Last Wednesday, our very own Brand Champion Michael Doyle gave a talk entitled “The Importance of a Brand. How to create one. And how to make it memorable.” It was an intimate gathering of about ten business leaders perched on backless stools and Michael had them all engaged.

The event kicked off with everyone introducing themselves and their industries.  As always, it was great to see Brand Iron friends, clients, as well as some new faces. All the guests expressed how they felt their companies could be better branded, and the marketing issues they faced. It was great to see such a wide spectrum of professionals attending for a common purpose: to learn how to better brand their companies.

Using digital slides to illustrate his main points, Michael touched on important points such as scouting out the competition, owning the market space and being the next big thing (easier said than done.)  He stressed the significance of branding yourself before another company brands you, using the popular television ad war between AT&T and Verizon as a relevant example.

At the conclusion, Michael and the rest of the guests exchanged business cards and mingled like it was a cocktail party and not an 8:00am lecture on branding. The event can definitely be considered a success and Michael was even asked to come back. Aside from a repeat of last week’s talk, Michael has a lot more speaking engagements already scheduled for this year. Stay tuned!

Written by Heather Sundell, Marketing Intern

A close friend of Brand Iron, David Avrin is currently touring the country with his new book, “It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You.” For more than 20 years David has been on the forefront of the marketing, public relations, and branding industries. Now he is taking his show on the road to share his wisdom with small business owners and entrepreneurs all over the country, promoting his fresh off the press publication.

Recognized as “The Visibility Coach,” David is a well-known international speaker and consultant. He has been able to come to the rescue of many professionals and entrepreneurs by refining their messages, building their brands and promoting the unique aspects of their business. Avrin understands the plight of small businesses’ inability to afford hiring outside firms. He has developed strategies to build market awareness without the high costs.

Avrin’s published argument that “it’s not who you know, but who knows you,” makes perfect sense in this economy. It’s impossible for a professional to know all his potential clients, but it is perfectly feasible for all the potential clients to recognize a business. Avrin believes this is possible through raising the profile of the business and creating a strong brand implementation. Below is a passage from his introduction (which he explicitly asks you to not skip):

“The fact is that you can never know all your prospective customers, but if you’re going to attract new customers or clients, they’d better know you. As I am fond of reminding my audiences: “If they don’t know who you are, they can’t buy what you’re selling.”

Check out his book, recently ranked No.1 in Small Business Marketing Books on Amazon.com.

This morning Tiger Woods broke his three month silence and apologized on national television. The under 15 minute press conference gave Woods a chance to apologize for his actions and clear up some “rumors” that had been spreading since the Thanksgiving night incident.

Woods read line for line from a sheet of paper which he reportedly wrote himself and every once and awhile would look up to stare deeply into the camera as if “look into camera” were written right on his sheet. Many people hoping to get a heart-felt and sincere apology were extremely let down.

Despite weather or not you feel Woods meant what he said, much of the nation was tuning in to hear what he had to say. The Wall Street Journal reported that there was a slight lull in market activity during Tiger Woods’ press conference “it seems like there was something of a lull and definitely a clear pickup during and after Tiger’s somewhat creepily choreographed apology.”

So how will Woods attempt to regain forgiveness from his family, friends and fans and win back the respect of those in the golf world as well as his once faithful sponsors? I know if I were him I’d start with a real apology, one not rehearsed, one from the heart, and I’d look into my friends and families eyes when I gave it. As for his sponsors, in my opinion he’s tarnished his name forever. The sport of golf may accept him back, but his name will always carry a connotation beyond just a great golfer.

-Kaitlyn Anderson, Junior Brand Wrangler

MTV Logo - Before and After

MTV released it’s newly updated logo today. The logo facelift was done by the in-house design team which had the tough job of updating the world wide icon which had been previously untouched since August of ‘81. As you can see the white strokes giving the log dimension have increased in width, the TV has been smoothed out, and the legs of the M have been chopped off giving the appearance of greater width. But most notably “MUSIC TELEVISION” has been removed probably due to the lack of music videos in the past 5 -10 years. Go to Mtv.com to check out the new applications of this unmistakable icon.

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce has just informed us that we are one of the three finalists in their Small Business of the Year, Business Award Program. For those of you keeping track of Brand Iron news, this is the second year in a row we’ve been up for this honor.

We are very excited to be a finalist as three are many great small businesses in downtown Denver. We would like to thank all our clients and partners in helping us achieve a great 2009.

The announcement will be made at The Business Awards luncheon on Thursday, April 22nd at the Hyatt - Colorado Convention Center from 11:30 am - 1:30 am. Stay Tuned.

- The Brand Iron Team

I saw nothing short of a miracle the other day when I went with one of my clients to experience one of their assessments. My client is Infinite Health & Wellness, their President & CEO is Christine Bartel, she has a special gift when it comes to understanding the messed up health care system, understanding the people that can’t fight for themselves and how to help those who need healthcare help the most, the elderly.

We went and visited with a mother who was around 90 years old, and her daughter of about 60. The daughter suffers from Cerebral Palsy and is deaf and the mom had a stroke in the past, leaving the left side of her body paralyzed and restricting the use her left hand, causing her terrible pain to the point where she was crying on the day we visited. They both need help to live their daily lives; they need 24 hour care. Christine talked with her nurse who said that they had finished treatment on the mother’s hand. Our question was, if they were done treating her, why was this mom still in so much pain still?

Christine asked to talk with someone regarding the treatment of this elderly mom and her disabled daughter, the charge nurse at the nursing home didn’t want to talk with Christine because of legal issues, which I understand, but even after the mom and her daughter gave them authority to chat with Christine, the lead nurse was indignant and started to question why Christine was there and commented that she should mind her own business. She didn’t want Christine to get involved because the mom and her daughter weren’t getting taking care of properly.

Unfortunately this kind of treatment isn’t that uncommon for the elderly, if fact not only do they not get properly taken care of, they get taken advantage of. Take the mom and her daughter for example, they have been taken advantage of repeatedly, one healthcare worker stole from their bank account, another stole their credit cards and racked up a bunch of unauthorized charges, another one claimed to love the daughter just to get close enough so he could steal money from them and yet another took thousands of dollars and a car to help with his “non-profit” organization.

It is appalling what happens to our elderly, they are the great forgotten class who can’t speak up for themselves and they need a need a champion to fight for their rights. That champion is Christine Bartel and her company Infinite Health and Wellness, they fight for healthcare reform and are fighting to make sure the elderly don’t get taken advantage of anymore.

Christine is currently waste deep in trying to get this elderly mom and her disabled daughter properly taken care of, I’ll keep you posted as to the progress she is making. In the mean time you can find out information about Infinite Health and Wellness at: www.Infinitehealthandwellness.net

Look for updates on: Infinite Advocacy for the Elderly and the forgotten generation
at brandiron.net/blog

Till next time,

Michael

The biggest challenge small businesses face today continues to be operating in a sluggish economy. As a small business ourselves, and despite economic conditions, Brand Iron continues to thrive. Last year was a record year for the company. We attribute our success partly to our willingness to face this challenge head on. Rather than cut back on sales and marketing efforts to save cash, we recognize that now is the best opportunity to market our business. It is a chance to separate ourselves from others, so we continue to be aggressive in its business development and marketing.

Brand Iron’s management philosophy centers around a team-oriented approach made up of individuals who understand and embrace an entrepreneurial spirit. Our firm is made up of individuals who subscribe to this approach. Inherently, this type of spirit produces strong accountability, team work, creative thinking, problem solving and a win-win attitude. This approach ultimately leads to producing outstanding results for our clients.

Exemplary customer service is another essential piece of the foundation for any successful business operation. It may sound obvious, but Brand Iron is committed to demonstrating outstanding customer service from the outset of every client relationship. You would be surprised at the number of businesses out there who don’t put much emphasis on customer service…they operate as though it is a given. Unless you focus on it, the concept gradually slips away. From our initial “Brandstorming” session with every client, we map out clearly defined goals and objectives, detailed time lines and create accountability methods (for both the agency and the client) to ensure success. The final step of our 7-Step Process — “Running the Ranch” – ensures that we monitor progress in all client relationships and demonstrate goal-oriented success. Internally, our Client Services team meets regularly to ensure client relationships stay strong and that we deliver a solid ROI.

-Jim Miller, Public Relations

Chances are your New Year’s resolutions this year might be similar to those of last year. And chances are also pretty high that they are the same as most of your friends and family as well. The reason for this is that they are simply hard to keep and each year we vow to be better, more dedicated, and more determined to succeed. The top 10 New Year’s resolutions are as follows:
• 1. Stop smoking
• 2. Get Fit
• 3. Lose Weight
• 4. Enjoy Life More
• 5. Quit Drinking
• 6. Get Organized
• 7. Learn Something New
• 8. Get Out of Debt
• 9. Spend more time with the Family
• 10. Help Others

While over 30% of people never even make it out of the gate with their New Year’s resolutions there is reason to be more optimistic this year – the iPhone. I guess they were right, there truly is an Iphone app for everything. Not only do they keep us entertained, give us directions, and answer questions, but now they are helping us stay on track with our goals for 2010. Here are some Apps that may help you keep your resolutions this year

• 1. Stop smoking - My Quitline, a free application that links users to the National Cancer Institute’s quitline where you can speak to a live coach.
• 2. Get Fit – iFitness, has over 230 different individual exercises to choose from. For each exercise you’ll see a picture, a description, and, for most, a video as well
• 3. Lose Weight – Daily Burn, enter your current weight and goal weight, and it’ll tell you how many calories you should eat a day and show your progress
• 4. Enjoy Life More – the iPhone has thousands of apps for fun and games for every age. Try Flick Fishing, it lets you virtually cast and reel in some really big fish using iPhone
• 5. Quit Drinking – 12 steps AA Companion, the perfect tool for all members of Alcoholics Anonymous
• 6. Get Organized – 43 things.com, you can keep track of up to 43 “things” that you’d like to accomplish, write notes about each goal, and indicate what percentage of the way you are towards finishing it
• 7. Learn Something New – want to learn a new language? Try Human Japanese or Basic Spanish for Dummies
• 8. Get Out of Debt – Mint.com, somehow makes budgeting fun (or as close to fun as possible) with it’s slick interface and color coded graphs and charts
• 9. Spend more time with the Family –Kidtivities, scroll through 40 great activity ideas you can enjoy with kids two to six years old almost anywhere
• 10. Help Others – A Real Tree, plants a real tree in one of twelve countries facing deforestation by letting you easily donate money to this organization
Go to Apple.com for more iPhone Apps

- Kaitlyn Anderson, Marketing Trailblazer

Hi, my name is Chris.
I am the newest member of the Brand Iron team, joining the firm as Art Director earlier this year. I started my graphic art and web design career in 2004 in Southern California in the booming Action Sports industry. My first position was at Surf Ride Board Shops, a large retailer of surf boards and apparel. In 2007, I became the Senior Designer at Adio Footwear in San Diego. From 2006-2008 I also was a co-owner of Dagrander Studios, a marketing, advertising, branding and web development company.

In 2008 my wife Kelsay and I moved to Colorado in 2008 and accepted a Senior Designer position at Crocs Footwear. At Crocs, I was charged with advertising campaign development and implementation, unique product promotion, retail space marketing and product line development.

In my new position at Brand Iron, I will manage the company’s creative department with responsibility for the visual development of printed and web materials with emphasis on design implementation of branding strategy.

Away from the office I enjoy snowboarding, hiking, and pretty much anything to do with the mountains.

If you want to see a neglected website full of some old work of mine, check out http://www.paperastronaut.com.

-Chris Schindler, Design Bandit