Recent Work

It's been a bit crazy at Passion HQ the last month or so. We've had some amazing projects to work on including the Waterford International Music Festival, the FAB Programme and loads more. Why not take a look see what we've been at and we'll be talking to you soon :-)

www.waterfordintlmusicfestival.com
www.facebook.com/fabprogramme
www.robertmullan.com
http://www.rwmtranslation.co.uk

Tiny Pocket Marketing-Back by Popular Demand

Delighted to announce the return of Tiny Pocket Marketing on Thur 28th Oct from 9AM-1PM Details here

“ Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle - when the sun comes up, you'd better be running. ”

Came across this quote from an unknown source today and thought it was mega-inspirational!

We Love Change

A change is better than a rest or so they say, yet we as human beings tend to resist change. We like to do things the way we've always done them because it keeps us in our comfort zone. We've undergone quite a bit of change since we last posted.

First, we moved offices to the stunning surrounds of Carriganore. Big thumbs up from all the team as the building is buzzing, the location is lovely and the facilities are fantastic! The nature of our new location allows us to network with other businesses on a daily basis while offering ideal facilities for our upcoming training workshops and seminars. Change=good!

We have also moved onto facebook, we've decided to use it as another means of interacting with our customers and a platform for showcasing our work. Take a look here and if you like what you see please feel free to like the page! www.facebook.com/passionforcreative

Lastly, we've taken a look at our own marketing efforts and have spent some time re-directing our targets. It's vital that all businesses regularly examine their marketing strategy to ensure it's still working.

All in all, we love change! It keeps things fresh, ensures you're constantly learning and adapting and last but not least it maintains a healthy level of energy !

Customer Retention

Love this blog post, it's a nice snapshot of how you can maximise your current customer base

http://blogs.bnet.com/smb/?p=1372&tag=nl.e713

Tiny Pocket Marketing

We recently (Wed) held the first of our marketing workshop series, Tiny Pocket Marketing. We wanted to share some skills and techniques with owner-managers that would help them to stretch a small budget while building a strong business. We had great interest in the programme and were thrilled to work with a wide variety of businesses. The key to saving money on marketing is to understand your target market, your business and the benefits you offer to customers. You also need to have a strong vision of where you want to be. Once you understand these elements, you can employ a variety of free and low cost marketing techniques that will help you to market to your target.

Thanks to the success of our programme we plan on running a series of workshops starting in Sept. We'll be sharing our expertise in a variety of areas -- customer relationship management, marketing, branding, design, marketing management and strategic implementation. We will be developing our programmes for heads of marketing in large companies, owner-managers, sales and marketing staff, frontline staff, graphic designers and web designers. We're very excited about it and would love to hear any suggestions you might have for workshops.

End of the day it's all about knowing your customers, getting more of them and getting more value from the customers you have!!

Latest Work

We've been busy bees lately developing strong effective online presence for a variety of clients and we've loved every minute of it!!

To see what we've done, take a look here www.passionforcreative.com/portfolio/mint.html

Making GREAT Elevator Pitches

An elevator pitch should be more than a rushed summary of what you do. The invitation to describe our business in a few words can often mean we speak quickly and throw in as much information as possible! A good elevator pitch is memorable, snappy, instils excitement and acts as a conversation starter.

There's a simple formula for making great elevator pitches that I'd like to share with you today:

Step 1: Bin your old elevator pitch!

Step 2: Decide on an intriguing lead-in.

The lead-in is an opening statement that should draw the other person in. It should tell a relevant story to your prospect and it should be memorable. Make it salient by quantifying it. For example, "Small companies use our services to save an average of €300 per year on their insurance" or "Retailers take our sales training and report an average 10% increase in sales after taking the course"

Step 3: Be different!

Follow your lead-in with a strong differentiator. Make it very clear why your company stands out from the herd. Your differentiator should be credible, exciting, interesting and defendable. The best way to decide your differentiator is to make a list of what you do better/differently to the competition and choose the one (max 2) that is most important TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. Then summarise the difference in a snappy sentence.

Step 4: Turn it around

The next step is to figure out if the prospect might be interested and to get more information on their needs. Just ask a simple open-ended question like "How do you manage your insurance/accounts/marketing/etc at the moment?" or "How important is this area to your business?" or "What results are you getting in this area?"

Step 5: The call to action

Once you've established the prospect's needs (and assuming they have a need for your product/services) use that moment to ask for a meeting.

Step 6: Practice makes permanent

Practise your elevator pitch until it sounds completely natural. Remember you may be using it with an individual or a group so make sure it works for both!

We are the Champions!

Major celebrations in Passion today. We won Marketing Service Provider of the Year in MII South East Marketing awards. We're very happy! Watch this space for a very special celebratory treat ... coming soon!

Building Referrals

There is no doubt that referrals are a cost-effective and credible way to develop your business. There's a few things that you can do to ensure you're maximising your referral opportunities.

Firstly (please forgive me if I'm stating the obvious) you need to provide a great service so that your clients feel comfortable referring you. You should anticipate your client's needs and be proactive in providing your product/service. You should also do little things outside what's expected. For example, if you see an article or idea that might be of interest to your client send it on. Don't wait until you're getting your next order to think of your clients, try to see ways to help them all the time.

Next, you need to be brave enough to ask for referrals. If you are providing a great service you should have no hesitation in asking for referrals. Seize that moment when the client is happy with your work to ask for it. You should also try to make friends with your clients, socialise with them, meet them for a coffee, attend networking events with them, listen to them, take an interest. You'll never be able to anticipate your customers' needs if you don't understand them, to really understand them you need to get to know them.

Lastly, pass referrals your customers' way, to quote the BNI philosophy you need to 'give to gain'.

Strategic Planning

January is a time when we start things-we start a weight loss plan, we kick off an exercise regime, we change our cars, etc. We also take time to take stock of the year past and to plan for the year ahead. This is even more important when it comes to business. Every business should have an annual plan as well as a long-term strategic plan.

As the ancient Chinese proverb says "vision without action is a dream, action without vision is a nightmare". Bearing this in mind, there are certain measures you can take to ensure that your planning is focused, action-oriented and worthwhile.

Firstly, the location of your planning meeting can impact on the quality of your planning, ideally you should try to have your meeting away from the distractions and disruptions of your workplace. Representatives from all areas of your business should be included in this meeting as everyone's input is important.

Prior to the meeting you should assess and analyse the marketplace, identifying any trends, industry developments, competitor activity and economic forecasts that will impact on your business. You should summarise these factors and their implications and share the information with your planning team to ensure your planning is responsive to market conditions.

Use SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to clarify your position. Then you can start to set objectives for the year. Once you've set your business objectives, you are ready to start your action plan. Your action plan is a summary of key tasks/actions that need to be completed in order to achieve your overall objectives. The action plan should be timed and assigned to thsoe responsible.

Finally, you should set your evaluation criteria and plan for regular review of your progress. This step is hugely important.

My last word on this is to be sure to keep an open mind when planning. Allow for innovation and new ways of doing things, this means being open to new ideas from everyone - don't dismiss anything as impractical until you've tried it and measured the results. You might be surprised how much acceleration innovation can add to your planning-you might just get where you want to go sooner.

Passion on the Radio

Tune into Mediascope on Dublin City FM at 1.30 every Tuesday between now and 16th March to hear our top tips for 2010. Today Jill gives an insightful interview.

Listen live here: http://dublincityfm.ie/programmes/special-interest/mediascope/

New website

Our shiny new website is live! Take a look here www.passionforcreative.com

We're so excited to have this up and running-we've upgraded our look, feel and functionality to a whole new level. Major kudos to resident web genius and all round superstar of design Steve.

No time like January for a change !

Happy New Year

Happy new year! Isn't this cold fresh weather like a breath of fresh air?

We spent some of the silly season thinking about how to make 2010 a success and we came up with the idea of our very own top 10 - a series of top 10 business tips for 2010.

We pooled our knowledge gained over years in business to create a free e-book filled with proven tips and advice. It's our way of saying thank you for your ongoing support and giving you some ideas for the year ahead.

http://issuu.com/passion_for_creative/docs/top_tips_2010

Here's to a successful 2010 !