"Business Networking That Doesn't Suck"

I just wanted to drop a quick note about a social networking site I've been a member of for the past year. Biznik has been a great way to network with others in the business community, as well as a good resource for a wide range of articles on all kinds of business topics. While I am a member of other social networking sites, like facebook and linkedin, I have found Biznik has been the best resource for business networking. I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you are a business owner or manager. Here's a little more information, directly from Biznik:

About Biznik
Biznik is based on a simple idea: connecting small businesses to each other for mutual business benefit.Biznik combines powerful social networking technology with face-to-face meetings and education, in a community that serves the unique needs of entrepreneurs and personal businesses. Biznik is a free service with opportunities for members to pay for enhanced features and more visibility. Membership levels include Supporting, Active and Basic. Biznik offers a variety of services for each member at each membership level, with new programs and resources being added regularly.

Check it out: www.biznik.com! Let me know what you think. And be sure to visit my profile!

Guerilla Marketing: The F.U. Lesson

For the past few weeks, I've been meeting with a guerilla marketing coach, who has helped me focus on the marketing plan and tactics for Kalico Design. During the course of my work day I get so caught up in producing eye-catching and effective graphic design to help others portray their marketing message, that my own marketing kind of gets put on the back burner. Not anymore! I meet once a week with my coach, and take an hour or two out of the week to work on my own marketing with focused intentionality and determination. While I am not permitted to share the specific guerilla worksheets, verbiage and lessons; I'd like to share some of the (very simple!) actions I've taken in the past few weeks which have yielded results. I plan to hit on one or two topics each week, in the hopes that some of these my help others out as well.

My first "field work" assignment was relatively simple (I've found that most of the guerilla marketing tactics are actually extremely simple, and I often think to myself "Duh. Why HAVEN'T I been doing that?"). Anyway, my first task was simple — follow up, or F.U., as one of my networking buddies has coined! I actually thought I had been doing a relatively good job at this. I follow up consistently with clients during the course of a particular job, and often soon after the job as well. What I hadn't been doing was following-up with clients on a regular, scheduled basis. I would just send a follow-up email or give a client a quick phone call when I had the time or when it popped in my head, which resulted in putting the follow-up on the back burner, or sometimes forgetting for weeks or months on end.

So, last week, I followed up with the majority of my past clients, just by sending a quick email. And guess what!? I had an 80% response rate, which immediately resulted in new projects for 40% of those I had contacted, with several more potential projects in the future for others. All by just sending a quick email! I now have also scheduled a semi-annual F.U. session on the Kalico calendar, so I will be sure to follow through on the whole follow-up!

Are you doing consistent and effective follow-up with your existing clients? If not, try it out and let me know what results you get. Send and email, or make a phone call—whatever works best for YOU and your business! Be sure to make it a habit and designate certain F.U. days on your calendar to help you remember!

Also, if you'd like more information on guerilla marketing, please visit their website or check out the guerilla blog for more marketing suggestions!

Valentine's Day Promo

Happy Valentine's Day! I apologize for the delay in posting, it's been a busy two weeks on the Kalico home front. I managed to send out my first client gift and promo last week—a Valentine's Day promo thanking all my clients. While it was just a simple treat, a tin of M&M's, labeled with my name and a V-Day greeting, as well as a few extra chocolates, it seemed to be a big hit with all my clients! I don't think they were expecting it! I had originally intended to send out a Christmas gift, but then I figured, why not send it out at a different time? Stand out amongst the slew of Christmas/New Year's holiday promos, and I think it did the trick! Plus, I get to eat all the left over candies!

Green Yet Logo Gets Recognition!

I was just notified that the Green Yet? logo has recently been selected to be published in the upcoming book, The Big Book of Green Design. The book will be 384 pages of design examples of earth-friendly designs. It will be printed on FSC certified paper, and broken into three sections, including: 1. Retail and B2B Products that portray a green image; 2. Companies that have 'gone green' and 3.Individual Green-ness (examples of graphic designers who have 'gone green').

The book will be produced by Crescent Hill Books, creators of books such as "The Big Book of Logos" series, the Creativity series and American Corporate Identity book series. No word on when the book will be available in stores, but I will be sure to keep you updated.

Logo Inspiration & Resource

I recently submitted a few of my logo designs to both LogoPond and LogoGala, both of which are great sources of inspiration, showcasing professionally created logos. I often go there to get ideas on color combinations, illustration techniques, or interesting font choices that I can incorporate into my own logo designs (or to just browse through some great concepts in general). LogoPond has hundreds of logos showcased, and there is a great search field if you're looking for a particular style or industry. While LogoGala is relatively new, there are more logos added daily, so this will most likely become a great resource in just a few months time. Please be sure to visit LogoPond and vote for my logos (which will give them better site rankings and higher visibility):

Green Yet
Joy of Herbs
Character Bags

To vote, just click on the little life saver icon in the bottom left corner. More logos to be posted soon!

Designer People: Television Series

I happily stumbled across a great television program last night. For the remainder of January, Ovation TV is showing a series called "Designer People". It highlights leading designers in architecture, communication, industrial, interior, and fashion, from all over the world. Last night I watched the episode on Ed Fella, who was an emerging commercial designer (as they called it back then) in the 1960's and 70's. Of course, I thought it was extremely interesting, especially due to the fact that Ed did not use the computer to develop any of his designs, even into the 80's and 90's! He broke the conventions of graphic design — at the time dominated by the Swiss design approach, consisting a clean lines, minimal features and a grid system — by making text have a sense of movement on the page, often swirling and curving.

The Designer People series is part of Ovation TV's overall "Everything is Art" campaign. I highly recommend trying to catch a few of these episodes. For a list of upcoming shows, go to the schedule page on Ovation TV's website and click on "design".

Bittbox—Great Design Resources

I wanted to let everyone know about a great design resource site I've been going to for a while now — www.bittbox.com! Bittbox offers loads of free fonts, tutorials, textures, even some vector art. Bittbox is the brain child of Jay Hilgert who self characterizes himself as a "Designer, Blogger, Web Enthusiast, and an Apple Geek". Just wanted to say thanks to Jay and to Bittbox, they've been a great resource for my own designs, and I'll be sure to keep going back to them! I hope Bittbox might help you out as well—be sure to check them out!