3 Products for Fairs and Festivals

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 As August draws to a close, it puts me in the mind of fair and festival season.  I am sure we are biased, but we feel like the Coshocton County fair is truly one of the best!  This is a great season to head out and spend time with family and friends before the weather turns too cold. Fair and festival season is also a great time to reach customers and prospects!  It’s a real opportunity for marketers.  But how do you capture attention?  Here are a few ideas that will not break the bank! Yardsticks:  Yep…we are going old school on this.  When you are thinking of a fair or festival, you want to give something useful.  And if you can combine that with something that attracts attention (and drives traffic to you), it’s even better.  The Yardstick is both.  Because of their size, people will see them around the grandstand…and then they will come to you!  Find more details here. Mood Cups:  Great for kids of all ages, the 17 oz mood cup is a great drinkware piece at a great price.  And have we mentioned that it changes colors when you put cold liquid in it?  It’s always a hit.  Want to take it to the next level?  Have a cold water machine or an Icy machine and fill the cups!  Then watch people flock to your table!  Get details and pricing here. Fly Swatter:  It’s that season, right?  The bees, flies and bugs are in full swing.  So a functional item like the Fly Swatter is sure to grab attention.  Fly Swatters also fall in to the category of “everyone needs one…but no one wants to buy one.”  Right?  So when you give it to them it will be valued and kept!  Get the basics here. Bonus Items:  Sticky Note Pads:  Have we mentioned we like functional for events like this?  This is a low cost item with a ton of impressions.  This will create an impression at the event…but will give you long lasting marketing value after the event as well.   So these are just a few.  You can find all of these items (and a few more) here in one place. We have created a shop just for this.  Or you can reach out to your HMC rep for more ideas.  But if you are more of a “do it yourself” person, you can shop online here. But now might be the time to sign up for our VIP newsletter to make sure you never miss an update.  You can do that here. 

3 Tips For Increasing Brain Function

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hasseman marketing brain power Everyone wants to get more done.  We want to be more productive.  It makes sense.  But in order to get more done, we don’t always need some new time management trick.  We need our brain to function at a higher level.  We need to think clearer and quicker.  We need to deal with stress better.   Great news.  You can help make that happen.   “The trick” to a better brain is often not as complicated as we might think.  We don’t need surgery or some science fiction drug.  There are several very real actions each of us can take each day to help our own brain function.  Here are just a few…

Exercise:   Study after study shows that 30 minutes or so of aerobic exercise will help to increase brain function.  (This also helps the body deal with stress, which helps your brain too).  A simple way to explain this is that the blood is delivered to the brain through blood vessels.  Consider these blood vessels the highways.  These highways get pot holes sometimes…and exercise helps to re-pave the roads.  In addition, exercise also helps to create NEW roads!  More blood to the brain helps to increase brain function.  So just 30 minutes of exercise a day can make you smarter.  Go!

Sleep:   When I was in college, I never subscribed to the theory of the “all-nighter” before the test.  Turns out I was right.  By depriving your body of sleep, you can actually decrease your brain function by up to 40% after just one night!  So staying up all night to study actually makes you dumber!  Feeling out of it or groggy?  Just can’t function?  Get some sleep.  It will help your brain.

Stop Multi-tasking:  This is not my opinion folks…it’s fact.  The human brain cannot focus on more than one thing at a time.  It has to stop focusing on one thing and then re-direct every time we change our focus!  So by focusing on many things at once (i.e. music, phones, Facebook alerts, Snapchats, texts, etc.) while trying to work on a paper or a project is a recipe for (brain function) disaster.

Our brain is a complex and awesome part of us.  I believe it is the number one indicator of whether we lead a successful and (more importantly) happy life.  Why not give it the best chance for success? 

So consider these 3 things to make your brain a better tool for you!  The best part?  These three (for the most part) are totally up to you. Make sure you never miss an update.  Sign up for our VIP newsletter here.  We send out an email each week that gives a synopsis of our content of the week!  Oh…and sometimes we include some sweet promo specials too.  Sign up here.

7 Great Books for Increasing Sales

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hasseman marketing sales books

I love to read.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not because I love the feeling of “curling up with a good book.”  That’s fine, I guess.  But my personality does not really lend me to a curling up kind of guy.  I love it because I feel like reading pushes me.  It makes me think.  It inspires me to push harder.   But sometimes it’s hard to recommend books because your need depends on your area of interest or need.

So I usually default to some of the books that I have enjoyed lately.

That’s cool…but I thought it might be helpful to break it down via “area of interest.”

So here are 7 sales books that I have loved and have helped me grow.

1.  7 Habits of Highly Effective People:  You might be saying “but this is not a sales book.”  You would be wrong.  It’s a “better human” book.  If you follow these principles, you will be a better sales person.  Period.

2.  The Ultimate Sales Machine:  I loved the overall sales process that Chet Holmes outlined in this one.  It inspired me.  And if you look at the life of selling results (regardless of industry) Chet had the goods.

3.  High Trust Selling:  This book changed my business.  I love the concept of the 80/20 rule of sales that Todd Duncan lines up in this book.  For me, this is when I took the “next step” in my sales career and hired an assistant.  It was a leap of faith for sure.  And I took it because of this book.

4.  Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion:  If you want to affect people’s behavior, you need to understand their psychology.  Why do we do what we do?  This book, originally written as an academic text for psychology, has become a sales “must read.”

5.  The 10X Rule:  If you need a red bull style kick in the pants, Grant Cardone has you covered.  I love goals.  But Cardone takes it to the next level.  I listen to this one and he gets me fired up to attack the day.

6.  Fanatical Prospecting:  This book was another book that really grabbed me by the collar.  It tells you things that (as a salesperson) you might not want to hear…but you need to hear.  If you want to have more sales, you need to do Fanatical Prospecting.

7.  The Sales Acceleration Formula:  This is one that taps in the science of the sale when it comes to the basics of content marketing.  From one of the early leaders at Hubspot, this one will make you think of your sales process…and how to turn it on its ear.

This is hardly an exhaustive list.  But there are some really good ones here that have inspired me at different times on my sales career!  What are your favorite sales books?  Let me know! Make sure you never miss an update!  Sign up for the VIP newsletter here and we send out a weekly wrap up of everything!

The Ladle and the Spoon

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hasseman marketing serving

 

A ladle and a spoon are both perfectly good utensils.  They are just designed for different purposes. 

 

The spoon is a single sized utensil that allows you to efficiently and effectively serve yourself.  The ladle is a larger tool that is better served being used to put larger helpings on others plates.  It’s designed for serving others.

 

Yes you can serve others with a spoon, but it’s not efficient.  Yes, you can serve yourself with the ladle, but that’s not it’s purpose.

 

The challenge, I see, is that most people are walking around life with only a spoon.  We only seek to serve ourselves.  We see the world through the lens of “looking out for number one.”  It causes us to be myopic and selfish.  There are certainly times when we need to serve ourselves, but it’s not a rewarding long term way to go through life.

 

Instead, today I encourage you to at least take the ladle with you.  Be on the look out for reasons and opportunities to provide others value.  Look for reasons to share and serve.  It might be as simple as doing your job in a generous way…or it might be paying for someone’s lunch.  Whatever.  Just look for a way to set down your spoon for a bit today…and serve.

 

How can we serve you?

 

I wrote this a few years ago…and I want to add this caveat today.  Both the spoon and the ladle are important.  It’s important to serve.  But it IS important to take care of yourself too.  The challenge, as I see it, is that we usually carry only one.  We either are selfish and only carry the spoon.  Or we focus solely on the ladle…and we can become burned out and jaded.  Make sure to carry both utensils in your backpack today.  

 

Our goal here is to provide you value each day (to serve you).  Make sure you never miss an update by signing up for our VIP newsletter.  You can do that here.  

It's My Responsibility

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hasseman marketing responsibility There are going to be times when you are “wronged.”   The person on the other end of the conversation or interaction will be a jerk.  They will say the wrong thing or mean the wrong thing.  It’s their fault. But in those instances, I always find something in the interaction that I could have done better.  I could have been kinder.  I could have had a longer fuse.  I could have taken more time to explain.   It might have been their fault.  But each interaction is my responsibility.  It’s my responsibility to make it better.  It’s my responsibility to be better next time. Stop looking for people to blame.  Start looking to see how you can make it better. Make sure you never miss an update!  Sign up for the VIP newsletter here!