Marketing
Legal: Great brands – treat them right
So, you’ve selected a great brand and have started to build consumer awareness and loyalty in it. And, of course, you’ve done the right thing to protect your rights in the brand by registering it with IP Australia. Your work is finished. Right?
Perfect pitch: Courtship
J P Morgan, the famous American Industrialist, said: “People do things for two reasons… the right reason and the real reason”. Understanding the real reason can be the ultimate point of differentiation when pitching for business.
Marketing: Presenting with impact
Public speaking is a core business skill that’s often not taught in any business course. Many people avoid public speaking and don’t understand the importance of using presentations to help build their business. Here are some tips to help you plan and deliver a presentation with impact.
How long is a piece of spin?
G’day Anthillians. These are troubled times, but nothing some good PR can’t fix! Antagoniser extraordinaire, Ray Beatty, considers exhibit A: the brand new Hardest Job In The World. (Hint, it’s not W’s.)
Ant Bytes — AA15
The boots might be warm and fuzzy, but the term “Ugg/Ugh” sends chills down the spines of many Australian retailers. For decades, “Ugg/Ugh” remained off the Australian Register of Trademarks, largely because it was considered by manufacturers and retailers to be a generic term in Australia. Then US giant Deckers Outdoor Corporation registered “Ugg” (and its derivatives) as an Australian trade mark and, like all diligent patent and trade mark holders, began mailing cease and desist notices to Australian retailers selling boots under the name(s).
Tony Surtees – Enterprise creator
Highly acclaimed marketing expert Tony Surtees prefers to avoid labels. If he had to nominate one for himself, it would be ‘enterprise creator’. His particular ability is to assess changing market places and pick future trends, uncovering opportunities. He lets us in on some tricks learnt so far in his glittering global career.
Motorola’s market dilemma
Wandering through the halls of the enormous 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February, it was plainly evident that mobile communications is still in the very active stages of the innovation cycle. This event, which brings together most of the world’s top telecommunications technology and network companies, has come a long way from its humble beginnings last decade in the French seaside town of Cannes, when early attendances numbered in the hundreds.
Working with fear
If you ever feel under the pump at work, spare a thought for these three professionals. How would you have dealt with the pressure to win gold placed on Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics? Perhaps the intensity that greets a police sniper at a siege would be more to your taste? Could you have surmounted your own vertigo to launch the Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb business? When it’s your job to deal with fear, you’d better learn fast.
All hail the salesperson!
Salespeople acquired a stereotype for foot-in-the-door, sell-your-mother-for-a-dollar moral bankruptcy long before Zig Zigler cartwheeled his way into the public consciousness. But if salespeople appear a hardened bunch it’s because they spend their days on the front line. And let’s face it, if salespeople fail, no one gets paid. It’s about time we cleared society’s pedestal of entertainment celebrities, precious artists and fatuous egomaniacs. At long last, it’s time to hail the salesperson!
Strategy: Securing your first customer
Achieving your first sale can literally make or break a start-up. Many investors will delay committing significant funds until you can identify a customer prepared to pay real money for your product. It is often at this point that many start-ups fail: not because their product is not up to scratch, but because they run [...]









