Branding 101 for all new business owners

Branding 101: Five Tips for Solopreneurs

BY CAROL TICE| 19 hours ago|

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Strong branding is critical in our ad-cluttered world. After all, you want to ensure that you're the first provider in your niche that comes to customers' minds.

But what if your brand is, well, just you? How can you be memorable and stand out?

Never fear -- solopreneurs can have snappy branding, too. Here's a quick guide and some examples of one-person businesses that have great, memorable brands:

1.  Make it visual. Simple branding is best, especially if you can make an association in people's minds that helps them remember you. Two of my local realtors are Ed Aro and Penny McLaughlin. You guessed it -- Ed's logo is an arrow, and Penny's is a one-cent piece with her face on it in profile instead of Lincoln. Penny has had so much success with her brand that she grew into a real-estate empire with eight brokers, a.k.a. "Penny's Team." Their trucks are often seen around town, with that familiar penny logo on the side.
    
2. Be sure it's tweetable. Social media is increasingly important in coming up with your brand concept. Look what happened to Netflix when they didn't check if their chosen spinoff brand name, Qwikster, was available on Twitter. It turned out to be already taken by someone who wanted to post about their drug use. When you're choosing a brand name, consider how and whether it would work in social media.
    
3. Have fun. Some of my favorite solopreneur brands have humorous or whimsical elements. For instance, a proofreader and writing-consultant friend of mine, Stefanie Flaxman, is the Revision Fairy -- check out her cool cartoon. And franchise expert Joel Libava is the Franchise King, down to posing with a red-velvet-and-gold crown (once again, great visual). What better way to instantly communicate that he's the top expert in his field?
    
4. Make sure it fits. If the entrepreneurs I've cited above were uncomfortable with the brands they've created, their brands would flounder. You may be living with this brand for a long time, so don't go with a brand concept that embarrasses you. Customers will sense that, and you won't promote your brand as enthusiastically.
    
5. Be consistent. Once you've come up with your branding, you want to use it everywhere. Get new business cards, magnet signs for your car, stationery and a new sign for your store. Don't leave any of your old, less-awesome branding lurking around to confuse people.

How have you branded your solo business?  Explain your concept and leave us a link.

Adopt Facebook's new way of marketing

Is the End Near for Traditional Advertising?

BY MIKAL E. BELICOVE| Yesterday|

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The demise of in-your-face marketing and advertising is close at hand, to be replaced by what Facebook’sPaul Adams terms a form of advertising that depends on "many lightweight interactions over time."

Adams is Facebook’s Global Brand Experience Manager, a job that allows him to spend the balance of his day researching and designing better ways for businesses and people to communicate and interact. Before that, he was a senior user experience researcher at Google.

Adams claims that to really reach today's consumers, companies and brands will need to build relationships with them rather than simply grabbing their attention or utilizing disruptions as an advertising tool. In other words, marketers should be progressive rather than aggressive, adding a fifth "P" -- Participation -- to the traditional marketing mix of Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Much like the way we develop friendships over a period of time, an entire generation of advertisers will need to plan their marketing scenarios around the concept of building relationships. We often meet new acquaintances through friends. We chat them up, maybe catch them later at a party with other mutual acquaintances, discover we have similar interests, and, before you know it, we’re all packed up and off on a weekend ski trip together in Vermont.

We should build our relationships with potential clients and customers the same way. And we can begin that process by subtly promoting our brands in passing -- as an aside to a bigger discussion or conversation. Like Adams says: lightweight, not heavyweight. With the advent of the World Wide Web, there’s so much information out there for us to absorb and so little time to absorb it. As a result, the best way to introduce new products, content or ideas to consumers will be seamlessly, naturally and subtly through word-of-mouth interactions.

Adams believes, as I do, that within a few years, the web will need to evolve to become more personalized to our own requirements. Websites need to contain information that is more relevant to our very particular wants, desires and needs. This personalization -- fostered by a social fabric that’s woven throughout the user experience online -- needs to seamlessly greet visitors with information about what their friends and associates are watching, reading, recommending, commenting on and more. Further, it should move to replace random display ads, pop-up messages or banner advertisements. Those direct -- "heavyweight" -- ads will fall by the wayside, like so many other obsolete processes and technologies.

Adams goes so far as to say heavy-handed commercial content doesn’t sit well with consumers because it’s not part of real life. While I wouldn't go that far (think Clint Eastwood’s "Halftime in America" Super Bowl commercial), I do believe that personalized interactions -- especially ones that reflect a trust and a willingness to listen to one another's opinions -- will go a long way toward sealing the deal.

Do you think traditional advertising is here to stay or on its way out? Let us know why in the comments section below.

How they missed out on investing into facebook during phase one

Facebook's Missing Millionaires

By Douglas MacMillan | BusinessWeek – Thu, Mar 8, 2012 10:35 PM EST

By the spring of 2004, Harvard computer science major Joe Jackson had already witnessed the online phenomenon called Thefacebook. He knew it had taken hold not just at his school but at many other universities. And yet, when his friend and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin asked him to move to California for the summer to write code for the site, he decided to stick with the internship he had lined up at JPMorgan Chase (JPM). “I wasn’t thinking about it as ‘This could be my chance to be rich and famous,’” says Jackson, 28. “It was more like, ‘This is going to Palo Alto and living in a house with a bunch of kids and programming for a startup that may not go anywhere.’”


Accepting the offer would likely have made Jackson a member of an elite class: one of Facebook’s earliest employees who, along with investors, stand to make millions or even billions when the company holds the largest-ever Internet initial public offering later this year. “I completely missed the boat,” says Jackson, who worked at technology companies and a venture capital firm after college and is now at Harvard Business School. He’s one of many who turned down a chance for equity in the most successful startup of the last decade.


[Related: Cool homes of fashion leaders]


Theirs are not riches-to-rags stories. Several people who rejected early job offers at Facebook pursued promising alternatives. Kevin Systrom co-founded the popular photo-sharing app Instagram, and Mike Abbott served as Twitter’s head of engineering until last year. Steve Chen, one of Facebook’s first engineers, left after a few weeks to co-found YouTube (GOOG). Sales manager Ali Fedotowsky left behind precious, unvested stock options when she quit in 2010 to star in The Bachelorette.


Joe Green lived in the same dorm as Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and became his friend and hacking buddy. During their sophomore year, Green helped Zuckerberg create a Web application called “Facemash” that asked users to rate the attractiveness of Harvard coeds; it landed Zuckerberg and Green in trouble with school administrators. Green says his dad, a professor at UCLA, told him, “ I don’t think you should do any more of these Zuckerberg projects.” Green heeded his father’s advice and opted out when Zuckerberg asked him to run the business side of what would become Facebook. Playing such a key role would have secured him 4 percent to 6 percent of the company, he estimates, a stake that would have been worth at least $3 billion today. The decision has nagged at Green over the years, but he says he’s made peace with it. Green went on to co-found Causes, a for-profit site that has raised $50 million in venture capital to help users donate to charity. And he’s received some Facebook stock for his role as an adviser to the startup. “Every once in a while you can have a moment of bitterness,” Green says, “but in general I have been so blessed with what I have been able to do.”


[Related: The World's Billionaires 2012]


For all the venture capital firms that lined up to get a piece of the social network—from Accel Partners’ $12.2 million investment in 2005 to Digital Sky Technologies’ $200 million deal in 2009—only one is known to have walked away from negotiations with Zuckerberg. It happened in April 2004, when the young entrepreneur discussed selling Boston-based Battery Ventures a stake that valued Facebook at a sliver of what it would become. The investors balked, leaving a potential payout of billions on the table. “In retrospect, had we made that investment, yeah, it would have been great. I would have been on the cover of Forbes magazine with Oprah,” says Scott Tobin, one of the Battery partners present at the meeting. “It’s the biggest fish that ever got away.”


The bottom line: Sometimes the only thing standing between you and a billion dollars is an angry phone call from your dad.

Move your money now to a credit union, here is why

Should You Move Your Money to a Credit Union?

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Alden Wicker

You wouldn’t normally think of credit unions as sexy or hip.

They don’t have glossy ad campaigns and beautiful branches on every street corner. Even their basic definition—non-profit financial co-ops—sounds boring.

But these days, more and more Americans are clamoring to join the club of credit unions because of their low fees, higher interest rates on savings accounts and lower interest rates on loans.

Because they are non-profit, credit unions are the only financial institutions that go out of their way to serve low-income clientele. But you’d be wrong if you think that’s the only group they serve. Anyone can benefit from the low-fee, low-rate products that credit unions specialize in. And in fact, many more people are.

After a furor erupted over new debit card fees announced by several commercial banks in September, 650,000 customers have switched to credit unions, depositing $4.5 billion in new accounts. (That’s the same amount as existing credit union customers across the country had been depositing in an entire month.) Those bank fees have since been rescinded, but the bad taste in many Americans’ mouths remains.

Just take the wildly successful “Bank Transfer Day” on November 5^th, organized by Los Angeles small business owner and former Bank of America customer, Kristen Christian. This particular party, to which she at first invited 500 of her friends on Facebook, ballooned to 75,000 RSVPs within a month. On that Saturday, thousands of disgruntled customers closed their accounts at large institutions and sat down with a credit union employee to open an account. It’s too early to tell exactly how many people moved their money, but we do know that 54% of credit unions saw growth. 

Should you join the party? We spoke with Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, to see if credit unions might be a good choice for you.

Why You Should Go With a Credit Union

The Same Basic Financial Services

Credit unions may have different names for their services, like share accounts (savings accounts), share draft accounts (checking accounts) and share term certificates (certificates of deposit), but they work the same way bank accounts by different names do. Credit unions also offer online banking and credit cards. And if you’re worried about finding an ATM when you need it, McBride says, “Many credit unions belong to large surcharge-free ATM alliances that open up thousands of ATMs around the country.” These networks have even more ATMs then Bank of America or Chase.

Lower Fees and More Savings

Because credit unions are not-for-profit (unlike banks), they use excess earnings to give their members lower fees, higher rates of return on savings accounts, more affordable loans or new services. Compare the median annual credit card fees for credit cards—$25 at credit unions and $59 at banks—and the median overdraft fee—$6 at credit unions and $10 at banks. And more than three-fourths of credit unions offer no-strings-attached free checking, while only 45% of banks do. As of late September, the average interest on a savings account at a credit union was higher than at a bank: 0.23% over 0.17% for a $1,000 savings account, or 0.28% vs. 0.18% for a $2,500 money market account.

You’re the Boss

Instead of shareholders owning the bank, each member of a credit union owns a piece and gets one vote—regardless of how much money he or she keeps at the union—to elect the Board of Directors. In turn, the Board of Directors decides the interest rates, fees and other practices. So if you don’t like what is going on, you can vote the offending board member out. Plus, having local owners instead of shareholders running the show changes the timbre of service you get. Here’s why.

Better Customer Service

Since “customers” are technically owners, your local credit union will likely get to know you and work with you to meet your needs. All that individual attention means that credit union customers tend to be a pretty satisfied bunch: Almost 90% of credit union clients plan to stay, while only 60% of customers at big banks plan to do so. 

Why You Should Think Twice

Payday Loans

We are never fans of payday loans, which are personal loans that come with exorbitant interest rates that take advantage of low-income customers and plunge them into a cycle of debt. For the most part, credit unions offer low-cost, financially healthy alternatives paired with counseling. But a few credit unions, 25 to be exact, are doing exactly what they purport to save customers from: handing out loans that charge 300% or more. So, be sure to avoid any credit union that is on this list, and if you must take out a personal loan, don’t agree to one with interest rates above 28% per year or a high “application fee.” A reputable credit union with your interests in mind will offer a loan with an interest rate of around 10%.

Not Always Federally Insured

Bank accounts at both commercial banks and at most credit unions are insured by equally safe government bodies (the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, for commercial banks, and the National Credit Union Administration for credit unions). But notice we said “most” credit unions: Watch out for the few state credit unions that have private insurance, because that is not as safe as a government guarantee. For instance, if several credit unions insured by one private company fail at once, that insurer may not be able to cover the deposits (as happened with American Share Insurance in 2009 and 2010). So, make sure your credit union is federally insured. As Bankrate’s McBride says, “The presence of federal deposit insurance means the risk of the institution failing is their problem—not your problem.”

Late on the Technology Curve

If you’re a tech/smartphone junkie, you should know that credit unions tend to adopt tech innovations later than commercial banks. For instance, many of them are still in the process of developing mobile banking services and mobile-phone check depositing. It’s not as though they’ll never adopt these innovations. They just tend to get to them a bit later. (For example, LearnVest’s My Money Center is unable to link every single credit union, though it does support many.)

Members Only

Unlike a regular bank where you can walk in off the street and open an account, many credit unions have specific requirements. Some are affiliated with the military, some with universities, some with large employers or certain industries and some require that you be part of a certain church or club. Some just ask that you live in a certain town or area. You’ll have to do some work to find one you can join, though it should be possible for almost anybody. You can start by searching for a credit union by geographic location or your affiliation to an industry or employer with three websites: NerdWallet.com’s Credit Union Finder, aSmarterChoice.org and CULookup.com.

Why You Shouldn’t Go With a Credit Union

Find Out More About Credit Unions

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You Tend to Relocate Often

This is only a downside if you want local branch access (and if you’re searching for a mortgage or car loan, you likely will): Because many credit unions are affiliated with a location or an employer, if you’re young and switch jobs or move before settling down, your credit union will no longer be nearby. (But you can never be kicked out for moving. “Once you’re a member, you’re always a member of a credit union,” says McBride.) Signing up with a national bank like Bank of America allows you to move to almost any new city, with the only chore being changing your mailing address online. But if you’re a member of a local credit union, move to a new state and want in-person branch access, you’ll have to search for a new financial institution and move your account. (Also, some credit unions belong to networks that allow their customers to walk into a partner credit union and use it as if it were their own.)

No Wealth Management Services

“If you are a high-income, high-net worth consumer that needs a lot of personal banking options like private banking services and wealth management, credit unions cannot provide that,” says McBride. But for people in need of all the basics—checking account, savings account, car loan and mortgage—a credit union can work just fine.

The Bottom Line

As with any financial decision, the choice you make should be right for you. That means you should be fairly certain before joining a credit union that you won’t need the wealth management services that they lack, or that you won’t be moving locations anytime soon, or that if you do move, you’ll be satisfied with online banking, etc. And vet your options carefully. As noted above, some credit unions are better than others.

Above all, do your homework and figure out whether a credit union or bank better meets your needs, in terms of services, rates and locations. As McBride points out, “Credit unions tend to offer higher rates on deposits and lower rates on loans. So for consumers who are seeking the best deal, credit unions need to be included in your comparison shopping.”

The wolds top 20 richest people are in for this year

Carlos Slim, the telecommunications tycoon who controls Mexico's America Movil SAB (AMXL), is the richest person on Earth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world's 20 wealthiest individuals.

The 72-year-old's net worth fell $478.4 million in a day to $68.5 billion as of the close of markets on March 2, as U.S. moguls Bill Gates and Warren Buffett placed second and third on the list compiled by Bloomberg News. Brazil's Eike Batista, who ranks 10th, still covets the top spot after vowing a year ago that he'd become the world's wealthiest man by 2015.

"I'm competitive," Batista, who trails Slim by almost $39 billion, said in a March 2 telephone interview from Rio de Janeiro. "It's Brazil's time to be No. 1. Brazilians have always admired the American dream. What's happening in Brazil is the Brazilian dream and I happen to be the example."

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index takes measure of the world's wealthiest people based on market and economic changes and Bloomberg News reporting. Each net worth figure is updated every business day at 5:30 p.m. in New York. The valuations are listed in U.S. dollars.

Today's ranking was published with the release of new billionaires profile pages in the Bloomberg Professional service. The profiles feature a transparent analysis of how each billionaire's fortune was calculated.

Slim's fortune has increased 11 percent this year, according to the index. A spokesman for Slim didn't immediately return a telephone request for comment.

Gates, Buffett

Gates, 56, co-founder of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in Redmond, Washington, is worth $62.4 billion, down $102.1 million on March 2 and up 11 percent year to date.

The fortune of Buffett, 81, chairman of Omaha, Nebraska- based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/B), declined $336.9 million to $43.8 billion on March 2 and is up 2.4 percent in 2012. Almost all of Buffett's wealth is held in Berkshire Hathaway, the publicly traded holding company he has run since 1965.

The combined net worth of the 20 richest people is $676.8 billion. Nine are Americans, including three from the family of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)

Number seven is Larry Ellison, 67, chief executive officer of Redwood City, California-based Oracle Corp. (ORCL), the world's third-largest software maker after Microsoft and SAP AG. (SAP) His $38 billion fortune puts him $4 billion ahead of brothers Charles and David Koch, who each own 42 percent of Koch Industries Inc., one of the biggest closely held companies in the world by revenue. Charles, 76, and David, 71, control the Wichita, Kansas, refiner and chemical maker.

Batista, 55, whose investments range from iron ore to coal, is worth $29.8 billion, up $133.9 million on March 2. His fortune has grown 32 percent this year, the most on the list.

The House Wins

Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who owns 47 percent of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), which operates resorts in Macau and Las Vegas, is number 13 with $25.7 billion. Adelson, 78, and his family have pledged at least $10 million to a super-PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, a Republican presidential candidate.

Liliane Bettencourt, 89, who with her family owns 31 percent of Paris-based cosmetics companyL'Oreal SA (OR), is last on the ranking. Bettencourt was the subject of an international scandal in 2007 when her daughter, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, filed a lawsuit accusing a family friend, photographer Francois- Marie Banier, of exploiting her mother's frail state. Evidence later revealed Bettencourt had granted more than $1 billion in cash and gifts to Banier. In October, Meyers and two grandsons became guardians of the clan's $22.4 billion fortune.

Diluting Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, the 27-year-old founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), the world's largest social-networking company, didn't make the cut. Based on a roughly $100 billion valuation the Menlo Park, California-based company has been trading at in the private market, Zuckerberg's stake may be worth $21 billion, or about 25 percent less than previous estimates, once Facebook holds its initial public offering.

The reason: Facebook will issue more than 500 million shares of its Class B stock at the offering, diluting Zuckerberg's ownership to 21 percent after he exercises 120 million options and sells about 42 million shares to cover the tax bill associated with the gain from those options.

Sweden's Ingvar Kamprad is the richest European, according to the index, ranking fourth globally with a $42.5 billion net worth. Kamprad, 85, controls Ikea Group, the world's largest furniture retailer, through a series of trusts and foundations he asserts he doesn't own.

Luxury Goods

Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC) , places fifth. The majority of Arnault's $42.3 billion comes from his stake in Paris-based LVMH, the world's largest maker of luxury goods. Arnault, 63, controls about 46 percent of LVMH's outstanding stock through his family group, according to the company's latest annual report.

Amancio Ortega, whose publicly traded Inditex SA (ITX) owns the Zara clothing chain, is Spain's wealthiest individual and sixth in the world with a $38.8 billion fortune. Ortega, 75, has invested dividends from Arteixo-based Inditex into a real estate portfolio that owns office and retail properties in the U.S. and Europe.

No Russians appear in the index as falling metals prices hurt the fortunes of many of the richest oligarchs. Alisher Usmanov, 58, the Muscovite who controls the Metalloinvest metals and mining company and Digital Sky Technologies, which currently owns 5.5 percent of Facebook, is Russia's wealthiest person thanks to a $20.1 billion fortune.

Asia's Wealthiest

Mukesh Ambani, 54, leads Asians with a net worth of $26.8 billion, down $185.4 million in a day. His fortune is up 25 percent this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as his shares in India's top company by market value, Mumbai-based Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), have risen 17 percent.

Hong Kong's Li Ka-shing, nicknamed "Superman" by the local media for his investing prowess, ranks second in the region, with $25.8 billion. Li, 83, owns large stakes in Hong Kong-based property developer Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd. (1), Hong Kong shipping and ports operator Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (13) and Husky Energy Inc. (HSE), the Calgary-based energy company.

Lakshmi Mittal, the India-born chairman of ArcelorMittal (MT), the world's biggest steelmaker, is the third-richest Asian, with holdings valued at $23.6 billion. In addition to his ArcelorMittal stake, the 61-year-old London resident owns hundreds of millions of dollars in U.K. real estate.

On the rise: Gina Rinehart, the Australian mining heiress who is worth $20.4 billion. Rinehart, 58, the daughter of the man who discovered the mines that made Australia the world's biggest iron ore exporter, inherited perpetual royalty rights to some of Rio Tinto Ltd. (RIO)'s Hamersley mines in addition to other thermal and iron-ore deposits throughout the country.

Soaring demand for coal and iron ore from China have made Rinehart's assets attractive to acquisitive industrial companies. In separate deals in the past year, steelmakers Posco and GVK Power & Infrasture Ltd. (GVKP) agreed to pay a combined $2.9 billion for pieces of Rinehart's empire.

To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew G. Miller in New York atmmiller144@bloomberg.net; Peter Newcomb in New York at pnewcomb2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew G. Miller at mmiller144@bloomberg.net