People are lazy. And laziness, when kept under control, fuels a lot of their drive to do things faster and better. Let’s be honest, we’d all want to work less and smarter, generate more income and have tons of time to enjoy those we love, our passions and our hobbies. Given the opportunity, we’d all prefer to work for 3 months and travel around the world for the rest of the year (or insert other pleasant pastime here).

We need to stay mobile and render parts of what we do automatic, so that we gain time. And when it comes to social media, well, we have taken automatic to another level. Auto replies, retweets, direct messages, scheduled posts, automatic posting of content to social media websites. It’s all working out great for us. Continue reading

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Those two concepts put together, not likely to win the “couple of the year” award, are they? And they shouldn’t, simply because guilt trips should never be part of business emails, especially when it’s the first email you send out!

Imagine this! You want to introduce your recently launched business. You mention your website, then jump to saying you have a kid who’s just turned two and add a link to cute photos of that kid. Then mention an obscure site you used to have but no longer exist. And finally, in paragraph 4 actually mention one of the services you provide. Nothing on your expertise, no reference to satisfied customers, no detailed skill set of your team. Just throw the baby in, that’s bound to work!

No matter how I twist and turn it, other than guilt trip, no other reason comes to mind for mentioning offsprings and showing photos to potential customers. Maybe, just maybe, if you were a photographer specializing in newborns and toddlers, there might be a reason for the photos. But saying your main quality as a business professional is having a child? It’s crazy! And the image of yourself you put out there has little to no chance to generating leads or sealing the deal.

Remember, you’re trying to build a business relationship! Yes, if you’ve had a client for years, a personal bond develops, you might even become friends and show eachother family photos. But if it’s a new client you’re targeting, keep it professional and tell them how you can help them grow their business. Honestly, they couldn’t care less about you as a dad!

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Guest post by Hasan Shirazi, Logoinn

The significance of a unique logo for the purpose of marketing and branding of a company or its product is not hidden from anyone. Having a perfect logo could be the ultimate wish of any business owner who knows the real importance of visual identity. However, many a time, due to lack of knowledge or some other factors, business owners do some common logo design mistakes while building their business brand. These mistakes eventually develop a wrong brand image, and then a business has to face decline even when all other branding elements are fine. In this article, we have pointed out 5 common logo design mistakes most commonly made by business owners.

Not hiring a professional designer to do the job

On the surface you might think that designing a logo is not a complicated task. You may assume that nearly anyone with some taste and artistic inclinations can design a logo for you. However, reality is quite different. Designing a business logo is not a work of new or pastime amateurs. Continue reading

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Are you wondering why I’ve kind of disappeared? Well, the reasons are two: my not feeling very well and Kayla chewing up my laptop charger. Does the last one sound a bit like the “Dog ate my homework” excuse? Well, at least it is funny! But being without my laptop really reduced my online time. Why? Because I have to get my boyfriend away from his computer and work without most of my tools. Then again I have no saved passwords and it gets into a big hassle very fast.

Bottom line, I want my computer running . At all times if possible. Now the big question comes: why didn’t I buy a new charger. Well, I couldn’t find one. In the big city, capital even, of Bucharest, with its 4 or 5 Sony Centers, there are little to no Sony Vaio chargers.

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Popularity: 11% [?]

There are some who believe bad PR only comes from failed or irresponsibly planned actions of public relation specialists. It actually also comes from having no PR to handle negativity associated with a certain company. There’s also this ongoing belief that not all companies need PR, because they see PR as just some people trying to get stories into the newspapers.

Yet here’s the example revealing how PR can help you better communicate with existing and prospect customers. Let’s take a construction company. Negotiations are mostly based on different things than the number of articles on the papers. Old projects are analyzed, those hiring them want to know if they work effectively, if they finish on time and if they can adapt to new challenges throughout a project.

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Popularity: 28% [?]