This month, we have a copy of "Off-the-wall Marketing Ideas" to give away.

To be entered into this competition, simply send your name and email address to:

winabook@brand-you.co.uk

Terms: only one entry per person.  The winner will be drawn on 15th April, and we'll be in touch via email to get the postage details of the winner so that we can send the book.

Competition ends:  31 March 2008

Good luck!

I was having a chat to a lady on the train to Hannover recently, and it turned out that she works in Germany with small businesses.  She's a marketing expert and kindly shared 7 of her top tips with me, which I have outlined below after some time trying to understand my scribbled notes!

Aren't long words lovely?  They're interesting and challenging, and they make you seem so much more intelligent than your readers when people say "Huh, what does that mean???  They must be bright to use it!"

The reality of course is that if people can't understand what you are writing or saying, then they probably won't want to work with you.  Below are some of our favourite words to understand, but not to use when we are really aiming for "plain speak" or straight forward communication.

• Akimbo
• Badinage
• Baulk
• Behemoth
• Behoove
• Bibulous

A tasty, bite-sized guide to building a successful business and life — ideal for start-up and growing businesses. A Zest for Business brings together the wisdom of the 5 leading independent business experts (including yours truly!) from the zestworks team to help you develop the vision, strategy, structure, branding, marketing, finance and systems to flourish your way.

It sets out the dos and don'ts, ins and outs, and ups and downs of running a business. Concise, considered, and easy to read, it's packed with insights, inspiration, information and guidance on how to achieve a successful business in line and in balance with your life, values, and aspirations.

"When laying out the book, I found the sections on coaching, marketing, finance and legal aspects of business invaluable - a real eye opener - and will definitely be applying them in my business, even though I am one of the co-authors!"  --  Suzanne Whitby

Price: £6.99 + P&P (£2.75)

Buy the book online now

Order via telephone and pay by cheque or bank transfer

Call Heather on 0207 727 1129 to order over the phone.

Order more than 10 copies and receive a lovely discount (it makes a great gift for friends and family starting a new business...)

Call Heather on 0207 727 1129 to order more than 10 copies.

Time has a great series of lists of the "best of 2007", but we found the "5 websites to avoid" list rather interesting.

The sites they suggest avoiding include:

• eHarmony, an online dating site

• Evite, a site that lets you issue invitations online

• Meez , no idea what this is supposed to do!

• Myspace, an online networking site

• Secondlife , a virtual world

Read the full article here.

Wandering through one of my favourite blogs today, I came across an old post that made me laugh.  It was about website pricing and customers' reactions to quotes.

Everyone is an online merchant these days and you can be too.  Taking credit or debit card payments online is not as difficult as you might think...

The reason we still use them to this day is that they work for us. Even a single press release can boost your online visibility... but when you distribute them on a regular basis, the benefits pile up. 

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