How strong is your logo?

Ideally you want your customers to be able to identify your company and product by a symbol.  That its your end goal when building your brand and creating your marketing strategy.  Most kids today can identify 1000's of brands by image alone without the company name anywhere in sight.

It's not going to happen overnight and it requires a lot of forethought and vision on your part. The best piece of advice is to keep it simple and go with your gut.  Most of us won't be able to come up with and create the graphic on our own so we'll need to bring in an outside talent to translate our ideas and what we are trying to achieve.  You will however in an instant know whether or not the graphic created to represent your entire brand and line of products and services is the right fit for you and your business.  Trust that intuition and know that you are going to need to commit to the basic  premise of the logo.

There's no doubt that your new logo will need to evolve over time as both your company grows and changes along with the market but you still want to make sure that the foundation you lay will be strong enough to carry you way into the future.

It's always good to receive positive feedback - especially when it comes from your CEO!

“When you look to take a big expansion step in your company, there are a few key players that can make or break you.  Recruiting the right people is often daunting.  It’s just shy of fate that I found the right person to head TRG Northeast not on a website or an ad…I just had to go back 25 years in school pictures.  I am very excited to welcome Jennifer in overseeing TRG-Northeast.  Since the minute we first spoke about the idea, she has been nonstop building not only the firm, but every client that was on my radar and relationships she had enjoyed for a long time.  Her vision, experience, and drive make it instantly clear her motives are to not only growing TRG Northeast, but doing by building a long list of successful clients along the way.”

Tyler Ryan

President/CEO

Tyler Ryan Group

TRG-Northeast

It's all about to change - are you ready?

It's Monday morning just shy of 9:00am on the East coast and in the day it's the time that just about everyone commuting to an office is getting ready to pull up there chair to the desk and say, "OK, let's do this."

Well okay, I've been there, done that and I'm not sure I always approached Morning with the excitement knowing it was the day I was going to make business magic happen. There was always a little bit of resentment that my relaxing weekend of doing housework, yard work, birthday parties, and family BBQ's had come to an end.

Many of us have left that way of life and are now integrating our offices into our homes, our cars, our methods of transportation, and even poolside. With the invention of the internet, smart phones, and ISDN lines basically any type of business can be conducted outside of the office. Is this a good thing? I'll leave that one up to you. However it is a catalyst for major change in how we are doing business and exactly who we are doing business with and I'm proposing the question, "Are you ready?"

Remember fifteen years back, relatively, when the buzz was the dot com movement? The first question out of everybody's lips was "do you have a website?". People were buying up urls like they were collectible Pez dispensers hoping to snag the right one and soon find themselves on easy street. The funny thing is that happened to a large group of intuitive buyers. I found myself smack dab in the middle of the dot come revolution and remember the swirling of misinformation and projections of the future of business that clouded everyone's way of looking at doing business. Some of the crazier notions were that newspaper, radio, and tv were on their way to becoming obsolete, it was actually possible to buy up all of the online inventory to block your competition from having any advertising real estate on the internet, and my personal favorite the great debate of whether an individual should log in or log on to the web.

Well buckle your seat belts and get ready for the next big advancement in virtual business. Most of you are already aware its happening many thanks to You Tube. The new question on the street is "do you have a video I can take a look at?". Think about it as a commercial for your business, product, service, or project. Companies are making it their entire focus and building their business plan around the creation and marketing of videos for commercial and non profit groups. Why? Because as one who prides herself on creating a story and then spinning it to build a brand or market niche it is one of the easiest ways to help give your story personality, reputability, credibility, and two very fast legs to help it spread out all over the globe. I love the possibilities it brings to the individual artist, small business, non profit and large corporation. The possibilities are endless and it doesn't have to cost an arm or a leg. We have a number of professionals in our town of 7,000 already servicing customers in this medium. TRG, our parent company, has been creating videos for clients for almost ten years. It is something that you as an individual can do by yourself.

Think about it, write it down, and let your creativity run wild.
If you would like help putting together your video, call me!

Jennifer Houghton
TRG Northeast
207-450-8441
www.tylerryangroup.com
Marketing! It's what we do.

Jennifer@tylerryangroup.com

Tyler Ryan Group Introduction

Pick my Brain for Free! Jennifer Houghton TRG Northeast

So you want to pick my brain? OK, let's be honest. During the days of our retail stores in Little Hat Company, people had a sixth sense of knowing when I was covering a shift or somehow knew that I would happen to be working behind the counter and would often say to me, "hey good to see you here today, do you mind if I pick your brain?"

The truth is I love business and would often spend hours listening, internalizing, and then helping to create solutions for their marketing strategies or new product launches. Sometimes it would be simple as letting them know what my accountant thought about a certain situation. I love hearing about business and its obstacles and growing pains - it's a puzzle and it always feels good when you "get a piece".

SO now that I no longer have the store fronts and school pick up is out for the summer I have a proposal for all of you who may want to pick my brain for free. Actually the proposal includes a FREE 2 hour sit down dedicated entirely to your business, project, event, or fundraiser. So - there is a catch but its not brain surgery.

Part of branding your company or positioning your product in the marketplace is getting people to know it exists. One way to jump start the momentum of growing your business is by using effective promotional products. What? You know - slap your name or logo on basically anything under the sun. School is just around the corner. One of the least expensive, most effective promotional product is a number 2 pencil or a bic pen. Most of you are already placing quarterly orders for promotional products anyways...Give TRG Northeast your next order of any size and I will give you two hours of my time with my complete attention and all of my experiences and business education at your disposal.


How do I know promotional products work? Ask my friend, Mr. Gagnon. Everytime I make my way to the gym I bring with me my faithful PGagnon and Son sports bottle. Every time my kids go to practice or the beach we fill up our trusty PGagnon and Son sports bottle! LOVE IT!! In fact it is common for when you cross paths with another carrying their PGagnon bottle to perform a "cheers" in recognition that we are supporting local business!


Anything under the sun can be branded with your logo or business name and it can be a very small expense or you can go hogwild and spend 100,000's of dollars. I'm suggesting that for now let's start small and let me show you how cool it is to work with TRG Northeast.




Email me and ask me lots of questions about this crazy idea or just pick up the phone and call me!

Jennifer Houghton
207-450-8441
jennifer@tylerryangroup.com


P.S. My first job out of business school was working for Forbes Marketing Group in Exeter, New Hampshire. I was hired to open up the Midwest and South Central Markets by selling promotional products to colleges and universities. I traveled like a demon, attended a zillion NACA shows, met celebrities, lectured to students on how to effectively promote their programs and events on campus and also experienced many unusual encounters with TV personalities: Skippy from Family Ties, Barry "Greg Brady" from the Brady Bunch, Mohamed from one of the original Real World Cast, and Faith Hill while she was still singing to crowds of 50 people or less....Very cool job right out of college!!

Appreciating and Getting to know your foot soldiers!

When your business offers a quality product or service word travels fast. This is the most reliable and affective way to grow your audience and brand recognition.

Imagine if you enabled that word of mouth to grow at even a faster pace and helped it build its own momentum by providing it with tools to make it more accessible, entertaining, and full of value.

One of the best ways to grow your business is to take traditional word of mouth marketing and stretch, pull, and tug it in just about every direction it allows. The internet and traditional marketing channels provide the perfect distribution for this technique. Remember business is not rocket science its taking what you already have and building a story around it so people can relate, identify, and share your information.

Steps to expounding word of mouth marketing - getting to know your foot soldiers.
1. Every peer group, community, town, city, market, region, country, and beyond has its own leaders who pride themselves on knowing things of interest and value first. These are your first targeted group of foot soldiers that you need to identify and introduce yourself to. You need to get to know them and find out what their likes and dislikes are, where do they spend their free time, and how do they connect with people.
It's not hard - I'm sure you already know a handful of these people in your community. These are the people that when you are out and about in town, or at community events their names keep popping up. Introduce yourself to them. Strike up a conversation about the day and try to find simple points of identification. Remember you're not trying to rule the world you're just trying to make yourself known.

2. Local Groups happen naturally in Communities and are a perfect way to get to know your foot soldiers and organically grow their numbers. Reach out to local groups in your area through Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, One More Referral, Community Centers, etc... ask a member about their group and if there are any restrictions or costs on attending a meeting. When you feel comfortable enough ask if you could present yourself and your business. Remember props always bring laughs and laughter always sparks memories.

3. Involve yourself and business as a volunteer in community events. It's one thing for your business to sponsor an event its another for you and your employees to submerse yourselves and your product/brand into the day in a non intrusive way. Example? Nature's Way Market didn't hesitate to say yes when asked to be the BBQ provider for the 1st Annual Field of Dreams Home Run Derby in South Berwick, Maine to benefit local Team Laffalot. The day was amazing and it was all about breast cancer. Nature's Way Market stepped up to the plate and offered a wide array of fresh quality choices to the attendees and batters without charging them an arm and a leg. They also made a donation to Team Laffalot which was greatly appreciated. The crowds were fed, happy and stayed longer helping to build the dollars raised for the day and now a week later the community is still talking about the steak tips and baby red potato meal deal for $6.00.



These are just a few of the steps I've taken in my businesses to help encourage and grow my foot soldiers! Word of mouth marketing at its finest is cost free and the most effective. You just need to know how to stretch the limits! I invite you to call me anytime to sit down and consult how we might grow your business!

Jennifer Houghton
TRG Northeast
207-450-8441
www.tylerryangroup.com
Marketing! It's what we do.

Synergy - you know the word, do you know the meaning?

We've all been there, I call it being in the groove. When everything you touch in life, more specifically your business turns into gold and the world seems to be at your feet. It's a sense of momentum that keeps building leaving you feeling exhilarated and on top of the world, and while you are smack dab in this feeling of immortality it seems more and more opportunities are drawn to you and you are nothing short of a kid in a candy shoppe.

Did you ever stop to think that it was more than just a feeling? That there was actually a social science behind the cycle and with just a little bit of insight you can create this whirlwind of success and pure force of a positive bottom line. Business is not rocket science. Trust me it wasn't the academic icons that turned in the best projects or senior case management studies in business school. Not that there isn't merit in scholarship and the ability to apply ones studies to real life situations. The issue is that real life situations are constantly evolving and changing and it is the basic equation of synergy that will be able to propel you into a a spiral of positive cash flow and brand positioning.

In college, I remember Mr. Chaput telling us if you take nothing from his courses in marketing and actually our entire business syllabus remember the four P's. It seemed simple enough at the time but for some reason in each of my businesses I would allow myself to get ahead of where I was and forget to remember the simple equations for success. So let me remind myself as I begin this new venture with The Tyler Ryan Group and promising the CEO I can blow open the Northeast, wide open were my exact words and just in case you haven't heard of the four P's before let me bring them to your attention.

Product
Place
Price
Promotion

Which smiling to myself as I write this blog post have become my best friends in business. Each of the four P's are compelling by themselves, however when you can create a compelling strategy that integrates and incorporates each into one very strong story with legs you have instant attraction and success. While some of my friends get a shopping high, others a running high, I get my high from spinning a story and seeing how far I can spread it. As I have matured (loosely stated) I have come to realize that as you spin your story and create brand recognition it is oh so important that each of the four P's are well thought out, contain value, integrity, and have a natural tendency to balance each other out. If you have one superstar in the group and the others fall way short, I'm predicting you will have the shooting star affect in your business. You'll start out strong and bright but will quickly fade into the darkness of an overcrowded marketplace.

When you create a synergy between the four P's in business than you have created your very own super nova. Let's be realist as we are riding our business high, life is everchanging and there is always a new trend just around the corner but there is no reason that you can't catch an early ride on a wave and let it bring you all the way into shore. There is no good without bad, there is no black without knowing red, and there is no demand without supply. Remember that business is always a careful balance and although everchanging it is important to keep your perspective on the synergy, relationship between your product, place, price, and promotion. And as Tyler loves to say you can be sitting on a pile of gold for sale but if know one knows where you are and noone can afford to purchase a bar from you at the end of the day you will still be sitting on your pile of gold. And really how much fun is that? Wouldn't you rather be out creating memories from extraordinary experiences?

http://TylerRyanGroup.com

If you would like some help getting rid of that pile of gold shoot me an email or pick up your smart phone and call me. I'm personally addicted to the technology and will always have mine with me.

Jennifer Houghton
jennifer@tylerryangroup.com
207-450-8441
TRG Northeast
Marketing. It's what we do!
"excuse me while I go outsmart some bears"