Connect with the Essence of Your Green Career

Connect with the Essence of Your Green Career
As you search for your next career, it's tempting to try to
"figure out" your next move using logic to make sense of
your most obvious options. There's a certain comfort in
knowing your next step makes good sense.

That's the up side.

On the flip side, your efforts to find a logical solution
may actually limit your options. In your search for a
feasible solution, you turn away from possibilities because
your mind doesn't believe it's possible.

The activity I describe below allows you to bypass your
logical mind to discover the essence of your ideal green
career. Although you won't be able to wrap your mind
around how it works, I encourage you to give it a chance.

When I've invited clients to use this activity they've
always gained new insights, clarity, and perspective about
their future direction. From there they begin to see
opportunities they couldn't have seen before. It's always
fascinating to see how doors begin to open when people tap
into the essence of what they want.

I always enjoy doing this activity around the New Year.
It's fun, inspiring, and sets the stage for the year.

Activity - Discover the Essence of Your Ideal Green Career

Your Goal: Create a beautiful collage to represent the
essence of your ideal green career.

Step 1: Gather a variety of magazines, catalogs, and other
printed material.

Step 2: Flip through the magazines and pull out words and
images that illustrate the qualities you want in your ideal
green career. Don't hold back. Be idealistic, expansive,
and out of the box. Don't worry about whether something is
possible or not. Focus instead on what draws you in and
attracts you. You might think of the tasks you want to do,
the environment you want to work in, and the way you want
to feel in your work. Be inclusive in this stage of the
process.

Step 3: Place the images and words you've collected in a
file folder. You can add to the folder for a couple of
sessions if you'd like. When you don't seem to be finding
any new material, you can move onto Step 4.

Step 4: Find a large poster board or piece of cardboard.
Or, alternatively, a series of smaller pieces of
cardboard/paper that you might place in a binder or folder.

Step 5: Begin to place your words and images in a way that
appeals to you. Let your creativity guide you. Let the form
evolve as you place more and more of your favorite words
and images. Keep a couple of things in mind:

You are now the editor. You decide what to cut and what to
include. It is in this process that you begin to understand
and refine your vision for your future.

Pay attention to the insights you gain during this process.
You might want to jot down your conclusions so that you can
review them later.

If you notice a gap in your words or images, mount a search
to find what you want. If you can't find the piece of the
puzzle you are searching for, create the word by combining
letters from various places.

Step 6: If you can, walk away from your collage for a day
or two. When you return take another look at what you've
created. What do you want to change? Anything you want to
improve?

As you do your final review, make sure that everything on
your collage is stated in present tense. It is happening
now! Not in the past...not in the future. By being in the
present, your subconscious is triggered in a very specific
way, which gives you the sense you already have what you've
envisioned. This is a critical piece to this process.

Step 7: Use a glue stick to attach all of the pieces to
your board. Make any changes that evolve as you work with
your collage.

Step 8: Place your collage in a place where you will be
able to see it on a frequent basis. You might place it near
your computer, in your bedroom, where you exercise, where
you talk on the phone. When you look at it you don't need
to do so consciously. At one point I had my collage near
where I'd brush my teeth each day. As I brushed I'd gaze at
my collage, noticing new details or new connections
throughout the year.

Step 9: Allow your life and career to unfold. Every now and
then take a look at your collage. Has anything happened
that relates to your collage? Do the images in your collage
take on new meaning as you make new discoveries?

Enjoy your journey of discovery with this activity. Invite
your friends and family members to join you if you'd like
or make it a retreat activity just for yourself. Either
way, I'm sure you'll enjoy the process and the results!

----------------------------------------------------
Green Career Expert, Carol McClelland, PhD, is the author
of Your Dream Career For Dummies and founder/managing
editor of Green Career Central. She provides people with an
array of resources, information, and support to help them
identify their green niche, find a green job, or start a
green business. Visit http://www.GreenCareerCentral.com to
request a free copy of her Strategies to Grow Your Green
Career report.

What New Uses and Adjustments Will Delight Users of Your Offerings?

What New Uses and Adjustments Will Delight Users of Your Offerings?
A number of years ago, Jell-O marketers were looking for a
way to expand volume for the brand's gelatin. The product
was one of the most profitable food products ever, but
volume growth was weak.

The marketers decided to follow gelatin purchasers into
their kitchens to see what they used the product for.
Undoubtedly, they expected to see moms and kids making
bowls of gelatin like their own moms once made for them.

Not so in some kitchens. Here, inventive moms put highly
concentrated gelatin into cookie cutter molds, and children
played with this new form of the well-known food before
eating it.

This investigation was the beginning of how the Jell-O
Jigglers promotion was ultimately developed. These
delightful edible toys made gelatin making and eating more
attractive for moms and kids, and helped the company by
encouraging a much higher use of their gelatin.

Companies that have active help lines and online bulletin
boards often get similar ideas from those sources. Many
businesses also hold customer councils of their largest and
most advanced users to find ideas to improve what they
offer. Be sure to also seek out nontraditional users to
find the most innovative opportunities.

Like the Jell-O example, some of the best ideas come from
trailing beneficiaries and customers around to see what
they do with the product and what other problems they have.

A patient was recently sent to the hospital for new types
of diagnostic tests. Settling down into a multimillion
dollar piece of equipment, the patient trustingly followed
the technician's orders to lie face down with a pillow for
comfort. Within 20 minutes, the pain in the patient's neck
became very unpleasant. Within 30 minutes, the patient was
losing feeling in the feet and legs. Within 40 minutes, the
patient asked to stop the test. Gutting it out for another
2 minutes, the test was completed.

The patient said that enough was enough. The technician
said that another 30 minutes was going to be needed
starting in an hour. The patient obligingly agreed to come
back as long as the test could be taken lying face up.

With that agreement, the patient came back and was told to
hold a certain pose while lying face up. Within 10 minutes,
new forms of pain came in waves. And so on. Face up was
even worse!

If any engineer had ever watched a patient suffer with this
expensive form of a medieval torture device, the engineer
would soon have figured out that no patient in his or her
right mind would ever agree to take that test again . . .
and would tell everyone to avoid that test like the plague.

Did any engineer ever try out this awful device? I doubt it.

Anyone who had ever seen a massage table would know that
great comfort can be provided for the face-down prone
position by putting in a cushioned holder that lets one's
face descend below table level while one's arms are either
prone next to the body or hang downward.

Such a solution would have provided blessed relief for
patients and probably boosted sales for the manufacturer by
hundreds of millions of dollars. Nonprofit
organizations can be equally insensitive.

In downtown Boston there's a homeless shelter that is open
during the days for women only. That rule is followed
because many of these women have been abused by men and
don't feel safe at shelters where men can come and go.

While visiting this shelter, it soon became obvious that
many women were reluctant to come in the shelter because
there were men lurking on the street near the entrance.

If the shelter's organizers had simply provided an imposing
female escort to help women enter and leave the shelter,
many more women would have spent the day inside on that
blustery December day.

Here are questions designed to help you uncover adjustment
opportunities for your offering.

What makes your offering

-boring?

-frightening to some people?

-painful or uncomfortable?

-embarrassing?

-sadden people?

-a needless expense for the user?

Act on what you find, and you can quickly expand the sales
or use of your offerings.

Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved

----------------------------------------------------
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of six books including The 2,000 Percent Squared
Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, and The Ultimate
Competitive Advantage. You can find free tips for
accomplishing 20 times more by registering at:
====> http://www.2000percentsolution.com .

Self Storage Marketing

Self Storage Marketing
When the self storage industry was in its infancy,
marketing was not a big concern. Since there were very few
facilities in existence, an owner merely needed to provide
a fairly safe and clean environment for the small number of
people looking to store their belongings. Over the years
the number of available units has grown, as well as the
number of people needing storage. Today, there are nearly
50,000 self storage facilities in the U.S. alone.
Therefore, the savvy customers have developed much higher
expectations, making marketing in the self storage industry
a vital tool.

Self storage marketing is the promotion of your self
storage business. Self storage marketing is usually always
centered on the customer. A recent industry study showed
that the reasons people need self storage are that, 44% are
moving, 34% don't have enough space and 15% are people with
business needs. Self storage businesses determine what the
customers needs are, and implements them into their self
storage properties.

A well-known analyst and marketer has divided marketing
into four general sets of activities that are common in any
business. These activities have become universally
recognized as the "Four P's", and are often referred to as
the Marketing Mix.

.Product: The product aspects of self storage marketing
deal with the specifications of the actual features,
benefits or services that the self storage properties
offer, and how it relates to the self storage renter needs
and wants.

.Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for
the unit, including discounts.

.Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion,
publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various
methods of promoting the product, brand, or self storage
company.

.Placement or Place: refers to how the property gets
recognized by the customer.

As well as the standard Four P's (Product, Pricing,
Promotion, and Placement), marketing for a service industry
such as self storage calls upon an extra three activities,
totaling seven and known collectively as the Extended
Marketing Mix. These are:

.People: Any person coming into contact with customers can
have an impact on customer service. They must be
appropriately trained in the ways of self storage, well
motivated and the right type of person.

.Process: This is the process involved in providing a
service and the behavior of people, which can be crucial to
customer satisfaction and service.

.Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be
experienced before it is delivered, which makes it
intangible. This means that potential self storage
customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether
to rent. To reduce the feeling of buyers' remorse, and
improving the chance for a rental or reservation, it is
often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see
what a service would be like. (Site visit)

For a self storage marketing plan to be successful, the mix
of the four "P's" must reflect the wants and desires of the
self storage consumers in the target market. Trying to
convince a market segment to rent something they don't want
is extremely expensive and seldom successful. Marketers
depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, to
determine what consumers want and what they are willing to
pay for it. Marketers hope that this process will give them
a sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing management
is the practical application of this process. The offer is
also an important addition to the 4P's theory. As in any
business, the idea of marketing is to promote the business
- both as a whole and on an individual level.

In the past, self storage as a whole has sometimes had a
bad reputation. Oftentimes when people think of the
industry they think of the horror stories that are shown on
the evening news - the meth lab found in a unit, a
soldier's items being auctioned by mistake, the hurricane
damaged storage property, the car used in a homicide being
stored in a space. Unfortunately for the storage industry
the every day good things that occur are just too mundane
to draw attention. This is one reason why positive
marketing on a national level is extremely important. Self
storage organizations, private, statewide and nationwide
have all become very important in the positive marketing
for all self storage owners and managers. Many of the
larger private self storage organizations put on large
conventions to increase the awareness of the self storage
industry. This allows owners and managers to meet, exchange
ideas and learn some new techniques. Positive feedback
nationally will always help locations on the local level.

Most self storage companies today have a customer focus.
This implies that the company focuses its activities and
products on consumer demands. Generally there are three
ways of doing this:

.The customer-driven approach consumer wants are the
drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. Every aspect
of a market offering, including the nature of the product
itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The
starting point is always the consumer

.The sense of identifying market changes—being one
step ahead of the competition will enable you self storage
business to succeed.

.The product innovation approach—using that crystal
ball to be able to take into account customer needs vs.
what will be profitable for your business.

In the field of business, self storage marketing is a broad
term used to describe marketing in the self storage
industry. Don't confuse self storage marketing with self
storage advertising. Self storage advertising is only one
function of self storage marketing. Besides self storage
advertising, there are other functions in self storage
marketing like, sales of self storage, communications,
pricing, market research and more.

The market will bear what research has been done to meet
the customer needs. Figuring out which site should have
climate controlled units, RV parking, drive up or stacked
units will show in your occupancy rate. Being able to
provide the customer and the local market with what will
sell is the goal.

Direct self storage marketing is a function and type of
marketing. Two main definitional characteristics
distinguish direct self storage marketing from other types
of self storage marketing or self storage advertising. The
first is that it attempts to send its messages directly to
self storage consumers without the use of intervening
media. This involves unsolicited commercial communication
with consumers or self storage businesses. The second
characteristic is that it is focused on driving purchases
that can be attributed to a specific "call to action." This
aspect of direct self storage marketing involves an
emphasis on trackable, measurable results regardless of
medium.

"Bulk mail" is the most common form of direct self storage
marketing. Bulk mail is sent at a reduced rate specified by
the post office. Different areas or lists are used to
decide where the mail will be sent. Telemarketing is the
second most common form of direct self storage marketing.
Marketers use random or selected telephone numbers to try
and reach potential self storage customers. The third type
of direct self storage marketing is, email marketing
(including spam). This type of self storage marketing will
soon pass telemarketing as the second most common form.
While annoying, many people are drawn into the spam email
by offering a promise, a discounted item or other "too good
to be true" item. It's very inexpensive and only takes a
few people to fall for it to make a profit.

Prospecting customers through direct marketing and
advertising can prove to be very beneficial to new self
storage companies that might have a new site open. It has
been shown to be highly effective to make yourself known in
an affirmative way to the surrounding area and
neighborhoods. By presenting yourself and your company in a
positive way, the good deed will come back to you in
rentals. You want to make sure that the area that your
property is in knows that you are proud to be a part of the
neighborhood.

Direct self storage marketers use other media such as;

.Package inserts- commonly referred to as "stuffing",
package inserts can be as diverse as cereal boxes to
cigarettes to diapers to instant mashed potatoes. Recipes,
mail away promotional items and offers are some of the
things that might go in a package insert.

.Magazines- glossy ads that catch the readers
eye—There is a magazine out there for any type of
hobby, hairstyle, fitness, glamour, gossip, travel, sports,
boats, cars, families, babies, women, men, weddings, teen
life, gay life, muscles, cooking, lifestyles, storage,
consumer goods, decorating, seasons, clothing, shoes,
lingerie, non profit organizations, gentleman's, dogs,
cats, pets and more.

.Door hangers- relatively inexpensive and used to target
specific areas of your town or city. Whether you have a
large student, elderly, retired, middle class, young
families, etc. the inserts can be tuned to fit the type of
market you are trying to reach. A door hanger can be one
piece of paper or many sheets put into a plastic bag hung
on the door.

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Self Storage Marketing
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