Collaboration Beats Competition - So "Cluster"

Mutual collaboration is for people who prefer not to grow their business alone. A small "cluster" of entrepreneurs dedicated to helping each other succeed is really practical and makes good sense. If you need more customers, more time to GTD (Get Things Done) and need to are faced with more than you can handle, why else can you do? Answer - Think "better together." Rather than striving to "go it alone" and be independent, try a little mutual collaboration. Get the feel for "interdependence" - relying upon others to help you as you help them. Remember, winners do not it alone. It takes a team.

When forming your group, here are some wonderful recommendations from author and entrepreneur, Andre Taylor.

1) Seek out thinkers and doers.

2) Decide on individual and group goals.

3) Have a fixed time, clear agenda and inspiring location.

4) All must bring experience, research and insight.

5) Be ambitious, consistent and inventive.

Finally, take a look at this video - Become a Money Master Mind.

Mutually Collaborate Your Display Advertising

During these challenging economic times it makes good sense to collaborate your promotional needs. Why go about creating and posting your own ads, when it may in fact be cheaper and even look more polished to collaborate your promotional effort with other folks?

The Ryze Business Network recently did this with the creation of a magnet to-do-list-board. A person in Canada designed the board. Then, she had a good number created and shipped to Middletown, CA. These boards are currently being distributed throughout the county. The boards fit nicely on refrigerator doors and provide a year-round branding opportunity for the businesses which are advertised on them.

However, the most obvious way to collaborate is via display advertising in printed publications. One person buys the ad space with the help of a group of businesses who desire to be promoted within it. If anyone there knows how to add PR optimization to the process with social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Squidoo, you end up creating a great deal of positive buzz for a rather small outgoing expense.

To see what I am talking about, visit the Squidoo Lens - Lake County Events.

Five Clever Word-of-Mouth Marketing Tips For Restaurants

Here are five clever word-of-mouth marketing tips for restaurants from Andy Sernovitz and SmartBrief, Inc. - a media company on a mission to save you money and keep you smart:

1. Send your customers home with something. Send folks out of your restaurant with a unique doggy bag, a T-shirt, some dessert to share — anything that will help them tell the next people they see about you.

2. Offer a secret menu item. Offer a dish or special drink that only insiders know about. It will not only make them feel special, but will also give them something to share with their friends.
   

3. Put things on the wall that will encourage customers to bring their friends to show them. Try taking pictures of your best customers, having a “wall of fame,” or allowing them to use personalized mugs.
   

4. Host special events. Find key groups of talkers and invite them to meet in your restaurant. Try hosting a quarterly gathering for wedding planners, or hosting meetings for groups that come together frequently, such as the Boy Scouts.
   

5. Create a holiday. Whether you go all out for a traditional holiday or you create your own — bring people to your place for a celebration. White Castle came up with a great spin on Valentine’s Day by creating “Love Castle,” where folks are encouraged to make reservations and bring their significant others for a candlelit dinner.

Showcasting Someone Else's PFD and Vlog

Take a look at this - Between Iraq and a Hard Place: Where's Dan? To showcase what someone else sends you online, all you need is a link placed on a blog. Any free blog site will do for this. Any free Squidoo lens will do this as well. But, if you want to actually create something similar to what Dan has done - and you do not have access to a web server because you do not have a domain name of your own - I recommend you open up a Slideshare account. This may be all you need. However, I want you to know that Slideshare has a module that works within Squidoo. And, a Squidoo/Slideshare pairing may prove more to your liking.

Where PR and Social Media Merge

Thanks to PitchEngine.com, I have access to a unique press release service. I am able to get news listed on Google News. In fact, both of my press releases for a recent festival got posted to Google News. Believe it or not, I got a letter of accommodation for that festival from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I admit to being a little unconventional. When I spread news about an event, I get the world involved. I am a big advocate of mutual collaboration. Just visit Hardesters Shopping Center's Spring Fling. I got Canada's Globespan TV to interview a woman in Hidden Valley Lake, CA regarding the local festival. I also got vendors for the festival to showcase "Dear Editor" letters. These letters were used not only to draw the local media to the festival, but also to aid them in promoting it. I may soon have my own (online press room) up-and-running.

My press release service is social media-based. I not only target specific media, I inter-mingle with the PR community. The best way to reach a target market is NOT to push your message AT THEM. The best way to reach a TARGET MARKET is through a THIRD-PARTY REFERRAL. And, the best way to get a third-party referral today is through the dynamics of SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS. See the diagram below.

In addition to having access to a press release service, I have an online talk show, called Power Networking on Talkshoe.com. I have had celebrities like Jon Provost ("Timmie" of the Lassie TV series) and members of the National Speakers Association, such as Rebecca Morgan, as guests. I also moderate a special network on Ryze.com called Clusters: Small Business Group Netweaving. This network is designed not only to educate folks on the use of social media tools, but to help them in small groups get goals they want to achieve reached. Quite simply, it is much easier to GTD (Get Things Done) when you work in a small group of passionate people. I have also created CD's and done direct-mail campaigns for professional speakers, set up Wi-Fi hot spots and market Wi-Fi digital photo frames.

If you know a business anywhere in the English-speaking world - not just your local community - that needs to create some "buzz," please know I am confident I can help.

Contact information:
Email - lamar@mchsi.com
Phone: 707-709-8605
Skype: lamar777
Twitter: lamarjmorgan

PitchEngine - Social Media Meets Press Release

Tired of the traditional press release? Sick of Word docs, pdf email attachments and image CDs? PitchEngine makes it easy for you to incorporate PR assets like video, audio and images directly into your press release and share it with your media contacts via email and cut-and-paste links or post it directly to Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and more!

Your media contacts will be able to make comments, ask questions and find more resources about your company, client or brand right from within each release. No more attachments, no more unnecessary phone calls and voice mails asking for photos, product samples or interviews- it's all available for easy delivery with the PitchEngine SMR. Streamline the media relations process and make journalists, bloggers and writers see what they’ve been missing.

Make Friends With The Foundation Center

The Foundation Center is America's philanthropic library system. More than likely, you will not run across anyone who knows more about connecting the people who need grant money with those that have it than them. For that reason, it would be good to develop some kind of relationship with them - whether you happen to be personally associated with a nonprofit organization or not.

While The Foundation Center is headquartered in New York City, it does have branch offices across the nation in major cities - such as Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco. It also has what it calls "cooperating collections" across the US and into Mexico.

If you want to learn the basics of grant-seeking, how to write grant letters - including putting together a grant budget proposal - The Foundation Center is well-qualified to teach you. The library system has been in existence for 53 years.

If you happen to live in Lake County, CA or know someone who does and needs grant-funding assistance, there is going to be a FREE grant-writing seminar, conducting by Scott Ullman of The Foundation Center of San Francisco on Wednesday, April 15th, from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Hidden Valley Community Church, 18160 Spruce Grove Rd. Ext. in Hidden Valley Lake. All that is required to attend is to RSVP.

For more information on the seminar and to RSVP, visit www.squidoo.com/TMMF.