Will Corporate Culture Be A Thing in The Past? It Just Can Not Survive with Extensive Remote Work Policies When people think about esprit de corps the first thought would likely be attributed to military organizations such as the U.S. Marines, the Army Corps of Cadets or maybe even Green Berets. Many years ago people felt that IBM had achieved this with the early sales organization, and there is little question that Procter & Gamble created this feeling in both their sales organization and their brand management group. In the current business environment one is hard pressed to come up with any company that really stands out has having a loyal, stable and committed workforce with a real sense of loyalty and commitment to the organization. Many experts have attributed this to the increasing number of very independent millennials who have joined the workforce in recent years, as this group tends to be less committed to the place they work than their older counterparts, and they are more willing to shop-around for new jobs to improve their lifestyle, even it it comes with a somewhat lower compensation package. According to a CNN report on November 12 of this year, “a record number of Americans quit their jobs in September” . They quoted 4.4 million people quitting their jobs during the month. While it is easy to attribute this phenomenon as being related to the increased number of millennials in the workforce, the emergence from the Covid crisis or maybe even the large supply of jobs available which provides more opportunities for advancement. It is very difficult to argue with any of these points, but in my opinion a factor that has not been considered seriously enough is the remote work culture that has emerged our of necessity due to the Covid crisis. This remote work culture show few signs of dramatically declining, and there is definitely a sense that it will continue in some form for the immediate future. While many companies have announced their return to work in the office dates, it is evident that they feel a great risk to the workforce, as so many people have become accustomed to working from home on their own schedule in their jeans, rather than going to the office in business casual and conforming to “office hours” standards. . In my opinion the remote work culture / trend is very dangerous to business, unless it is managed very carefully, which I feel would be a split schedule with more time in the office than working remote. Remote Working – What is The Problem There are very definite benefits to remote working, such as reduced commuting time, thus theoretically resulting in more work time at home, reduced need to purchase clothing to wear the office , or the financial savings that can be generated by downsizing offices which will reduce rents. However, it has long been my opinion ( published my first article on this in 1998) that the policy toward remote working should be limited to no more than one or two days a week. I believer strongly that full time remote workforces are a recipe for medium to long term corporate disaster. While some employees say they are more productive when working remotely ( a position I strongly challenge), there are some very important reasons that support the dangers of significant commitments to remote working. They are: • The difficulty in creating a bond between the individual and the company which is a key part of building espirt de corps among the workforce. Simply being in a common workspace with others who are working to achieve the same overall goal contributes to a feeling of belonging to something with others like yourself. The relationship better the organization and the individual is reinforced every day the employees come to the office. It is virtually impossible to achieve this over a Zoom conference. • The extremely difficult environment for training and development that is inherent in a remote work situation. While it is possible to provide some supervision to subordinates via Zoom calls, there is a completely different type of relationship between two people talking through a computer screen vs being in the same room face-to-face. As a result I strongly believe the effectiveness of the supervision is dramatically less in the remote environment. • The ability to competently on-board new employees is significantly easier in an office vs a remote situation. There are many stories we have all heard about new employee being hired to work remotely, working for the company for a year or more, and then leaving the company having never met anyone in the company in person. This person very likely never created a bond with his/her employer, and as a result had no problem leaving for another situation. An individual entering a new company should experience a very fertile environment in which to work, both in terms of having resources that may be available in the office but are difficult to get ( or unavailable) on line, and the immediate availability of peers to whom this new employee can access in order to seek answers to questions or to get help solving specific work-related problems. • Despite all the influx of group on-line coordination software, it is quicker and easier to gather a few people in a conference room to jointly solve a problem or develop a plan of action, as opposed to setting up a Zoom call with a group for some time in the future. The “out of sight, out of mind” argument definitely is relevant when a person is working on a project remotely, as the access to others takes more effort than it would in an office environment. • There is a social aspect of working in an office that is extremely important to most people. This does not imply that workers spend lots of time around the water cooler, or talking with colleagues about the weekend football games in another person’s office. However, there is little question that having colleagues around you to interact, if only for a minute or two, does improve the quality of life for most people with virtually no impact on the levels of productivity. • Finally, when working in an office, an employee does not have the distractions that are part of everyday life when working out of home. The chances are that in the office there is not a full referigerator waiting to be opened, a television that can be turned on at any time, a significant other that just wants to ask a quick question, or a bicycle sitting in the garage just waiting to be ridden to work up a sweat. Where To From Here? In view of the generally positive feelings of many, if not most people about working remotely during the pandemic, for most businesses to achieve their medium and long term objectives ( increased profitability produced by a better, more effectively trained workforce) the amount of work employees are permitted to do remotely must be controlled. During the pandemic, many companies experienced great success and some even have decided that a remote environment can work very well for them. However, I am confident that in the medium to long term the prognosis will not be very positives. While the millennial group probably will object to any meaningful commitment to working in the office, it is the challenge of senior management to explain the benefits to them and the company of their making a significant commitment (at least 3 days per week) to working in the office. If this is not accomplished, I am confident that the employee turnover reported this past September will continue, and the ultimate loser will be both the employees and America’s corporations. Encore Strategic Business Consulting is an organization that exists to solve problems and provide practical solutions for large and small organizations. We help our clients in all aspects of general management, marketing, sales, marketing research web development and social media. Tom Greenbaum has been in the consulting business for almost 50 years, and has recently published his eighth book “ 150 Lessons Learned From 50 Years in the Consulting Business”. (72nd St. Books; ISBN:978-0-9858550-9-3)

We are undoubtably in the toughest time of all our lives from both a business and personal life perspective. As a small business entrepreneur, the situation is particularly problematic, as most small businesses do not hold meaningful cash reserves and have significant recurring monthly expenses that must be paid. In many, if not most situations, it is possible to survive this crisis if you do the right things, right now! In fact, some of you might find that this experience might result in you changing the direction of your business that could make you better off in the future. The following will provide some suggestions as to ways to address this situation that will increase the chances of your surviving, and maybe even thriving in the future. First, and most obvious is to analyze very thoroughly you expenses in order to determine: • What are the major expense categories that would really make a difference to you if they were eliminated? • What expenses could you eliminate that would have virtually no impact on the business. If you are operating a retail business, generally there are a large number of items you sell that represent only a very small percentage of your revenues. Many of these probably should have been eliminated months or years ago, but certainly they could go now and have virtually no impact on the business • Identify expense categories that you could save money by doing them yourself rather than use full or part time employees or outside contractors. Examples might be your cleaning service, or you trash pick-up. Second, take actions based on what you learned from the above that would make your cash position better. The hardest part of this relates to employees. Your employees are probably the largest drain on your cash position, and also likely the most difficult to eliminate. You might have an employee (or employees) who have been with you for a very long time, and you have developed a long term, possibly personal relationship with them. However, if you are thinking with your head, you know you have to put them on temporary or permanent furlough if you are going to survive. You might be lucky and get money from the government programs that will pay for them, and that would be wonderful. But if you don’t, you must eliminate them from the payroll as hard as it is to do. They can get unemployment, and hopefully come back to you when times are better. You might find that you have been operating with too much staff ( including cleaning , trash removal etc.) and when times change that you can improve your profitability by not filling these positions. Third, you should take some time to think about the needs of your customers and see if you might be able to generate revenues from them without having these people come into the store. For example, a toy store could make contact with customers and offer special services by phone or Internet that will enable them to meet their demand. A clothing store could develop a personal business by getting the measurements of your customers and have them describe for you what they are seeking, so you can send them several options (recognizing the returns will be high) via UPS or USPS so they can select what they want. This could turn into a completely different business for you that could work long term. There is always the option to show customers options using the Internet via products such as Zoom, Facetime or SKYPE or on your website. Another example might be a barber shop who could offer some self-cuting tools to customers to hold them off until you reopen. While some will say this could threaten your business in the future, it really depends on the relationship of your customers with your barbers, and the realization that they probably could not do nearly as good a job as they get by coming to the shop…..when we get back to normal. In net, if you think about your customers and their needs, it is quite likely that you might be able to find a new way of serving them that would enable you to get revenues ( and customer loyalty) and they would have items to meet their needs. Fourth, it is a natural time to ask for concessions from your landlord, as if you can not stay in business it would hurt the landlord long term. SUMMARY: Surviving tough times like we are in takes solid thinking and the courage to make the right decisions that will enable you to be there in the future. If you keep emotion out of your decision process, the probability of you making the right decisions will be much greater. Good Luck! ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting is an organization where your benefit is our experience. We have over 50 years history working with businesses of all types, and from very large to very small. Our goal is to help you thrive in good times and bad. Learn about us at www.encorestrategic.com or call us at 203-858-0515

We are undoubtably in the toughest time of all our lives from both a business and personal life perspective. As a small business entrepreneur, the situation is particularly problematic, as most small businesses do not hold meaningful cash reserves and have significant recurring monthly expenses that must be paid. In many, if not most situations, it is possible to survive this crisis if you do the right things, right now! In fact, some of you might find that this experience might result in you changing the direction of your business that could make you better off in the future. The following will provide some suggestions as to ways to address this situation that will increase the chances of your surviving, and maybe even thriving in the future. First, and most obvious is to analyze very thoroughly you expenses in order to determine: • What are the major expense categories that would really make a difference to you if they were eliminated? • What expenses could you eliminate that would have virtually no impact on the business. If you are operating a retail business, generally there are a large number of items you sell that represent only a very small percentage of your revenues. Many of these probably should have been eliminated months or years ago, but certainly they could go now and have virtually no impact on the business • Identify expense categories that you could save money by doing them yourself rather than use full or part time employees or outside contractors. Examples might be your cleaning service, or you trash pick-up. Second, take actions based on what you learned from the above that would make your cash position better. The hardest part of this relates to employees. Your employees are probably the largest drain on your cash position, and also likely the most difficult to eliminate. You might have an employee (or employees) who have been with you for a very long time, and you have developed a long term, possibly personal relationship with them. However, if you are thinking with your head, you know you have to put them on temporary or permanent furlough if you are going to survive. You might be lucky and get money from the government programs that will pay for them, and that would be wonderful. But if you don’t, you must eliminate them from the payroll as hard as it is to do. They can get unemployment, and hopefully come back to you when times are better. You might find that you have been operating with too much staff ( including cleaning , trash removal etc.) and when times change that you can improve your profitability by not filling these positions. Third, you should take some time to think about the needs of your customers and see if you might be able to generate revenues from them without having these people come into the store. For example, a toy store could make contact with customers and offer special services by phone or Internet that will enable them to meet their demand. A clothing store could develop a personal business by getting the measurements of your customers and have them describe for you what they are seeking, so you can send them several options (recognizing the returns will be high) via UPS or USPS so they can select what they want. This could turn into a completely different business for you that could work long term. There is always the option to show customers options using the Internet via products such as Zoom, Facetime or SKYPE or on your website. Another example might be a barber shop who could offer some self-cuting tools to customers to hold them off until you reopen. While some will say this could threaten your business in the future, it really depends on the relationship of your customers with your barbers, and the realization that they probably could not do nearly as good a job as they get by coming to the shop…..when we get back to normal. In net, if you think about your customers and their needs, it is quite likely that you might be able to find a new way of serving them that would enable you to get revenues ( and customer loyalty) and they would have items to meet their needs. Fourth, it is a natural time to ask for concessions from your landlord, as if you can not stay in business it would hurt the landlord long term. SUMMARY: Surviving tough times like we are in takes solid thinking and the courage to make the right decisions that will enable you to be there in the future. If you keep emotion out of your decision process, the probability of you making the right decisions will be much greater. Good Luck! ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting is an organization where your benefit is our experience. We have over 50 years history working with businesses of all types, and from very large to very small. Our goal is to help you thrive in good times and bad. Learn about us at www.encorestrategic.com or call us at 203-858-0515

It does not matter if you are 35, 45 or 65 at some time you probably will decide to retire , or at least slow down your involvement in your business or the work you are currently doing for someone else. Unfortunately, only a very small percentage of employed individuals ever think about an exit plan for yourself, so you are in the best position when your full-time working days come to an end. The purpose of this article is to provide some important guidelines and ideas that you probably will want to consider relative to your retirement or significantly reduced involvement in the business environment. When Should I begin to Plan for my Retirement? While it is very difficult for a young person to ever think they will stop working, the time to start planning for this inevitable situation is now! To this end, I am talking about the following two major aspects of a post work environment.: • Money The number one issue with retired people is money. Do you have enough money in savings or retirement plans to enable you to maintain your lifestyle after your working days are over? Most people have almost nothing in their “Retirement Fund” to finance their lifestyle after full time work stops. While there is social security (if you are over 62) this is generally a nice additional source of income, but not enough for most people to continue their lifestyle. This piece will address several strategies to help with this objective. • Time The second most important aspect of a post working life is how you are going to fill your time for the remainder of your life. While 5-7 days on the golf course might be appealing to some, this will wear out quickly for almost everyone. Therefore, it is essential that people considering retirement develop a personal plan for what they will do when they retire. What Can You Do To Help Your Financial Situation When you Retire? While retirement is a distant thought for most people until they are in their 60’s, unfortunately that is much too late to begin thinking about this. The following are some strategies that are important for both the business owner and an employee of a company relative to retirement. • The first is to recognize that you will face this situation whether you want to or not. You might not ever want to retire, but it is a rare person who can continue a productive working life into the 80’s and 90’s. Once you have adopted a reality test regarding your retirement you are in a position to do some important planning. It would be nice to win the lottery at 65, but chances are that will not happen. Nor will you be lucky that aunt Marie will die and leave you a fortune. Finally, you might think your kids will take care of you, but this also is unlikely to happen. • Second, you need to determine the approximate date you will stop working, even if it is 20-30 years in the future. I recognize this is only a guesstimate, but you need to have something to start with. • Third, using your approximate retirement date, estimate the amount of money you would need to continue your lifestyle (in today’s dollars) and then add a 2-4% inflation factor per year to arrive at what this looks like at the time you retire. In all likelihood that number will be staggering to you. Once you have that number, reduce it by the amount you will get from social security, and any pension/retirement plans you anticipate receiving. • Fourth, now you have a dollar amount to use as your target. How can you hope to get there? Here are some ideas: FOR EMPLOYEES OF ANOTHER COMPANY o Consider having your spouse start working (if they do not now) and put all the income from that employment into a retirement fund that will grow with or more than employment. o Recognize that you might have to sacrifice a little now to protect for the future, by identifying a specific amount from your current paycheck that can automatically go into a tax-free retirement account such as an IRA, municipal bonds or other similar vehicles. o Take full advantage of any plans that you employer has such as a 401k, particularly if the employer matches the contribution. o As yourself if you can sacrifice some planned major expense (each year) such as that giant size TV, a trip to Disneyland , a new car etc. can be eliminated with the money you were going to spend for it going to your retirement account. While this is definitely a sacrifice, you will be glad you did it when it comes to retirement. FOR BUSINESS OWNERS For a business owner, they should do all of the above, plus the following: • Meet with a financial advisor and talk to this person about what you could do with your business over the next “X” number of years to position yourself for the best exit plan. For example, single person service companies generally have no value when the owner leaves the company. However, if the business hires a #2 person there is the opportunity to sell the business to that individual, or at least be positioned to sell it to another company to be run by your #2 person. Another example is a company 100% owned by one person, who plans ahead and provides the opportunity to develop an ESOP plan, which enables your employees to buy pieces of the business over a period of time, so when you are ready to leave you have sold all or some of your business to the employees. • Sacrifice some immediate profitability of the company for the long-term view by setting up retirement accounts, 401K’s and any other plan that would enable you to push funds into the future without tax implications now. Since you are to major wage owner in the company, you will benefit the most from these types of plans. I am familiar with one medium size company in which the President wanted to give out stock dividends each year so the shareholders will be happy, but when he sold the company upon his retirement, he walked away with nothing after being president for 30 years! • For the business owner, the EXIT PLAN should not necessarily be connected with retirement. You might have a 3,5,10 or more as you exit goal. Sometimes you should get out in order to maximize your return on investment, because the time is right due to market conditions. I am aware of a New York company that was offered a great deal of money to sell the company, but the owner decided he would “save it for his children” only to sell the company for debts only five years later. The important fact to consider is that your EXIT PLAN should be proactive, with you thinking about the possibility of selling the plan whenever you can get the right price. If you are a long way from retiring when the right opportunity comes up, you can always take the money and do something else which you always wanted to do but it did not pay enough, as you wouldn’t have worry about the salary. Planning Your “Retirement” from a time perspective. Perhaps the biggest issue for retired people is how to they fill their time when they no longer need to work. The following will provide some guidelines for actions you can take well before your retirement to position yourself for that inevitable day. • First, you need to get realistic regarding expanding your weekend activities (such as golf, tennis, museums etc.) to a seven-day period. If you do not recognize that this is a very important issue to address, you will not be happy in retirement. • Second, develop a retirement activity plan, thinking ahead to the time you are no longer working. Specifically: o If you are young when you sell your company, you might want to start all over again and build another company o If you are within 10 years of not working, you should begin to think about what might make you happy when you no longer have to go to work. This could include:  Volunteering for an organization where you believe in their mission. If this is your goal, it would be important to identify the organization(s) where you might want to volunteer, and make sure you have now or could develop the skills necessary to be a desirable member of the organization.  Develop hobbies that you would like to develop or expand your involvement in when you stop working. In net, you must recognize that retirement is a time that you can do pretty much what you want (assuming you have handled the financial side), but there is a lot of time to fill. Planning on how to use that time must be done BEFORE you stop working or you could get very depressed when the time comes to stop Tom Greenbaum is the Founder of ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting. This company was started in 2019 after working at SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) for almost 11 years, and spending the previous 40 years doing focus group research and strategic business consulting for both Fortune 500 Companies and small businesses. He can be reached at 203-858-0515 or tom@encorestrategic.com. Also, you can visit www.encorestrategic.com to

One of the biggest challenges for all businesses, whether direct to the consumer via retail or the Internet, or business to business, is the effort to build awareness of your existence. This is the reason organizations spend huge amounts of money on traditional advertising (television, radio & print) or try to flood the Internet with SEM (search engine marketing) such as paid ads on Facebook, Instagram or any other of the dozens of platforms that claim to forcefully carry your advertising message to the target audience. While both traditional advertising and Internet ads probably have a role in any marketing program, most organizations would benefit greatly if they focused on the elements of the STOOL, as they are effective, and they are FREE! To understand the essence of the STOOL, your need to think about a three-legged stool, with the word AWARENESS on the seat, and the letters S, W & N on each leg. The purpose of this article is to discuss each of the legs, and how a businessperson’s attention to the STOOL will build awareness of your organization, regardless of whether it is a dental practice, a retail clothing store, a consulting business or an online e-commerce enterprise. The overall theory behind the STOOL is to identify various efforts you can make that will put you in front of prospective customers in such a way that they generate confidence in you or your products/services. Over time, this confidence will lead to incremental sales which will provide growth to your enterprise. The “S” Leg The “S” leg is shorthand for SPEAKING. One of the most important marketing activities that a business can implement is to speak in front of target customers. Whether this is at an industry conference, a regional meeting, a lunch and learn or a Rotary or Kiwanis club meeting is not key to this effort. The key is to regularly get out and talk to groups of people about a topic they would like to hear about, that also relates to what you are trying to market. There are two key reasons why speaking is such an important element of the STOOL, and in fact why it is the first leg. • By getting in front of an audience and delivering good content you become the expert, and as speaker you add credibility to your product or service • The simple action of talking in front of a group, whether for 10 minutes or an hour will serve to build a much more permanent level of awareness of your product/service than you ever will get through advertising or public relations. The “W” Leg The “W” leg stands for WRITING, and consists of four different elements as follows: • BLOGGING is a very important part of the “W” leg and it is writing that you can do as often as you want, and it is extremely easy to do. Every website had a section for blogs, which make very east to post them to the Internet and also will help build the traffic to your website once people read the blog. They key to blogging, and really anything you write is the content. People are looking for information, and particularly information that will help them improve their business The key to blogging is that the topic about which you write must relate in some way to your product or service. People are not interested in your last vacation or whether you children just got a new belt in Karate. They would, however, like to know how they could cut personnel costs, develop more effective advertising or cautiously raise prices. • WRITING ARTICLES FOR THIRD PARTY PUBLICATIONS is the second part of the “W” leg. The difference between this and the blog is that when you write an article that is published by a third party, it has much more credibility and is better able to help you achieve your communications objectives. As with a blog, the key is that you provide excellent content that will appeal to your target audience. Not only does this make the reader more informed, but it is another way to position you as an expert or your product something they would like to purchase. While everyone would like to publish articles in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, these and many other publications represent extremely difficult places to get published. The key to writing articles is to have them published by a credible third party, even if it is not one of the top publications with national recognition. The reason for this is than an effective marketer will take articles they publish and re-circulate them to their target audience by email or snail mail, so they get exposed to the people you want to see them. This has almost the same value as an article in a top publication, and the benefit of being published is to be seen! • THIRD PARTY MEDIA ORGANIZATIONS WRITING ABOUT YOU is the third part of the “W” leg. This can be the local newspaper or magazine, your college alumni magazine or a local human-interest cable television station. As with the articles you publish, the most important part of this element is the post-publication marketing you do with the piece. You can leverage a one or two paragraph in the local newspaper by sending this information to all your clients and prospects as another way to build awareness • WRITING A BOOK is the fourth element of the “W” leg of the stool. Writing a book is one of the best ways to give you credibility in your field, whether you are a caterer, an attorney, a consultant or a physician. Most people will never read your book, but they still will be very impressed that you have written it, and generally they assume it is good. This gives you credibility and will help build awareness for what you are offering. It is important to recognize that e-books are much easier to develop than a hardcover or softcover printed book, the later will have dramatically more prestige for you in the marketplace. The “N” Leg The “N” leg of the stool stands for the practice of NETWORKING. Essentially, this is the practice of meeting and talking with anyone in your target audience, or people that can put you in touch with prospects in your target audience. There are many different types of networks in your community, from the formal (and fee charging) groups such as BNI (Business Network International),or local groups like BNI that bring people together to meet other businesspeople for the purpose of helping each other expand their business. In all cases, these organizations can be very effective in building a network of contacts that can increase your business. Another effective approach to networking is to attend meetings and conferences for professionals in your field even if you are not a speaker. While the speaker role is much more effective in achieving your goals, as an attendee you can meet many people who could turn out to be excellent customers. A third type of networking involves staying in touch with anyone from your past who you think could be helpful to your endeavor. Probably the best of this segment is prior customers/clients, as they already know you (even if it is from a different company) and are generally are much easier to convert than a cold or warm lead that does not. In summary, if you follow the legs of the STOOL, I am sure you will find it is a vital part of building your business. Good luck! Tom Greenbaum is the founder of ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting, an organization that has over forty years helping large and small organization achieve their business objectives. To learn more, go to www.encorestrategic.com, or contact Tom at 203-858-0515.

As you go through your daily life it is impossible not to be bombarded with many different types of corporate and brand images, whether on television, billboards, packages in stores and of course the Internet. If you ever stopped to think about all the images you saw during the day, the chances are very good that the companies and brands you recall most frequently will be names like Apple,Nike, Chevrolet, Citibank and Bayer. Each of these brands/companies has not only recognition by you, but they all have a brand/corporate personality. For example, when you see the Apple logo, you probably have a very clear idea of what that logo stands for in terms of what type of products they sell and perhaps even what type of company it is from the perspective of its employees, customers and retailers. Similarly, when you see the Nike “swoosh” you have a similar association. Although in the Nike example, you might not be able to all the “ just Do It” slogan, you know what kind of company it is, and the types of products they sell. These companies have spent millions of dollars over many years advertising and promoting their name in order to develop their image/personality. While small businesses generally do not have even a fraction of the money of a major company to advertise and promote their name, they can still create a meaningful brand image that will work hard for them when communicating with their target market. This process is not difficult and involves only a few key steps. First the small business needs to determine what they want to stand for, and what image they want to portray to their target audience. Once this has been determined, it is helpful to commit it too writing, so it will not be forgotten, and so it can be communicated to others who are part of them process of developing the verbal and artistic elements that will form the brand image. Second, a name for the business must be developed that is as descriptive as possible (of the business) and is easy too read, pronounce and remember. The third step I the process is to develop a 4-7 word slogan that summarizes the essence of the brand/company image they want to communicate. Examples of this are the BMW “ultimate driving machine” or the nike “just do it”. The 4-7 word slogan is even more important for a small company than a large one, because the smaller organization normally has very little money to advertise or promote its image, and therefore needs the slogan too help communicate its brand image/personality. The fourth step in the process is to put the name, slogan, and statement of image/personality together and develop a distinctive “look” that is unique to the brand/company. In most cases it is advisable that the look that is developed consist of three elements, which are the name, a logo AND the 4-7 slogan. This becomes what is the essence of the brand/corporate image. The question people ask is how do they put the three of them together into a “look” that will be and effective communications vehicle for the organization. To accomplish this, it is necessary to have the assistance of a graphic design organization. There are many of these type of graphic design companies available, at a wide range of both pricing and capabilities. I recommend my clients use a “crowd sourcing “company such as Design Crowd.com. This is an Australian company with a network of graphic designers throughout the world who work with them. The benefit of this type of graphic design organization is that you get the inputs of dozens of designers, and not just 1-2 if you hire an independent designer. I have recommended well over 100 clients to DesignCrowd over the past several years without one person indicating they were sorry that they used this resource. The cost of Design Crowd varies depending on how many inputs you want, but I recommend my clients spend about $250 which will generate 50-100 different designs. You can then pick the one you prefer, and /even make modifications that will make the preferred design even better. Once the brand look has been put together , the key to building and maintaining the image is to consistently use exactly the same image/look in every communication the brand/company uses. It is vital to NEVER vary the look, in terms of the typeface used, the logo and the positioning of the slogan with the name and logo. If this process is followed you will end up with an excellent communications vehicle that will enable your brand/company to develop a very meaningful brand identity that will become memorable and meaningful to your target market. One resource that would be useful is a book called “You Can Do It; A Guide to Starting and Running a Small Business”, which is available throughout the New York Public Library system. It can also be obtained on Amazon, iBooks or Kindle. Tom Greenbaum is the Founder of ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting, a firm that helps businesses of all size address issues of growth and financial stability. We work with clients in areas such as marketing research, business planning, social media and digital marketing and website development and marketing. We can be reached at tom@encorestrategic.com or 203 -858-0515

This is the time of the year when we all start to reflect on the year ahead and what we can do better. Probably the most common resolution relates to our health, in terms of losing weight, getting more exercise or eating better. Unfortunately, the calendar rarely gets to the first of February before we have broken that resolution. How about considering a different type of new year’s resolution that you will not break, as it could be the difference between a good business year and an average one. Make a resolution to change the way you are looking at various aspects of your business, so you can benefit from the foresight that a new year’s resolution provides. Unfortunately, so many of us do not stop to THINK about our business, as we are too busy putting out fires or dealing with the immediate problems at hand. We almost all of us have some unprogrammed time around the New Year, and it is an excellent time to address some of the key aspects of your business that get lost in the day-to-day chaos of keeping things running as best you can. Why not take a few minutes over the next few days and think about the business, so you can develop one or more RESOLUTIONS addressing some of the following key questions: • What can I do to operate more efficiently during the year so that I have more time for my family, my hobbies or my social life • • Is it possible to raise my prices now, so I can generate more revenue for the same amount of effort. So many businesses are afraid to raise prices as they fear customer loss. However, if you approach this question from the perspective of increasing only a few percentage points each year, it is likely that customers will not even recognize the change, or care about it. • • Is this the year I should be planning to develop an EXIT PLAN for myself. The essence of this is to plan for when you retire or leave the business to start anew with something else, whether It is a new job or simply retirement. Even if you feel your actual exit date might be years away, there are productive actions you could be taking now to make that transition easier and more effective for you. In my next column I will discuss some key elements and consideration of an effective EXIT PLAN. • • What do you feel might be the best way to seek growth in my business during the current year? Specifically, should I be targeting different prospects, add new lines to my business, or improve my selling efforts • • How could I get more customers in the coming year? Should I spend more on advertising, or advertise and promote using different vehicles. Perhaps this is the year I make a real commitment to digital marketing, social media and website enhancement. This list could go on forever, but the key is to take time now to analyze your business and make some resolutions that will improve your situation in the months ahead. Normally the New Year’s period is a unique time when we can THINK and PLAN, so do yourself a favor and MAKE A NEW YEARS RESOLUTION FOR YOUR BUSINESS. Tom Greenbaum is the Founder of ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting, a firm that helps businesses of all size address issues of growth and sustainment. We work with clients in areas such as marketing research, business planning, social media and digital marketing and website development and marketing. We can be reached at tom@encorestrategic.com or 203 -858-0515

You have just developed or acquired a new product that you want to sell, either on line or in a retail environment. This product could be something you developed on your own, or an item you acquired from another source (national or international) . There are many different ways to test the consumer appeal of this product, however most are quite expensive, and often take a very long time to determine if there is any real appeal. One of the tools that I recommend to my clients very frequently is the use of New York Street Fairs. Street fairs are held in various parts of the city every weekend from April to October. If the weather is good, and you choose a good location to test, you product could be exposed to 10,000- 20,000 people within a eight hour period. An example of this is client I worked with that had developed a very attractive line of yoga mats that leveraged her very creative, artistic design capabilities. However, we found it difficult to identify a relatively inexpensive way to test consumer acceptance of this product, until we identified the summer fairs in New York City. We prepared a series of different designs and went into one of the fairs that was a 3 day event ( unusual, as most are only one day). At the end of the fair, after an exhausting effort trying to sell the products and learn about the consumers attitudes toward them, we sold only 3 mats. This was a very quick market test that told us that we did not have a winner, and we would have to dramatically change our approach if we were to be successful selling yoga mats to the New York market. My client decided not to pursue this effort, but she learned very quickly and inexpensively that there was a very high probability that her idea would never make it in the marketplace. Street fairs are excellent test market vehicles for new products for several very important reasons: First, if you get good weather, you do have the opportunity to expose your idea to a very large number of people in a short period of time. Second, you have the opportunity to interact with prospective customers to learn what they liked and did not like about your product, so it may be possible to make changes in your offering if it seemed that this would increase the appeal. Third, you can experiment with different pricing options, by changing the price after several hours and seeing the impact this would have on the consumer sales and attitudes. Fourth, the cost of entering street fairs is very low. A normal size booth (about ten linear feet) generally costs less than $200. There are some dangers associated with using the street fair test option that also must be considered before quickly scheduling this into your marketing plan. You are at the mercy of the weather. If it is bad, the traffic will be very low , or almost nonexistent. This is a big chance you take. You must be careful to pick a location which has residents in the area that represent your target market. For example, if you have a product that appeals to the Hispanic community, you probably do not want to do your street fair in the upper east side. You also run the risk (which I believe is small) that your idea, if it is really innovative will get ripped off by someone else. In summary, I am a big fan of using street fairs as a test vehicle, a research tool, or even a regular sales channel for certain types of products. If you Google New York Street fairs it is very easy to identify the company’s that run them, and you can learn what you need to do to participate ( i.e.: licenses, table and chair requirements, electricity etc.). You will never know if this tool is right for you until the research is done, so on to Google to learn about street fairs, and plan to attend a few so you know how they work and what you need to do to achieve your objectives. Good Luck Tom Greenbaum is the founder of ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting, a firm that is experiences in all areas of marketing, marketing research, internet marketing & social media. He also is one of the leading focus group professionals in the US, having conducted about 3500 groups and written four books on the subject. He spent almost 11 years working with over 1200 clients at SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), and prior to that 35 years in his own strategic marketing consulting and focus group company. ENCORE Strategic is a new venture he has started after retiring from SCORE. He can be reached at 203-858-0515 or at tom@encorestrategic.com

In the highly competitive world today of social media, digital marketing and expensive in-store promotions, a very large percentage of marketers cannot seem to find the formula to increase their business. If you just look at the advertisements on television, the offers on the Internet or the face of packages in retail stores, do you ever wonder why they do not “talk to you”. In the current environment, so much of marketing and advertising is based on price. Who has the best deal, or who can promise the lowest interest rate on an automobile, a credit card or a home equity loan. I believe that price is never a sound strategic marketing approach, as a competitor can always offer a lower deal, at least for a short period of time. In my opinion the reason for the proliferation of price-oriented advertising & marketing is that the people managing the process do not understand what is the main motivator to get consumers to purchase, so they rely on the easiest , and probably most expensive and least effective way to sell your products (or services). The key that has been missing is the magic word that can, and should change the entire way goods and services are marketed. BENEFIT. Consumers of all types make buying decisions based on what the product or service does for THEM. In effect, what is in it for me. That is the essence of BENEFIT MARKETING. The next time you look at any advertising or promotion, ask yourself if the company is talking to you, or simply espousing their own features. For example: · How many automobile ads focus on the new reduced price or low interest rate rather than why you will have a better driving experience in the car · How many ads for a retail clothing store focus on how you will look or feel when you purchase their shirts, slacks or shoes? While the concept of focusing on the consumer BENEFIT is hardly a new idea, I have been amazed at the large percentage of consumer external communications (traditional advertisements, packaging, Internet ads etc.:) have an INTERNAL focus on what they are providing the buyer, as opposed to an EXTERNAL focus that centers on what BENEFIT they are offering. The focus on BENEFITS is a very simple fix that should relate to any advertisement, package design or promotional effort. If you can discipline yourself to keep thinking about what that buyer gets from the purchase rather than what you offer, I am confident that you will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your overall marketing activities. Tom Greenbaum is the Founder of ENCORE Strategic Business Consulting, located in New York City. They can be reached at 203-858-0515. Mr. Greenbaum is the author of seven books on various aspects of marketing, which can be seen at www.youcandoitbook.net . His most recent book is “You Can Do It; A Guide to Starting and Running a Small Business – 2018 Revised Edition. It is available in your public library or on Amazon, iPad, Kindle or where ever you buy you digital books