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THE PRODUCTIVITY INSTITUTE NEWSLETTER Friday, September 24, 2010
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Newsletter topics: Social Media, Opportunity, Verbal Branding, Tweeting (a cartoon), Remembering a Past Era
by Bruce Newman
Coupons have been around seemingly forever. In social media, however, they have
now taken on a new incarnation: groupons. What’s a groupon? A groupon is a coupon
that requires a predetermined minimum number of people to use it before it becomes
effective.
To elucidate further by use of an example, a store offers a coupon for 60% off
of some item. However, since this may be a drastic reduction, it needs to make a minimum number of
sales for this promotion to be cost effective. It sets this minimum and the percentage off for
the product when creating the groupon. Using the groupon, a buyer will purchase the item at
the reduced price with their credit card. However, the charge won’t be made and the
purchase won’t be completed until the specified minimum number of groupons are used by
interested buyers. For this reason, buyers are encouraged to use social media – such as
Facebook, Twitter and mobile – to tell other potential buyers about the sale. The seller
wins because it gets a lot of publicity and – potentially - moves a lot of merchandise. The
buyers win because they get a large group discount and Groupon wins because its user base continues
to increase. In Groupon’s first nationwide campaign which just ended, it partnered with
the Gap by offering $50 worth of apparel for $25 (a 50% groupon). This resulted in 441,000
groupons and over $11 million in sales. Did the Gap make a profit on the sale? Probably, but
more importantly, it generated a huge audience and brand awareness.
(continue)
by Katie Mead
 When opportunity knocks,
it’s important to answer, right?
Success in business depends upon
the integration of many factors. Commitment, excellent organizational skills, courage and
vision are all important. Choosing a direction and consistently working toward it is
imperative. All this, combined with an excellent business offering, will ensure that
you’re poised to act when opportunity comes knocking. Maintaining the momentum required
for growth and advancement is important; however, is every opportunity worth the leap?
Success at all
costs
Many of us were taught that in a job interview we must land the job – no matter what. Once you’ve got the job then you can decide whether or not you want it. However, chances are this tactic will not guarantee your career satisfaction; nor will it reflect well on your reputation. Instead, what if you assessed each opportunity’s suitability based on its potential fit? Approach each meeting from a fact-finding perspective and remember: as a job-seeker it is important that you ‘audition’ the prospective employer, as well as the other way round. (continue)
by Stephen Melanson
 The most
frequent complaints in the marketplace are something like: “We have no idea how to
differentiate ourselves with so much competition” and “Everyone I talk to gets lost in
all the details”. Many people attribute this to sales and marketing problems. They are
not but instead, a problem with brand positioning. How a brand is developed and implemented
both internally within a company and externally to its customers requires a spoken criteria for
initial contact and a true verbal application for everyday use. Rather than be standalone
entities, sales and marketing become an important part of this brand platform. A Verbal Branding platform is the
only solution. It combines brand positioning – one or two concepts at most that convey
how you are “different and better” than the competition – with a fully defined
application for all spoken interactions such as sales, networking, and presentation.
5
Seconds
It only takes five seconds worth
of brand-oriented information to immediately differentiate you from your competition. This
information acts as the leading edge of your brand, regardless of what type of interaction comes
after it. It’s what people remember about your brand and what you offer. Not only is it
remarkably simple and concise but it also offers an inherent competitive advantage because of its
revolutionary approach. Instead of your one minute long elevator pitch, your readily remembered
differentiation pitch is now 5 seconds.
(continue) Nothing to Tweet by Dave Walker
 (continue) for more Dave Walker cartoons
A Chance Meeting by Norman Levine
 Imagine a dinner party with 30
literary and visual arts luminaries and you are the fly on the wall or perhaps in the soup doing the
backstroke listening to them jabbering away.
From mid-century 19th to
mid-century 20th Rachel Cohen in her book,A Chance Meeting brings these poets and writers and
photographers and artists alive on the page. After enormous research from diaries, memoirs and
biographies she has found connective threads that became the tapestry of the American literary
landscape.
We are treated to a stream of
numinous moments such as Helen Keller remarking how she felt, in Mark Twain's handshake, the twinkle
in his eye. We tag along with W.E.B. Dubois and his professor, William James on their visit to Helen
Keller.
Small gestures are carefully
observed as Charlie Chaplin ducks into a Hungarian restaurant to avoid a crowd and stays for four
hours studying a violinist whose body movements he will later use in a film. Joseph Cornell is
arrested for loitering outside a movie theater. He was entranced by the lit booth of the ticket
seller on an otherwise dark street.
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