BANISH BORING BACKYARDS

with the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Garden Guide 2012

Tours and Maps to Everything  and Every Place of Interest to Gardeners

This handy book is filled with everything and every place of interest to gardeners, complete with suggested tours and maps to those hidden garden centres, plant nurseries and public gardens within a short drive from Toronto.  It is meant to live in your car as you drive around unfamiliar areas and want to explore places of interest to gardeners.

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Born with a computer in my pocket and a diploma in programming, I know that when a system is not working, it’s usually the software.

I hate organizations who insist that my password cannot contain more than three sequential numbers or must have at least one capitalized letter. Who made you the password dictator?

This is what happens when the techies takes over from sales and marketing and pisses off prospects and clients. I don’t care if my account with your company gets hacked. Most likely it’s the sites where I will never give you any money that really pisses me off with your tight security. Get over it and make it easy for people to do business with you. Don’t piss me off before you have a chance to show me what you can do.

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When I first heard about Groupon, I thought it was a fantastic marketing opportunity for small businesses to promote themselves. I thought it was also a clever way for them to make money, as I assumed Groupon would get 10-15% of sales given the already huge discount off of the regular price.

But to share the revenue 50-50 is plain greedy!  For businesses to succeed, it has to be a win-win-win situation for all involved company-customer-supplier. If you google “Groupon disaster” you’ll read the heart breaking story of Posies Cafe and others who have lost their shirts on being ‘too successful’ in their marketing activities. ‘Too successful” with BAD marketing activities that is.

Marketing HAS to make you more money than you spend. Loss leaders are a fast and easy way to bankrupt your business. People buy value AND they love a good deal. Make sure that you offer sufficient value for your fees and you don’t need to discount by 75%!

Finally, Groupon walked away from a $6 BILLION dollars from Google. If that’s not greedy, what is?

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What makes me different?

To me, marketing is all about the big picture strategy but its success or failure rides on the small details.

You might have tried an expensive advertising campaign and failed to cover your costs. That doesn’t mean that advertising doesn’t work for you, it just means that that ad campaign didn’t and you need to test and try again.

By using your imagination and experience to develop successful marketing ideas and not spending a lot of money on advertising, you can achieve your goals and enjoy work more.

I aim to de-mystify sales and marketing for you and to help make your business more profitable AND more fun to run! You can benefit from my many years of experience in starting and running small businesses. I can speak to your group or association on how to make marketing fun and profitable.

By showing you how to make small changes in your business, the result is a huge positive impact on your sales and more importantly – profits!

Using your website, electronic newsletters and social media networking effectively, you can find and retain your clients without going broke or wasting time.

Ask me about my cost-effective ‘marketing tune-ups’ and brainstorming sessions!

Sign up for my infrequent marketing newsletter and look at my workshop page for a description of my “Marketing for People Who Dread Marketing Workshop” that can be held at your location.

If you’re interested in having me talk, teach, consult or coach on any sales and marketing issues, please contact me at patti@dtemarketing.ca 416-253-9974.

I look forward to hearing from you and helping you make more money and have more fun at the same time. I help make your passion profitable with my proven practical advice!

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