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Why Establishing Your Brand as an Authority is a Top Goal

Why Establishing Your Brand as an Authority is a Top Goal

With every piece of marketing collateral you create, you're essentially trying to accomplish two key goals. Yes, you're always trying to inform members of your audience about the products or services that you offer - or the ones that you're about to launch. But at the same time, you need to do something much more powerful. Something that, if executed correctly, can help guarantee that yours is a brand with the ability to stand the test of time.

You need to establish your brand as an authority - not just in the context of what you have to offer, but within the larger sense of the industry that you're operating in. If this isn't already one of your top goals, it should be for a number of essential reasons.

The Power of Brand Authority

To better understand the importance of brand authority, consider the following two statistics. According to one study, 45% of your brand's image (meaning what people think and feel when they encounter it) can ultimately be attributed to both what you say and how you say it. More importantly, the same study revealed that 54% of people don't trust brands at all.

The most critical thing to understand about this is that brand authority is not something that you can give yourself. The majority of people who don't trust brands don't do so because the brands told them not to - it's because those brands failed to live up to their promises one too many times. It's because they didn't have anything to offer beyond a sales pitch. It's because those brands weren't able to connect with their audience in an emotional, raw, and ultimately genuine way.

Because those brands failed to understand that brand authority really has to do with your larger reputation - it's that kernel of trust that you don't give yourself, but that others give to you.

It's also not something that you're going to be able to build in a day. It's less the product of one major move and more about a series of smaller ones. It's something that grows slowly, every time you choose to partner with a charity on community outreach or make your presence known at some type of local event. It's something that grows inside your audience every time they see a piece of collateral that isn't just a product spec sheet, but that offers true insight and information in a way that helps them even if they don't make a sale.

When built properly over time, it's also something that makes it easier than ever to not only keep the customers you already have satisfied but to bring new ones into the fold as well. This will invariably translate into a sense of "when the time comes and I do choose to make a purchase with this particular brand, I can rest easy knowing that it is money well spent."

In the End

Ultimately, establishing your brand as an authority should be a top goal because it allows you to become more than just the products you sell or the services you provide. When your customers have a question, they come to you for the answer. When they want to learn more about a related topic, their first thought is to go to you for the education they seek. When you do launch a new product or service, they're interested in what you have to offer because there is a level of trust that exists between you that they don't have in other relationships.

This is why brand authority is so important - because it lets you become more than "just another company" and provides you with a level of authenticity that can take a standard audience and turn them into a loyal army of passionate advocates before you know it.

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8 Traits of Outstanding People 

 

We know that the outstanding stand amongst us because we can feel it when we’re around them. They have something special inside we wish we possessed inside of ourselves. The good news is we are all capable of excellence. It is helpful to spend time learning about outstanding people and to bear witness to how they do what they do to be who they are. As we learn about them, all we have to do is emulate their character traits and own them as our own. Outstanding isn’t something a person has, it is something a person does.
What does it take to be outstanding?

1. Purpose

Outstanding people are driven by a powerful sense of purpose both in their individual lives and in relation to the world at large. They have defined the impact they desire to have and have held tight to their vision with every ounce of their focus. The purpose of life, for outstanding people, is always about service. They want to be involved in ways where they have the opportunity to show and use their compassion to help elevate others. To be outstanding, we have to find something dear to our heart and hold onto it. We need a purpose we are so deeply invested in that motivation and inspiration are not hard to access. We must know who we are and how we want to be of service in this world.

  
2. Passion

Outstanding people back their purpose with an unrelenting energy of passion. They follow their dreams, they work hard, are willing sacrifice whatever they need to, and refuse to let naysayers get in the way of their dreams. Their mission in life has nothing to do with surviving. Outstanding people don’t survive life, they live their lives to the absolute fullest. They make sure to possess a humble and great sense of humor, they make time for their personal growth and development, are dedicated to self-compassion and to living their lives with an energy of class. Their sense of passion for what they do is intoxicating. To be outstanding, we must follow our passions. We must be prepared to work hard and to sacrifice. We must shun our naysayers by removing them from our consciousness, live our days with a lighthearted composure and deeply love what we do.

3. Perseverance

Nothing in life comes easy. Outstanding people don’t lament about his fact, they respect it. What they want out of life is perceived as worth the hard work it takes for them to get it. They are prepared to have to fight and dig for what they believe in. They are prepared for setbacks and accept that these are the times when they will need to gather their courage and fortitude. They are prepared to be tired, to feel burned out and frustrated. They expect all of this and are wise to prepare for it. They know that whatever they are going through, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. They know all they have to do to get to the end of a challenge is to simply keep grinding. If we want to be outstanding, we have to be diligent in our pursuit. We have to develop the tough-mindedness and work ethic it takes to rise above the rest.

4. Choice

Outstanding people wake up each day and choose life. They choose joy, they choose grace, and they choose to see their blessings. Outstanding people thrive on the freedom they gain from being able to continue to make their mistakes and the choices necessary to learn and to grow from them. They know that it is one thing to be in the climb to the top, and a whole other thing to be at the top. Outstanding people make the choice to look their fears in the face. Through this process, they gain the strength, knowledge and experience to be exactly who they are. If we want to be outstanding, we need to look back at the horrors and hardships we’ve experienced and know that we stood steadfast. We must see our time on this earth as limited. We cannot and must not waste any time while we’re here. We must gather the resources we need to make the best choices we can to set ourselves apart to live our own blessed journey. We must wake up and choose to succeed.

5. Commitment

Commitment is the cornerstone of success. Outstanding people understand that commitment isn’t something they come by naturally, so they back all their desires with the discipline to achieve them. They commit to their own excellence by actively being a person they can love and respect. If we want to be outstanding, we cannot low-key commit, we must commit one hundred percent to what we’re pursuing. If we aren’t fully committed, we cannot fully live our dreams. Outstanding people never do anything halfway, and neither should we.

6. Failure

Outstanding people welcome and respect the concept and experience of failure. Nothing takes them further in their own learning, and nor does anything teach them or redirect their efforts more fully or quickly than failure. Genius will not; talent will not; but hard work and a willingness to learn are the qualities that take outstanding people wherever they want to go. If we want to be outstanding, we must learn not to stand in fear of our failures; rather, we must learn to build upon them. We must view our failures as stepping stones to our own success and greatness. Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. We must never give up. We must learn to start from where we are, with the resources we have, and to do what we can from this place.

7. Support

Outstanding people embrace the idea that succeeding is never a one-man job. Outstanding people have a team of confidants and supports who travel with them along their journey through life. These supports are an integral part of them being as outstanding as they are. Outstanding people aren’t just outstanding, they have lost hope, they have lost direction, and they have been broken and put back together time and again. It has been their supports who have helped them navigate through their tougher times.To be outstanding, we must gather our supports. We must listen to them, love them and appreciate them. We all need support and understanding to ward off the ugly predators of anxiety, fear, depression and frustration.

8. Optimism

Outstanding people embrace the undeniable value of being positive. Optimism gives them the faith they need to achieve all their aims. They know that absolutely nothing they set out to accomplish can be accomplished without hope and confidence. For this reason, outstanding people make sure to smile a lot, to focus on the bright side and to positively acknowledge those who support them. If we want to be outstanding, we must be positive. We must love what we do enough that we allow that love to spill over onto everyone around us. Few things in this world are more powerful than giving another person a positive push. Optimism is the culture we want to create, so that the purpose we're pursuing has a greater chance at longevity. If someone puts us down or criticizes us, we need to keep believing in ourselves and turn that negative into something positive. We were born to win, but to be a winner, we must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win.

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Is Your Advertising Take You Up or Down?

               Does Your Advertising Take You Up or Down?

Marketing and advertising can be quite costly. However, marketing can attract customers and earn you money. So, you need to be asking yourself "is your advertising taking you up or down?"

Let's take a quick look at three of the best ways to make sure your marketing efforts are boosting your sales revenue instead of draining your budget for nothing.

1) Keep An Eye On Frequency Rates When Online

Advertising online can an effective way to reach a targeted audience. What you want to avoid, though, is blasting your ads multiple times to the same people. The more times the same consumer sees your ad, the more they will become annoyed by it. In fact, when the same person sees the same ad twice, the click-through-rate decreases by 8.91 percent. Seeing the same ad five times decreases the click-through-rate by 30 percent. And once they see the same ad nine times or more, the click-through-rate is cut in half. More important, the cost-per-click rate increases each time the ad is seen multiple times. This is why you need to check ad frequency  and mix up your marketing mix using other effective channels like print.

2) Switch Up the Background

Both your online and offline marketing campaigns can benefit from switching up ad background colors. Did you know that ads with the color blue tend to make consumers feel calm? Green brings about a sense of peace, while yellow ignites a feeling of happiness and optimism. With this in mind, you need to integrate these colors into your ads based on the feelings you are trying to invoke. For example, if you are advertising massage services, then you will, of course, want your background color to be blue or green to portray a sense of peace and calm. If you're advertising a theme park or vacation services, then using yellow in your background to bring forth feelings of happiness and excitement will be effective.

3) Run Your Own Blog

One of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to market your business is by running your own blog. Your blog can touch on a variety of topics, including articles discussing products you sell, tips for your using products, how to get good deals on your products, and how your products can be used to make your life simpler. The important thing is to make sure you are providing content to your readers that has value.

Once readers see that you are genuinely trying to make their lives better, they will come back to read your future blog postings. More importantly, they will be enticed to share your postings with other consumers, which is an excellent way to attract and secure new customers. Even better is that running your own blog is very affordable. In fact, if you're a decent writer, you can write your own blog postings for free. If you don't write, you can always hire a content creator to create the content for you. 

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6 Over the Top Things to Look for in Business in the Future

6 Over the Top Things to Look for in Business in the Future

Business isn't going anywhere. In fact, here's where the most probable types of market exchange will happen with customers according to famous futurists:


Remember those Star Trek episodes where people used a transporter to go from place to place? In the future, it's likely that business will use something similar to deliver goods, from your printed materials to food to durable products delivered right into a person's room as ordered, bought, and sent from a business electronically. 

Michio Kaku sees a technology-driven convergence of thinking, consciousness, and the internet. Instead of thinking of the internet as a tool, people will become the Net by connecting their brain to it for full immersion and interaction, as well as contributing to real-time synergies in information generation and use. Business, no surprise, will become far more intangible as a result, adapting to the mind-environment to keep pace with where the new demand exists.

Personal augmentation with technology will be commonplace. Just being a regular, average human being won't be good enough. Instead, people will carry their technology within them. Not to be confused with "on" them, but tech actually integrated with their bodies. We won't need a computer to design what we want to print; the idea will come straight from a digital connection to our minds translated to electronics and then produced by a vendor as we desired.

James Canton sees robots and artificial intelligence giving human-led business a run for its money due to the fact that robots and AI will be able to easily grind millions of bits of statistical data and produce probabilities of what consumers want well before any humans can realize that want or need on their own.

Some folks don't even look at business in typical environments. Instead, Jason Silva sees cars becoming so advanced, our need to drive will be replaced by our need to get lots done in a car while it dries itself. And that includes business, generating new ideas, printing and producing inside a car, and getting work and life done while traveling from point A to point B every day. Business services will tailor themselves to people working remotely all over the place, delivering what they need where they are, and when they need it.

Finally, our bodies won't necessarily want to live longer just because our technology advances. So instead of relying on a failing system, the medical community will embrace body part production and printing, creating organ replacements designed by computer to work specifically with an individual patient. The term "batch order" printing replacement organs will take on a whole new meaning in hospitals.


Long story short, business will likely still be around years from now, but how it delivers goods and services to consumers will change dramatically.

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How to Turn Negativity into Inspiration

How to Turn Negativity into Inspiration

It's easy to look at successful businesspeople and feel jealous of what they've accomplished. They make it look so easy that you wonder why you're not having the same level of success in your life and career. However, what you may not see is the hundreds of times they've had their ideas shot down, been passed over for a promotion, and just generally rejected in their lives. No one is immune to the soul-crushing feeling of harsh criticisms, but how you react to these situations is what makes the difference. From taking a leap into the unknown to dealing with difficult situations, these stories of overcoming negative situations will inspire you to achieve more than you could possibly imagine.

Stirring Generations of Moviegoers

George Lucas tried to sell his Star Wars script with studios for nearly five years before he finally received his first chance. It's almost unimaginable that without one 20th Century Fox executive who believed in his vision, generations of children and adults alike would have never been introduced to that vast galaxy that lives far, far away. Today, this franchise is worth over $30 billion and continues to expand. His thoughts about always pushing forward through rejection and failure? "You use the information that you've gotten, which is experience . . . Failure is another word for experience."

Apprentice Yourself in Failure

Henry Ford's story tells how he spent his life working on every conceivable type of device, but it wasn't until he tried his hand at creating a horseless carriage that he truly began -- to fail. He started multiple companies with various partners, each time attempting to find the secret sauce that would allow him to produce his automobile efficiently and cost-effectively. Throughout his journey, he faced setbacks and people who didn't believe that he could be successful. Finally, he found the ideal financial backer who allowed him to realize his true vision of an inexpensive yet reliable vehicle that could be mass-produced. By never giving up, he not only made Ford a household name but also created innovative production methods that jump-started the American economy.

Demoted, Fired . . . President of the United States

There are few Cinderella stories more inspirational than that of Abraham Lincoln. From his birth in a one-room log cabin to a sketchy education, Abraham Lincoln went on to become one of the most influential leaders in American history. Not only was he demoted during his stint in the Army, not only did he work through several failed businesses, but he also suffered defeat through multiple elections before rising to the country's highest position. Abraham Lincoln's inspiring story shows that failure is truly never an option.

The Right Job for Enough Money

Not everyone equates becoming rich and famous with being successful. In fact, Professor Jeffrey Sachs feels that the key to inspiration is finding the right job for enough money. Being inspired, and inspiring others, often comes towards the middle or end of a long career that can include negativity, stress, poor bosses, and apathetic co-workers. While it's practically impossible to know upfront whether a particular job will become what inspires you, the only way to reach that higher plane is through overcoming negativity. Work-life balance and true happiness come through the inspiration to excel wherever life finds you.

Life is difficult, and few people will hand you an opportunity on a silver platter. Turning negativity into inspiration may be one of the toughest things that you will ever do, but the payoff is everything! Take a moment each day to inspire and uplift others. You never know when your kind words could encourage someone to keep pushing towards their dreams. https://store.printcafeli.com/blog/Print_Cafe_Blog.html

Sticky & Sour: The Next Step After a Bad First Impression

Sticky & Sour: The Next Step After a Bad First Impression

What are some of your most awkward professional blunders? In a recent social psychology article, Heidi Grant Halvorson shared the story of her friend Gordon and his job interview at a prestigious university:

During his campus visit, Gordon was dining with a senior faculty member named Bob. As they ate, Bob commented on the quality of his lunch. “You know, this is great,” Bob said. “You should try this!” Wary of offending, Gordon cautiously complied, reaching over for a bite. While the interview seemed successful, the job was given to another person. Years later, Gordon found the real reason for the rebuff was this: When Bob said, “You should try this,” he meant, “You should try this sometime,” not, “you should eat off my plate.” Bad manners left a sour taste of lasting consequence.

Knee Jerk Reaction or “Real Jerk” Response?

Humans naturally make snap judgments, and impressions are much harder to undo than to create. “First impressions are very sticky,” says Grant Halvorson, author of “No One Understands You and What To Do About It.”

First impressions are rooted in us and continue growing stronger, influencing future interpretations and causing “confirmation bias” to sway us in the initial direction. Grant gives this example:

“Once we have an understanding of something, we interpret everything that comes after from the vantage point of the knowledge we already have. Let’s say I think you’re a jerk, and the next day you realize ‘Hey, I acted like a jerk,’ so you bring me coffee. That seems unambiguously nice, but that action can be interpreted in a number of ways, and if I think you’re a jerk, I’m most likely to see it as an attempt to manipulate me.” 

How to Restart and Rebuild

So what happens if you get off on the wrong foot? Is there any way to overcome awkward introductions? The answering is a conditional yes. We all have graceless moments, but not everyone knows how to repair the damage. Here are a few tips to help you rebuild after a clumsy misstep:

Talk to people individually. Show genuine interest and seek to find common interests. Look for informal opportunities to build facetime, ask questions, and encourage others.

Restart and rebuild. Apologize and move forward by offering evidence of your sincerity. If you’ve been rude, show extra kindness in the next ten conversations. If you’ve been sloppy, make your next twenty projects immaculate. Follow up immediately and consistently, in the opposite spirit of your initial mistake.

Poke fun at your own blunder. Call attention to the big elephant so you can say sorry and laugh! Transparency gives people a chance to empathize and relate rather than judge or criticize.

Offer to help. Figure out what is important to people and use your skills to collaborate or lighten their load. Halvorson says sometimes this takes strategic positioning:

"The best way is to try to create a circumstance in which they need to deal with you, ideally where they need you in order to get what they want . . . It’s not the most awesome sounding advice because what it means is that, if you have a colleague who doesn’t think that highly of you, what you need to do is get your boss to assign you to work together on something, which is not what people want to hear, (but) when you can help them achieve their goals, then suddenly you are worth paying attention to.”
Ready to leap ahead with a fabulous first impression? Consider business cards, unique promotional products, fun hanging tags, and more. Give us a call to talk options!

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