consultant Archives - Page 3 of 5

5 Lessons You Can Learn from Children’s Books

April 11, 2016 by Dennis Fischman Leave a Comment

Books aimed at children have a lot to teach us too. It all depends who we are and what we wish to learn.

Are you a nonprofit organization?

Find out what stories you should be telling. Can Your Nonprofit Tell a Story to Save Its Life?

Learn how to tell those stories and suck the reader right in. What Nonprofits Can Learn from Peter Pan

Make sure your fundraising is not too hot, not too cold, just right. Goldilocks and the Three Nonprofits

Are you a marketer for either a business or a nonprofit?

Get inspired to make your audience feel the difference you can make in their lives. Putting On the Shoes: What Ray Bradbury Taught Me about Marketing

Are you a consultant, like me? Do you know what pleases your clients? Read:

What to Do When the Client Asks for the Moon

Now it’s your turn. What’s your favorite children’s book, and what have you learned from it about communicating?

Beyond Your Logo, by Elaine Fogel: a review

January 7, 2016 by Dennis Fischman 1 Comment

You can’t turn over a rock these days without finding someone talking about “branding.” Most of them make it a mystery. In Beyond Your Logo: 7 Brand Ideas That Matter Most For Small Business Success, Elaine Fogel makes it simple.

If you are just starting out, this book will help you organize your business so that your every move says something about you that your customers like. It’s not just your marketing. Customer service, personnel practices, business ethics and small business social responsibility, and communications strategy all add up to the total picture your customers have of you. Do you want loyal customers? Elaine shows you just how to win their loyalty.

If your business is already a going concern, you should still read this book–for the helpful reminders and for the exhaustive lists of actions you can take to improve. Open the book to any page and you’ll find tips like these:

9 steps toward managing customer complaints
38 specialties within marketing and branding
20 questions you can ask customers and employees to gain insight into how well your business is doing

Nonprofit organizations can also learn from this book. By remembering that your “customers” include both your funders and your clients, you can translate Elaine’s advice into your own terms and use it for your work. (You will find that the book already defines a lot of the jargon for you: all you have to do is ask yourself, “How would I say that in nonprofit?”)

Canadian readers will benefit from Elaine’s bi-national identity. She makes sure to tell you when something applies in the U.S. but not in Canada, and vice versa.

If there is one weakness to the book, it’s that it relies too much on definitions, statistics, and list, and it doesn’t tell enough stories. I loved reading about the dairy farmers, Dane and Travis Boersma, who started Dutch Bros. Coffee. Reading their creed, I understood much better what it means to be customer-centric. I could wish for more moments like that in the book.

Overall, however, I would recommend this book to small business owners and managers of community-based organizations. And after you read the book, go to Elaine Fogel’s blog for more nuts-and-bolts advice, every week.

4 Ways to Pay for Your Communications Consultant

March 17, 2015 by Dennis Fischman 2 Comments

Your nonprofit organization does great work. You’d like more people to know about it. So you squeeze time for writing newsletters, sending email, and posting to social media into your schedule.

And still, people don’t know what you do.

You realize you need outside help…but there’s a problem. How are you going to pay for the help you need?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Four ways, in fact. And none of them will break the bank.

Ask a donor. Most people give to your organization to produce immediate results. A few of your supporters understand that better communications now means a stronger organization later. Find a major donor like that, and ask him or her to give you the seed money you need.
Write a proposal. Communications is “capacity building.” Foundations will give grants if you show them what difference your improved communications will make. Businesses will also invest if you make a strong case.
Do some crowdfunding. Zach Brown raised $55,000 online by making potato salad. How about you? Be very human and a little bit funny, and you just might get enough small gifts to pay your consultant.
Build it into the budget. Communications are just as important as staff training and other items you budget for every year. It will be a lot easier to pay for help if you’re planning for it.

When you have the money in hand, here are seven tips on what to look for when you’re hiring a communications consultant. And I’d love to talk with you about your project. Drop me a line at [email protected]: maybe we can work together!

Navigation Bar

5 Lessons You Can Learn from Children’s Books

Beyond Your Logo, by Elaine Fogel: a review

4 Ways to Pay for Your Communications Consultant

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Yes, I’d like weekly email from Communicate!

Get more advice

Subscribe to Blog via Email