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He Ran Away at 16 and Built a $4 Billion Business. John Nordstrom

Did you know that the $14 billion Nordstrom chain stores were started by a sixteen year old who fled to America with only $5.00 (roughly $119.00 in today’s currency) in his pocket?

His name was John W. Nordstrom, who’s dad died when he was eight. In need of money John fled his home at 16 and emigrated to New York City  in 1887.

WATCH: 

Nordstom Did a Series of Back Breaking Jobs Just to Get By….

John labored in mines and logging camps for years as he crossed the country to California and Washington. In 1897, he headed north to Alaska and the Klondike in search of gold. Two years later, he returned to Seattle with a $13,000 in Alaskan gold ready to make his next move.

Nordstrom partnered up with business partner Carl F. Wallin, a Seattle shoemaker Nordstrom had met in Alaska. Wallin offered him a partnership in a shoe store with zero retail experience. In 1901, the gold rush veterans had opened their first store, Wallin & Nordstrom, on Fourth and Pike in Seattle.

Then Nordstrom’s Son Scaled the Family Business into an Empire…

Nordstrom’s sons took over in 1928. By 1960, two stores had grown into eight. The Seattle flagship was the largest shoe store in the country, and Wallin & Nordstrom became the nation’s largest independent shoe chain.

Under a third generation of Nordstrom sons, Nordstrom, Inc. entered into new markets well beyond Seattle. Clothing was added to the shelves in the 1960s and the company was renamed Nordstrom Best in 1969. In 1971, the company went public with its first stock offering  and by 1973, Nordstrom Best formally changed its name to Nordstrom

Today, Nordstrom is doing $14.79 billion in revenue. The family still runs the chain of 247 rack stores across 40 states from their headquarters in Seattle.

WATCH:  

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Best Practices Biography and History Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Management Marketing Mergers & Acquisition Negotiations Sales

The Multi-Billion Dollar KFC Franchise Started as a Gas Station Recipe?

The ‘finger-lickin’ good’ chicken has been dominating the American fast food fried  chicken for decades after a man named Harland Sanders mastered his 11 herbs and spices recipe. But not many people these days know, that he did it from inside his gas station during the Great Depression.

It started way back in the 1930s when Colonel Sanders, who went by his name Harland Sanders back then was running a gas station in his home town in Kentucky.

Here’s the full story…

WATCH:

 

From Gas Station to Multi Billion KFC Franchise

Harland was born in 1890 and raised quick on a farm outside Henryville, Indiana. His father died when he was just five years old. The oldest child, Sanders was left to care for his two siblings.

His mother taught him how to cook when he was seven. By 13, Sanders left home to pursue a series of professions including railroad worker and insurance salesman. Neither panned out.

In 1930, he took over a Shell filling station on US Route 25 just outside North Corbin, a small city on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. It was at this gas station when he converted a storeroom into a small eating area using his own dining table, originally serving home cooked meals like steaks, country ham, and fried chicken to his gas station customers. He called his side hustle, Sander’s Café.

Things were going great until one day when became absolutely obsessed with the thought of mass producing fried chicken. Here’s why…

 

 

 

The Simple Invention That Made KFC Immortal

Sanders was supper dissatisfied with the 35 minutes it took to prepare his chicken in an iron frying pan. Time is money and during the Great Depression, his customers couldn’t didn’t have either to spare.

To make matters more complicated, Harlen refused to deep fry. Although a much faster process, in Sanders’ opinion it produced dry and crusty chicken that was unevenly cooked.

The on the other hand, if he prepared the chicken in advance of an order, there was sometimes waste at the end of the day. Then a new product emerged…

In 1939, the first commercial pressure cookers were released, predominantly designed for steaming vegetables. Sanders bought one and modified it into a pressure fryer, which he then used to prepare chicken. The new method reduced  his production time to be comparable with deep frying, while simultaneously retained the quality of pan-fried chicken. Now he could prepare high volumes of quality fried chicken at scale.

That is, as long as he could get anyone to buy into the his franchise model.

 

 

How Did Harland Sanders Franchise KFC?

In July 1940, Sanders finalized what later became known as his Original Recipe of 11 herbs and spices. Although he never publicly revealed the recipe, he admitted to the use of salt and pepper, and claimed that the ingredients “stand on everybody’s shelf”.

Sanders hit the highways pitching his chicken concept to as many restaurant owners he could meet. Independent restaurant owners would pay four cents on every piece of chicken sold as a franchise fee, in exchange for Sanders’ his recipe and method, and the right to advertise using his name and likeness.

Coined the name “Kentucky Fried Chicken”. Sanders adopted the name because it distinguished his product from the deep-fried “Southern fried chicken” product found in restaurants. Tripling his sales in the first year alone.

That’s when he met Wendy’s future founder Dave Thomas…

The Time Sanders Met the Future Founder of Wendy’s

By 1956, Sanders had six or eight franchisees, including Dave Thomas, who eventually founded the Wendy’s restaurant chain. Thomas developed the rotating red bucket sign, was an early advocate of the take-out concept that Harman had pioneered, and introduced a bookkeeping form that Sanders rolled out across the entire KFC chain. Thomas sold his shares in 1968 for $1 million and became regional manager for all KFC restaurants east of the Mississippi before founding Wendy’s in 1969.

For more on that story, here’s the Wendy KFC connection covered in this story: WATCH: Abandoned by Parents, Kid Vows to Be Successful. Builds $4B Wendy’s Fortune

 

Then, in another random series of cosmic associations, here’s the brief time a serial killer was made a KFC franchise manager at the request of his father in law..

 

The Time When a Serial Killer Became a KFC Manager…

In the 1960s, John Wayne Gacey was made manager of several Iowa KFC franchises where also around this time and would start his murder spree raping, torturing and murdered at least 33 young men and boys. Gacy regularly performed at children’s hospitals and charitable events as “Pogo the Clown” or “Patches the Clown”, personas he had devised.

There’s currently a documentary that covers the story on Netflix called Conversations With a Killer: The John Wayne Gacey Tapes.

It looks absolutely freaking terrifying…

Outside of the documentary, it’s often claimed that Gacy was such a fan of his workplace, he would provide free fried chicken to his colleagues and even insisted on being called the ‘Colonel’.

It would seem his love for the chain continued right up until he was put to death by lethal injection at the age of 52. His last meal request? A bucket of original recipe KFC.

 

The Fast Rise of the KFC Franchise

In 1960 the company had around 200 franchised restaurants; by 1963 this had grown to over 600, making it the largest fast food operation in the United States. At 73 years old, Harland Sanders sold KFC for $2 million in 1964 ($17.5 million in today’s dollars).

The company went through multiple acquisitions over the years to eventually Pepsico than Yum Brands who still owns and operates the franchise today. Yum Brands operates KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and The Habit Burger Grill.

Today KFC is pulling in $2.793 billion in revenue with 22,621 locations across 150 countries. And it all started in a gas station in Kentucky…

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Best Practices Biography and History Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Management Marketing Mergers & Acquisition Negotiations News and Politics Technology

The Ukrainian Immigrant Who Sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19.3B

Jan Koum is a Ukrainian-American billionaire businessman and computer engineer. He’s the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app that was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for an absolutely mind boggling $19.3 billion.

Facebook paid $12 billion in stock and the rest in cash. What’s even more badass than the exit was the fact that Koum arranged for the $19 billion deal to be signed at the same welfare center he used to collect his welfare checks in his teens. Only this time, he drove there in his Porsche.

Jan moved to California from Ukraine when he was 16. As a young immigrant, Koum and his mother had to rely on food stamps. Koum became interested in programming and eventually landed a job at Yahoo! Where he worked for 9 years.

Then in January 2009, Koum bought an iPhone and realized that the then seven-month-old App Store was about to spawn a whole new industry for app creators.

WhatsApp was initially unpopular, but it quickly became one of the fastest growing apps on the market.  WhatsApp allows user to send messages, images, audio or video at a cost significantly less than texting.

The app gained a large user base. So large Facebook was monitoring the app for years obsessively. They were paranoid WhatsApp could eventually be a Facebook killer.

WATCH:

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Best Practices Biography and History Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Management Marketing Mergers & Acquisition Personal Development

All the Brands Pepsi Owns Will Shock You…

Pepsi is a brand that everyone knows, because as their website states, their products are sold in 200 countries. Which is pretty freaking crazy considering Google says there are only 195 countries on earth…So it’s safe to assume they have officially saturated their target market.

But as big as they are, they’re even bigger than you might think.

Pepsi is no longer a beverage brand. They are now Pepsi Co, a conglomerate that consists of 23 brands that generate of $70B in annual revenue. Pepsi is one of the biggest companies on the planet.

 

A Brief History of Pepsi:

Pepsi was originally promoted as “Brad’s Drink” in New Bern, North Carolina in 1893 by Caleb Bradham, who crafted it at his drugstore. It was later renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898, “Pepsi” because it was advertised to relieve dyspepsia (indigestion) and “Cola” referring to the cola flavor.

You read that right, Pepsi was originally marketed as a cure to an upset stomach.

As product sales increased, the company pivoted overtime to appeal to a larger audience and diversify its products.

Fast forward to 1950 Alfred N. Steele, a former VP of Coca-Cola Company, became the CEO. He focused on creating giant advertising campaigns to increase sales. His efforts increased Pepsi’s earnings 11-fold during the 50s and made it the instant competitor of Coca Cola.

In 1965 Pepsi-Cola merged with Frito-Lay, Inc. They then diversified further with the purchase of three restaurant chains:

Looking to add even more diversification PepsiCo acquired both the Tropicana and Dole juice brands from the Seagram Company in 1998, and in 2001 it then merged with Quaker Oats company.

Here is the massive list of brands Pepsi Co owns today.

WATCH:

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Best Practices Biography and History Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Management Marketing Personal Development Sales

WATCH: The Decline of Pizza Hut. What Happened?

Pizza Hut was a national pizza chain before there were national pizza chains. They were at one time, the largest pizza franchise in the world.

After 40 years of being America’s dominant pizza brand, Pizza Hut officially lost the lead to Dominos in 2018. In 2019 Pizza Hut announced it was shutting down 500 of their 7,500 locations.

In July 2020 their largest US franchisee, MPC International, filed for bankruptcy. This franchise alone was responsible for 20% of Pizza Hut’s operations.

The entire history of the rise and fall of Pizza Hut is documented in this video of Company Man:

 

WATCH:

 

Sad, but true. According to Restaurant Business, Pizza Hut’s overall year-over-year sales fell 2.2% in 2020. Meanwhile, its biggest competitors, Domino’s and Papa John’s, had net gains of 17.6% and 15.9%, respectively.

Pizza Hut’s declining sales were due in large part to the pandemic, which closed hundreds of locations across the country. The chain’s largest franchisee also declared bankruptcy, which caused the company to lock the doors, shutter 300 locations, and offer up another 927 locations for sale.

Pizza Hut was once known as a fast-casual dine-in pizza place with white and red checkerboard tablecloths. Fast-forward to 2021, and consumers don’t want dine-in pizza, they want to take it home…

 

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Marketing Personal Development

Is Your Marketing Failing? Read This…

The Reason Marketing Fails

The real reason marketing campaigns struggle isn’t what most people think it is.

While the products on offer are certainly important, even companies that still have a great product nonetheless find themselves floundering all too often. The issue, so frequently, is found in the marketing department. There’s often a disconnect between what the marketing team perceives their role to be, and how a successful marketing campaign actually works today.

 

A good marketing effort doesn’t really start with the products or services the business is selling. To put it one way, while those products may ultimately lie at the heart of a company, in today’s digital, content-focused marketing reality, they are seldom where an eventual customer starts.

 

Customers, in other words, only end up as customers. They don’t start out there. To start, they are nearly always regular internet users searching for something — an answer to a question, a solution to a problem, or something similar. While they are interested in finding something of value, that thing isn’t yet the product a company sells.

 

Marketing Today Requires More Contextual Content

Marketing today is more about meeting potential customers where they are, rather than directly marketing products. In practical terms, that means providing high-quality content is the first and most fundamental step in a great marketing campaign. The initial goal is to get someone to the intermediate stage in between being completely unfamiliar with a brand and being an actual customer.

Consumers today are spending, on average, over 11 hours a day consuming some form of content. You don’t want to simply interrupt the content your potential buyer is consuming. Ideally, you want to create the content they want to consume.

Content that addresses a potential customer’s need, providing them with genuine value, is the way to achieve that end. Of course, the content should be connected to the products in some way, so that there is ultimately a way to convert engagement into sales. Attracting an audience with no interest in a company’s products would be pointless.

 

That is why marketing teams should create content useful to an audience that would also benefit from the products offered by the business. Creating such content requires having a finely-tuned sense of a target audience. That isn’t exactly a simple thing to do, but knowing the importance of identifying the target audience provides a sense of where to focus effort.

Conclusion:

From there, content that provides value to the audience — such as by directly answering a question they have or providing helpful general information — will draw potential customers in. The more people get value from the content created by a marketing team, the greater the number of leads that may, eventually, be converted into satisfied customers.

 

Concentrating on great content, while it isn’t a direct form of marketing, will thus ultimately pay off. Understanding what really lies at the heart of a successful modern digital marketing campaign — content, not products — is vital.

PS. Here’s 3 B2b content secrets you can’t afford to ignore, along with the top websites you need to know to promote your business in 2022.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

 

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

3 B2B Content Secrets You Can’t Afford to Ignore

Marketers aren’t in the habit of revealing their tricks and tactics openly. That makes it all the more useful to know the secrets marketers would prefer were kept under wraps. Here are three that anyone involved in B2B marketing should know about.

 

 

SECRET #1: There Has To Be a Reason To Follow You

The digital world of the internet has fundamentally transformed how marketing works. Today, the first step in the process of winning a customer is getting them to follow and otherwise engage with your brand online. Landing a sale may be the ultimate point, but the proximate goal of modern, digital marketing is engagement.

The famous formulation “content is king” neatly captures the reality of digital marketing. But it can’t just be any content — it needs to be quality content.

To put it one way, you need to be providing potential customers with something valuable long before you reach the point of selling them your product.

SECRET #2: You Have to Solve a Specific Problem

Just like there’s more than one way to skin a cat, there are plenty of ways to provide value to a digital audience. The key, really, is simply to have a clear, definite, thought-out strategy. A haphazard, improvisational approach is unlikely to get you anywhere. That, however, is where most B2B digital marketing campaigns are.

Ask yourself a few basic questions:

  • What is the purpose of this content?
  • How does it provide value?
  • Why does it exist?
  • How does it fit into the short-term of your marketing goals?
  • How about the long-term?

 

Try to look at things from the perspective of your potential audience when pondering these questions.

Ideally, you want to be able to solve a specific issue your target audience has. In practical terms, that means generating a sense of the audience you want to connect with before crafting content. That’s pretty much the whole idea behind content needing a strategic purpose — content should be designed for a specific end.

SECRET #3: Your Follower Count Isn’t Quite As Important As You Think

While you do want to use quality content to grow how many followers you have on social media, getting a high follower count isn’t really the goal itself. Ultimately, you are on someone else’s turf on social media.

Social media sites are businesses with their own goals that don’t directly align with what you want to accomplish.

That’s why attaining followers on social media is ultimately just a step in the process. What you want to do is move those followers elsewhere, where you can deepen their connection to your brand. Try to get them onto your website. Get their email address.

A social media site is a kind of middleman. You want to cut past that middleman and establish a direct relationship with your followers. Do that by focusing on driving your audience from your platforms to your website or lead capture page.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

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Leadership Marketing Personal Development

Three Misconceptions About LinkedIn That Could Be Hurting You

Three Misconceptions About LinkedIn That Could Be Hurting You

In my roles as an executive branding expert, coach and speaker, I often hear misconceptions from both my clients and audiences about LinkedIn. When we accept these misconceptions as fact and operate on them, where we end up is not where we intend. This month I share three misconceptions and why they lead you astray on your journey to be memorable and to find opportunities –  clients, customers, and new challenges – that are right for you.

Misconception #1: LinkedIn is Just for Job Seekers

Although this may have been true in the past, it is certainly not the case today. LinkedIn is where many people will form their first impression of you. It’s where they look for evidence that they may be able to know, like and trust you – all prerequisites for doing business with you.

Today, executive leaders are waking up to the idea that sharing their authentic brand online is an asset for their company, because when they share their purpose, business passion and principles, they attract the talent they seek to hire.

If you are operating under the misconception that LinkedIn is just for job seekers and you are not seeking a new position, you are unlikely to tell your business story in a way that helps you stand out and be memorable. You are unlikely to sow the seeds of know, like and trust into your profile, and unlikely to be found by LinkedIn’s search function for opportunities that are right for you.

Also, if your company decides that they can do without you (it happens!), you are unlikely to be ready to search for your next role.

Misconception #2: Less is More

There are many situations when less is more. When the customer is already sold, we should stop talking. We appreciate white space in written documents; we know they will be less of a chore to read. And every Marie Kondo fan rejoices when they’ve achieved a kitchen counter devoid of all clutter.

But on LinkedIn, less is NOT more. This is because LinkedIn is a search engine in search of keywords. One of the primary determinants of whether you appear on page one of the results of someone’s search is the number of times the keyword being searched for appears in your  profile.

People who write their LinkedIn profile as though less is more are likely to have a very brief About section (or worse, no About section at all). They are likely to have little information in other sections as well. These people have no chance of ranking well on a keyword search: because they’ve used little text, their keywords don’t show up often.

In contrast, people who take full advantage of the LinkedIn character limits for each section by “writing to the margins,” will rank more highly because their keywords will naturally be used more often. See my article “If You’re Not “Writing to the Margins” on LinkedIn, You’re Missing Out,” for LinkedIn’s character limits as of this writing.


Misconception #3: Getting Thousands of Connections is THE Winning Strategy

My inbox overflows with offers to automatically generate leads for me with little effort on my part. It is as though getting leads (connections) is the most important strategy, to be pursued above all else.

Although the search algorithm works better when we have over 500 connections, once we’ve reached that threshold, there is a strategy that is much more important than adding new connections. That strategy is nurturing relationships – growing connections into friends; creating a true network of people whose expertise we trust. For LinkedIn nurturing strategies, see my article: Nurturing Your Most Important Business Relationships on LinkedIn.

speaker holding microphoneNamed one of six top branding experts in 2022 by The American Reporter, over the past ten years, I’ve helped countless C-level clients use LinkedIn to frame conversations, impress suitors and customers, and introduce themselves before their first conversation takes place. If you are a C-suite executive or senior leader, I can make this easy for you. Based on my knowledge of how LinkedIn works and how people respond to what they see there, I can ensure everything is ready and your profile conveys exactly the message and impression you’re aiming for. Let me help you attract the talent you want to hire, increase your visibility and influence, and steer your career.

 

book cover
To order an author-signed book, see: https://carolkaemmerer.com/books

Contact me through my website https://carolkaemmerer.com for:

  • Executive one-on-one assistance with your online brand
  • Professional speaking engagements on personal brand and LinkedIn
  • An autographed copy of my book, LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive-2nd Edition
  • My self-paced, online course
  • To receive my articles in your email mailbox monthly

My award-winning book, LinkedIn for the Savvy Executive-2nd Edition received BookAuthority’s “Best LinkedIn Books of All Time” award, was named one of the “Top 100+ Best Business Books” by The C-Suite Network. For your author-inscribed and signed book or quantity discounts, order at: https://carolkaemmerer.com/books

Other Articles by Carol Kaemmerer

What is a Personal Branding Expert? …And Do You Need One?

Why Senior Leaders Need a Strong Brand NOW — And Why It’s In their Company’s Best Interest to See That They Get One

7 Ways to Elevate Your Online Brand So You Can Love Your LinkedIn Profile

What is a Personal Brand – And How Can You Take Charge of Yours?

Twelve Changes You Can Make in About an Hour to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

Why Is My LinkedIn Profile Getting So Few Views?

How Can LinkedIn Be Part of Your Company’s Strategy for Responding to the Great Resignation?

Is Your LinkedIn Profile Missing the Mark?

Comfortable in Your Job? Uncomfortable Life Lessons to Safeguard Your Career

How to Be Found on LinkedIn: Ten Top Strategies to Rank Well on a LinkedIn Keyword Search

Why Are You Playing Small on LinkedIn?

If You’re Not “Writing to the Margins” on LinkedIn, You’re Missing Out

Don’t Be Hooked Through a Big Phish: Recognize and Avoid Phishing Scams on LinkedIn:

A Small Omission That Undermines Your Credibility on LinkedIn

“Tell Me More…” — On LinkedIn

What is Your Poor LinkedIn Profile Costing You?

C-Suite Executives: Stop Hiding Online

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development Technology

The Top 10 Lessons We Learned Hosting Over 300 Virtual Events in One Year!

 

#1 It’s totally possible to create a close-knit community online!

Creating a digital community is easier now than ever before. We went from hosting 40 in-person conferences per year to 300+ digital events/year.

Crazy right? But it has been totally worth it.

Hosting consistent, recurring events meant our members would continually check in with each other, learn about each other, and be part of each other’s lives in ways that were never possible before.

We’ve had members join digital events while on vacation or even in the hospital!

Connecting with people has never been easier.

Virtual communities are a great way to engage your audience!

In March of 2020, C-Suite Network recognized the need for a weekly events to connect with one another, celebrate our successes, big or small, and discuss the unique challenges our businesses were going through.

That’s why we created an event series called C-Suite Celebrates to allow our community to celebrate their wins of the week either personally or professionally. Two years later, the event is still thriving with an amazing community of business leaders.

In fact, on May 6 we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of our digital networking Celebrates series.

If you’re interested in experiencing a digital networking event you can register for the event here.

Now on to number two!

 

#2 Be prepared to mute users and turn off videos!

Appoint someone to be on the ready to turn off anyone’s video and sound!

Here’s why… 

There’s always that one person who sounds like they are in a wind tunnel. Or the other one that thinks they are on mute and takes a personal call in front of the whole group (it happens)!

If you don’t have someone appointed to this role ahead of your event, you’ll just end up wasting a lot of precious time waiting for people to fumble themselves off mute.

 

#3 Make the events interactive -people want to interact not just sit there

The vast majority of the feedback we get from attendees is that they are craving to be part of the conversation. Not just listen to one.

Ask questions to the audience, acknowledge comments in the chat, offer break out rooms (Zoom has this feature).

Pick interesting or experienced speakers. Attention spans are small and there is a lot of noise competing for attention. An engaged audience always makes for a better event.

#4 There’s strength in numbers! The power of joint ventures

Don’t have a big list of people to invite? You don’t have to go at events alone. Find joint venture partners who are on a similar mission to compliment each others success.

For example, we partnered up with LeadHERship Global and others to add massive value to our joint communities not only by cross promoting each other, but joining forces to create more diverse events and subject matter expertise.

Joint ventures can be a great way to expand your influence and add value to audiences that otherwise may have not known about your brand.

#5 Engagement is the key performance indicator

Unlike in-person events where an attendee is immersed in your event experience, virtual events compete against at home or in-office distractions for your attendee’s attention.

That is why it’s even more important to focus on how you are engaging and interacting with your attendees.

Increasing your engagement during virtual events leads to stronger more meaningful connections and relationships between your attendees. Add surveys, polls and breakout rooms to allow people to dive deep on the topics that matter to them.

Give people a way to engage!

 

#6 Encourage people to interact and turn their cameras on

We have found that it’s considered rude to attend a networking event on mute with your camera off. You appear to not be engaged, which is a bad look for your brand.

You wouldn’t walk around a live event with blinders and a muzzle, would you? If so, why make the trip at all?

Remind people to turn their cameras on or call on people for feedback to make sure everyone gets a chance to be heard. Otherwise they may not come back or feel like a welcomed member of the group.

 

#7 It’s okay to let people see your personal side

It’s OK if your kids or pets show up on camera. (as long as they’re not being in appropriate).

We’ve seen the more personal side of brands and colleagues and most of us have gotten used to the small interruptions. In fact, they’re often welcomed.

So don’t shoo your six-year-old daughter from wandering into the conversation. Embrace her interest in what’s being discussed.

After all, she’s a future leader and it’s never too soon to get her connected and networking!

#8 Have a plan b if a falls through (life happens)

Be prepared for the event to NOT go according to plan. Life happens after all.

Have a plan b in case the speaker doesn’t show or they have technical issues and a backup on your side too.

Make sure your host has a topic they can deliver on in case your guest falls through or has technical difficulties.

 

#9 Come prepared with ice-breaker questions

Let’s face it, networking events can be a little awkward and scary to others (especially if you’re new to a group). That’s where we have found icebreakers to come in handy.

We found it empowering to ask questions like;

“Share your favorite picture on your phone right now and explain why it is.”

It helps to break the ice in a business setting and bring the conversion down to earth in a personal way before diving into the deep end on business issues.

Need help thinking of ice-breaker questions? There are hundreds of ideas, like these 62 event ice-breaker questions from eventmanagerblog.com.

Ice-breakers adds to the fun factor and sometimes even the corny sounding games get people interacting with it and each other. That’s what creates a memorable experience.

Having a prize wheel doesn’t hurt either!

#10 Cross train your team on technical tasks!

The most stressful part of hosting digital events is when you don’t know what you are doing from a technical level.

Have your team cross trained on hosting, running slides, monitoring registrations, creating breakout rooms (Yes, Zoom lets you do breakout rooms).

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, something comes up and its better that your team is empowered to step into different functions. Everyone should have basic understanding for the entire event process.

For more information visit tylerhayzlett.com

 

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Best Practices Marketing Personal Development

What’s In A Name?

 

The Story Behind The Brand Name

Shakespeare famously said before, “Do not judge a book by its cover.” Or in this context, we shouldn’t judge an establishment by its name. Unfortunately, this doesn’t hold much water when you’re running a business. In business, your name matters—a lot.

You see, a business name is more than just that. It signifies something more powerful. It represents what your business is all about, what it stands for. In the same vein, a name can have an instant effect on how your customers perceive you because every word, every sound, and every letter impacts the way we think and feel.

Coming up with the appropriate brand name is one of the most crucial things you have to think about when engaged in business. It can mean all the difference between a brand that instantly hits off or falls completely flat.

Yet, when you’re just starting, choosing a name is probably the second-to-the-last thing on your mind. Of course, there are lots of other things that come first, right? You still have to polish (or revise) your business plan, create your products, and research your audience. However, trust us when we say that creating a company name is useful. It could either make or break your brand.

Think of this process as similar to laying the foundations of a building. Discovering how to create a brand name can help you set the foundation for your company.

How to come up with a name that matters

The key to creating a brand name that sticks in the minds of your customers or is simply “catchy” and helps towards establishing brand recognition and awareness are the following:

It must be evocative

Simply describing your product or service could make your name too generic. Everyone else is doing that. Instead, try to come up with something that has a story behind it. Of course, the story has to be related to your business.

Stories have a powerful effect on our brain. When you’re given a really interesting story, your palms start to sweat, you’ll blink faster, and your heart might flutter or skip. Your facial expressions shift, and the muscles above your eyebrows will react to the words — another sign that you’re engaged.

Now, imagine feeling this when thinking about a brand. Take Apple, for example. Apple is a fruit, but it has come to be associated with cutting-edge technology, quality, and user-friendly designs over the years.

Make it Timeless

A name should be neutral enough to transcend time. Your name shouldn’t be something that restricts your brand.

It has to be timeless and one of the most effective ways to make sure that your name is “timeless” is to ensure that you create something that resonates with the emotions of your target audience, rather than limiting yourself to a basic descriptive term.

For instance, Nintendo didn’t just call themselves “The Gameboy Company.” Nintendo went with an evocative name with room for growth.

Consider the “looks” of the brand

Imagery is by far one of the most powerful poetic devices to use when creating a brand name with meaning. You leave a lasting impact if your brand can produce an image in your customer’s minds.

Some of the best phrases in literature earned their popularity because they evoke images in the reader’s mind. Think about how you can use the imagery in your name to convey an idea of your brand. GoPro, for example, leaves a lasting image of adventure and freedom on its customer’s minds.

Bottomline

Coming up with a brand name may be a daunting task, but that’s what the team is for. One way to make the process a bit easier is to think about what your company is all about and then come up with a brand that resonates with that. Everything else will eventually fall into place.

Pro tip from MarketAtomy.com: Come up with a name that you can easily trademark and find a domain for. After all, our goal here is to increase brand awareness and recognition. Making it easily recognizable online is one essential step.

Enter Our Naming Contest

Participate in MarketAtomy’s “What’s In A Name”  Contest. Submit the name of your business and a short introduction, video, or in writing, describing the story behind the name. The winning submission will be selected on May 10th, 2022. The winning submission will receive $100 and be featured on an Episode of the Charged-Up Studio Podcast. All submissions must be received by 12 AM EST May 5th (Cinco de Mayo) to qualify. Submissions should be sent to info@marketatomy.com.

Danna Olivo is a Growth Strategist, Author, and Public Speaker. As CEO of MarketAtomy LLC, her passion is working with first-stage business owners to ensure that they are prepared and equipped to launch and grow a successful small business. She understands the intricacies involved early on in business formation and as such the challenges that come with it. A graduate of the University of Central Florida’s College of Business, Danna brings more than 40 years of experience strategically working with small and medium businesses, helping them reach their growth goals. danna.olivo@marketatomy.com