The San Francisco Bay Area social dance scene wouldn’t be the same without the influence of Cynthia Glinka. Dance coach, choreographer and entertainer, Cynthia brings expertise, skill and enthusiasm for social dance to all ages and a variety of events.
Her success with pre-teens is unmatched through her Manners in Motion™ series. Cynthia is founder and creative director of RejuveDance™, promoting social dance as a path to physical, mental and emotional health and wellness. Her various dance programs for all ages have been featured at social and corporate affairs locally and abroad and through private and group lessons. Glinka prepares wedding couples for their “first dance.”
Cynthia has served as choreographer for several Hollywood films, has appeared in national television commercials, documentaries and theatrical productions.
Could you suggest some domain names and website names for a new about to launch Animal Rights NGO in India? I wanted to launch a free website and i want a name that is easy, catchy and genuine. The basic details are given below :
What type of animals are you targeting ?
All those animals which we see around …. for more deeper research and investigations we do plan to move all around but after some time…
Currently we would target some basic animals which are the target of a very cruel and illogical philosophy i.e. SLAUGHTERING in the name of certain religious ceremony here in India. the targeted animals are : BUFFALO, COW and GOATS. Besides these we also plan to work and cure stray and street dogs and cats .
What area of India ?
At present we will focus on our home town GUWAHATI. Its a small city from ASSAM which is a Beautiful state in the North Eastern part of our country India.
What’s the problem the animals are currently facing and what do you hope to do about it ?
The basic problem is the one I mentioned above which is unfortunately growing irrespective of many protests and requests. Its a shame in the name of our culture and people in power practice such ceremonies to gain power and reputation. its a difficult job to overpower these monsters but the initial steps were encouraging … the local mayor, the chief of state police and a few Ministers and bureaucrats have started supporting us… it might be just a new political tool for them to overpower their oppositions but it has definitely helped us a lot … financial and power packed infrastructural support from them in the future would be very helpful to expand our horizons.
Do you already have a name for the NGO ?
No, its just the beginning and thus we just want you to provide us a Title that besides being catchy, easy and genuine …. also sounds universal and doesn’t restrict it to a particular region. Needless to say that the web site and the NGO would have the same name.
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Jay’s Answer: Here are some names for your consideration. Hopefully they’ll inspire your thinking:
I’ve read that in tough economic times, it’s your most loyal customers you should stay close to. But how do you keep these relationships strong, exactly? And why is that seen as the most important target for your selling efforts in a down economy?
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Jay’s Answer: You become a leader.
Instead of keeping your marketing message the same (“We have product X that’s perfect for solving Y”), show people that your offerings actually anticipate their needs. This means that you’ll want to shift your focus from being customer-focused (where you respond to their requests) to being future-focused.
If you’re in business long enough, it’s easy to become customer-focused — just like your competitors. Everyone is showing how they are more customer-focused. That’s a reactive model.
You want to show that your company understands needs that they’re currently unaware of, and in these economic times, give them hope that you can both solve these needs and lead them to a stronger ROI. To project strong leadership, showcase your company’s history (building trust) and show how you’ve led in the past and how you’ll continue to innovate in the future.
As you know, it’s much easier keeping existing clients than acquiring new ones. That’s why you want to keep in touch with your existing clients no matter what the economic situtation is.
As businesses struggle, they are suddenly more interested in new options, vendors, solutions, and information, especially if there’s a clear benefit to them. So besides your loyal customers (who already trust you), re-examine your offerings to see if there are new niches that you can additionally target. Your past successes will help strengthen your message into these areas.
Would Allsort construction be a good and sufficient construction name for a company?
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Jay’s Answer: Names for businesses fall into one of two categories: abstract or concrete names.
Abstract names (such as Nike, Coke, or Apple) don’t tell prospective clients anything about what they do, and instead need to spend time (and money) educating prospects about the name’s meaning. The advantage of abstract names is flexibility (in case the business model should change) and uniqueness.
Concrete names (Joe’s Auto Repair, South China Seas Restaurant, etc.) describe what the business does. As a result, less branding is needed to tell people about the company.
But what is the right name (once you’ve decided on the category)? The answer is the one that appeals to your prospective clients.
Allsort Construction does tell me that you’re in the construction business. But it doesn’t tell me if you specialize in anything. Perhaps “Allsort” means that you’ll do all sorts of construction, and don’t really have a specialty. If so, then Allsort does say that clearly. (Aside: being able to do any sort of job means to the average person that you don’t do any one thing very well – you’re the jack-of-all-trades, but perhaps the master of none. People looking to hire someone first looks to the specialist, the person who does a specific type of work regularly, not just occasionally).
However, is Allsort is good name? I don’t believe it is, but mostly not because of the name but because of your marketing “strategy”. As I tell my clients, a name is one of the last things a business needs. What it needs first is to clearly identify who the target customer is, where they’re located, what problem of theirs do you solve, what makes your solution/offering better than your competition, and why they should trust you. Once you’ve articulated this, then you’re well on your way to creating a name that both is memorable and effective.
I am having problems finding new leads for new customers and have tried flyers and other things any thing to suggest?
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Jay’s Answer: Find local (highly visible) homes that have large side areas. Offer to paint their home for free (or deeply discounted), in exchange for the following: You use the side of their home as a billboard, initially painting your message (perhaps changing weekly), and slowly covering it up as you finish up. A clever message (that changes) could be a great way to get people talking about you.
I am starting a production company and have a 10 minute short film that I want to market and sell for download what is the best way to market?
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Jay’s Answer: Perhaps the simplest way would be to create a 1-minute short of your film, and upload it to the various free video sites (YouTube, etc.). The short gives a sample of the movie, perhaps with some testimonials, but with your website featured prominently.
Your website itself will have the short, plus stills from the movie, and more testimonials (on why it’s such a great movie, who learned what from it, etc.). If you have supporting material (blog, ebook, etc.) you can attempt to build a network around the movie, providing something of value.
Lastly, don’t overlook selling it on iTunes, Amazon, etc.
I am a Life Advisor with years of experience helping families, teenagers, co-workers, and executives on Wall Street with life issues. I have a good reputation with my clients who continue to use my services. Now I have my Life Advisor business on line were you pay a fee for one e-mail and I respond to the question within 24hrs. I need ideas on how to market my business to all people in person and on line.
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Jay’s Answer: You have a big challenge. The internet is full of people who are happy to answer questions (for free) on a wide variety of topics. To get people to pay for your services, you need to show them that your information is not just worth it – it’s a huge bargain. You’ll need to build your testimonials on your website to show the types of people/problems you’ve helped with (and their concrete results).
Once that’s all in place, you start by working the network of past clients (perhaps creating an monthly online newsletter about live issues in general, etc.). Your website needs an opt-in form to receive the newsletter so you can regularly reach out to people who are interested in you and your offering.
As for in-person, you don’t want to mention the email route initially. Why? Because you’re standing in front of them – human-to-human. Keep this connection alive by telling them about how you help people. And if they’re interested, they’ll ask about your services. Then you mention email as an option.
We are very shortly launching around 10-12 products in the cosmetic Herbal range in India and have a shoestring budget to work with. What is the best way to go about entering the market. We already have some medicines running in the Rural Market but without any advertising majorly. Its doing quite nicely for now and now we want to expand into cosmetics.
Should we first go for advertising and then launch products
OR
do we first launch products and then advertise
OR
Do we first try and get some distributors and then let them go ahead with the whole thing by offering them a Bulk Discount.
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Jay’s Answer: It all comes down to identifying the type of person you believe will be your ideal customer, then finding ways to communicate your product’s unique benefits to them (a marketing strategy).
First, who are your ideal customers? Women? How old? Living where? Single or married? Social class? What products do they already use? Why do they like/dislike them?
Next, why should your ideal customers believe your products are better than your competitors? Why should they trust your claims?
If you don’t have the budget to advertise to the customers yourself, then you really only have one choice: finding other people who already are in conversation with your ideal customer and teaching them why your product should be the customers #1 choice.
This episode showcases some of the passionate “Makers” who were at Maker Faire 2009:
Dale Dougherty is the editor and publisher of MAKE, and general manager of the Maker Media division of O’Reilly Media, Inc. He is also the founder of Maker Faire.
Michael Shiloh is an engineer, hobbyist, researcher, artist, and educator. Michael creates by himself and collaborates with children and students of all ages and with other electro-mechanical artists, including San Francisco-based Survival Research Labs. Michael works with foam core, concrete, computers, hot glue, steel, Linux, electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics, remote controls, and broken glass. Michael has taught workshops and classes at museums, schools, trade shows, and universities.
Laura Allen is a Bay Area educator and greywater activist. She has a BA in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley, and a teaching credential and masters in education from the New College of California. She is a co-founder of The Greywater Guerrillas and co-editor of Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground. She has been designing and installing greywater systems for the past ten years.
Tom Igoe teaches courses in physical computing and networking, exploring ways to allow digital technologies to sense and respond to a wider range of human physical expression. Coming from a background in theatre, his work has centered on physical interaction related to live performance and public space. His current research focuses on ecologically sustainable practices in technology development. He co-authored the book “Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers“.
People have often described Jessica Hobbs as someone trying to lead a compulsively artistic life, which is more or less true. She started off her adventure in a small Sierra Foothill town and eventually meandered her way to the San Francisco Bay Area. Along the way Jess has worn many hats; running and creating community art programs, counseling teenagers, curating, exhibiting, designing, photographing and organizing. She is an MFA graduate from the San Francisco Art Institute. She believes collaboration is key in community and art. This idea formally began with her collaborative performance work at UCSC and has continued to be a core element in her life. Her ability to organize and collaborate has lead her to her current passion combing art and alternative energy at the ALL Power Labs, an incubator for open source power experiments. This passion is the driving force behind the creation of the Escape From Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means necessary) alternative fuels road rally in October, 2009.
Dan Goldwater was trained as an electrical engineer but has always been drawn to the artistic possibilities of his craft. Dan was a scientist at the MIT Media Lab when he built his first art bike, a bike which inspired some of MonkeyLectric’s current work. More recently Dan was a founder of technology development firm Squid Labs and DIY community site Instructables.com. Dan’s work has been featured in Nature and in the Smithsonian.
Alex Andon‘s fascination with marine animals was sparked on a sail through the British Virgin Islands, while free-diving through underwater tunnels in coral reefs. He went on to work for the Sea Turtle Protection Society of Greece, camping on beaches in Crete to protect nests and hatchlings. Alex accumulated extensive experience in setting up aquariums for his own research projects at Duke and the University of Delaware. He founded Jellyfish Art on a platform of cutting-edge jellyfish breeding techniques that have been developed over the past decade. Alex has a B.S. from Duke in Biology and Environmental Science.
It is difficult to create iPhone applications as you need to learn the iPhone SDK and a new programming language called Objective-C.
We have created a product called MotherApp (http://motherapp.com/). It is an automated application generator that allows developers to create native mobile applications using HTML instead of Objective-C. It significantly lowers the entry barrier of mobile application development and speed up the development process by at least a factor of 10. We believe this will enable those programmers without mobile expertise to create interesting mobile applications.
Advantages:
Fast: MotherApp dramatically reduces your time-to-market. Once your site follows our HTML specification, MotherApp creates the corresponding client immediately.
Easy: Most people know HTML. Very few people know Objective-C. MotherApp enables people to use what they know to create what they don’t know.
Powerful: Unlike web apps running on the web browser, our native clients are 100% iPhone apps and have access to phone features such as GPS and camera.
Here are some taglines that we have been thinking. Suggestions welcome!
Create iPhone apps without the SDK.
Create iPhone apps without the expertise.
We democratize iPhone development.
We simplify iPhone development.
Open up iPhone development.
Enable web developers to create iPhone app.
Simple solution to iPhone development.
Simple path to iPhone development.
Turn websites into iPhone apps.
Create iPhone apps in HTML.
Let MotherApp create the apps for you.
(Aside: using X/HTML still requires a certain level of skill set for your users, but not as high as Objective-C. If you really want to lower the bar to entry, consider a graphic front end to the whole process – so the user can be anyone who can use a WSYIWYG system that you create. That’ll make it possible for non-programmers to create iPhone Applets).
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Jay’s Answer: The obstacle that you may have in your tagline is that people may not know what they need to create an iPhone app. They may assume it’s techno-heavy or may not. Many of your suggested taglines are talking about difficulty/expertise required.
As your software is currently packaged, you’re offering a way for web designers (or others who are already HTML-savvy) to write a web app. Your “Create iPhone apps in HTML” states this, but doesn’t answer the question “…but is that good?”.
For example: Create iPhone Apps In A Day, speaks to the benefit they get (speed of development).
