Editor’s Note - The following is a guest post by Emily Brackett, President of Visible Logic, Inc. a Portland, Maine-based graphic design firm that works with start-ups and growing businesses to help them build compelling and comprehensive brands across media. A longtime reader of The Hot Iron and strategic partner of Dunkirk Systems, LLC, Emily shares some of her wisdom and experience here, which we hope will be the first of many guest posts from her.

As a business owner, you probably have the usual elements of your corporate identity: business name, logo or wordmark, business cards and a Web site. However, as you grow your business, your identity can either be strengthened by consistent branding, or dilluted by irregular use of these elements.

There are several common reasons why business owners are not consistent in their branding.

The first is that no one is in charge of watching the brand. Many times our brand identity is being added to, molded, and stretched without anyone giving it much thought. Someone should be ensuring that logo usage and graphic elements are consistent from one piece to the next and from one media to another. For a small business, this may be the business owners, or an internal marketing person. If you work with outside designers, Web developers or even a print shop who does some design/typesetting for you, make sure you instruct them on how to use your identity correctly and uniformly.

Another reason why many businesses have so little cohesiveness in their image is that they try new things too often. You may be tired of seeing the same colors and similar layouts, but your customers (or potential customers) may just be starting to grasp your unique identity. Keep with it and the payoff will arrive.

Why is consistency important?

Avoid confusion

The most obvious reason to be consistent with your brand identity is that you don't want to confuse potential clients and customers. Make it easy for someone to remember you. Frequently, people notice certain elements, but not all the details.

For example, you meet a potential client at a networking event and give her your business card which features a large, red, circular logo. A few weeks later, that person is thinking she may need your services so they Google your name and browse to your Web site. If she sees a large, red, circular logo she feels confident that she’s at the right place. If, on the other hand, your Web site shows your logo (even the same graphic) in green, she may feel confused and question whether this is indeed the same person and company she had met previously.

People trust things that they know

The first example highlights the most basic type of confusion that can cost you sales. But often it is more subtle than that. Every time a potential client hears your business name or sees your logo it gets registered, even slightly, in their memory. The stronger the bank of memories - and therefore the connection - someone has to a brand, the more likely they are to buy from that brand. Consumers choose brands that are familiar, because they seem known, established, and therefore trustworthy.

It makes business sense - increase your returns

Unfortunately, many business owners make their brand inconsistent without giving it much thought. One example is an entrepreneur who hires a Web development firm to create their Web site and another design studio for their printed work, without coordinating the two. You’ve paid for two projects but rather than having those two pieces compounding your brand and building them exponentially, you may end up with two unmatched marketing tools. Therefore, the two pieces are not as effective in building brand recognition as one coordinated effort.

How to build consistency:

• Use the same business name, logo, and/or logotype. Typeset the name and other elements, such as a tagline in a fixed fashion. Whether you do this yourself or work with an experienced graphic designer, once the logo or wordmark is done, don't change it.
• If you’ve hired a designer to develop your logo or wordmark, make sure you receive electronic files that you can work with. You and your staff should use these graphics in all letters, memos, proposals, etc. Do not retype or tinker with the logo, and do not allow your staff or agencies to do so either.
• Choose a corporate color, or color palette and use them as the dominant color scheme throughout your materials - printed or online. If you’ve worked with a professional designer for your logo, make sure you’ve received your pantone (PMS) color numbers as well as CMYK and RGB equivalents. Whether you create something yourself in PowerPoint or work with a graphic designer, always use those same colors.
• Think across media. Ensure there are design elements that are similar across all of your materials. From business card to Web site to advertisement to educational brochure, there should be a recognizable look and feel.
• If you worked with a professional designer, have them write up some easy-to-follow guidelines and have them create templates for you. These might include a letterhead template in Word and a PowerPoint template for your presentations.

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As human beings, most of us want to belong to something. Looking around a large city like Chicago or even a small town, there will certainly be options on organizations to join. Where the focus here of The Hot Iron is around business and technology, I will use that angle to talk about joining related organizations. However when you read through this, you will see this applies to most all organizations.

The cost of joining an organization is important to consider because, unless money is no obstacle to you, how much you spend or invest is probably of importance to you. I have broken down cost categories below, and things to consider and ask about when looking to join an organization. Of course, before going into the process of evaluating organizations, you may want to consider a budget or amount you can truly afford to spend. If you’re not sure, then be cautious and accountable along the way. Note this piece is about cost, and not about what you get for the costs, which I will address in the future if there is some interest from you the readers.

Direct Costs

Direct costs of an organization are those that are obvious. If an organization has an annual fee, that is a direct cost. Many times this figure is all that is talked about when joining, though there may be additional direct costs, such as costs per meeting or special events. Some organizations do not charge an annual fee but instead just charge per event or meeting. Which ever way it is done, it is important to find out what the direct cost structure is, as even if you will be paying for this over time, at the end of the year it will all add up.

Indirect Costs

Even after you have asked what it costs to belong to an organization, there may be additional costs of being a member that are not obvious, or official to the group. Some organizations have informal gatherings or just plain happy hours where most of the business or value of being a member can come from. Official meetings or events may be just that – official, structured and may not have the opportunity you would like to network or connect with others. If it means you need to go to the pub afterwards to really get to know people, unless they are running a bar tab, you will have to shell out a few more bucks to get the value of membership. This is also a question to ask – not necessarily from a cost standpoint but to ask if members socialize after official gatherings. You can do the math yourself based on their answer.

Time Costs

If you put any value to your time, then you should consider it when joining an organization. Even if you ask the question about how much time is required to get full-value from an organization, the true answer will come from further investigation and direct experience.

Some organizations are “member organizations” where the members run all aspects of what is done, as well as serve on its Board. As a general member, your time commitment may be lower. But over time, it may increase dramatically, especially if you find interest in being a leader in the organization. Trust me on this – it happened to me, in a good way, when I was involved in the Boston Jaycees, and eventually served as its president.

Some organizations have paid staff who manage the day-to-day of the organization, or there may be a hybrid of staff and members. Whatever the structure, it helps to ask around how much time is required to get the full value from the organization. Keep in mind this value may be on the higher side, as those who are regulars at meetings or events are probably the ones who are more active.

Baptism By Fire

Maybe this section heading is a little on the harsh side, but the only real way to find out the cost commitment to an organization is for yourself. Just be aware going in that you may end up spending a little more than you planned without even realizing it at first. This may not necessarily be a bad thing, as it means you may have found an organization that is a win-win for you.

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As much as a mobile phone is a high tech device, it doesn’t necessarily mean everybody who uses one is also high tech. In most cases, that is not the case. When I heard T-Mobile, who is my mobile provider, is going to start charging for paper copies of bills to be sent, I was honestly surprised. I heard about it in a tweet from CBS2 Chicago, and responded with my stance.

Shortly after I was asked if I would like to be interviewed about the story, to which your humble and definitely not camera-shy writer quickly obliged. The accompanying photo is a screen shot from the interview today on CBS2 with reporter Vince Gerasole, and by clicking on the picture or this link to the CBS2 Web site you can watch the story.

Maybe I am hyper sensitive to such issues in my capacity as a Web architect and developer, but the ultimate goal of any use of retail technology is to help those using it. As much as online billing is alive and flourishing, not to mention my use and support of it, I also understand that we are “not there yet” as a society when it comes to being completely paperless. Some people prefer a paper bill, especially for those who are not online continuously as others are. T-Mobile is charging $1.50 for a non-detailed bill (not listing all calls) and $3.50 for a bill listing them all. I can see if they wanted to impose a charge on a detailed bill, as they tend to run long (in the news story, the bill I printed was 18 pages), but charging even for a basic bill makes no sense to me.

Rather that starting with the charge, T-Mobile should incentivize people by offering them a credit, say US$5, to go paperless. That may cover most people. For those remaining, this should have already been worked into your pricing structure to send bills in some form. Rather than sending bulky envelopes with all kinds of inserts, perhaps send the statement in a self-sealing sheet, similar to how some checks are sent? There are other options – explore them!

I must admit I am a very satisfied T-Mobile customer, and I have stated that before here on The Hot Iron. However, one issue I do have is with billing. Where I get my bill online, I never get an email or even SMS alert that my bill is available. I have to rely on my credit card statement to see a new bill has been cut. Also, the T-Mobile site offers an HTML version of the bill and not a PDF version, so someone would need the software to make PDFs in order to save it digitally. Most other vendors send email alerts and offer PDFs.

I’m interested in how this issue plays out, and if other providers capitalize on it, or if all others start charging for bills. In any case, we all need to be aware about what is showing up on our bills. For this issue, I thank CBS2 Chicago for letting me know about it.

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As it comes up in conversation many times as to what my process (or dare I say, methodology?) is for writing blog posts on The Hot Iron, I thought it in itself would make a great post. Whether I am working with clients of Dunkirk Systems, LLC for whom we have developed blogs or having a conversation with colleagues, there is a method to the madness.

First Comes Inspiration

Ah, the true magic of blog posts. Ideas usually come to me when I am not at my desk, so I am usually leaving some paper or digital note for myself. These range from something I am passionate about writing to fleeting thoughts that could become something worth writing. Those that don’t get written up right away get added to my idea list, and on occasion I go to it for inspiration.

Pen to Paper

You read that correctly – pen… paper. Call me old school, call me low tech, but I find the best way to write is literally to write. Well, in my case print in my poor penmanship. I don’t write all of my posts out long hand (for example, likemind announcements). And I make no apologies for this, especially after reading James Whatley does the same, and he is much more “wired” than I, not to mention younger than me too.

Type, Post, Promote

Once written, I type up the post in Word, spell and grammar check it, then manually mark up with HTML tags including images and a footer message (see below). As I have been coding HTML since 1993, it works best for me.

At this point I log into ExpressionEngine, the power behind The Hot Iron, and preview and submit my post. I also tag it to categories and set a date and time, especially when I write blog posts ahead of time.

From there, Feedburner, FriendFeed and Facebook do their thing to promote my post. I will also manually tweet on it depending on the topic, as well as submit to social bookmarking sites.

So Far, So Good

And there you have it. This process has worked well for me over the past 2.5 years plus, and now through 500 blog posts!

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Several weeks ago I ran a quick poll on The Hot Iron asking people if they have a mentor or not. I tried to keep it to a simple “yes” or “no” but the wiseguy in me drove the 3rd question of “what is a mentor” but in hindsight, it may not be that crazy of a question.

This post and survey initiated a lot of dialogue in the form of both blog and Facebook comments and some direct questions from people. It got people thinking. As well these folks asked me why I was posing this question.

My reason was a simple one - I do not have a mentor.

My Definition of a Mentor

Before I go into the “problem” I thought I would define it first. My general definition of a mentor is a senior, non-compensated, action-oriented individual who works to ensure your career thrives! This is someone who does not have a financial stake in your success, rather a personal and emotional one. No goods and services outside of a cocktail or meal are ever exchanged. They are not there to tell you what to do, but to provide wisdom and guidance for you to use in your decision-making.

Now For The Analysis

I cannot pinpoint why exactly I do not have a mentor. I am certainly not alone in the world, as I have a great network of friends, colleagues, partners and clients with whom I collaborate and seek advice from regularly. But this network is more of a peer group. The fact I come from the technology field may attribute to it, as many techies prefer to be alone and many do not seek out anyone, with the exception if they need help troubleshooting their code. My entrepreneurial timeline is going on 5 years, so maybe this is too short?

Over the years I have worked for some good managers that I learn much from. When I worked for a large consulting firm I had several “staff managers” who were supposed to oversee your career growth within the firm. Some were decent, and some sucked and I got nothing from them at all. In the end, the advancement of the firm came first, as the one time I sought my staff manager to get me out of COBOL and into the Web, they didn’t even pretend to make an effort to help.

On the flipside, I have been told by people I have been a mentor to them. Whether it was people on my team, peers within a company or interns, I was told I provided good advice and support above and beyond whatever formal working role there was. I have enjoyed this role and have accepted any mentoring or advice requests from people over the years. I also serve on the Board of Advisors for 2 firms.

So What To Do About It

In life you can’t go back and change things. Even if you could, my guess it you would probably make pretty much the same decision. Where I can’t go back and change whatever I did or did not to do, I can only go forward and effect change.

But how?

Thus I am writing this post. Just today I read a great article on mentoring by Jason Jacobsohn , so I am inspired to engage in this process. I welcome any insight and advice from those who have sought out mentors on what worked and what didn’t work. Or if you have a mentor or are mentoring someone, how did it come about?

I’ll report progress - stay tuned.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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