There is a new trend in advertising to sound as IF you are cursing, but aren’t actually using those words. This greatly bothers me. For example, here is a booking.com commercial. Here’s another one from Fresh and Easy Market: They can't think of a better creative way to market their products without using obvious substitutes for curse words? This commercial is on during family time. What is this teaching our children? Do they think they don’t get it? Shame on them! Now, I’m not one who says all words that take the place of swear words are bad. Most of those words don’t bring the image of swear words. They are creative and fun alternatives to saying whoops! Like oh...
You may have noticed that the more I get my dander up, the more sarcastic I get, and nothing does it as well as a Communication Pet Peeve! Here's what happened. My husband gets a bunch of emails from various Marketing Gurus each day. Every so often they invite him to a free seminar where they give away a small amount of free information about marketing your business and then ask you to spend anywhere from $374 to $1997 for their eBook, software product, or consulting services. We've been to so many of these the formula is obvious. It begins with 15 minutes of the host telling you why the Speaker Guru is so great followed by 15 minutes of...
June is Effective Communication Month so, to celebrate, Art of Eloquence is hosting a contest here on the blog where you could win free Art of Eloquence studies of YOUR CHOICE! Here's how it works: CONTEST RULES/HOW TO ENTER: 1. Submit a family-friendly, funny or sweet story of miscommunication. The story could have happened to you in "real life," you could have heard about it happening to someone else OR you could write one out of your own imagination. It can be funny like a Foot in Mouth Man episode or a sweet and inspirational story. Preferably just a few sentences or a paragraph, but there is no limit to the length if it's a good story. 2. Post them...
If' you're a Christian working a small business, you need to join me this morning! You may not realize it, but almost every aspect of your business involves communication skills. The more effective you are, the more success you'll have in your business. Jill Hart of CWAHM and a sampling of Christian Work at Home Moms join me this morning (9am PST/12pm EST) to share tips and techniques for better communication with your customers, co workers, suppliers, employees and more. We'll discuss tips for customer service, sales, marketing, your blog, website, dealing with co workers, social networking like Yahoo groups, Facebook and Twitter. Join us via your computer: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/19736 Or call in to the show: Phone Number: (724) 444-7444 Call...
All this month I've been sharing from my article, "12 Deadly Communication Sins of Advertising" and today's installment is about whining. As mom would say... Have Some Whine with That Cheese. Be careful to look over your marketing message for anything that might seem unprofessional for your industry before it is sent out. Have you ever looked at some of those infomercials and cable TV commercials? Some of them make my daughter cringe. You may be a small business with a small budget, but you don't want to give the impression that you are a cheesy, cheap company. Aside from the issues I mentioned in previous posts like poor spelling or feigning ignorance, one of the ways small business owners...
