Southern California-born Roni Lynn Deutch is acclaimed for her efforts in her tax law firm called Roni Deutch: A Professional Tax Corporation. Despite the huge success her business has achieved today, it actually started out small and simple.

When she was studying at Western State University College of Law, she realized that it was her calling to learn the federal tax code and to figure out how to assist those who need help on their taxes. She immediately established the Roni Deutch: A Professional Tax Corporation in her small condo in West Sacramento after she passed the California Tax Law Bar Exam.

It wasn’t long until the firm expanded and employed several accountants and tax attorneys to serve its clients. She also extended the firm’s services to the Hispanic market by employing tax councilors who are fluent in Spanish.

Roni Lynn Deutch later wrote a book called “The Tax Lady’s Guide to Beating the IRS,” a guide to reduce a taxpayer’s load. Apart from her endeavors in helping out her clients, Roni Lynn Deutch surfs and plays baseball. And to keep everyone updated on any tax-related issue, Deutch put up an active blog site, Roni Deutch: The Tax Lady Blog, which can be found at http://www.ronideutch.blogspot.com/.

Your Value Proposition, or as I usually call it, your Core Marketing Message, is still misunderstood by most professionals. It’s not just a tagline, sound bite or even an “Audio Logo.” It goes way beyond that.

It really is the expression of the essence of your business. It’s the foundation of all your marketing messages. It’s what makes you stand out and be memorable in an overcrowded marketplace of look-a likes. And it always is more about your clients and their businesses than it is about you and your business.

A great Value Proposition has several elements that, combined together, pack a powerful marketing punch that’s hard to ignore. These elements include the following:

1. Your ideal target client - Who exactly are your services designed for? It certainly just can’t be just “medium or large companies.” You need to zero in on much more specifically. What industry, department, technology, values?

2. Their problems or challenges - What are they struggling with? What’s not working for them? What opportunities are coming up that they may not be meeting successfully? What keeps them up at night? You need to know this in your head, heart and gut.

3. The solutions or results - Where do they want to go? What do they aspire to? What are they excited about and committed to? After they’ve solved their problems, where are they going to put their attention and resources?

4. The unique angle - What have you got that nobody else has? And how is this an advantage to your clients? What can you do faster, better, smarter than every other competitor out there? You need to know this with a high degree of certainty or you’ll just blend in with everyone else.

When you approach a buyer, whether through a call, an email, an article, or your web content, this Value Proposition needs to pop out vividly and urgently, letting them know you are worth paying attention to.

If you are going to express your Value Proposition verbally, you can usually do it in two well-structured sentences. These statements can be used in a wide variety of situations, from meeting someone at a networking event to calling a big company prospect on the phone.

Audio Logo: We work with companies who have large, widely diverse teams of workers and who are frustrated with high attrition rates and reduced productivity. (Target market plus problem)

Follow-Up: Our clients are interested in both cutting costs and increasing retention and appreciate that our “guaranteed worker program” results in the very best workers that stay 295% longer than the industry average. (Solution and uniqueness)

If you can develop a concise Value Proposition that is more than just words but is something you can really deliver on, you will find it much easier to get the attention and interest of buyers in big companies. Here are some of the biggest mistakes I see made in developing a Value Proposition.

* Thinking that it’s not important - You’ve go to make this a *Big Deal* because it’s really the key to it all. Sure it sounds complex and abstract. But the turning point in your business is likely to come when you “see the light” and start “preaching your message.”

* Not researching and testing - It’s not going to come to you in two minutes (unless you are very lucky). It usually takes a fair amount of research, brainstorming, testing it on clients and associates before it really clicks and you know you have something that works.

* Not truly differentiating - Often a Value Proposition only gets as far as the target market and the problem. That’s good but it can be too generic. Only when you get into your solution and your uniqueness will you really stand out and be noticed.

* Not having enough depth - A Value Proposition needs to go way beyond those four points and two statements outlined above. It needs to permeate into every nook and cranny of your marketing. Every expression of your business, large or small, needs to reek of your Value Proposition.

* Not having stories - Stories are the most persuasive marketing tools you can use. Take your Value Proposition as the central theme around which you’ll build your case studies and other stories that make a compelling and emotional case for your services.

To measure how strong your brand is copy and paste: (http://brandidentityguru.com/bightml/brandmasterpiece.html). Then click “Take the brand strength test”. This is a short survey that measures the strength of any company’s brand. It’s a great tool to see where you are today.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru (http://www.brandidentityguru.com), a leading brand consulting and market research firm located in Easton, Massachusetts, USA, near Boston. Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

Over the course of his 15-year branding career, Scott White has worked in a wide variety of industries: high-tech, manufacturing, computer hardware and software, telecommunications, banking, restaurants, fashion, healthcare, Internet, retail, and service businesses, as well as numerous non-profit organizations.

Brand Identity Guru clients include: Sun Life Financial, Coca Cola, HP, Sun, Nordstrom, American Federal Mortgage, Simon (America’s largest shopping mall manager) and many others, including numerous emerging growth companies.

Scott White is a very enthusiastic speaker and has the gift of being able to explain the principles of branding in a compelling and entertaining manner so that people at all levels can understand.

Parades happen in every big city and many small towns. They are fun, relaxing and most people are there because they really want to be. Parades are a wonderful marketing tool if you know what to do! I recommend being a part of your local town parades. For most local home towns, it only takes a convertible and some decorations. The biggest parade in my home town is the Rose Parade because I grew up in Pasadena. There are not too many locals in that parade, but the little know Doo-Dah Parade is FULL of locals and locals watching it. When people like a particular float or group, they throw soft tortillas at them. Most local parades are covered by the local cable company.

As you pass by the announcers will give your information on television. If you are in the parade, you can increase your face-name recognition. If you judge the parade, you name and business will be announced to the crowd. Parades allow you to give out promotional items to the crowd. Parades also allow you to show off contest winners. If your business held a contest, get a convertible and the contest winners and get into the parade! Most parades are very low cost or free to participate in.

I love a parade because it can also get you interviews by local television, magazine and radio stations. Find out what is going on in your town. You usually have to sign up about 2 months in advance but if you just heard about something at the last minute, try and get in. I have seen people get into parades the morning of the sign up. But early sign up means, everyone will have your name and number. Publicity means being creative! Parades allow you to promote your business or website and support the community at the same time.

Copyright 2005

Dr. Letitia S. Wright, D.C. is a Stevie Award Finalist for 2004 and the host of The Wright Place TV Show. She interviews top entrepreneurs to find out the best current strategies. To Subscribe to the newsletter and get the report Five Fast Ways to Get on TV email : info1080-89555@autocontactor.com

The TruReputation Score is a unique and concise way to quickly measure your online reputation. When you log on to this site, you’ll be given a tour of the top twenty results of any query you’re interested. Most visitors are, of course, interested in seeing how their own name or the name of their business stacks up.

With each result that the TruReputation Score outputs, you have the opportunity to grade the website on a scale from one to five. Grades 4 and 5 are for websites that are positive in nature, such as your company’s corporate website, or a positive review or profile from a third party. Positive websites also include social network sites (such as LinkedIn), or affiliate sites that are selling your product (such as Amazon). Grade 3 is for neutral websites, which are neither complimentary nor hostile to your query. Grade 2 are for unrelated sites. Sometimes another entity shares the same or a similar name to you or your company. Generally, Grade 2 sites are neutral and inoffensive in nature, but simply have nothing to do with you.

Finally, Grade 1 and 0 sites are openly hostile to your name space. These sites include unfair and inflammatory reviews of your products, false gossips sites spreading rumors, and misinformed analysis of your business model or practices.

When all these scores are put together, you get a grand total of your reputation. From there, you’ll have a better idea of how you should proceed.

Brand Identity is a promise. One given from business to customer to expect certain things. Whether that promise involves product quality, service, price or a million other things varies from brand to brand. But the one thing common among all brands is the need to be a strong brand.

Why is brand identity so critical?

A strong brand identity can position a company above its competition all by itself. But having a brand that’s strong takes time, money and effort to develop. It’s not as simple as just redesigning a logo or rewriting a tagline. Brand identity is the reason you offer for your customer to choose you instead of your competition.

How to rework your brand identity

Successful re-branding involves “evolution,” not “revolution.” You must impress upon your existing customers that your new brand is just a new and improved version of the same you. It’s important to not get too crazy with a re-branding effort because you could end up destroying fragile emotional ties and customer loyalty.

Brand identity is much more than marketing

Having a brand identity that resonates with your market is important, but not at the expense of the people within your company. They need to not only get it, but also be your brand’s most fervent ambassadors. Do your employees believe in your company? Do they feel like they have a vested stake in its success? Companies with solid brand identities can say yes to these questions. Can yours? If not, here’s some things you can do:

1. Get every aspect of your company on the same page: Easier said than done, right? Well, that doesn’t mean it’s not necessary. Get all your departments talking to each other and understanding each other.

2. Promote everyone to the position of brand ambassador: Give everyone a common understanding of the company, its mission and their part in it. They should feel like they have ownershipeven if they don’t.

3. Reinforce brand values and behaviors: To do this, use the tools you have, such as internal communications…and like a good basketball coach, consistently promote these fundamentals until they’re second nature.

Your employees will ultimately determine your success or failure. That’s why it’s so important to have them buy into your company’s brand identity. However, that’s not something that can be forced. You, as leadership, must earn it. But once you do, you’ll have a company that is full of happy, motivated successful brand ambassadors.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm in Boston, MA.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Keeping a project under budget, especially one that involves design, approval, and programming can be nearly impossible. With the amount of factors involved in a project as large scale as a site, the price can tend to fluctuate. Sadly before you know it the amount of revisions and additions can lead you to step outside an otherwise concrete budget. Only when you are working with a web design company that truly understands your needs can you then accomplish your goal.

For a web design firm to truly understand the needs of your company they must understand what type of company you have, the message and goals it is meant to convey, and that your budget may or may not be intended to be flexible. Brokering a design or development firm can not only provide flexibility, but also provide a custom branding strategy for your business.

With a web design firm aimed at saving you time and money in the quickest amount of time, you can accomplish these goals. The more people you have working for you, the less worry you have to preoccupy yourself wondering if the job can be completed in the time allotted. Brokering the jobs that need to be completed helps spread the workload evenly amongst a team that is more capable of getting your business up and running on the web.