Work At Home Adventures

If you’ve ever run across the old joke that “fish” should actually be spelled “ghoti” (“gh” as in “tough,” “o” as in “women” and “ti” as in “nation”), then you won’t be surprised to know that many companies put this quirk of the English language to work by concocting an alternate spelling of a key word for their name. This associates their organization with a certain quality while standing out with a unique-looking name.

Examples of creatively spelled names that sound like a real word include:

# Acxiom

# Cinergy Health Chempetitive

# Enalasys

# Engauge

# Flikr

# Genesys

However, the perils of this strategy are many. First, sometimes not everyone understands the original word, as with “axiom” and “synergy.” In that case, the intended implication of the company name gets even more lost with the creative spelling.

Second, many of the creative spellings are extremely hard to remember accurately. I’m quite sure I could never remember how to spell Enalasys, even if I remembered that it sounded like “analysis” and started with an “E.” There are two additional spelling changes in that eight-letter name. Note that on the Internet, someone who gets your company’s spelling only partially right will not find your web site and may not be able to get email through to your employees.

Third, these names can be difficult to pronounce when seeing them “cold.” This point gets overlooked because a popular site like Flikr has many people talking about it, and once you’ve heard there’s a photo-sharing site called “flicker,” you readily understand that that’s how the name is said. But just from looking at the name, you might equally want to pronounce it as “Fly-ker” – or just be struck silent at the unfamiliar sequence of “k-r” at the end of the name. Likewise, I’m not sure from the spelling whether “Genesys” is supposed to be pronounced like the English word “genesis” or like the separate parts – “Jean-sis” (which emphasizes the component word “gene”).

Fourth, creatively spelled names with a double meaning like Chempetitive (sounds like “competitive” but suggests chemicals) or Engauge (sounds like “engage” but suggests measurement as in “gauge”) do not easily pass the telephone test. Their significance doesn’t come across to the ear. That is, someone hearing “Competitive” wouldn’t suspect the connection to chemicals – or the correct spelling.

And fifth, when you have a creatively spelled name, it becomes tiresome to spell it out every single time you say it to a new vendor or potential client. Take it from someone blessed with the last name of Yudkin!

If you’re a visual person, thinking mainly of how a company name might look on signage and a logo, you might value these names highly because of their distinctive eye appeal. However, it would be a mistake to forget about all the business situations in which communication happens primarily by ear.

With a sizeable marketing budget, you can overcome these disadvantages to a certain extent, drilling the correct spelling and punctuation into the minds of the public. After all, most people got it that AT&T’s wireless company was pronounced “singular” but spelled with a “C.” But if you have a limited marketing budget, it’s best to select a new company name that can be understood right off correctly by both the eye and the ear.

About The Author:

Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, a company that brainstorms creative business names, product names and tag lines for clients. For a systematic process of coming up with an appealing and effective name or tag line, download a free copy of “19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line” at http://www.namedatlast.com/19steps.htm

As a small business owner, you realize the value of having live, able customers stepping through your door everyday. It’s a simple question of math and conversion that those potential buyers become good profitable customers. However, you may be one of the many small businesses feeling short changed in that regard. Have you ever noticed some of the other small businesses in your area always seem to have enough of these types of customers? Some may in fact be busting out a good business.

Your competition may be getting a hand up on you in many different ways. A new product, head office support, advertising agency, newspaper promotion, coupons, etc. Rarely though do I find small independent businesses making use of the most cost effective communication medium available – The Internet.

If you are a small business and do not have an ongoing marketing effort online, you are most certainly handing customers over to your competition. In fact, you might as well gift wrap them and send them over with a sticky note on their back saying “Can you take this buyer? I don’t really need a buyer today.”

Smart small business owners these days know how valuable a buyer can be, not just their first visit, but for repeated visits and then for bringing in other customers. But you need more and more of them as your business competition gets tougher and tougher. That’s why the internet is so perfectly suited for the future of your small business marketing.

It’s inexpensive to setup (if you do things right that is), and there are ways to reach any potential customer you want, and communicate your products and service directly to that person. You can even direct your message to potential customers in a specific geographic area whether that be near your location or clear across the continent.

What a lot of small business owners don’t realize is that it isn’t as difficult as it seems to set up a website, (an effective website that is), get it noticed in the search engines and then start building an online clientèle that will eventually come through your doors. Maybe its a few half-days of work. You can get your family involved or even a staff member or two during their down time. Everybody loves special assignments, especially if it’s out of the ordinary routine. The thing is once it is set up, it pretty much runs itself and can be your best selling employee working non-stop with no wages, no benefits, no holidays, and no drama.

Once you get an internet presence working for you and have it as part of your everyday sales system your competition will soon be wondering: Where do you get all those customers from?

Most home and small businesses rely on classified advertisements to market their services and products. Getting good results with a classified ad isn’t as simple as it seems. There is more to it than just writing two or three lines of copy and placing it in the local shopping digest or weekly newspaper. A well-written ad in the wrong publication or under a wrong headline or a poorly written ad in the right publication will not get you the desired results.

Follow the tips we’ve outlined below when you develop a classified advertisement for a small business:

o Choose the right publication: Target your customers and post the ad in publications that they are likely to read. For example, a classified advertisement for a small business that is into beauty therapy or pet grooming is likely to receive a better response when placed in journals favored by upper-class communities.

o Do your homework: Look at other samples of classified advertisements for a small business that appear in the local media consistently week after week. What is it about certain messages that catch your attention? What sets them apart? Is it the way they are worded or placed or did you perceive value in the benefit that is being promised? Analyze these ads and incorporate their best features into yours.

o Think through your content: Before writing out a classified advertisement for a small business, one must know exactly what it is one wants to sell. Make sure the communication is very clear and specific. Once you have determined your message, draft it out in one or more complete sentences. Then, prune it to make it concise and effective. Be sure to include a phone number or other contact information.

o Make the first few words count: The first couple of words in a classified advertisement for a small business are equivalent to a headline in a newspaper. They should arrest the readers’ attention immediately and make them want to go further. In order to do that, those words must tell readers the most important benefit of your product or service upfront.

o Proofread carefully: Proofread the copy for typographical and grammatical errors very carefully. Just because it is a classified advertisement for a small business, and not a full blown campaign featuring a big brand, does not mean it can be dealt with casually. A badly written piece will certainly harm your reputation and make your business look shoddy. If you have drafted the lines, it is better to have someone else proofread the final version.

o Look at where your competitors are: Advertise in the same publications favored by your competitors. Look through the back issues of any journal that you are considering advertising in. If your rivals have been advertising consistently in that publication, your message should be in there as well.

o Test your advertisement in several publications: Place your ad in different publications to test which ones work for you. Use the same body copy in all of them. Run each one long enough to give it a fair try. Having your business ad appear on a regular basis builds name recognition and convinces prospective customers to trust you.

Even though internet advertising is here to stay, old-fashioned print ads can still produce results as long as you use them effectively. Remember there are still thousands of people who have no access to the internet and who depend on local newspapers and yellow pages to find the products and services they need. A classified advertisement for a small business can help bridge this gap very nicely indeed. What’s more, it is a fairly inexpensive way for small businesses to market themselves.

Here are three common disabling beliefs which prevent people from starting small businesses because of the fear of failure.

Many think they are not well enough educated, come from a poor background which holds them back, or think they need loads of money to get started in a new small business venture.

Let me show you why I think these are not true.

Lack Of Education

Many believe you need a good education to make a lot of money or to start up successful small businesses.

Far from being held back by poor education, it may actually be an advantage. Just as blind people often have much better hearing, people who have less education often compensate in other ways.

They may communicate more effectively to a wider population, they often exhibit greater dexterity and ability working with a wide range of materials and have great ability to judge risk and reward.

A good education can even be shown to be a disadvantage to entrepreneurship.

It is normal for well-educated people to find it easy to get a job. This means they are making money for someone else, in exchange for a smaller proportion of money back. (If employers didn’t make more money from their workers than they paid them, then they couldn’t continue to employ them.)

Having had a good job for a while, to give it up on a small business enterprise usually means risking losing that job, and the money that comes in with it, which may be needed to start the new venture. This brings us to another myth-
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