Last week, I attended 3 network events in 3 days.  I found it interesting how each presenter had his/her own style.  One presentation was very poorly done, one was excellent and the other was in the middle.  Attending these presentations made me think of the keys to giving a successful presentation.

- As a speaker you need to have energy and capture the audience’s attention.  For example the one speaker I saw immediately walked into the middle of the crowd and started to engage the audience with an energetic style of speaking.  Read more...

If you regularly track your search results you’ve probably witnessed odd things happen to rankings for specific terms. One day you rank well for a term and the next the ranking all but disappears. Here is the reason why.  Read more...

There was an interesting story in the Online Marketing world recently, when JC Penney was, so to speak, charged with crimes against the internet by Google. Even though it was not of their own internal actions, the famous American retailer was essentially removed from Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) after their Online Marketing company not only spammed the internet with irrelevant links for JC Penney’s website, but even went so far as to pay for these damaging links to be posted on different bookmarking sites.  Read more...

When was the last time you actually read a printed piece of sales material?  I recently met with a potential supplier and he handed me two pieces of printed sales material and I looked at it and said ‘wow this looks like it would cost a lot to produce’.  I looked at it quickly and it was sparse with content and I had no interest in reading it cover to cover.  Read more...

Companies have spent huge portions of their marketing budgets and taken huge risks at times to create a campaign that will get people talking and have their brand remembered. Where T.V., radio and print advertising used to be the only mediums to broadcast a campaign and peak consumers interests, the internet is now playing a bigger role. Are online platforms used as part of the campaign’s image to look new age and up with the times? Or are companies trying to achieve more by leveraging what their campaigns accomplish in traditional mediums with their online resources?  Read more...

Lately, I have been really concentrating on building my network on LinkedIn.  I find it interesting when you start to connect with all the people you are friends with or have done business or both.  A lot of people ask me why do I need to build my LinkedIn network what does it do for me.  I will give you an example.  Last week I was trying to get in touch with a marketing manager in a prominent company here in Winnipeg.  I knew nothing about her except her name, title and phone number.  I looked her up on LinkedIn and I noticed I had 43 of the same connections in my network as she had in hers.  Read more...