Full episode:

In Brief (a 3-minute show highlight):

Bruce Hammond, LEED AP has been a General Contractor since 1980. He is CEO of Hammond & Company, a company which builds high quality residential and commercial projects throughout the northern bay area region with particular emphasis on energy efficiency, resource conservation, and durability. Bruce was the founding Chairman of the US Green Building Council – Redwood Empire Chapter and is also a Principal at Longview Education Associates, a training and education organization delivering programs for organizations and individuals on focused topics the design and management of sustainable development.

Website: www.HammondAndCompany.com
Address: 490 W. School Street, Cotati CA. 94931
Phone: (707) 795-6045

I am running a small business in the IT field in India. The concept is “technology, outsourcing and consulting”. I will deal in computers, networking, infrastructure maintenance services, web services, softwares sales, software development, etc. The name of my organisation is”Virtual Enterprises”. I want to rename and give a tagline also. Kindly suggest something.

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Jay’s Answer: There are only a few reasons you should rename your business: it has a bad reputation or you think it’ll somehow attract more customers. The problem with renaming is that those who you’ve already educated about your business will have to be re-educated. So I advise you to think carefully about your desired change.

It sounds like you’re mostly doing software work (“networking” could mean physical connections or software connections). But you haven’t specified who your target market is. And that’s the key. Your name/tagline isn’t about what you do – it’s more about what your customers need. While you could try to be a “do everythin” for “everyone” business, you’ll probably find that no one thinks you can help them with their problem. People seek out specialists who understand their needs. While what you do isn’t industry/target market specific, your target market is looking for validation that you know what their problems are.

Without a clear statement of WHO you’re targeted and WHAT problem you solve uniquely for your market I’m afraid I’ll simply give you something generic and therefore no better than what you have.

I am trying to come up with tagline for a beauty salon that caters for men and women (In Europe a ‘beauty salon’ provides services such as hair removal, facials, massages etc rather than hair styling). What do you think of: Make your body smile -or- Let your body smile

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Jay’s Answer: “Make/Let Your Body Smile” doesn’t work for me because after hearing “Bodalicious”, I don’t know what your business is. After hearing the tagline, I still don’t. Therefore, the tagline needs to help explain a key benefit of your business.

For example:

• A Beauty Salon For Men And Women (boring but clear)
• A Beauty Salon For Everyone
• The Beauty Salon For Cool Crowd

I have a inter-departmental seminar series to prepare, so each one of our staff members know what activities I’m in charge of, I need some catchy titles for my presentation about PR and communication.

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Jay’s Answer: The problem with “catchy” titles is that you to create a title that appeals to the eyes/ears of your target audience. Given the information that you provided, here are some ideas to get you thinking:

• Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood?
• Who 2 Call For 411?
• How To Get Famous (or, at least well-known)
• Strengthening Our Departmental Network

Pure Pilates is a fully equipped Pilates studio. I am needing a tagline for my business. Any suggestions? What we have to offer that others providing Pilates in our town of about 100,000 is the trainers are very educated in the Pilates method – not a weekend certification course. We have years of education and training.

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Jay’s Answer:

• Build Your Core Strength With Our Experts
• We’re Experts In Making You Stronger

I am a Realtor going back into the business full-time and in the process of developing a marketing plan. I love considering ideas outside of the box…please let me know your input as good ways to market myself and generate leads in somewhat of a cost effective fashion…

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Jay’s Answer: Start by asking everyone you meet who they would recommend as a Realtor (and why). You’ll quickly develop a list of the people and motivators that people in your area care about. Then, work to become the expert at these things (and study to see what your competition is doing).

Also, join service organizations whose mission you support. People will get to see you as more than just a Realtor, and build a deeper relationship with you.

Our product is ceramic tile. We had two brands, A for high class (20% sales) and B for Middle class (80%). Recently, my boss want to increase sales percentage of A. He will produce A, little higher / same price with B (same quality also with B). Is it OK to do that? What about A brand image for a long term ? Our ads majority on A. Plese your advice. Thank you.

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Jay’s Answer: You currently have two tile brands (A and B), positioned differently for different markets. I’m unclear if the product is different as well, or simply the branding/positioning is different (same product/different wording or different product/different wording).

Here are my thoughts:

• If A & B are different and your boss wants to sell more A, then he needs to increase the positioning benefit of A tiles (“what makes them better than the competition?”)
• If A & B are different and your boss wants to sell B tiles as A, that’s okay so long as you don’t mislabel B tiles (saying they contain a higher % of valuable materials when they don’t) and increase the positioning benefit of A tiles.
• If A & B are the same, and you’re selling to different markets (and not mislabeling), then that’s okay as well.

Where it’s problematic, is if you misrepresent the quality of the products (a lower-quality product is labeled as a high-quality product).

I am starting a gift basket business and I need assistance in creating a unique name and tagline.  I am currently working on my business plan.

What makes this gift basket business different?
My business will give consumers the opportunity to build their own gift baskets a la carte.  I would love for the name and tagline to convey that these gift baskets are custom-made to reflect the recipient’s personality. The gift baskets are made-to-order, not pre-assembled and stored. You pick the ingredients; we’ll put them together.  In addition, a special handwritten note will be included to tell the recipient about their one-of-a-kind gift basket.  For buyers who don’t have the time to create a special basket, they will also have the option to purchase standard baskets and add items, if they choose.

Target Audience
Initially, I will start selling to individuals and progress to selling to corporations also. The individuals are people who are looking to give a friend, relative, colleague, etc., a gift basket for a special occasion or just because. There will be several diverse themes available.

Business Location
The business will be located in New York, servicing the NY/NJ/CT tri-state area. Future plans to expand nationally.

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Jay’s Answer:

Here are some naming ideas:

• Gift Baskets a La Carte
• Unique NY Gift Baskets
• Oh, Goody!

Tagline ideas:

• Memorable Gifts For Every Occasion
• Baskets With A Personality

We have two pitiful websites for our company that need to revitialise. Starting from scratch is the only option as they are so bad.

Where do i start? What resources can I use to gather what I need? How do I present this to management? How can I cost this out?

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Jay’s Answer: The direction you take depends on the resources you have (money, time, web development, etc.). Management will care about the ROI of the effort. So I suggest starting by accumulating analytics about your traffic today (Google Analytics is one such free service). That’ll help to inform your results (what % of your visitors convert to customers, etc.).

If you plan to regularly update the site yourself, you’d probably want to investigate CMS (Content Management Systems). Basically you hire someone to build the framework of the website (including graphics, color scheme, layout, etc.), and you’re responsible for filling the website’s content. CMS systems (Joomla, etc.) have many add-on modules that can no doubt address your needs. The software itself is free, but there are technical trade offs to using one CMS system over another.

Full episode:

In Brief (a 3-minute show highlight):

Shahram Bijan entered the restaurant business with a commitment to customer service and a background in the software business. Forced to flee war-torn Iran in 1987 at the age of eight, he had already created and sold two successful Internet companies by the time he was 25, when he acquired First Crush in San Francisco in 2002. He now also operates two successful Toast locations (Mill Valley and Novato).

Website: www.ToastNovato.com
Address: 5800 Nave Drive, Novato, CA 94949
Phone: (415) 382-1144