General

Figure Out Your Partnership

Running a business as a sole proprietor can be hugely rewarding, but at the same time it is very stressful. Finding other avenues through which the stress can be shared is something you should look at if you are in this situation. However, turning your business into a company with directors and such may not be an option for you. In this situation, you can possibly look at a business partnership.

However, partnerships are always fragile and have a great potential to go belly up somewhere down the line. To avoid this you can put some safeguards in place. The best time to do that is at the very beginning when the partnership is being formed. Putting in a partnership agreement or contract at this stage is the prudent thing to do. Here are some factors that should be included in the contract.

1. How this partnership will function
2. Who takes care of what and what each person’s responsibilities are
3. What role will each partner play in the business
4. How will the profits be shared amongst you
5. What are the targets or goals of this partnership
6. Why are you coming together for this partnership

By answering or not answering all these questions, you will get a better picture of whether this partnership will succeed or not. After all, it is better to have disputes before anything begins rather than have problems some time down the line.

Finally, you should always seek legal help when putting contracts together. That way you can discover all the pitfalls and liabilities that await you, in the event that something does go wrong.

Actively Engaged Employees

In any company there are three types of employees: the ones who care, the ones who really don’t give a toss and those who are unsatisfied with everything. In business terms these three are known as

1. Actively engaged employees
2. Not engaged employees
3. Actively disengaged employees

As a manager of a company, the first type is what you should strive towards fostering. Actively engaged employees actually care about the company and where it is going. They realize that company growth means better benefits and perks for them. Therefore they work harder and interact better with customers. The overall effect is very positive and very beneficial to the company.

The second type is a group of people who can be converted to the first type, with a little bit of effort. You must focus on this group as there is a very real danger of them sliding into the third group. That group is comprised of the dissenters and the naysayers. You can’t avoid having the third type of group, as they are present in any medium/ big company. The best you can do is ensure that their percentage is very small.

To improve on the first category, build up the morale in your company. Get to know your employees better and build a better workplace for them. Find out their issues and rectify them immediately or explain to them why it can’t be done and when it will be. Having an open relationship will help foster better trust and understanding between you and your employees. Ultimately this will have a beneficial impact on your business.

Presentation Do Nots

• Do not depend on bullet points – the worst presenters simply read every single word on the screen. The presentation is used almost like bunch of notes, instead of a tool to convey a message designed to interest the audience. Relying on bullet points makes the presenter almost robotic. Here is what you could do instead:
o Approach the presentation from an entirely different angle. Keep your audience in suspense, keep them guessing. Do not go off on a tangent and then lost the plot, which will only make your audience wonder if they missed something.
o Have variety – throw in some interesting pictures or cartoons. Put together a presentation that really stands out.
o Readable – ensure that your audience is able to follow the flow of your presentation. The text on your slides must be easy to read. Keep it absolutely simple.
• Do not make it boring – if your presentation suffers from lack of interest or humour – then you have probably lost your audience after the first few slides. As a presenter, you do not have to be poker-faced or newscaster-like.
o Engage someone in your office who is creative and funny. Ask him to help you with your presentation. Make it interesting, entertaining and most importantly – memorable.
• Do not state the obvious – it really is a waste of time for your audience to listen to you drone on about stuff they already know. Everyone wants to listen to someone with new ideas, someone who has something different to say, something insightful. Make your presentation unique.
• Do not use conflicting image types – if you have chosen to use black and white pictures, then, stick with it. If your presentation calls for cartoons, then so be it. God forbid that you mix up black and white, with retro to clip art [do not ever use it] and thus, end up having a presentation which seems visually confused.
• Do not forget to proofread your presentation – if you do not trust yourself to proofread your presentation, then, get someone else competent enough. The slightest error could put all your hard work into jeopardy.

Effies 2010

The 2010 Effie Awards concluded this week with BBDO and DDB topping the awards. Both agencies, part of the Omnicom Group earned 11 awards each.

BBDO’s awards were won for campaigns done for Starbucks, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and ING. The former two campaigns were done by the BBDO New York while the campaign done for ING was formulated by the agency’s office in Atlanta.

Campaigns for Extra, The Field Museum and Klondike, all created by DDB won top spot at the Effies this year.
Six Effies were won by Frito-Lay, with Unilever winning four, making them the top marketers at the awards ceremony. Frito-Lay’s campaign ‘Only in a woman’s world’ and Lay’s ‘Happiness is simple’ won top spot while Unilevers ‘Soap Scum’ campaign for Dove and ‘The making of a manly lotion’ for Vaseline won as well.

OMD and Mindshare were amongst the media agencies to be well recognized for its work done over the past year. OMD won two awards as the lead agency, and was also credited as being the media partner on fifteen other campaigns. Mindshare partnered on eleven campaigns with other agencies, and also won two trophies. Starcom MediaVest Group won one trophy, while being a media partner on 11 Effie award-winning campaigns.
The Grand Effie is to be announced at a gala, which will be held in New York on June 8, 2010. The panel of judges includes some top names in integrated communications, digital and marketing.