Being pro-active in business

[ChasW]

Frimley111R said:

ChasW said:

As for finding an intern I'd approach local university careers advisory departments and ask how you go about advertising a vacancy. Not knowing where you are located I cannot advise specifically. My previous business was in central London and we had some arrangement whereby we got American exchange students for a couple of months for free. Personally I would not advocate this, ie free labour, as I think it's immoral. However it's quite fair to offer an internship at minimum wage. For a while we just paid a flat rate of £25 per day to cover travel and lunch. I felt more comfortable with minimum wage though.

An alternative is to put an ad in the local paper only because if the prospective interns don't see it their parents certainly will!

Do not do this! Your business needs someone skilled and experienced, who knows what they are doing. You will get what you pay (or don't) for with interns/students. Such people will know the basics/theory but there's a huge gap before they understand how to apply it in the real world . It takes years to learn and learning comes often from mistakes made. And these may well be made with your money! Talk to a marketing company which has the resources to do this properly for you.

You (and all businesses really) should have a marketing programme which generates leads for you consistently. Yes, the web has changed marketing but you can catch up if you do things as well as the companies you are competing against. It's amazing how few people in business recognise the need for a marketing plan/programme. In most markets you'll find that the leaders are the ones which spend the most on their marketing.

Be careful here. You would be surprised how many senior experienced business people haven't a clue about digital media. To a suitably educated graduate it's second nature. As an intern, my youngest was running social media for a household name computer company for a year, and from what I understand she was like the one eyed man in the land of the blind. Don't disagree with the thrust of your argument but I did state that this is a good route for some quick and obvious tactical fixes as well as getting some fresh ideas in.

[ChasW]

You will also see that I suggested some alternatives as well.

[Foliage]

A thought from me - Everything these days is marketing, everything, or perhaps a better more modern word for it would be engagement.

At the front of your mind all the time should be marketing, but you need to understand how to tailor this to your audience, sometimes you need to be subtle and other blatant.

Putting your website address in your profile (as suggested on the first page) is subtle especially if your answering posts about your business's speciality on here in a friendly & helpful manner, a lurker may see your reply and click your profile and go from their.

At a trade show you have to be blatant, sex sells, sexy models, flashing lights, glitzy videos, bright colours etc, you get my drift.

So market/advertise your company every minute of everyday but learn to tailor the message to the audience, good customer service, good clear price structures, your ethical stand (if you have one) are all marketing. Look to the multiples (supermarkets) for inspiration they get it right 85% of the time for their customer base.