Heather Ogg has a flair for capturing our vision with imagery that takes it to a place beyond. She is a truly creative professional.
Heather understands the importance of maintaining your brand in all that you do and does a wonderful job maintaining the look and feel of the brand in all internal and external materials.
Scott Branovan
President & CEO
Roustan United
RESOURCES
SKYPE WITH ME!
I know some people are uncomfortable working remotely, but I have done it for years and it works! Skype is one way to 'be there' and it's free. No long distance phone bills and you can choose to video or just call (in case you are having one of those bad hair days).
Make video calls from your computer – free to other people on Skype. And the sound quality is excellent, too – keep Skype running all day and it’s like you’re in the same room as the person you're talking to.
Click here to learn more and start Skype-ing!
CREATING YOUR OWN AWARD-WINNING, CHANGE-THE-WORLD PRESENTATION.
Presentations have evolved and are no longer text on slides. Great presentations are stories, told with passion, using visuals only to support and illustrate what the presenter is saying.
Imagine Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech presented on a slide:
I HAVE A DREAM
- Better life
- Racial equality
- Can see Promised Land
Let’s all be thankful that PowerPoint wasn’t around in 1963!
Like many, the best presentation I have ever seen was Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. Imagine a presentation, becoming a film, winning an academy award, and being part of winning a Nobel Peace Prize. Wouldn’t it be great if your presentations had that kind of impact? Let’s take a look at a framework to guide you towards creating your own award-winning, change-the-world presentation.
- Tell your story
- Know your stuff
- Present with feeling and passion
- Present as if you are having a conversation to engage your audience
- Be brief
- Be relaxed
- Set a comfortable pace
- Make eye contact
- Speak to the back of the room
- Be on same level with audience
- Move around
- Use visuals only to support your message
- Avoid using words on slides
- If you must use words, less is best. No more that 15 words per slide.
- Avoid using animations. It’s distracting.
- Reveal elements one step at a time to engage your audience
- Make your audience feel
- Use friendly humor and humility
- Your audience must leave inspired and motivated
Make your subject matter!
WHAT HAVING A WEBSITE CAN DO FOR YOU.
A website is a strategic marketing tool that adds value and positions your organization. As a consumer, if an organization does not have a website, I pass them over and move on to someone who does. Like many, I want information right away. In this day and age consumers expect organizations to have a website, and with 40 million people on the web worldwide, the internet should be among the first places you establish a presence.
Here is how you will benefit.
- Establish your presence
- Promote your brand
- Expand your market reach
- Promote your products and services
- Sell your products and services online
- Communicate with your business email accounts
- Gather information with online forms and surveys
- Offer instant self-service online forms to your customers
- Inform people why they should do business with your company
- Track who is visiting your website
- Be available 24 / 7 at your customer’s convenience
There is no doubt that if you are in business today you need a website, however please remember, it is better to have no website at all, than to have one that makes your organization look unprofessional.
Here are the costs of a having website:
- Initial website development and design
- Website hosting
- Website maintenance
TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG
Originally created to be an online journal, blogs can be an opportunity to connect with new potential clients and partners, or to reach and grow your audience. Every now and then, I have a client who I believe could really benefit from having a blog, only to discover that they don’t know what a blog is. Don’t worry, you are not alone! Let's demystify blogs so you can decide if blogging is right for you.
A blog is an online journal or message board where you can post pretty much anything. (But let’s stick to things that will position you as an expert and your company as a solution.) After each entry on a blog there is a link for people to comment. You can choose if the comments get posted immediately, or allow you to preview them before posting. For a blog to be effective it is important to post frequently.
What will you post on your blog?
Share information. I post additional information that explains, helps or educates my customers on a more personal level. It is also an opportunity for new potential clients to get comfortable with me.
- Extra information about your business
- Tips and articles
- Industry trends
- Trade shows and conferences
- Results and synopsis
- Dialogue
In addition, when you write comments to other people’s blogs, your comment is linked to your site, email address or to your own blog. The more links out there linked to your website, the higher up on the search engines you climb.
Link to your Blog from your website.
I create a link on the client’s website which links to an external blog created at blogger.com. Blogs created using Blogger allow people with little or no technical background to update and maintain their blog themselves.
But please always remember:
- Have something worthwhile to communicate.
- Some basic communication skills are required.
- Always practice humility.