Rain- That’s been the climate here in New York for what feels like an eternity or at least the last bunch of months or so anyway! Let me ask you, at what point did Seattle and the North East Coast swapplaces and I was so damn clueless?

Being that rain was the of discussion for the lion’s share of us in this part of the States at the beginning of the summer, it does bring to mind a lesson on Branding I picked up from one Dr. Ben Mack which happened last year.

I will attempt to disclose some of the most important parts provided at this very informative event over the next bunch of articles so stay tuned or check out my blog for updates. The lecture included topics such as: 1) How to make lightning Strike, 2) How to keep the lightning striking and 3) How to Bottle your Lightning.

In case your not familiar who Bejamin Mack is, he is one of the chief authorities on Branding currently in the USA. He is considered legendary in certain Ad agency circles for this work. Over the years Ben has held tenure some of the most respected advertizing agencies aorund and held position of Vice President for Brand strategy for a major corporation.

Essentially, what that means was he was head strategist in charge of a ” billion dollar account (that’s correct, I said ” billion or 500 million dollars)! Do you think he knows what he is talking about? I do, and not only has he worked magic for the many businesses he has beem employed at, he is also a professional magician who at the age of 19 was the youngest beneficiary of the Award of Merit given by the magic castle.

Do you know what a Rainmaker is? Do you want to become one? A rainmaker aside from the apparent implication of a indian shaman who using magic makes it rain, is a person with the uncanny ability to be a magnet for clients, exploit (in a good way) political connections, and bottom line, make the company a great deal of money. However, when it rains the lightning isnt too far away! We will get more into that in a bit.

As a marketer your essential obligation is to “up sell” people on their experience of reality. In Bens book “Think Two Products Ahead” he talks about how effective branding really only happens only when people think two products ahead rather than just thinking here and now and to build a thriving relationship with your clients or customers through your Brand. The section where Ben teaches how to construct your Legend Platform is worth much more than the price of the book itself!

The “Brand” (called YOU) is constructed by using legends or tales that are told over and over and gain strenght with time. These stories should be permitted to say the opposite of what the others say and will increase as the stories get older. So, if you had to make a choice of the type of story you use to make your business shine like a diamond (you are reading articles like this to help you right?) why not let them be legends. A Legendary business is a profitable one!

Stay tuned for the next part in the series of articles covering Dr. Bens How to Become a Rainmaker.

If you’re a business owner who is looking to increase their visibility while also increasing revenues then you should consider starting an entrepreneur blog. These low maintenance internet sites are a great way to generate buzz about your business without increasing your advertising costs.

An entrepreneur blog can be defined as a website with regular entries of commentary on any type of subject such as description of events, graphics, video, or current news. The more entertaining the commentary on your site than the more visitors you’ll attract. The trick is to make the content relevant not only to your business but to the reader as well.

Keeping the reader’s interest is the name of the game so your postings will have to be entertaining and informative. The most successful blogs attract visitors by providing.

After you’ve established your entrepreneur blog and get a feel for the content you’re going to post, you’ll start to see the number of visitors increase. As you start to see you’re sites popularity increase, you can cut back on traditional and more costly methods of advertising. It’s much cheaper to post information touting your product on a blog site than it is to place an advertisement in print media. This is just one way an entrepreneur blog can help increase profits by cutting down on your companies overhead.

You can do some research on how large companies such as Coca-Cola and Nike have generated interest in their products through blogs. Rather than spend millions on television and print campaigns, they were able to generate just as much interest through popular blog sites. Of course these companies have huge amounts of influence in their markets but you can achieve the same results albeit on a smaller scale.

If you’ve reached the point that your blog is attracting thousands of visitors a day than you can increase your profits even more by charging for advertising space. Popular blogs are a great way for corporations to get the word out about their product without it coming off like a forced advertisement. The more visitors to your blog will translate into more demand for space on your blog. More demand for your advertising space means you’ll be able to charge higher rates per advertisement.

Cutting edge content is a key to most successful blogs with a perfect example being the celebrity gossip blogs that have become so popular. These sites have fueled the rise of multi-million dollar enterprises based on the opinions of a relative unknown. Perez Hilton, the famous celebrity gossip columnist, went from a relative unknown to the creator of one of the most popular blogs on the internet today.

As the internet continues to become the main source of how people connect and interact, the use of entrepreneur blogs to increase a company’s visibility will also increase. By creating a blog with cutting edge content you can not only promote your business, but open up a new revenue stream as well.

Trade shows are common place and are events organised periodically where practitioners or professionals in a particular industry show off their products and services both old and new in the bid to attract new prospects or clients. Organising these trade shows is sort of expensive and each interested exhibitor often has to pay a sum of money to secure a space at the exhibition grounds.

One of the most important tools needed for a successful exhibition is the trade show booth or display. This is more like a stand where all the exhibitor’s products are showcased so as to attract prospects and generate leads. The reason most companies participate in these trade show exhibits is to generate more leads as all attendees are either people in the business or those looking for a solution to their business or personal challenges.

All exhibition stands and booths have to be transported to the location of the exhibition early so that everything is ready before or at the commencement of the exhibition. Since exhibitions are not necessarily located within one’s vicinity, the best option is to send the booth far ahead or travel with it if the company is big and has its own truck or bus. Depending on what products are to be displayed, product displays for the exhibition can be transported in cars or other forms of transport. If the displays are produced or designed by an exhibition display designer or company, they could help ship. In fact, most exhibition designer companies will ship the products to your location of choice.

Whichever way you look at it, you could easily ship the products to any venue of your choice. Taking up the shipping of your products is not advisable particularly when you are just starting out and cannot afford to risk any damages to the products. Effectively shipping any product will involve the choice of transportation and the time frame. For example, an exhibition taking place 1000 miles from your domicile will be better shipped using air transportation or FedEx. The same applies to the time frame. If an exhibition is going to begin in two days, and the product isn’t going to be ready for shipping until tomorrow, you can either hire a courier or take it there by yourself. If you will hire the courier service, please note that this would cost you extra as it is then termed ‘express delivery’

When shipping, care should be taken to avoid any breakages or damages to the products for display. If you are in doubt about how to do this, you can get in touch with any courier services around or moving companies if the display is large in size and weight or sensitive as in aquariums. Courier services are already used to delivering sensitive packages and can be trusted to take care of it with utmost care.

And if you feel that taking it yourself would be best, pack the products in a manner that will prevent it from getting damaged.