Think of advertising on a podcast like speed dating – you want to hear what they have to say and then get out as fast as possible.

In many ways, viewers of a podcast are not interested in watching little advertisements, so keeping them engaged is difficult.

The biggest mistake companies can make when trying to jump into podcast advertising is to treat them like commercials, and this makes sense because the description sounds much like a commercial.

Podcasts offer content through audio, and placing images or visuals with your podcast is not uncommon.

However, the way in which you present your specific content is different than you would in a commercial. Consider some of the differences and make sure you don’t strike out in the little time you have.

How to make sure you don’t fall into the trap

1. Podcasts are short

A podcast only lasts about 15 seconds as opposed to the usual 60. When it comes time to create a podcast ad, you will find that some of your tactics and tricks to making a successful commercial will go out the window.

2. Be simple, brief, and to the point

You should be explaining why someone needs a certain product more so than explaining the specifics of the product. Podcasts are not the time for specifics. You only have 15 seconds—you must engage your viewer immediately!

Do not bother spending time with loud music or setting up catchy attention getters like you might in commercials. While those are all nice, you need to get to the point.

3. Variation is key

While many commercials follow a common character around or use a common theme in each commercial, you should have variation from podcast to podcast. There are many commercials on the air, so your commercials will likely not be seen so close together, making consistency a good thing.

However, podcasts are a different story. Your podcasts could run very close together, and if viewers are annoyed by seeing the same thing over and over, their attention will be lost and you could actually cause resentment!

4. You have placement options

This is similar to a commercial because placement does have an effect; however the ideal placement for your podcast ad may be different than a commercial ad. In short, the best time to advertise is during the podcast.

If you started an advertisement at the beginning, viewers would likely not pay attention because they know their program will be on in 15 seconds. If you put it at the end, viewers know their program is over and can easily shut off the podcast (and unlike a commercial, there will not be anything on after).

However, if you can insert your ad within the podcast, viewers will likely sit and watch or listen knowing that their program will come back.

Keep in mind that podcasts are becoming popular again. While Facebook and Twitter still hold the social media crown, podcasting is slowly creeping up on the competition.

If your company can tap into the value of a podcasting advertisement early, you may find yourself ahead of the curve when this new phenomenon really takes off.

After all, if podcast advertising is like speed dating, you will want to make your time count. Better yet, if you can understand these tricks first, you will look great next to all those speed dating rookies.

Image: pouwerkerk via Flickr, Creative Commons

Amanda DiSilvestro is an expert writer on topics ranging from social media to access control systems based in San Diego, California.  She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as surveillance systems at Resource Nation.

Earlier this week I was tasked with editing a colleague’s document. Not surprising since I’m the organization’s communications manager.

But I have to admit, this particular piece was driving me crazy as I read.

The problem? The author has a major problem getting to his point. He’s long-winded and repetitive. (And redundant… that’s a little editing humor for you.)

On the bright side, he inspired me to write this blog post highlighting two of my top tips for effective writing and editing.

1. Less Is More.

It’s true. Most people can afford to write less, and in most cases, the result of editing and cutting your work will be a piece with more impact.

Stephen King (who, by the way, is the author of “On Writing,” one of the best books about writing that I’ve ever read) employs a guide of cutting 10% of whatever he writes. It’s a number that he’s found works for him. Some people may need to work toward a higher percentage.

The point is the same, regardless of what number you put before the percent sign: less is more.

King also provides the following advice to help with that editing/cutting process: “When you revisit your text it’s time to kill your darlings and remove all the superfluous words and sentences. Removing will declutter your text and often get your message through with more clarity and a bigger emotional punch.”

2. In editing your work, you will probably read what you meant to say instead of what you really said/wrote.

That’s why I strongly recommend you have someone else read anything important that you write before you act on it.

I even do this with important and/or potentially controversial email messages. And that “someone else” doesn’t have to be a professional editor or writer. (In fact, in my case, it rarely is.)

It just has to be someone who is reading your piece for the first time so he/she can tell you what is unclear, confusing, or convoluted. The person also may be helpful in showing you where you’ve been unnecessarily repetitive, which takes us back to point #1 about “less is more.”

I have more tips on writing, but in the interest of following my own advice, I’m leaving today’s post with just my top two tips. Maybe I’ll revisit this topic at a later date.

In the meantime, for those who want to read more advice on writing, I’ll recommend:

• Women Grow Business guest blog, “Writing Important Points Wisely”
• Stephen King’s Top 7 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
• Saying It Short: A ‘Less Is More’ Guide to Effective Writing
• Words Our Writing Can Do Without, Part 1

Image: wrestlingentropy via Flickr, Creative Commons

Robin Ferrier is Communications Manager for the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus. She is also the immediate past president of the Capital Communicators Group, chair of the PR Committee for the Gaithersburg Book Festival, and chair of the Marketing & PR Committee for Leadership Montgomery. She writes a blog on PR, marketing, and social media for the Gaithersburg Patch and a mommy blog for the Rockville Patch. Robin has an undergraduate degree in English Literature from the University of Virginia, where she graduated with honors, and a master’s degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University.

[Republished with minor edits and permission from Waxing UnLyrical.]

Almost two years ago I went on a bit of a rant about how much I hate being added to email lists without my permission, especially by people I’ve “met” on Twitter or while out and about at a conference.

I ran a Twtpoll on this, as well as a follow-up post, and for the most part, those who participated in the admittedly unscientific poll said that, as a practice, this sucks.

My opinion hasn’t changed,

and I still get added to lists without expressly having signed up for them. I’ve become much better about hitting “unsubscribe” or, if need be, sending a forceful email to the sender if they don’t honor that.

The other day, I received one of the most unique emails ever.

Not only did it not opt me in automatically to a list, it specified that I’m part of the sender’s larger network, and that if I did not opt-in, I wouldn’t receive any future emails. Here’s what  Adriel Hampton wrote:

I am writing to ask you to join Adriel Nation, my network for promoting emerging technologies for better government, democracy and self-governance and for sharing opportunities to help charities around the world.

You are receiving this email because you are in my personal email lists and social networks, and if you do not join I will remove your email from future mailings. If you do join, you can expect to receive the occassional targeted email, perhaps one or two a month.

Well! I thought. How refreshing to have someone:

1. Tell me how he has my name/email address rather than just bung it into his newsletter database;

2. Tell me exactly what he’s doing; and

3. Not only not add me right off the bat, but promise not to do so if I physically sign up (and that phrase was underlined in the email, just as I reproduced it here).

The funny thing is that Adriel and I don’t really “talk” that often on Twitter or elsewhere. But we’ve been following each other for a while, and I remembered his name. So I DM’d him to thank him for not automatically adding me.

And, when I got this lovely email, you know what I did? I signed up. Not just because I’m interested in what he’ll cover (so clearly he did his research, but I won’t get on that soapbox today), but because he asked first.

People. This is the right way to build your email list.

Adriel said he’d gotten a few tips on how to do this, and was kind enough to share. So here are three tips from Adriel:

1. Consolidate your contacts

“I recently joined NationBuilder, a SaaS platform for organizing. One of the first things I learned was that you can use something like Yahoo! Mail to consolidate all of your email contacts from Facebook and Gmail, and I already knew you could export email addresses from LinkedIn. I’m building a new email list (“Adriel Nation”) to more effectively share projects I’m working on around effective technologies for grassroots organizing as well as promoting charities chosen by those in my community.

“When I put everything together, I had a huge list of emails from my networking, personal friends and activism over the past decade. Now I needed to figure out how to tell folks about my new organizing effort and to effectively use email blasting to keep in touch.”

2. If people mark your email as spam, you’re toast

“I talked to  Jim Gilliam, founder of NationBuilder. Jim explained that email services such as Yahoo! and Gmail are very particular about how people use them due to spamming concerns.

“Sending emails with an unsubscribe link is not enough – if people click that the message is spam, not only will future emails not go through to that person, you won’t know they aren’t receiving them, and if enough people hit ‘spam’ your server itself can be blacklisted by popular email clients.

“And, Jim pointed out, even if people did opt-in at some point, they can still click ‘spam’ if you are not delivering them information they really want to receive.”

3. Don’t take advantage of existing relationships; use a double opt-in

“Last weekend I was in a Google+ Hangout with friends from Empire Avenue and I asked folks how I could craft a message to my various contacts about my new effort without taking advantage of the existing relationship.  Kim Beasley, a business marketing consultant, advised a double opt-in, giving folks the express decision whether to join this particular list in addition to the unsubscribe link.

“I followed this route, sending a short message describing the focus of my new organizing effort and explaining that only people who opted in would get messages.”

What happened?

• Plenty of folks did use the unsubscribe, BUT
• More than 200 people signed up for the list in the first two days, including 35 who went on to sign up to volunteer to support the effort – without his even asking.

Adriel finished by saying, “My email list is much smaller now, but it is comprised exclusively of people who really want to hear from me by email [emphasis mine], and I suspect it will be much more powerful an effort due to paying close attention to the advice from Jim and Kim.”

That’s the right way to build your email lists. It’s not rocket science, and it does take time, but you’ll be so much better off.

Image:  Greene/Ellis via Flickr, CC 2.0

Women Grow Business editor Shonali Burke is the award-winning principal of Shonali Burke Consulting, where she turns your communication conundrums into community cool. Adjunct faculty for Johns Hopkins’ MA/Communication program, she publishes Waxing UnLyrical under the watchful eyes of Chuck, Suzy Q. and Lola, her three rescue dogs. Her long-suffering husband has accepted that Shonali can most often be found on Twitter.

This past Monday saw the return of the monthly #wgbiz Twitterchat.

When Tinu and I were talking about what we should talk about, we thought (well, actually she thought) it would be interesting to talk about “coy and decoy” marketing.

Social media has evolved so much in recent years, and these days we are flooded with not just a plethora of social networks that, seemingly, all want us on all of them all the time, but there are more and more tools for one to use. Which to use? Which not to? How to keep relationships front and center when it’s so tempting to render everything – and everyone – electronic?

That’s kinda where we went. And it was a lot of fun.

Here are a few sample tweets:

Good stuff, huh? Here’s the transcript of the August 8 #wgbiz Twitterchat with Tinu, so that you can read through it at your leisure. And Tinu will continue to talk about the subject next month, so please save the date: September 12, 12-1 pm ET, on Twitter, using the #wgbiz hashtag.

Image: madmolecule via Flickr, Creative Commons

Women Grow Business editor Shonali Burke is the award-winning principal of Shonali Burke Consulting, where she turns your communication conundrums into community cool. Adjunct faculty for Johns Hopkins’ MA/Communication program, she publishes Waxing UnLyrical under the watchful eyes of Chuck, Suzy Q. and Lola, her three rescue dogs. Her long-suffering husband has accepted that Shonali can most often be found on Twitter.

[Ed: With minor changes, we republish one of our most popular posts though it's almost two years old (gasp!). Still good, still relevant.]

The economy is down. Budgets are even tighter than normal. But you know you still have to spend something to market your company, right? After all, what good is it having the “best” product or service if you don’t have customers to take advantage of it.

So with a tight budget, where should you — and where should you not — be putting your marketing dollars?

After more than a decade in marketing and communications for publicly traded companies, non profits, and higher education institutions, here are my thoughts…

Where to spend, spend, spend:

• Web presence: I strongly advise putting the bulk of your marketing dollars in creating a strong web presence. What do I mean by strong? I mean a web site that is populated with a lot of good content… from day one! I mean a website that is interactive and updated on a regular basis. I mean a website that is easy-to-read and easy to navigate. And I mean a web site that looks professional and trustworthy.

The fact is, in this day and age, people expect you to be online. And websites are how most people — reporters included — find out about companies, products, services, etc. So you have to be there, and you have to be there in the right way … and not in a cheap way.

[ side note ]: Make sure you think through your web presence before you start working on it. Should you have an e-newsletter? A blog? Message boards? What do your customer needs and want?

• One or two good collateral pieces: Again, I can’t stress enough the importance of professional design, especially since this piece should be your only leave-behind. And yes, you have to have something to leave behind … even if that something should direct people back to your professionally designed, content-rich website. So splurge on hiring a graphic designer to put together a nice piece. It doesn’t have to be full color if you can’t afford it. A well-designed two-color piece can be just as impactful.

[ side note ]: Think carefully about how many copies of your collateral piece you actually print. I’ve fallen victim to the “bulk” discount trick … spending more money and ordering a higher quantity because it lowered the “per piece” cost, a deal I couldn’t pass up. And I ended up with multiple boxes of an out-of-date print piece a little over a year later …

• Business cards: And not just your average, run-of-the-mill business cards. You’ve created a new company. You don’t have to be bound by corporate rules and long-standing traditions. You can be creative. Fresh. Unique. You may want to check out a fun presentation about business cards by AppSolve’s Steven Fisher from the 2009 Grow Smart Business conference.

And don’t waste your $$$ on:

• Media monitoring: Once you’re more established and have cash to spend, media monitoring may be worth the investment, but for now you can likely catch most of the media coverage about your company through free products like Google Alerts.
• Media databases: Again once you’re more established,products like Vocus can be a helpful tool. But right now, when you’re just starting out, I’d encourage you to spend time instead of money when it comes to media research. Maybe you thought homework was something you left behind in high school, but I’m here to tell you it’s not. You can find the right reporters and bloggers to approach for media coverage just by visiting the websites for major newspapers, magazines, trade publications, etc. Read what people are writing.

Get to know what reporters are covering. Then approach those reporters … with the right story!

• Fancy print media kits (hint: they’re old school): Reporters would rather find your media kit materials on your website so they can cut and paste what they need. And so that the only space it takes up is the one line when they bookmark it in their web browser. Though I have no proof of this, I’m convinced that most — if not all — media kits go right to the “circular file” when you leave the building.

How about you and your business? What marketing do’s and don’t have been effective to pursue (or not)?

Image Save Money Save the World by Candor, Creative Commons

Robin Ferrier is the editor of What’s Next, Gen Y? and Communications Manager for the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus. She is also the President of theCapital Communicators Group and the co-chair of the Marketing Committee for the Tech Council of Maryland. She has inadvertently become a frequent career / professional / job hunt resource for friends and colleagues due to a career path that has included five jobs in 12 years.

Webinars continue to be a popular tool for training, marketing and product support, replacing on-site meetings and presentations.

This medium is cost-effective, but it poses some unique challenges in creating a seminar that meets the needs of an audience and keeps the audience engaged for the duration.

The most common mistake is taking a live presentation and trying to deliver the same content in the same manner remotely. 

It just doesn’t work.

The audience is not as engaged, not as likely to follow you through the details, and the presenter gets very little feedback on how they’re doing.

In fact, most presenters feel less pressure in this format because they don’t see the audience and they don’t get much feedback about their delivery.

There are several things you can do to prepare, develop and deliver a more effective webinar.

Preparation

• Send out a short questionnaire as people sign-up for the webinar asking for input on the topic. Then, tailor your examples in the webinar to address their concerns and include their ideas.
• Limit attendance to 40-50 participants for a 30-60 minute webinar. Large webinar audiences are overrated. If you have large audiences, consider a 20-minute presentation and then connect with the participants through follow-up steps.

Development

The message is even more critical for remote listeners because it is the only tool you have to engage them quickly. Stories and examples will be the best way to keep them engaged.

However, you should plan for more interaction throughout the presentation and call for input or questions within the first 10 minutes of the webinar.

• Polling questions are a good way to keep participants involved. Be sure you choose these questions carefully.  The value of polling is that participants know more about each other.
• Provide a one-sentence summary and message for each main idea presented. Remember that people check in and out, so you should be deliberately redundant about your points.
• The amount of content for a 30-minute webinar should be about 2/3 of the content for your 30-minute live presentation. This will require you to summarize more and include additional examples and interesting anecdotes to keep the audience engaged.  Think in terms of less information and more entertainment.

Delivery

Webinars just don’t allow you to establish connection in the same way that you would in a live presentation. We often say that presentations with visuals really include two presenters: you and the visuals.

However, the roles are just the opposite in a webinar. The visuals take the lead, and the presenter becomes the voice-over.

Your ability to pause, tell stories and vary your voice is essential.

• Involve at least two people in the delivery of the presentation; one as the moderator and another as an expert to insert examples or testimony.
• Practice your voice projection before the webinar. You want to be sure you are sending your voice to the back of the room. In fact, you should always think about projecting your voice to a remote audience twice the size of the actual group. In other words, if there are 40 webinar participants, assume there are 80 to manage the voice energy.

Webinars can be effective, but it takes a lot of support and follow up to get the same results as a more engaging presentation.

If you view the webinar as a different format altogether, you’ll be much more successful in developing them and delivering them for results.

Image: Luluk via Flickr, Creative Commons

As President and founder of Sally Williamson & Associates, Sally Williamson specializes in executive coaching and developing custom workshops. She is a 30-year veteran of developing key messages and coaching for professionals to improve their executive presence and overall impressions. Her book, The Hidden Factor: Executive Presence, has received rave reviews. Get more great advice by following her on Twitter or on her blog Executive Presence. 

I saw a link on the Facebook page of one of my friends last week to a video called “29 Ways to Stay Creative.”

I have to be honest. I almost didn’t watch the video.

For one, I’m not a big fan of video online. I find it easier to read content than watch it. Second, I’m always skeptical about advice columns on the topic of creativity. Because, let’s face it, we all find our creativity in different ways.

And if you’re reading this right now saying, “I’m not an artist/writer/insert-typically-thought-of-as-a-creative-profession here. I don’t need advice on creativity. I don’t need to watch this video.” …

Well, you’re wrong. Everybody in every profession has to be creative at some point. So keep reading.

But I overcame my skepticism and forced myself  to watch it. And I’m glad I did. It’s not that the video necessarily had any revolutionary advice, but  it reminded me of some important “lessons” that I think many of us forget in our daily life.

Things like:

Step Away from the Computer

It’s easy to read and answer “just one last email,” post “just one more Facebook or Twitter update,” or edit/write “just one more document.” It’s much harder to leave that email unread or document unwritten and step away from the keyboard.

But it’s critical you do just that – be it for 10 minutes or 10 days. Clearing your head clears the way for creativity, problem-solving and rejuvenation.

Today, I’ll be stepping away to visit the new Shady Grove Farmers’ & Artisans’ Market on our campus.

Allow Yourself to Make Mistakes

There are a lot of numbers out there about failure vs. success. One website I visited claims entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. Not convinced yet?

R.H. Macy founded seven unsuccessful companies before launching the successful Macy’s department store chain.

Henry Ford started five unsuccessful companies before launching Ford Motors.

Walt Disney was fired from his job with a newspaper because his editor didn’t think he had any imagination. (Who had the last laugh there?)

The point? Make mistakes. Just make sure you learn from them. [For those of you who have employees, I'd say also allow -- perhaps even encourage -- your employees to make mistakes... as long as they don't make the same ones over and over and over again.]

Go Somewhere New

Maybe it’s a new restaurant. Or a new town nearby. Or maybe it’s a new country. Regardless of where, a new environment can spur innovative ideas.

And those are just three of the 29 ideas. Others include tips like “Read a page of the dictionary” and “Sing in the shower.”

My own tip:

Read something you normally wouldn’t read.

Maybe it’s a non-fiction book even though you’re a novel junkie… a Harry Potter story when you normally devour crime novels.  Or a business magazine when you’re an US Weekly fan. But reading something new often spurs new ideas or new ways of thinking.

I encourage all of you to watch the video and then come back here and either tell us your favorite tip from the video or add your own advice as to how you stay creative.

Screen shot reprinted with permission from @tofu_design

Robin Ferrier is Communications Manager for the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus. She is also the immediate past president of the Capital Communicators Group, chair of the PR Committee for the Gaithersburg Book Festival, and chair of the Marketing & PR Committee forLeadership Montgomery. She has inadvertently become a frequent career / professional / job hunt resource for friends and colleagues due to a career path that has included five jobs in 12 years.

A few months ago, I was at a radio studio in downtown Washington D.C. with the owner of local winery and the executive director of The Reading Connection, a local literacy organization that I am involved with, to talk about the organization’s upcoming fundraiser.

As we were waiting for the show to begin, I decided to update my Facebook status, update The Reading Connection’s status on its fan page and, of course, tweet about it. The host of the show was doing the same thing.

Then it dawned on me. Today, publicity involves far more than just face time on the news, or getting that big story in the newspaper. It’s about making it go viral in hopes of attracting more listeners, viewers and/or readers and converting them into supporters or consumers.

Some media relations professionals may not recommend promoting an upcoming media opportunity ahead of time because of the chance that the scheduled story may get pulled or delayed due to breaking news.

But thanks to social media, you can promote media segments in “real time.”

Whether it’s updating your Twitter status or posting an update to Facebook, you can promote the media opportunity to your followers and fans a few minutes or so in advance in hopes that they will tune in.

And it doesn’t stop there. The promotion of the media placement continues on your social media profiles. For example, you can tell your followers what’s going on behind the scenes minute by minute if it’s for TV or radio or tweet once you’ve completed an interview for the paper or a magazine, and let your followers know to keep their eyes out for it.

With social media an integral part of many organizations’ communication activities today, it is important to have a strategy in place the next time you or your client are on air. So, keep these tips in mind:

• Tell a story. Your followers love to get snippets of what’s going on. It makes them feel like they are there with you. While I was on the set of the radio show, there were lots of activities going on like the Peruvian ambassador coming on the set, delicious ceviche being served and so much more!
• Update your Facebook fan page status. Update your Facebook status the day of the segment. You may even want do it just before you go on air and plug in what you are planning to talk about, e.g., “Getting ready to talk about The Reading Connection’s Of Wine & Words” with Nycci Nellis of the TheListAreYouOnIt.com.
• Post photos from your television media appearance to your social media pages. With smartphones, it’s easy to click a photo and send it to your Facebook Page or even to Twitter. Don’t forget to caption it.
• Post a link to the story once it’s live. Once the story or interview has been posted on the media outlet’s website, be sure to tweet about it and add it to your Facebook page.
• Consider writing a blog post about the experience. Remember, your audiences may be slightly different on your social media pages so don’t forget to post the interview on your blog. Also consider doing a post about the experience, and what you hope listeners or readers gained from your piece.

Do you agree? How do you see media relations today versus a few years ago?

More from Women Grow Business:

• Slipping happily into the gap, by Tinu Abayomi-Paul
• Everyone’s a marketer, by Robin Ferrier
• How to find guest blogging opportunities, by guest contributor Ann Smarty

Image: laihiu via Flickr, Creative Commons

Sherrie Bakshi is communications maven at Matrix Group, and co-founder of Stylee PR & Marketing, which is now run and managed by co-founder Vladia Jurcova Spencer. Sherrie’s 10+ years of experience encompass everything from traditional media relations to effective social networking and online strategies. She is a volunteer and committee member for The Reading Connection, which helps at-risk families throughout the DC Metro area create environments that encourage family reading. When not working or volunteering, Sherrie enjoys spending time with her dog, Nikki.

The multi-million dollar question

Does a formal referral program make sense for your business? If you’ve been in business for more than a day, you know that referrals are the best way to gain new clients. Most of the time, the person making the referral has already done the selling for you and the person being referred is now highly inclined to work with you.

The million-dollar question then becomes, how can you get more referrals?

For sure, you need to create the culture, or set the scene, that clients are expected to refer others. There are several ways to do this.

Let’s discuss a few, starting with the question, is it a good idea to create a formal referral program?

By formal program, I mean a structured system, whereby if someone sends you a referral, the referrer gets a commission, or a specific gift. And they know what they get ahead of sending you a referral.

So you’re saying ahead of time, if you send me a referral, you get a gift card, a watch or an iPad or whatever. In some such programs, if you send one referral you get gift A; send 5 referrals, get gift B; send 20 referrals, get gift C; and so on.

While some businesses claim success with this model, I’m not convinced it gets you the best or most qualified referrals. Because you are essentially paying for them, whether with cash or “prizes,” these referrals become a financial transaction.

In his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely talks about his research experiments regarding market norms and social norms. Here’s a video from Dan where he talks a little more about this concept.

If you don’t know the difference,

and you confuse the two, your business (and possibly your social life) could suffer. For example, at the end of a dinner party at a friend’s house, you wouldn’t pull out your wallet and say, “So how much do I owe you?” By paying your referral sources, you are making the same faux pas.

People typically give referrals because they want to help; they feel good when they’re able to do something nice for someone else; they don‘t expect, or necessarily want, to be paid for them.

When you acknowledge such a gesture with an unexpected gift as a way to say thank you, you’re repaying their goodwill in a more socially acceptable way.

In case social graces are not your concern, know that showing appreciation for referrals via a gift yields a far better monetary return vs. paying money for them. People are much more likely to give more referrals after receiving a gift than they are after receiving a check.

I know! This is contrary to what you might think. You’ve been brainwashed to think money is the great motivator in business, but that belief is not true!

So back to the original question of having a referral program. You should have an internal referral system; a well thought out plan for how to encourage and acknowledge those who send you referrals.

But for best results, don’t spoil the surprise and put your “gift catalog” out there as a carrot.

More from Women Grow Business:

• First impressions… by Robin Ferrier
• A gem or a dud named Clem? by guest contributor Susan Spencer

Image: stupid is the new clever via Flickr, Creative Commons

Lori Saitz is founder of Zen Rabbit Baking Company. She shares happiness by helping business people show appreciation for and give recognition to customers and employees with The Gratitude Cookie™. With an understanding of the value of creating strong connections and experiences, she supports clients in increasing customer loyalty, referrals and profits. Connect with Lori on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

I recently read a story about a reporter who called a store seeking to speak to the business owner for an article. The person who answered the phone couldn’t be bothered to take a message, instead asking the reporter to just call back the next day. The reporter didn’t call back for that story… or any other after.

It made me think of a perhaps overused — but still extremely relevant — cliche: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

And in business, that first impression is key. When a new retail location pops up, you immediately get an impression of the store from its logo and window display. You decide whether to even spend your  time walking in to check out additional merchandise. When you go online to research a company, you get an immediate impression of the business by its website.

Or maybe even — gasp! and yes, this is an old school concept! — your first impression comes from the person who answers the phone or greets you when you walk in the door.

So my question to you is: Are you tending daily to the “first impression” that your business presents?

Maybe you work from home. Does that mean your spouse or children sometimes answer work calls for you? If so, are they presenting a professional appearance for your business? Or should your work (and cell) line be off-limits?

What about your online presence, be it a website or a Facebook page or a Twitter account? Is the information on the site up-to-date? Is it new, fresh, and relevant? Or is it stale?

There’s nothing worse than having someone come to your business’s homepage to find a listing of already-occurred events or old press releases and media coverage. (In the interest of full disclosure: You’ll find that exact problem on my organization’s homepage right now. I’m fervently working on a website redesign/update that will automate much of the homepage content to a point where out-of-date will be less of an issue. But I’ll still have to monitor and update it regardless of how much is automated…)

Have you ensured your “personal” social media accounts are as professional as your company’s? Because let’s face it, in this day and  age, you never know how new business might find you!

And you don’t want to scare them off before you’ve even had a conversation because of what they find online.

Like it or not, a first impression can make or break a new business relationship before the relationship is even formed. So you’d better be tending to it!

Some additional resources on this topic:

• Making a Great First Impression
• Rules for Making a Good Impression from BusinessWeek
• 4 Elements of a Successful Web Presence from Mashable

More from Women Grow Business:

• 6 leadership qualities that set LivingSocial’s CEO apart from the rest, by Tara Rethore
• Better health makes for better business, by Alexandra Williams

Image: Leonard John Matthews via Flickr, Creative Commons

Robin Ferrier is Communications Manager for the Johns Hopkins University Montgomery County Campus. She is also the immediate past president of the Capital Communicators Group, chair of the PR Committee for the Gaithersburg Book Festival, and chair of the Marketing & PR Committee for Leadership Montgomery. She has inadvertently become a frequent career / professional / job hunt resource for friends and colleagues due to a career path that has included five jobs in 12 years.