Working with creative types can be tough for your average business – how do you brief on something you don’t really understand? In this guest post, cartoonist Colin Shelbourn looks at some of the comments that put strain on the client relationship.

There are a number of ways NOT to commission a cartoon. Here are six things a client might say and the cartoonist’s secret thoughts.

1. “I love your style but could you draw it like (insert famous cartoonist’s name here)?”

Terrific. This means (insert famous cartoonist’s name) wasn’t available or exceeded your budget.

2. “Draw anything you like. It doesn’t matter.”

My brain has just frozen over and all ideas become extinct.

3. “Here’s how I want the cartoon to look and I’ve come up with a joke and a caption and a funny character.”

Well done, you’ve just hired an expensive pen.

4. “This isn’t what we agreed at the start but I’ve just had a better idea.”

Please don’t spoil a beautiful relationship.

5. “I know we said three people but can you also include a football team. And a circus.”

Oh good. All cartoonists like to draw a circus.

6. “Hm, yes. I see. I like the way you’ve drawn that leg.”

Noooooo – be brave. Don’t accept the initial sketches if you don’t like them. Cartoonists prefer happy clients and enjoy the challenge of getting closer to the target.

Cartoons can be political, satirical, whimsical, campaigning, hard-hitting and, occasionally, funny. Cartoonists, on the other hand, are all about happy clients.

Are you a blogger? March is ‘Be My Guest’ month, and we’re encouraging bloggers from all over the world to swap posts and reach new audiences. See ‘Be My Guest’ for more information.

The Epic Centre in Lincoln, UK will play host to the launch of a new initiative, Innovation Advice and Guidance – Developing a robust future for business on Friday 12th March.

The launch event takes place 10.30am – 2.15pm and is free to attend, with lunch and free parking for provided.

It will feature a keynote speech on Turning Business Adversity into Opportunities by ex-Dragon Rachel Elnaugh, as well the following presentations:

• Beyond the recession – challenges and opportunities for businesses in Lincolnshire with Professor Ted Fuller, University of Lincoln
• The challenges facing our economy with Graeme Leach, Chief Economist, Institute of Directors
• How Innovation Advice and Guidance can help your business with Professor David Rae, University of Lincoln

There will also be a networking lunch and a question and answer session with the panel.

The Innovation Advice and Guidance programme has been established to help local, forward-thinking firms fight the downturn. It is presented by the University of Lincoln, and jointly funded with its strategic partners, East Midlands Development Agency and Lincolnshire County Council.

For more information and to book your place at the launch event, visit Innovation Advice and Guidance.

This year’s Make Your Mark with a Tenner competition got underway on Monday 1st March, with 30,000 students across the country aiming to turn a profit from a £10 loan over the next month by coming up with creative and enterprising business ideas.

But, that’s not all – their business ideas must also have a positive social impact and be of benefit to their local community. Indeed, there will be prizes at the end of the month for the students who make the most positive impact on their local community – one to one sessions with the likes of Dragons’ Den’s Peter Jones and other leading British entrepreneurs.

The other categories are Best Business Idea and Most Profit Generated, with the judging split into three age categories: under 11s, 11-14 year olds, and 14-19 year olds.

As well as the one-to-one sessions up for grabs, six winners will also each be awarded £100 to help them develop their entrepreneurial ideas, while a business mentor will provide them with the necessary help and support to really get their idea off the ground.

The competition is the brainchild of entrepreneur Oli Barrett, and this year is being funded by Peter Jones and Michael and Xochi Birch, the founders of Bebo.

When Make Your Mark with a Tenner first ran, the average profit made was £90, with the highest profit being £410. Once the £10 loan is repaid, students can re-invest their profits, give them away to a charitable cause, or even pocket them!

Peter Jones, chair of Enterprise UK, which runs the competition, said: “Make Your Mark with a Tenner harnesses the unrivalled energy and creativity of young people. Their fantastic achievements increase each year that we run it, proof that if you trust young people to act entrepreneurially they will rise to the challenge.”

So, what would you invest your tenner in?

Applications for The Pitch 2010 are now being accepted by Sift Media.

The Dragons’ Den style competition is now in its third year, and this year is running as part of The Business Factory, an initiative to support entrepreneurs of small businesses.

Current and budding entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch their business idea to a panel of experts such as ex-Dragon Doug Richard, as they look to secure investment and top business advice.

Once again, there will be five regional heats before the national final held in London in November, during The Business Factory event.

The regional heats will take place thus:

• South West heat: Monday 21st June in Bristol
• Northern heat: Thursday 1st July in Liverpool
• South East heat: Thursday 15th July in London
• Scottish heat: Thursday 29th July in Edinburgh
• Midlands heat: Thursday 5th August in Birmingham

The deadline for entries for all regional heats is Tuesday 15th June.

To be eligible for the competition, you must be a UK resident and at least 16 years old at the time of entry. Your business must be UK based, privately owned company, no more than three years old at date of entry and with no more than 20 staff. You can also enter if you do not have a business yet, but do have a viable business idea.

To enter, visit the Pitch 2010 and download the attached entry form. Your entry will then be judged by The Pitch’s team of experts, with the best making it through to the regional heats.

This is a guest post from Bryony Thomas, Chief Clear Thinker, Clear Thought Consulting Ltd.

Most people initially think of public relations as a technique for generating awareness for their products or services. This is absolutely true, but if this is the only way that you’re using your public relations effort, you’re missing a trick in squeezing every ounce of value from your marketing budget.

In considered purchases, people move through a process of decision-making. At each stage, you have an opportunity to influence whether they continue through to purchase from you, or choose to look elsewhere.

Using Kotler’s model of rational decision-making, here are some ideas for using PR at every stage in the process.

Generating awareness: In addition to getting the word out through press coverage, you can also:

• Add key phrases to your press releases that people are likely to use as search phrases.
• Post links to your news coverage on your LinkedIn status, Twitter feed, etc.
• Add comments against online news stories that your audience is likely to read.

Generating interest: This is about getting people to take the next step of not only knowing who you are, but of being interested in what you have to say:

• Use decent coverage as an insert for direct mail or email (NB You’ll need permission).
• Use snippets of coverage you achieve in your promotional materials.
• Post a response to a news item as a blog, YouTube video, etc.

Standing up to evaluation: When people are evaluating your products or services against the competition, you can:

• Point them to positive news coverage.
• Use a news story as the basis for a live Q&A or webinar.

Supporting the trial process: When someone is assessing your products and services in detail, you can:

• Add PR quotes in your proposal documents to substantiate your claims.
• Use press coverage as a reason to drop someone a line when they’re trialling.

Encouraging adoption: At the point where people part with significant money, public relations can:

• Create a feel-good factor amongst the wider decision-makers reducing chances of them saying no.

Generating re-purchase and loyalty: If they’ve bought once, you can:

• Drop them a line with positive coverage on what they’ve bought for that all-important post-purchase reassurance.
• Keep them up-to-date on new offerings by sending them links to press coverage – often more compelling than blatant sales material.

With a bit of thought, you can make more of your PR coverage. This is particularly true if you have a social media set-up in place that allows you to make intelligent re-use of the coverage you’ve worked hard to secure.

For more on this and a few more ideas, you can watch a 10-minute tutorial on how PR supports the sales funnel on the Clear Thought website.

Are you a blogger? March is ‘Be My Guest’ month, and we’re encouraging bloggers from all over the world to swap posts and reach new audiences. See ‘Be My Guest’ for more information.

Last year, an initiative known as Twestival led to over 1,000 volunteers and 10,000 donors raising over 250,000 USD for charity:water. This resulted in more than 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India being created, benefiting over 17,000 people.

Six months later, Twestival Local was held is 130 cities around the world, raising over 450,000 USD for 135 local charities around the world, and bringing the total amount raised in 2009 up to over 750,000 USD.

What is Twestival?

The aim of Twestival is to use social media for social good by getting people to host local events and have fun while raising awareness around a chosen charitable issue. 100% of the money raised around the world goes to Twestival’s nominated charity. The theme of this year’s Twestival is education, and after an online vote, Concern Worldwide was chosen as this year’s charitable cause.

Founded in 1968, Concern Worldwide battles to meet the needs of people living in extreme poverty and is dedicated to the reduction of their suffering and working towards ultimately eliminating poverty altogether. Concern’s education programs target the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world, and currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries, and each of every city taking part in this year’s Twestival will be able to choose which area of the education program to support.

The Twestivals will be raising funds towards constructing and improving schools and supplying them with the necessary materials that they need, such as desks, pencils, teacher training, clean water, and developing a curriculum.

The UK Twestivals

At the time of writing, the following UK events have been announced, all taking place on Thursday 25th March:

• Barnsley
• Birmingham
• Brighton
• Bristol
• Bury St Edmonds
• Cardiff
• Chester
• Cornwall
• Dublin
• Dundee
• Edinburgh
• Exeter
• Farnham
• Galway
• Glasgow
• Inverness
• Isle of Man
• Liverpool
• London
• Manchester
• Newcastle
• Nottingham
• Oxford
• Plymouth
• Reading
• Stoke
• Windsor

Thanks to @TwestivalUK for providing this list – it’s worth following them on Twitter to keep up to date with announcements relating to the UK.

Written by Adam Vincenzini and Emily Cagle

Guest blogging is great. It’s great for the guest poster, great for the blog ‘host’ and most importantly, great for the audience.

Why?

The guest poster gets to expose his / her work to a new audience. The host gives his / her audience something new and fresh to enjoy. It’s what social media and sharing is all about.

So, we thought it would be a good idea to make March the month to encourage some mutual guest blogging via ‘Be My Guest.’

What is ‘Be My Guest’?

It’s pretty simple. During March 2010, anyone taking part will aim to:

• write at least one post for someone else’s blog, and
• feature at least one guest post on their own blog.

How will it work?

We’d really like to focus on creating some new relationships, so instead of writing and featuring posts for people you already know really well, we’d like to extend it further.

All you have to do is use Twitter to tweet out your blog details and the hashtag #BeMyGuest to let people know you’d like to take part.

Your tweet might look like this:

“I write a blog about #media called The M3dia Blog <link> and I’d like to take part in #BeMyGuest http://bit.ly/bemyguest”

“I blog about #food at The Yum! Blog <link> and I’d like to take part in #BeMyGuest http://bit.ly/bemyguest”

This will hopefully see bloggers who are interested in specific subjects connect and do some ‘mutual’ blogging.

You might want to just link up with one other blogger for the month or four…or more! It’s really is up to you.

Some guidelines & ideas

• Use the hashtag – If you post on someone else’s blog or have someone post as your guest, let everyone know by adding #BeMyGuest to a tweet when it’s published. You can also set up a column in Hootsuite, Tweetdeck or your Twitter app of choice to track every mention of the keyword so you don’t miss any great opportunities.
• Blog about Be My Guest – If you’d like to outline what you’re looking for from guest posters, and showcase what you’ve got to offer other blog hosts, write a post about your requirements and push it out across your social networks with the #BeMyGuest hashtag.
• Set out your preferences – Some hosts prefer to retain the right to edit a post, while others publish as is. Similarly, some hosts only take exclusive posts, while others are happy to reuse. So think about your preferences before you get started and once you make connections, chat to each host/guest you work with to make sure you’re in agreement.

Have fun and good blogging!

– Adam and Emily

(For daily updates, check out the dedicated #BeMyGuest Posterous site)

This is a guest post by Gary Marshall, a designer and brand director with 17 years of industry experience dealing with international blue-chips and exciting SMEs. He helps to bring brands alive and increase their profit.

Recently, PC World put out a e-shot which included an offer on Apple Macs. The response among some of my Twitter followers was one of surprise – they didn’t think that particular store would stock the Apple range. Now technically speaking, the Apple Mac is a PC (Personal Computer), along with many other leading brands, but the truth is most people don’t see it that way, including Apple.

Why? It’s all about branding. In a competitive marketplace, why try and fight for market share when you can create a marketplace of one: you?

A marketplace of one

Now when most people start a company, they usually begin in one of two positions. They either believe they have had a eureka moment and invented something totally unique to the world that nobody has ever seen or thought of before (whether this is true or not), or they see a market leading company and set up an identical offering, believing they can become market leader themselves by copying the what has gone before.

Often, what the real market leaders do is a mixture of the two. Most recognise the huge value of a current market (for example, PCs) but realise that to take on the market leaders successfully would require a hard slog and lots of money. So, they create a new market within an existing market.

Apple used creativity and design to appeal to a market of professional designers and creatives. Now most people have only been introduced to Apple in the last five years or so, but I remember using them nearly 20 years ago when no one knew who they were. They positioned themselves in a market of one within a busy sector.

A league of their own

Apple are not the only example of ‘league creation’. There are a plethora of brands offering “vacuum cleaners” but Dyson have positioned themselves as the only cleaner that doesn’t use a bag. Similarly, Google wasn’t the first to market, but understood what it took to become the market leader.

Procter & Gamble with their Pringles snack are another example of the same principle. Recently, and in the interests of avoiding VAT charges, they went to court to try to convince the government that Pringles were not a potato based snack because the product is 33% fat and flour. Although the case was thrown out, the case illustrates how Pringles defines itself in a league of one. The combination of product, branding and pack format ensure that for most consumers it is, at essence, a Pringle and not a crisp.

The lesson here: to become a market leader, choose an established marketplace, but be the first to claim a distinct niche.

Is your organisation a model of PR excellence? If you stand out from the crowd with some fantastic PR achievements, get your entry in to the 25th annual CIPR Excellence Awards.

There are more than two dozen categories available for entry this year, spread over three main areas:

Campaign Awards

• Corporate and Business Communications
• Investor Relations
• Internal Communications
• Consumer Relations
• Public Sector
• Corporate Responsibility
• Public Affairs
• Not-for-Profit
• Healthcare
• Integrated Campaigns
• Media Relations
• Best Use of Digital PR
• Broadcast
• Global Public Relations
• Crisis Communications
• Automotive Public Relations
• Best Campaign £10k or Under
• Best Campaign over £10k

Special Awards

• External Newspaper or Magazine
• Internal Newspaper or Magazine
• Publication
• Website, Microsite or Intranet
• Event
• Outstanding Young Communicator

Team Awards

• Outstanding Small Consultancy
• Outstanding In-House Public Relations Team
• Outstanding Public Relations Consultancy

Standard entry costs £240 + VAT per entry, or £168 + VAT per entry for charities, local government and public sector entrants.

The closing date for applications is 26th February, although late entries will be accepted until 5th March, with an additional fee of £75 + VAT per entry.

To be eligible for entry, submissions must relate to work conducted between January 2009 and February 2010. The shortlisted entrants will be announced in April, and the awards dinner will be held on 25th June.

For further information, or to enter, visit CIPR Excellence Awards 2010.

This is a guest post by James Ainsworth of Marketing Donut.

The hype of social media is at times, a near spiritual fever. Understand this, NOT everybody is doing it. Don’t panic and don’t rush into it because of all the noise surrounding social media. Those who are prepared to incorporate it as one element of a wider marketing strategy are the small businesses that prosper. @Pearcafe, @BrothersCider and Crystal Jewels all use various platforms well.

You shouldn’t introduce social media as a marketing practice to your operation if it doesn’t serve a true purpose.

In order to ascertain a need, it is imperative that you adopt a ‘Them’ and ‘Us’ mind-set. What do you want from it and what do you think your customers might like to gain from your presence on social media channels?

If you are thinking of getting involved, the more the merrier, just make sure it is a commitment you can sustain and above all, from which you and your customers can benefit. Social media is for you as much as it is for them.

Give it a go but don’t expect the rapture of instant business that you may have been led to believe is available. Build a following and work with it to create organic and tangible business growth.