Author: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

Business cards are a business essential

business-cardsI attended a meeting last night where half the people didn’t have business cards, including one of the organisers and two of the sponsor’s representatives.

That’s a shame for those people. The humble business card is one of the most important marketing tools you have.

Your staff should all have business cards and carry a few with them all the time. When you’re hosting an event or meeting, then you simply can’t enough cards.

Business cards may be low tech, but they are a great cost effective way for getting your message out and for helping people remember who you are and what you do. Get some printed up today.

Similar posts:

  • No Related Posts

email because you can

Seth Godin studies two email marketing campaigns. One that obtained his permission before sending emails and another that didn’t. Guess which one works.

This is a subject close to my heart. A loophole in the Australian Spam Act allows spamming if the sender has “inferred consent” which can be anything from giving your business card out at a network function to having an email address on your website.

When I wrote about this on Smartcompany last year I was criticised by one reader and yesterday I started receiving emails from an office fit out company.  This goes to show some marketers and business owners don’t get it.

People are swamped with email, they don’t want more unless it provides value. It’s highly unlikely an email they didn’t ask for will have any value at all.

So don’t spam your client base. They don’t like it and it will hurt your business.

Similar posts:

Upcoming ABC spots

The next ABC shows will be the Nightlife nationally at 10pm on February 6 and the 702 Sydney Weekend at 10am on March 8.

The topic for Nightlife is using social media to find a job, but we’ll probably add some business orientated ideas to that as well.

Hope you can join us.

Similar posts:

Using social media for finding a job

If the cricket finishes early tomorrow, I’ll be doing the Nightlife radio spot a week early. The topic is using social media to find a job.

It’s an excellent idea. If nothing else a LinkedIn profile makes an excellent CV and can demonstrate how wide your networks are while giving some fast testimonials and references.

Of course it’s still a good idea to keep your Facebook profile private.

Edit: The show didn’t go ahead and is now scheduled for February 6

Similar posts:

  • No Related Posts

The culture of mediocrity

Research In Motion’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie claims buggy software is the new reality.

It’s not. Rushing an incomplete or defective product to market simply meet some artificial management or stockmarket imposed deadline is the old thinking.

The IT industry got away with this while the market was immature and the credit boom meant embarrassing mistakes could be hidden under the rising tide.

In mobile phones the market is far too competitive. The poorly executed Storm sold 500,000 units is because Blackberry was using the better Verizon network rather than the patchy AT&T service the iPhone is tied to.

In Australia, the Storm sells at a substantial discount to the Bold or iPhone on the same networks simply because the market knows the Storm a substandard product.

This “nearly good enough” thinking from the tech sector is one of the reasons the world economy is in trouble now. It is really just contempt for the customer that has been common across many industries where fat, ever growning margins were assumed to go on forever.

If anything positive comes out of the Global Financial Crisis it will be the culture of mediocrity dies as big business becomes subject to the same pressures the rest of the economy has always lived with.

For the rest of us our products have to be 100%. We cannot afford to do anything less than delight our customers.

In a competitive market, if you are disappointing your customers with substandard products then your business won’t survive.

Similar posts:

  • No Related Posts

Does your business need a blog?

It’s fashionable to tell business owners they need to embrace every aspect of the web. But do you really need a blog in your small business?

There’s no doubt a blog is worthwhile for many. It can give another perspective to the business and enhances their story. It can help smaller businesses cut through the noise to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

A good example is Mark Fletcher’s Newsagency Blog which has publicised Mark’s software company and his associated newsagencies while establishing him as a leader in the industry.

Not all businesses have Mark’s energy or some simply don’t have the time. For others, their markets don’t really care about blogs.

Also a blog is not an end in itself. A newsagent with an interesting blog is still going to fail if they don’t  deliver service to their customers and the same applies for PR agencies, marketers and management consultants.

If blog is going to distract you from your core business, then maybe it isn’t a good idea.

Every business is unique and what works for one enterprise is not necessarily right for another. A blog is a business tool, just like every other aspect of the Internet, and you need to choose the right tools for your business.

Similar posts:

  • No Related Posts

Integrity – Your most valuable asset

Whether you’re a blogger, a journalist, a business owner or just a plain ordinary joe in the street, one asset stands above all others – your integrity.

A Sydney advertising agency faking a story about a woman looking for the owner of a jacket is a good example of how forgetting this can backfire. 

For Naked Communications this is particularly ironic given the headline Naked tells the Naked Truth at the time of their corporate takeover last year.

An even greater lesson is the damage done to the fantastic “Best Job in the World” campaign with another lame stunt. It’s fairly safe to say overdoing things with a fake tattoo has destroyed much of this story’s goodwill which is a crying shame.

There’s a temptation to dress this up as a new media versus old media story, but it’s not. Ethics have always been ethics and truth has always been the truth.

Regardless of who you are and what your business is, integrity is everything.

Similar posts: