they were looking to make. They will be astonished that you remembered them. They, in turn, will want to go out of their way for you.
• Ask somebody you DO know to introduce you to somebody you would LIKE to know. The person making the introduction is like a bridge over the chasm of unknown-unliked-untrusted.
• Be cordial. If you engage in conversation and you are not comfortable, you don’t have to become their Facebook friend, LinkedIn Contact, or Twitter Follower.
• Be genuine. Successful business people are very intuitive and are able to identify that you are trying to be something you are not.

Finally, and most importantly, each new person you meet will know somewhere around 200 other people. Be careful of whom you are quick to dismiss.

When I take my family to the beach every summer, We don’t just wake up one morning and jump in the car and go (although, after another 4 inches of snow last night and another 2 hour school delay it’s very tempting.) It takes some planning to successfully arrive at the beach and return. It is natural that we decide such things as which beach, house or condo, friends or just family, how long will we be there, which car shall we take, and what is our budget?

It surprises me how many people are out there conducting their marketing as if they just woke up and decided to do some marketing. I wonder if they jump in the car intending to go to the beach and wind up running out of gas on their car pointing toward the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota.

A marketing program is different from a marketing strategy or plan. Your marketing strategy is the bigger umbrella, under which may be not just one, but several programs, each one requiring planning, commitment and execution. You need to answer questions such as; Who is your target audience? How do you reach them? What is your message? How will you track results? How do you measure success?

Do you know who your audience is? Some people are better clients than others and obviously you would like to attract more of the better. If you begin to analyze why they are better, you may come across a common thread among them. It could be gender, or age, or lifestyle, or hobby, or some other category. Take the time to find out what that is and where you find more of that type of client. That becomes your target audience. Take me for instance; A northeastern dad with a family, shoveling 4 inches of snow from his driveway every day for a week – there’s a common thread. I’ll bet there are a plethora who fit that description.

Once you know your audience, make sure you get your message in front of them. Their demographic and their social habits will determine where the place the will most likely see your message. Shoveling snow every day for a week could cause me…uhm…people to spend a lot of time at their chiropractor. Could a chiropractor in February be a possible source for resort clients in July? If you’re the chiropractor, a recent study suggests that the most influential media on patient healthcare choices are television as number one and newspaper as a close second. Your challenge is that every chiropractor knows that and is doing that. It may come down to other creative media to place your message as well as what your message is saying. (Those northeastern show-shoveling dads, whose football team failed to make the playoffs and is now turning his attention to hockey – there’s a hint as to where a resort would aslo get his attention.)

The message is crucial in the decision process of the future client. Be sure your message is benefit-focused. I’m pretty sure nobody knows enough about your latest piece of equipment to care that you have it. The message is not YOUR equipment; the message is THEIR benefit the new piece of equipment provides to the client. Maybe the technology lends credibility to your message, but it certainly is not the benefit. Your message should also tell your audience why you are different and better. Other chiropractors and resorts offer the same benefits and are just as credible, but you are different; you are better. Tell them why. (Relax and unwind from a long winter with no playoffs in an oceanfront condo, close to several golf courses, with plenty of free daily activities for kids, indoor and outdoor pools and lazy rivers – there’s a benefit).

Whatever your program is, tracking results from the program is essential, but not necessarily easy. You want to find out if the program worked or came up short. If it worked, you want to do more of it. If it didn’t, you need to figure that out as well? Can the program be tweaked and tried again? Should you try something differently? My point is that you cannot answer these questions unless you can quantify the results. Did this program bring in a better quality and quantity of the ideal client for you? (How many northeastern dads located in or around Pittsburgh brought their family to my oceanfront condo this year? Why? This could be done with a few questions when the reservations were made.)

Finally, and most importantly, did you establish your definition of a successful program?

Were you able to accomplish what you set out as your defined success? This one is easy.(Did we increase our traffic of Pittsburgh dads and their families to our condo this year? If not, maybe we should try again next year at the end of Hockey season!)

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. I’m sure you have heard of them. They are what the kids are doing on the computer, right? WRONG! They are the internet media channels through which engaged professionals communicate, gather and disseminate information in real time. It is called Social Media and if you and your organization are not engaged, you are missing out. That’s OK as long as your denial is intact, but consider these statistics:

• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia. (socialnomics.net)

• Twitter has more than 6 million unique visitors and 55 million total visitors per month (Compete study).

• 15% of online time is spent on Social Media (Compete).

• Facebook has recently hit the 100 Million monthly user mark (Facebook).

• Social Media reaches virtually every age group. (Ad-Ology)

• 80% of companies used LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees. (socialnomics.net)

I don’t normally post a bunch of statistics in my articles, but I realize there may be some left-brainers who like to crunch numbers and need some convincing. The numbers tell me that if you are not engaged in Social Media, you need to start. Start somewhere. Start anywhere! A good place to start is at www.SMC.org, where a growing of business are gathering to participate in PA Business Social Media.

There is opportunity lying in wait for those businesses who are engaging in social media. Corporations understand this. While gathering my research for a social media training seminar, I came across a study of the top 100 global brands’ social media practices. The study establishes a direct correlation between profitability and the number of social media channels and the depth of involvement within those channels. Are you still not convinced? How about this statistic; those highly engaged in social media reported an average of 18% increased growth, and those least engaged reported an average of -6% growth. These companies consider it significant enough to establish social media marketing departments to engage that segment of their client base.

Another study shows that CEO’s and Presidents are not personally engaging as quickly nor do they understand why the need to and that’s the reason I’m writing this article. In light of the study sighted above and the fact that most CEO’s are not yet engaged, what does that tell you? Engage and engage now! There is opportunity to exploit.

The good news is that social media is just beneficial to the large corporation. Any size company can get into the social media market. A small pizza place in New Orleans reported a one day sales record when 68% of their customers called in orders from Twitter. They also reported that 85% of their new customers resulted from their Twitter efforts. (I’ll take the thin crust with sausage and onions please.)

If you are engaged, you are filling a huge void that other Presidents are business are not. Potential clients are digging for information online and if you are the one giving it to them, you are automatically building a relationship. If you don’t have an online presence…(insert cricket chirping sound here). The other side of this equation is the peer to peer relationship for business owners to build with other owners. Social Media is incredibly powerful to build relationships and immediately spread your name and information.

How do you become engaged? I mentioned in the beginning of this article that LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are channels within social media. They are the big four on which to start  (ideally after you have a website and a blog, but that’s another article). Your website provides basic information and your blog provides up to date and timely information and articles. Your social media channels help to distribute the real-time access channels to your blog. Tracking and controlling the social media channels is accomplished with additional tools such as Hootsuite, Ow.ly, TweetDeck and Bit.ly. These are some of the additional pieces of the recipe for successful social media engagement, but not something to worry about right now.

Social media, as with any program, is most effective when you enter into it with a plan, a definition of a success, and a tracking system to measure the success of the program. Except for your website, the wonderful part about the tools mentioned above is that they are FREE. To make your social media program successful, you must be committed to the program. You must be willing to commit your time and your effort to work the program. Your social media program is an investment. If you don’t invest, you get no return.

If you’re already engaged in social media, CONGRATULATIONS! If it is working for you and you are ready to take your entire organization to the next level, then there are Social Media Platforms available which allow you to create your organization’s own Social Media Network. SMC Business Councils, for example, has recently launched their members-only PA Business Social Media site. This autonomous community is a platform for members to share best practices and research, stay up to date on government advocacy efforts, take advantage of members-only benefits, find human resource, marketing, healthcare and legal expertise, share business successes and communicate information only to those within the walls of their membership community. (www.SMC.org)

Remember that feedback and tracking is essential to measuring the success of your social media program. The information and the industry is morphing daily, so please contact me to share your social media successes and challenges or if you have additional questions. If you are Social Networking neophyte, that’s OK. We’re here to help.

I’ve put together a two-part training session to show businesses how to use Social Media as a Marketing Tool.

1. Social Media Marketing: The Pieces
2. Social Media Marketing: How the Pieces Work Together

If your organization is interested in the training, email for more information.

On everybody’s radar today is dollars generated versus dollars spent. The question everybody is asking is how we can do more of the former with less of the latter. If there were one magic answer, everybody would be doing it. Well, there are answers, they’re not magic, they may not be easy, but they work.

1. The single most important and most obvious way to do more with less is to make sure you have a marketing plan in place. Trying “this” today and “that” tomorrow will only work if message and your target audience happen to intersect by accident. Targeting a specific audience through a specific medium or media with a specific message with a specific plan to track results and a specific measurement of success is the key. Yes it can be a lot of work, but it’s the only way to determine what works and what doesn’t. Not everything will be successful, but the only way to know is to target, to communicate and to track as best you can.

2. Consider client sources. Marketing directly to clients helps but going directly to referral sources is even better? I’m pretty sure clients aren’t lining up like the day after Thanksgiving at the front desk of your facility to buy your holiday bargains. They seek you out in hopes that you can solve their problem. Answer this question: “Where do they get the information which leads them to you?” If you have the answer to this question, then you have the target you should be directing your messages toward.

3. Look at your farm system. As a slightly fanatical Steelers and Penguins fan, I can’t help but consider what successful sports franchises are doing. Today’s younger employees are tomorrow’s mid level management and somewhere down the road will be executives. Different stages of a career are target audiences, but also guaranteed to grow to the next target audience. Do you have a plan in place to carry your clients through the changes in theirs careers? Conversely, do you have a plan in place to bring the best up and coming talent to you organization?  Better talent will bring fans to your stadium. How are you attracting that future talent?

4. Better customer relations leads to word-of-mouth marketing, which is the least expensive but most powerful form of marketing. In a climate where many clients feel like the next person in line, the provider/client relationship is more critical than ever. Take care of the details with your clients. Do you really know anything about their families, or birthdays, or anniversaries, or alma mater? There is great CRM tool out there. If you need help in that area, contact me today!

5. Look at the structure your message and how it’s being delivered. It’s great that you just spent a pile of cash on the latest technology, but the harsh truth is that nobody cares. Clients cannot develop a relationship with a machine (although there are times when my wife thinks my laptop and I have something special going). Instead of bragging about your latest equipment, focus on its benefit to your clients. “We will increase your annual productivity by 230 house by helping you accomplish in five minutes what currently takes you an hour.” That sounds better doesn’t it? You haven’t mentioned the equipment and have already solved the problem. Don’t forget to throw in something to convince them that they can believe what you are telling them. Finally, convince them why their experience with you will be much better than their experience with the next facility that may be making the same claim.

6. Leverage the knowledge bases of your most trusted vendors. Your relationship with your vendors is just as important as your relationships with clients. I am one of those vendors, but there are several out there like me (well, not just like me because I am The Solutionist). With years of experience under our belts, a good vendor can be a good consultant and a good insurance policy by steering you around the rocks that lie beneath the surface. The key is to leverage a vendor you trust and can bring multiple solutions to the table The better your relationship with your vendor, the more your vendor will want to help.

7. Billboards are effective, but the way you are buying may be a way to do more with less. Billboards consist of two distinctly separate items. One is the rental of the board space itself and the second is the poster or vinyl. Many advertisers don’t know that they two are separate. The companies that show up in your office own the board itself, but also, in most cases, they will subcontract the visual to the same place as a vinyl broker would, but with a higher markup. Ask your billboard company to break out the vinyl printing from the contract.

8. Social Media Marketing or Web 2.0 is new to a lot of marketing departments. You hear about it, you understand a little, but you can’t wrap your brain around it. Do not discount its effectiveness because you don’t understand it. It can be fairly inexpensive or fairly elaborate. One thing is for sure; it’s not going away. Effectively combining the reach of your website, your blog, and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and a strategy to utilize the above is becoming increasingly effective. Throw in the power of relationship marketing direct mail and PURLs (Personal URLs), you can create an information stream which can turn target marketing into bull’s-eye marketing.

The bottom line is that effective marketing is an investment and not an expense. There are forms of marketing that will allow you to do more with less. Effective marketing is not to be confused with cheaper marketing. If your marketing strategy is effective and you can prove that with tracking, then there isn’t any reason you wouldn’t want to do more.

On everybody’s radar today is dollars generated versus dollars spent. The question everybody is asking is how we can do more of the former with less of the latter. If there were one magic answer, everybody would be doing it. Well, there are answers, they’re not magic, they may not be easy, but they work.

1. The single most important and most obvious way to do more with less is to make sure you have a marketing plan in place. Trying “this” today and “that” tomorrow will only work if message and your target audience happen to intersect by accident. Targeting a specific audience through a specific medium or media with a specific message with a specific plan to track results and a specific measurement of success is the key. Yes it can be a lot of work, but it’s the only way to determine what works and what doesn’t. Not everything will be successful, but the only way to know is to target, to communicate and to track as best you can.

2. Consider patient sources. Marketing directly to patients helps but going directly to referral sources is even better? I’m pretty sure patients aren’t lining up like the day after Thanksgiving at the front desk of your facility to get the holiday treatment bargains. Nobody wants to go to the doctor or the hospital, but they go because they have to or are urged. Answer this question: “Who does the urging?”. If you have the answer to this question, then you have the target you should be directing your messages toward.

3. Look at your farm system. As a slightly fanatical Steelers and Penguins fan, I can’t help but consider what successful sports franchises are doing. Today’s younger and healthier crowd will be tomorrow’s parents and middle aged crowd and eventually grandparents and senior citizens. Different stages of life are target audiences, but also guaranteed to become the next target audience. Do you have a plan in place to carry your patients through the changes in theirs lives? Conversely, do you have a plan in place to bring the best up and coming talent to you organization as providers?  Better talent will bring fans to your stadium. How are you attracting that future talent?

4. Better patient and family relations leads to word-of-mouth marketing, which is the least expensive but most powerful form of marketing. In a climate where many patients leave their provider feeling like #31, provider/patient relationship is more critical than ever. I remember the day when Dr. Mike would ask my mom about my dad, her parents, and my brothers and sisters. I could tell that he really cared about my family. When I leave your office, am I going to feel like you are really concerned about Dan or am I going to feel like #31 just did his small part to contribute to the success of your practice?

5. Look at the structure your message and how it’s being delivered. It’s great that you just spent a pile of cash on the latest technology, but the harsh truth is that nobody cares. Patients cannot develop a relationship with a machine (although there are times when my wife thinks my laptop and I have something special going). Instead of bragging about your latest equipment, focus on its benefit to your patients. “You are a prime candidate for this problem. We are able to detect this problem earlier and stop it before it gets started.” That sounds better doesn’t it? Don’t forget to throw in something to convince them that they can believe what you are telling them. Finally, convince them why their experience with you will be much better than their experience with the next facility that may be making the same claim.

6. Leverage the knowledge bases of your most trusted vendors. Your relationship with your vendors is just as important as your doctors’ relationships with their clients. I am one of those vendors, but there are several out there like me (well, not just like me because I am The Solutionist). With years of experience under our belts, a good vendor can be a good consultant and a good insurance policy. The key is to leverage a vendor you know you can trust and can bring multiple solutions to the table The better your relationship with your vendor, the more your vendor will want to help.

7. Billboards are effective, but the way you are buying may be a way to do more with less. Billboards consist of two distinctly separate items. One is the rental of the board space itself and the second is the poster or vinyl. Many advertisers don’t know that they two are separate. The companies that show up in your office own the board itself, but in most cases, subcontract the visual to the same place as a vinyl broker would, but with a higher markup. Ask your billboard company to break out the vinyl printing from the contract.

8. Social Media Marketing or Web 2.0 is new to a lot of marketing departments. You hear about it, you understand a little, but you can’t wrap your brain around it. Do not discount its effectiveness because you don’t understand it. It can be fairly inexpensive or fairly elaborate. One thing is for sure; it’s not going away. Effectively combining the reach of your website, your blog, and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and a strategy to utilize the above is becoming increasingly effective. Throw in the power of relationship marketing direct mail and PURLs (Personal URLs), you can create an information stream which can turn target marketing into bullseye marketing.

The bottom line is that effective marketing is an investment and not an expense. There are forms of marketing that will allow you to do more with less. Effective marketing is not to be confused with cheaper marketing. If your marketing strategy is effective and you can prove that with tracking, then there isn’t any reason you wouldn’t want to do more.

Dan Galbraith is the owner of Solutionist, providing real-time marketing support to marketing professionals. He can be reached at Ideas@Solutionist.biz or  www.Solutionist.biz. Follow Solutionist on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/TheSolutionist and on LinkedIn at htttp://www.linkedin.com/in/thesolutionist

In down times, the marketing budget is the first to go, but not because companies want to stop marketing, but because it is one item on the budget that can be controlled. The reality is that you are gaining, losing or maintaining market share. A reel-back of an offensive marketing strategy to a prevent-marketing strategy may create the opposite of the desired effect. (Not unlike some of our favorite football teams that lose football games in the fourth quarter.) Executives cut marketing budgets to save money. This works in the short term, but may create a long-term deficit as you lose market share to your competitor who is staying aggressive throughout the fourth quarter.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could increase returns on your investments AND increase market share? Well you can, with effective marketing.

Ineffective marketing is an expense. Effective marketing is an investment. Marketing should be increasing sales and increasing market share. The challenge is in knowing what is effective and what is ineffective. Whatever marketing program you put into place, be sure to establish measurements of effectiveness. To guarantee whether a program is effective or not, you have to track results. Based on results, you stop the ineffective program (expense) or adjust the program and track the results once again. If you have a program that works, you will know by tracking results, and you would be crazy to eliminate that successful marketing program (investment) from your budget. On the contrary you will want to do more of it.

Systems to track marketing programs are key, but are often left out of the plan. Some programs are easy to track and some can become difficult. Tracking systems are the key. A system is easy to follow, simplifies the tracking process and, as a result, is conducive to staff buy-in. But you’re not done yet.

Establish what success looks like. Track your marketing results and measure those results against your definition of success. So the next time your CFO tells you that marketing expenses are too high and your budget is on the chopping block, you are able show her how successful marketing programs are. Once you’ve established that your expenses are actually investments, I’m sure she will be happy to increase your marketing budget and nominate you for Investor of the Year! …Good luck with that.

Many people ask what type of files to use for printing. The long answer is which type of printing because different media have different requirements.The short answer is use vector EPS for logos and JPG and TIF for photos.

VECTOR EPS will create logos with outlines or drawings with outlines.Vector files can be enlarged as big as you’d like because they are created with mathematical equations. The equation is interpolated larger when the logo is enlarged. Do not confuse eps with vector. You can save a photo as an EPS file, but at photo is not vector.

TIF and JPG files are more commonly used for photos or images to be used as photos. These files are where DPI or PPI become critical. TIF and JPG files are pixel based files, images are made up of little tiny squares called pixels. It’s never a problem reducing the size of a TIF or JPG, but you can only enlarge it a little without beginning to lose resolution.

If you’ve ever exhibited at a trade show, you know they are a LOT of work. Since you are putting in the time and effort, here are ten things to remember to make your experience more effective.

1. You have 6-8 seconds to capture somebody’s attention and gain their interest as they walk by. A lot of type and details on your graphics is not going to grab their attentions. Put that information in the literature you pass out.

2. If a visitors walks past your booth and pauses, ENGAGE! That is their invitation for you to engage them in conversation.

3. Small talk wastes their time and your time. Get to the point once you engage. “Good afternoon! What interests you about my wonderful offering?” (insert your offering  in place of “wonderful offering”)

4. Don’t use important graphics below waist level on your display. Nobody’s eyes ever get that far down when they are passing by. A table or visitors’ bags are at that level anyway.

5. Always use additional lighting and pay for electricity if available. Don’t be fooled into thinking the exhibit hall’s overhead lighting will be bright enough. It never is. Visitors are attracted to a well lighted booth. It gives a feeling of being bright and cheery.

6. Never sit down! It sends a message that you don’t want to be bothered. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes because standing and working and exhibit can be exhausting.

7. Don’t leave your table at the front of your booth. Move it off to the side to create a space where visitors feel invited in. A table left in front tends to create a jam up of people in front of the booth and causes other visitors to be concerned only with trying to get around the jam instead of looking at your booth.

8. Take two different types of giveaways. Use a less expensive, but effective, giveaway for the freebie vultures. These are the people that come by your booth looking for the free giveaway. Don’t totally discount these people because the may actually just be trying to get your information and the giveaway will cause them to think of you whenever they use it. The second giveaway should be something a little nicer. It is a reward and thank you for a visitor stopping and engaging in genuine interested conversation regarding your product. You definitely want to give them a reason to remember you.

9. Prior to the show, send out a teaser piece to entice targeted prospects to track you down at the show. The piece will tell them where you are located and why your offering will help them. And most of all, let them know about the free gift they will receive when they stop by.

10. This may be the most important piece of advice to take away from this article. FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP, FOLLOW UP! The whole reason you went to the trade show is to make a sale or gain a qualified and interested prospect! They are no longer a cold call.  At worst, the are now a warm lead if not a hot lead.