Today we're looking at the simplicity of six words. Can you write your company story in six to ten words? This isn't a new idea. Ernest Hemingway wrote a famous six word story.

"For Sale: New baby shoes. Never worn."

Too often we make things harder than they need to be. Use the simplicity of six words.

Carefully Define Your Business

First, implement this six word idea with your business: define your company and culture in six words or less.

For example: at Poole Communications, we are client-focused, ethical, creative, self-motivated and passionate. When hiring new employees we look for those same characteristics. Even when interviewing a potential new client, we look for those same qualities. (That's right, we don't accept all new clients; we really want a good fit.)

The result is that we have a better fit with ALL the people we work with, that means more enjoyment in our work - and lives - for everyone involved.

Whenever we deviate from this principle there's trouble: a unhappy client who doesn't fit, or a disgruntled, unproductive employee. I've learned over the years how important it is to let our values lead the way.

Next, Define How You Work

Next, six simple words can help us define our logos, our slogans, how we work - and even who we work with. Those same words help you in planning and creating work or providing service. We don't want to sell ourselves, our products or services; we want to educate in an ethical way. Let's make the world a better place. Everyone wants marketing material that are simple and easy to understand. The little amount of time each have makes it mandatory. Word choice and communication is extremely important. It's critical to be clear about who you are and how you work; and it's equally important to be quickly understood.

Simplify Your Life

Finally, the world is fast paced, and we all have a lot to do; work to simplify your job and make your company function better. The simplicity of six words is one small tool you can use. Define what your business is, and how your business works. Get your team involved and listen to their input. Empower them to help grow the company and help make it better.

Need help? We can help you with strategy, writing, planning, budgeting and media placement. Give us a call at 800-900-3635.

©2018 Poole Communications

As a small business owner or manager, are you facing common problems that most small companies face:

• Struggling to find time?
• Having trouble marketing your company?
• Difficulty attracting the right customers to your business?
• So busy working IN your business you don't have time for much else?

We’ve worked with plenty of other small businesses that are in the same tough position. After 30 years in the marketing and advertising business, we developed an elegant solution sharing our strategies and methods. We wrote a book called the Business Builder Marketing Workbook. This in depth workbook will walk you, the small business owner or manager, through the steps you need to take to market your company in a way that will grow your company.

Simple Step-By-Step Process

This easy-to-understand workbook leads you through the basic marketing process and will help you:

• identify your perfect customer
• find your unique selling point
• target the right region around your company
• develop a marketing plan
• and MUCH more

Next, the Business Builder Marketing Workbook is divided into 12 sections. For high achievers, you can complete all the lessons in a few weeks. For most however, most will find it easier to go through one chapter a month. In this way, you can let it really sink in, and have the time to apply what you learn. For those of you who are caught up working IN your business, you'll find enjoyment in planning and working ON your business. Making a strategy and a plan will ensure you're headed in the right direction.

Time to Work ON Your Business

Our workbook gives you the opportunity to work ON your business. Enabling you to leverage your time and make your company even more profitable. Over two years in the making, this well thought out Business Builder Marketing Workbook will provide you with step-by-step tools to grow your business . It’s not complicated and is written in an easy to understand style. You’ll find worksheets at the end of each chapter that are tailored to your company and build on the information you read in each short chapter.

Finally, we recommend doing the lessons and each worksheet in order because each lesson builds on the next lesson.

To get more information visit: www.BusinessBuilderSeries.com.  You can order a hard copy workbook, a digital copy or both — all for less than you’d pay an agency for one hour of work.

Act Today!

Start working with our simple Business Builder Marketing Workbook and start attracting more customers into your business today.

For more information contact us during business hours at 800-900-3635 or email us at Poole Communications.

Start with your own. From cleaning up your office to working on your own life, it’s so tempting (and easy) to focus on other people’s messes and problems. The other person’s problem and solutions are so clear and obvious to us. Their mess lures us into a false sense of a simple answer and quick solution. We are so tempted to say, “Why if you’ll only do this, everything will be fine.” Solutions aren’t always as simple as they appear — especially in other people’s lives.

What is difficult and far more bold is to start with your own mess. Start making changes in your own character. Start improving your own attitude. Start that habit at work that you want everyone else to emulate. Start cleaning your own desk and taking control of your own life.

I’ve been working on paring down and simplifying at the office and at home. It feels really good to be organized and uncluttered. In the process, I’ve noticed my tendency to want to “help” others with their difficulties, their messes, and their problems. That silly desire sidetracks me from what I really need to be doing. That distraction stops me from working on my own problems. It prevents me from thinking about and solving my bad habits.

Please don’t think I’m saying don’t care for others or help others. That is not what I mean at all. I’m specifically talking about focusing on others when we seriously need to focus on ourselves.

Often when someone else’s behavior or mess bothers me, I look to myself as quickly as possible to see if I’m guilty of the exact same behavior.

Leave other people’s messes for them. Allow others the joy of solving their own problems. Focus on your own. It may just start a chain reaction of change at the office, at home and in your own heart.

Here is a solution to stop the decline of newspapers nationwide.

• Make every newspaper the same size.
• Make all ads the same sizes.
• Use inches and not "column inches."
• Make it simple to buy an ad - have a human answer the phone.
• Make sure the ad prints well.
• Make sure the invoice is correct.
• MOST IMPORTANT: Cover the news in your community. You're not a national or world news source. Your a community news source. Be just that, and do it well.

We would still have community newspapers that thrive.

For those of you that would like a little more information:

First, as you may know, all newspapers are different sizes. This means advertisers must alter each ad to fit each newspaper. This is a lot of work and makes buying and placing newspaper ads really troublesome and time consuming. Then newspapers have their own sizing system called "column inches" - NO ONE knows what a column inch equals because it's different with each newspaper. So that's why I suggest standard newspaper sizes and ad sizes. An advertiser (who is the newspaper's main source of income) can then place an ad easily in New York or New London, MO. The same ad would fit in all newspapers.

Second: hire people that know what they are selling. Hire people that understand print quality and will work to get good quality. The print quality and sales quality has dropped off dramatically. I frequently cannot get someone to answer the phone when I want to place a buy or have a quick question before turning in an order. Then when I do place a buy, I have orders lost and ads not run. To top it off, the billing in most of the regional papers is terrible. We need to double check everything to ensure it's accurate. Sometimes a newspaper will run an ad all month when we wanted it to run once. Too frequently we have to call and ask for our invoice.

The newspaper industry is killing itself with poor service, poor print quality and poor content. 

Finally, the last suggestion is the most important. Content must be derived from the community the newspaper resides in. Skip the national and world news. Focus on what is going on in your community - and not just events that have occurred - but what is coming up too. Look for and report real news.

My suggestions are simple. Fairly simple to enact and would save small newspapers.

You've heard about "fake news" a lot lately. Well there are plenty of fake invoices out there too. This short article tells you how to spot them.

My clients call on a regular basis saying, "I thought we stopped all yellow page advertising? I just got another bill in the mail today!"

I ask them to send me a copy or if I'm there I ask to see it. It usually looks something like the graphic above. The amounts vary dramatically, but they are usually somewhere near what you have paid for yellow page advertising in the past. The customer name is filled out and it looks like a real invoice.

Imagine how many companies around the country are just paying these invoices. You might be thinking, "What could it hurt? You're getting yellow page advertising somewhere, aren't you?" The answer is; maybe. You may be getting in a national advertising book somewhere.

But consider the fact that AT&T sold off their yellow page division years ago. AT&T is a progressive company. Keep an eye on them to figure out what you should do with your company. They sold the yellow page division for a reason. They projected customers would find information in a new way and that division would no longer be profitable nor viable.

Now take a look at the size of your local yellow pages. You'll notice it's remarkably smaller - and you can't find local business numbers. Another thing you might notice is that hardly anyone is using it. Just ask around.

So if your local yellow pages are not working, how do you expect a national yellow book to work for your company?

Don't fall for fake invoices. Here's what to look for:

The return address is nowhere near your location. Normally your local yellow book will be located in a community near you, and have an address that is reasonably close to your location.
Somewhere on the invoice it will say, "This is not a bill." This is required by law and sometimes it take a few minutes to locate it. But it will be there.
When in doubt, do a quick internet search of the company or call a trusted marketing advisor.

A reputable marketing professional is there to help you build your business. Fake invoices don't benefit your company, they drain your profit. Be on guard.

© Sally Kintz, Poole Communications

“Design is the single most critical factor in determining the ultimate winner of the 21st Century.”
~ Kun-Hee Lee, CEO Samsung

Good design is what sets a business apart from the competition – whether it’s the organizational design, the work they do or the product they create for their customers. Design is a critical part of business success because it means someone is thinking things through and looking at the big picture.

The Huffington Post reported that a US Postal Service survey shows mail at an all time low.

Take heart. This is the perfect opportunity every business has been looking for. Write a note to your customer. Your small note (that you can send for a mere 46¢) will make an impact because no one receives letters anymore.

The post office reports that an average home received ONE personal letter roughly every seven weeks. That is absolutely amazing. But I have to admit, I opened my mail last night and threw away 90%. Most of it was junk and form letters. People don’t consider a letter “junk.” Especially if you have something nice to say or share – and you write it by hand. People keep letters because they leave a lasting impact that you can read again and again. it’s like sharing a little piece of yourself and your life.

Go write a note to someone you care about. Consider writing a thank you note to a customer and make a difference in your business.

STD. What do you think this stands for?

Yeah, me too. Sexually Transmitted Disease.

Well in some businesses it’s used for Sales Tool Development, Seize The Deal, Short Term Disability or Standard Testing Diagnostic. Hmm… would you have guessed that? Chances are slim that you would. Instead you’re probably still trying to not laugh out loud when that engineer keeps talking about that large piece of equipment’s accurate STD output.

Can we please just stop this? It confuses our customers. It stops communication dead in its track because people are trying to figure out what you mean without appearing stupid.

Take the time to spell it out and explain things clearly. Here’s why I think acronyms are stupid:

S – short sighted
T – too technical
U – ubiquitous (everywhere!)
P – passive
I – incomprehensible
D – disruptive

Take two minutes to write out (or say) what you’re talking about. It’s not going to take that much more time and it’ll save you headaches in the long run. And don’t blame texting! This has been going on long before texting was even invented.

So go seize the day, and skip the STD.