As a business owner, it is important to be aware of the fact that you are your brand. Many business owners spend tons of time and money trying to discover and develop their own branding, when the truth is you are your own brand. If you realize this early on you are aware of how easy it is to take your own personality, your own strengths and who you are to develop a strong, personal brand that can be a powerful marketing tool for your business.Business women in particularly can use this to their significant advantage. More often than not women are intuitive and in touch with themselves and enjoy discovering their own unique personality, gifts, talents and strengths. Once they do so, they are then able to turn those things into a winning brand for their business. So, what is an enjoyable journey for most women becomes a powerful business tool as well. Why not use what you may already enjoy learning about yourself to add an element to your business that can truly allow you to stand out and be even more successful.Using yourself to build your brand can save you time, money and headache. It really is simple. There are a few things you’ll need to remember.Determine your “style and tone”. You will want to utilize this when choosing a graphical representation of your brand and you’ll want to stick with it. This can mean your colors, fonts, and other graphics. You will want these to be a clear reflection of who you are and how you want others to view you. You will want to use the same graphics across the board wherever you represent yourself both online and off.You will also want to stick with a particular tone in your business. Will your business be all serious or will you choose to use a bit of humor or sarcasm here and there. Again, this will need to be a direct result of your own personality and will vary from person to person.Mark your territory. This may sound a bit odd but you want to make sure that you secure your brand’s place everywhere you can from social media sites to domain names. Be sure to claim your preferred user name on all the major social networking sites and the domain names that go with your brand. It is highly suggested that you secure your own name as a domain name as well. Secure your user name on the different sites even if you aren’t currently utilizing them. You can’t obtain them once they are gone.Spread the word. Once you’ve determined your brand, you’ll want to begin spreading the world about who you are and what you are able to share with the world. What do you have to offer, what do you want to become known for? This is what you’ll begin to share with the others, one tweet at a time, one article at a time, one promotion at time.Now that you know how easy it is to take who you are to build your brand why not get started? It really is a strong powerful tool for your business.

In recent years technology has made tremendous advancements. These advancements have reshaped the organisations by creating their business functions integrated and streamlined. Beyond the standard office computers and smart devices, organisations are now implementing new software’s and latest technology equipment’s to run their operations smoothly. One such technological advancement is Slide presentation software PowerPoint is one of the widely used Slide Presentation Software. It is a powerful tool to make your presentation more attractive and engaging. If you want visual effect, collaboration tools, easy access, then PowerPoint will be the perfect option.

Nowadays in every field, there is huge competition. Business and professional firms use the presentation as a tool to educate, train, motivate the internal and external audience. At any point in time, you may require to give a presentation. The presentation is an essential part of branding because the presentation is the primary source which companies use for communication with clients, general public etc. The presentation demonstrates the company profile, and it’s the only tool which makes sure that all your representatives are turning into sales. A well-designed presentation shows presenters professionalism and also builds organisations corporate image.

Presenters are mainly of two types. Firstly, the great ones, who with their commanding charisma, speaking skills and great presentation styles can grasp the audience attention and secondly the Mediocre one who only focuses on the content of the presentation. They come up with great with great content and speak amazingly but fails in their presentation skills. Many times, lacks in gaining audience attention.

You may have complex data for presentation, a great content will be a scrap if not delivered in an entertaining way. Templates contains layout, colour, fonts, effects. powerpoint template helps to convey the information in an attractive way, grabbing the audience attention throughout the topic.

Benefits of an Effective Presentation:

• Face to Face Interaction: A presentation enables to meet your customers and prospects. Face to face interactions strengthens the relation and bond with the customers. An effective presentation can improve sales. According to a recent survey conducted, face to face meetings is fifteen times better than other marketing activities.
• Engagement: Presentation is the easiest way to engage with the audience. Attractive slides, astonishing layouts can hold the audience attention easily. Bullet points and summary texts help the audience to focus on the main subjects.
• Flexibility: Flexibility is the vital feature of the presentation. It helps in saving the time of professionals. PowerPoint presentations allow the user to quickly change the content and change the designs based on the audience.

• Adds professionalism: Presentation can decide the success of any business meetings. The presenter should convey the information most attractively and entertainingly. Adding attractive templates can ensure maximum engagement of audience over the topic.

• Storage: After the presentation, the slides can be quickly distributed among the members for further reference. It can easily be saved on the computers which minimise the chance of loss or misplacement.

• Presentation Important for Business Growth: Having a superior product can never result in success. Advertisement of the product is also mandatory. The product demonstration should be attractive, clear to the audience. The presentation should be eye-catching and should create a lasting impression on the audience. Adding an attractive slide, Infographics icons can ease the work of the presenter.

• Adds Creativity: Nobody like a wall of text, the presentation should look interesting and conveying. The audience can easily remember visual information. Adding images to illustrate point will surely make your presentation engaging. PowerPoint allows the user to add creative clipart’s, attractive fonts to the presentation.

Group type discounts, local discounts or whatever else you what to call them, still implies the same thing: A discount geared toward consumers from a business owner in a specific locality. The two main players in the market are Groupon and Living Social with many other start-ups out there.

The main premise behind most of these “brokers” is that consumers have to purchase a coupon within a set period of time, say 24 hours. Then the consumer is given some type of access to print out a coupon for the specified business. That’s pretty much it.

On the surface it sounds like a “no brainer.” If I can get 1000 new customers in my door, works for me. I stress that if thought out properly and used in conjunction with other elements of your overall business plan, it could be a huge success. But, if you’re captivated by the cute sales rep that walks through your door, taken in by the smoothness of a “canned” speech, and don’t think things through, you could be in for a very rude awakening.

First, you need to really look at the costs or fees that will be paid to this “broker.” For a small business owner, you’re looking at somewhere in the 50% range. A more established business with a huge brand name, most likely pays a much lower fee. Let’s face it big brands pretty much call their own shots. Anyway, this hypothetical 50% is taken from the fee that is collected from consumers. So, if consumers are buying a $20 coupon that entitles them to one of your $40 Surf and Turf dinners, then you’re only collecting $10. Oh wait, you have to pay the entire credit card fee, so it’ll be $9.50 +/-.10.

Second, I’m not 100% sure but I’ve heard through many people, that you won’t see the $9.50 or a large chunk of the $9.50 for at least 60 days. OK……..

Third, if this isn’t thought out properly, will you be able to handle the extra flow of customers through your door? How will you know when they’re coming in? Unless you have contingencies on your coupon, they could come in at any time. So, you’ll wind up staffing more employees in anticipation.

Fourth, you have to take into consideration, your everyday customer’s needs. What happens if you’re slammed with a pack of coupon-bearing old ladies? How will your current customers react? Will you be willing to comp existing customers the same deal if there’s an issue? If no, why not?

Those are the main negative points with regard to using a group discount for your business.

On the positive side, if thought out, planned properly and used in small doses, it could be a huge added element to your current marketing plan. If you don’t have a defined and set marketing plan in place, you need to work on that first. And I also stress small doses. Look at Papa John’s, does anybody even bother looking at their “discounts” unless they’re an avid customer. They’ve pigeonholed themselves into a corner, but that’s a future article.

To me, this “group discount” business model has a short life span.

For one, most businesses can’t afford to pay anything close to a 50% fee. Sorry, the numbers just don’t work, at least for the retail and food industry. Which happen to be the types of discounts that most people want. But, the service industry is different. You’re still generating positive income by selling a $200 massage for $40. And I’ve heard owners say “But, I still have to pay my help $100/hour.” Nonsense, you’ll sell your employees on the same concept that was fed to you.

Secondly, the one facet(huge sales force) that gave these business’ their meteoric rise will wind up being their downfall. Why? One word: overhead. As this business model becomes more competitive, the bloated companies will have a tough time competing and the “lean and mean” businesses will be the ones to endure. Let’s face it, it’s not like some new amazing product is being offered here. Do you really think consumers care whether they get their 50% off a Maggiano’s dinner from Groupon or TheCouponClassic? No way.

So in closing, adding a group type discount plan to your marketing mix could be very attractive if it’s well thought out and you plan for any potential pitfalls. But nothing beats a rock solid marketing plan to go along with effective small business branding.