This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop; they will be waiting for you when you start doing the things you love. Stop over analyzing, life is simple. All emotions are beautiful. When you eat, appreciate every last bite. Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people, we are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is, and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often; getting lost will help you find yourself. Some opportunities only come once, seize them. Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them so go out and start creating. Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion.

Essentially your top performers are role models, which has a win-win benefit. Letting your best people know that they are an example for others sets the bar even higher for them and provides motivation to “keep up the great job.” Be sure you articulate their key strengths—and how each of them brings value to the company.

On the flip side, your new employees will see what it takes to be a top performer. Having potential hires meet with top performers during the interviewing process establishes your expectations. It also provides another resource to help the interviewee decide if they should take the job.

After all, as an employer you want to take your time hiring so that your new hire will turn into a long-term employee. That’s why it’s important to make sure that the new hire feels he or she is a good fit—not just the other way around.

 Enter our customer, Kid Galaxy, and its Tractor Trailer R/C toy with a perfect case study on the importance of testing packaging and the value of digital package printing. After all was said and done, the toy company learned that literally adding all the “bells and whistles” to its store packaging would strategically communicate a very important product benefit: the toy’s remote control capability.

 The toy brand asked us to develop packaging for testing at a trade show. Kid Galaxy wanted to get feedback from consumers who could actually touch and feel the prototype packaging at the show. What Kid Galaxy learned was that enhancements had to be made to the packaging to communicate that the toy was remote controlled—which even lead to adding “R/C” to the name of the toy. Lighting effects were added to the packaging’s visuals to showcase the toy’s features, as well as provide a sense of movement.

 CPG brand owners like Kid Galaxy who only need a few prototypes choose digital package printing save money through the elimination of the inventory and storage associated with conventional, larger print runs. High-speed digital printing technology does not require films, plates, or cylinders like conventional printing. Its direct-to-press capability means set-up and make-ready time is minimized and optimal running speed is reached very rapidly

 Along with time and cost savings of as much as 50 percent, digital package printing also offers the flexibility to make changes quickly and options like customization for sell-in to specific retailers.

One of the best gifts you can give to your employees is the gift of a continuing education—because learning shouldn’t stop when you’re on the job. Continuing education has win-win benefits: It keeps the employee engaged and fulfilled, and on top of his game.

Kudos to brand NFL. According to an article in INC. magazine, the average football career runs 3.5 seasons. This is why the NFL launched its Business Management and Entrepreneurial Program back in 2005. To date, about 700 players have taken the business courses like negotiation strategies and marketing at top universities including Harvard and Stanford. Many of the players who take advantage of the program have gone on to their second careers—and quite successfully.

Interestingly enough, the “greater good” in some cases, extends beyond the player. Take Ross Tucker, offensive guard and center who retired in 2008. He’s started a recruiting company in Pennsylvania that provides an online college recruiting service. Or N.D. Kalu, defensive end who also retired in ’08, who had the foresight five years before retiring to found the Kalu Group, a real estate brokerage firm in Texas that turns around distressed properties to lease to low-income families.

1. Find where social and business good intersect.
2. Make it important. Ask, “What are we best at,” or “What do our customers care about?”
3. Find “thick value,” which is defined as game-changing.
4. Make sure it fits your culture. Do employees want to own it?
5. Invite others for innovation. Look for new partners to collaborate with—more hands equal more impact on the greater good.
6. Remember brand purpose is not a sprint. It takes an ongoing commitment that challenges you to take it further and in different directions.

To consider a brand that’s doing a great job, check out GE with its “Imagination at Work.”

Here’s a webinar I gave on the subject of the hot, new social-sharing app for brand marketing, promotion, and sales.

As an example of the origin of its use, a typical Pinterest member might be redesigning her living room. As she searches through a myriad of sites for furniture and accessories, she can pin her favorites to her Pinterest board. This enables her to quickly compare images and see how pieces match in color and style.

Like websites, anyone can view your content. Like other social media platforms, you can build your list of other people to follow, have control over who contributes to your boards, and the cost is free—aside from your time investment. Experts suggest setting a daily time limit as you would for any social media platform.

Once an image is pinned a board it can be liked or repinned by people who have visited the board, and thus, it becomes an item of social sharing. To get people to your board, you can tweet pins on Twitter or share pins on Facebook to expand your network across all three platforms.

Consumer products companies, the primary clientele of CL&D Digital and one of the heaviest B2B (business to consumer) Pinterest users, can benefit greatly by creating their own Pinterest boards. Pinterest offers unique, visual opportunities for promotion, marketing, and feedback (via clicks and sharing) to and among a group or crowd. This is called crowdsourcing. 

As a social network, companies need to be careful of hard-sell tactics on Pinterest. It’s more effective to promote a lifestyle through imagery. Seeing the images will showcase your brand, making pinners more familiar with and more likely to trust your brand, visit your website, and ultimately make a purchase decision. This approach welcomes users and assures them that you’re not just on Pinterest to bombard them with your products.

The best way to show what a brand can do is with a real example. Chobani yogurt is a CPG with a great presence on Pinterest. Different boards allow Chobani to show different parts of the brand’s personality. They have 19 boards, including one with photos of foods with recipes made with yogurt and recipes like coleslaw where mayo is swapped out for yogurt.

Chobani is smart because they are promoting yogurt in general and leveraging all of their social media platforms, including Pinterest, as opportunities to connect with and strengthen the brand’s relationship with customers.

Through images and boards, the idea is for brands to reinforce that they are interested in the lifestyles of their consumers and that they want to bring them products that are sensitive to their sense of design or preferences.

It’s critical that brands include images that are fun, vibrant, and full of color. The more engaging the image, the more likely it will be pinned and shared.

In our Chobani yogurt example, one board is full of images of spoons, other utensils, and containers and is called “We Would Like to Eat With You.” Another board called “Chobani Fit” has fitness-inspiring images like a necklace with a running shoe charm.

Videos can also be pinned, including helpful “how to” ones. Pinterest results can be tracked by using targeted landing pages so that you can collect data about what is being shared most often and clicked. Google Analytics or other tracking software can be used to monitor inbound clicks from Pinterest.

To get started, create your Pinterest pin board. Once you’re approved into the community, some experts say it’s best to start with a personal account to understand the Pinterest experience and discover your own ideas for marketing uses, since the possibilities are endless!

Pinterest is just one component of the social network. It is not a replacement for other well-established networks such as Facebook and Twitter, but unlike these platforms, the focus is on the visual appeal—exactly the focus of consumer-products labels and packaging as well.

Here’s CL&D Digital’s Pinterest pin board, showcasing the beautiful labels and packaging that we have produced for our clients.

According to www.marketo.com, content marketing is “the creation and sharing of content for the purpose of promoting a product or service.” Remember, the spotlight of the content may not specifically be about your company or products or services, but it should include both problem-specific detail and show “thought leadership.”

Content can come in all shapes and forms—including articles, blogs, email, podcasts, news releases, and white papers. Use these 3Rs to optimize your content.

Reorganize: Take parts of existing content and “repurpose” it to be more user-friendly for your audience. A great example? Take your printed brochure and turn it into a great new video.

Rewrite: Whether the content is dated, used many times, or you need to make it your own, make your rewrite compelling—and make it “do more” than the original.

Retire: Yes, you guessed it. If you are unable to jump over the hurdles in rewrite, know when it is time to remove it from your library of content.

CL&D decided to use the exercise to look forward—we asked, what do we need to quote per hour to hit each of our individual sales plans? Since we did this exercise, IC has shared this new worksheet with other teams and for example purposes, say one sales person need to quote on average $2,000 per hour to reach her sales goal. That’s quite a bit more than the $72 per hour from last year’s calculations!

Think about what kind of time management decisions you can make when you understand the true value of your time. Remember that not all sales calls have the same ROI and time is money (and time is limited and cannot be replaced).

If that coffee meeting is really worth $2,000—go for it. By the way, the same formula can help you with business trip decisions, also.

• 4 don’ts to consider on that power lunch:

1. Don’t make online reservations (talking with a person so you can go over your preferences and give the restaurant your client’s name).
2. Don’t wait to the end of the meal to think about how to handle the check. Typically the person who makes the reservation picks up the tab. You can even give your credit card information ahead of time to the restaurant to avoid any awkward moments.
3. Don’t be late.
4. Don’t be a stranger—being a regular at the same restaurant gets you better service.

• 5 presentation tips

1. Don’t use PowerPoint. The INC. article authors suggest using software like Keynote from Mac that combines video and images and offers great transitions (so the presentation flows better).
2. Don’t use bullet points—avoid text on a slide so the focus is on you.
3. Don’t forget that you’re the expert. Be engaging: friendly, energetic, fun.
4. Do not leave out the emotion.
5. Do not stick to just the facts, show the audience how the facts make their lives better.

• 4 ideas to motivate employees

1. Don’t ban “non-work” talk. It stifles creativity.
2. Don’t discount community service as “just for PR.” Employees who are aware and involved can benefit, too.
3. Don’t forget to give kudos to people for trying even if something failed. It encourages everyone to try something new without fear.
4. Don’t leave it up to HR to create your company culture. It starts with you.

In an INC. Magazine article, authors Alsever and Bluestein compiled an entire feature article out of don’t do lists. Here are a few that stood out.

Don’t underestimate your employees.

Don’t underestimate the power of your logo (or the professional process of designing it).

Don’t avoid Twitter or Facebook because you don’t “get” it.

Don’t hide from unhappy customers.

In social media posts, don’t keep patting yourself on the back. You are missing the point (have a conversation, not a “kudos to us” session.

To close a sale, don’t do these three things: Don’t walk into a room and start with “here’s what I am selling.” Don’t drop a lead if at first you don’t succeed (there are real reasons why people don’t buy, including timing and budget). And finally, if your company cannot help, recommend one that can.

Delegating a project? Avoid these five pitfalls: Don’t think people can read your mind. Don’t do a delegation dump (hand off tasks at a pace you can oversee). Don’t give into hesitation (the real benefit of delegation is having a focus on the parts of your job only you can do). Don’t tell people how they should get the job done. Don’t dismiss the learning curve (delegation is harder for some than others…hang in there!).