I bet you he shaves every day...

Convention has changed a lot over the last few years – until pretty recently, it was frowned upon if you hadn’t shaved – unless you were growing a beard (what a great excuse) or were a tramp/hobo – in which case it is part of the job description.

Nowadays, not shaving even on workdays is pretty much accepted as a part of everyday life. You’ll see lots of guys going to pretty serious jobs with a couple of days worth of stubble, and there is an increasing line in electric razors that will trim your beard to give you a stubble type look.

But what does this mean if you’re trying to make a good impression with the ladies? Well I guess that depends on the lady you’re talking about!

Aside from the fact that trying to figure out what ladies want is the eternal question we’re all battling with, there are some tips that can help you look your best shaven or unshaven.

Moisturise Every Day, Whether You Shave Or Not.

It doesn’t matter if you have a shave, your skin is still exposed to the elements every day and needs protection. A good moisturiser with a SPF factor of at least 15 is a must.

Keep Your Stubble Tidy

The rugged look might be a good one, but the tramp look is not. Keep stubble tidy with a trim up, and make sure you pay attention to other facial hair too, such as eyebrows, sideburns and nasal hair (nice!)

Plan Ahead…

If you’re going to shave say twice a week, plan ahead. If you’ve got an important meeting, or a first date, err on the side of caution and take the razor out. You can find out later if she wants to run her hands over your stubble…!

Watch Out For Grey Parts

You might be a bit young to want to consider yourself a silver fox, so you have a choice – look old before your time, or shave more often! You can colour a beard and hair, but colouring stubble is a nightmare, so take our advice and don’t bother!

So What’s Next?

Well, why not check out the great range of products on the Shield For Men site in the comfort of your own home? We’ve got some great products to offer you, with more coming down the pipe.

Also don’t forget to follow us on social media and subscribe to the blog for more great hints tips and advice, and leave your comments below to let us know what you think!

Know Your Market – Dress Like A Beer Bottle?

As a bit of a marketing geek, I tend to look at virtually everything I see in terms of how well that person brand or organisation is getting their message across.

In fact I do it so much that I can see people eyes glazing over when I start banging on about message to market match etc, especially those of my long suffering wife, Rachel.

A Smile A Day…

However from time to time I come across pieces of marketing and promotion that I think are clever and above all make me smile. After all it I am smiling, then my defences are down and I am more likely to buy, right?

I saw something really funny when I was walking out of Fenchurch Street station one day last week. As you come out of the main station entrance, you are always greeted by a variety of free newspaper distributors, leaflet people and charity collectors all appealing for your attention.

So to stand out from the crowd here really is something.

This business was a gents hairdressers, and they were giving out leaflets in the shape of folded five pound notes, so that when you took the leaflet it looked like money.

I will upload a picture as soon as I can!

Cold Beer and Sex?

When you opened the leaflet up, it had the words “cold beer” and “sex” in larger bold text, picked out of a sentence which read “We will give you a cold beer, and you can have a hair cut which may give you sex appeal”

The people handing out the leaflets were dressed as giant green beer bottles, and certainly caught my attention enough to persuade me to take a leaflet.

Pricewise, they were competitive with other City barbers, unless you choose to go to a more expensive salon of course.

This barber really knows its typical customer, which you would guess is younger men in the City who would appreciate the chance to have a cold beer when they visit the barber.

A sense of Humour Helps

Also they showed ingenuity with the leaflet design and a sense of humour with the costumes. Overall a big tick in the box from me! Normally I get my hair cut locally but I think I might have to go to this place now, just so I can ask the owner how many more sales they get through this method.

What can you do to make yourself stand out from the crowd? Maybe you don’t have to dress as a giant beer bottle to differentiate yourself, but perhaps something else might work?

Remember if you just copy someone else, even if it is the market leader, then the only way people can differentiate between you is price. Do you really want every conversation with a potential customer to come down to just price?

I thought not.

So Be Different

There are so many ways to be different. Offer a free trial, do a special promotion, run a QR code campaign, send a press release to the local paper, promote via Twitter or Facebook, print some leaflets, cut your prices, increase your prices.

There are just eight ways to be different right away, so there is plenty to be thinking about for now.

Tell Me What You Think?

Leave me a comment below and tell me about your experiences, and for help making the most of your differences to connect with your market, get in touch with me at smile@abcmultimedia.co.uk and let’s talk about making it work for you.

As with most of my posts, this is something that has been in my mind recently and something I have very recent experience of too.

I have recently had a few days away from the 9-5 and had been looking forward to it for ages. It co-incided with the Royal Wedding and Easter and that meant I got eleven days away from London for just three days holiday. Brilliant eh?

My Royal Wedding Invite Had Been Lost, So…

I had lots of plans for both personal and own business related activities, and even went as far as writing the individual dates down and noting next to them what I planned to do on each day.

And yet on going through the notes I made and what I actually did during those 11 days, I found I did much less than I planned. I mean, I did the important stuff, but I didn’t write as many posts, or get as far as I wanted with my niche sites, or even manage to clear out the spare room (which has been on the list since Christmas at least)

Where’s the Problem?

So why was that? Why did I fall so far short?

This was due to the fact that I had a lack of consequences. If I didn’t do my own stuff, what would happen?

In the short term, nothing. There is no boss to yell at you, or punish you. If you leave something all week, it will just sit there.

However this got me to thinking how important consequences and structure are to the self employed, particularly solopreneurs, as they have been christened.

Who’s Your Boss?

In self employment, there are serious longer term consequences to a lack of discipline. No discipline means no business, no business means no income, and no income eventually equals bankruptcy.

The taxman will also not see the funny side, although I suppose that if you’ve got no income, you’ve got no tax problems either.

I know which I’d rather have…

Structure is Good…

In contrast, my current full time job in London has a ton of short term consequences if I don’t perform. So that keeps me on my toes and stops short term issues becoming long term problems.

This is the mindset I will take back with me when I go back to being self employed and running my businesses full time, and is a good lesson for anyone self employed, whether you work from home or not.

Routine Is Death

Actually it is not. Routine can help to get done what needs to be done. Create one for yourself. The beauty of being self employed is that it can be whatever you want it to be.

Work better in the mornings? Get up and start working whenever you like. A night owl? Work as late as you want. Work Saturday to meet a deadline? Take Tuesday off instead.

One of the positive images I have about being self employed, from my time as a mortgage broker, is the chance to go food shopping at 3pm on a Tuesday, when no-one else is there.

I know, it takes all sorts…

Get Off Your Arse

Brad Burton says in his first book Get Off Your Arse (very good advice, by the way) that being self employed is like every day being a bank holiday, and you should work when you want and not when you don’t.

I agree with that up to a point – just make sure that when you are working, you make sure you’re well organised and get through what you need to get done.

If you’ve done your homework and chosen your business based on something you enjoy and are passionate about, the chances are it won’t even feel like work, and you’ll find yourself flying along without even realising it.

My new marketing tips series will be launching soon (as soon as I have written them actually) so sign up to my list in the box next to this page, and I will make sure you get those as soon as they are ready, whenever you sign up.

In the meantime, leave me a comment below and let me know what you think?

I can’t remember exactly who I said it to first, but at some stage in the relatively recent past, I said that my ultimate ambition was to start and run my own marketing company.

And here it is!

As an employee first and a small business owner afterwards (I was once a mortgage broker) I had a lot of first hand experience of either being marketed to, and also of other companies trying to offer me their marketing services.

My experience of that was mostly that people just didn’t seem to get us as people or as a business – the approach seemed to be very much one size fits all, and if you didn’t fit the mould, that was pretty much that.

So I wanted to do something different, both for the mortgage business which Rachel (my wife) and I owned, and also for other people, and see where it took us.

It’s a Scary World Out There…

As you’ll know, the World has changed a lot since 2008 in financial terms, and the mortgage broking industry has seen a reduction from almost 30,000 advisors to something like 10,000 today.

However our business has still kept going throughout, and that is in no small part due to the approach we took to marketing and connecting with our clients.

Nowadays there are more social media consultants that anyone can count, and people telling you every five minutes what you must be doing, that you’re missing out if you don’t do all of the latest things.

Why Am I Different?

Apart from the fact that my Mum said I was “special”?

What will we do differently to everyone else? We’ll treat you as individual.

We’ll listen to you and we’ll work on coming up with some really good ideas that we think will work well for you, and fit your style.

Yes, we’ve grouped the most popular services into packages, just to make life a bit easier, but if you want something else, or we can suggest something else that could help you, that’s fine too. It’s all good.

Who Is About Then?

The mistake too many companies make is that it is all about them, what a great product they’ve got, what great offices they have.

It isn’t.

It is about the customer.

For you, it is about your customers, whoever or wherever they may be.

And for me, it is all about you, my customer.

Free stuff? Really?

I will also be adding a ton of free content and resources on this site, so to be honest, if you follow me for long enough, you’ll be able to do pretty much everything I can do for yourself.

After all, I didn’t invent any of this stuff, I’ve just worked out how to use it really well. And like everyone else, I am learning all the time.

If however you’re like me, you’ll want someone to do things for you so that you can concentrate on what you enjoy and what you’re good at.

If I go a bit in marketing geek mode at times, I apologise, this stuff just really interests and excites me. just now ignore the geeky stuff, as there will be something interesting coming long in a minute!

So Lets Connect…

Drop me a line, leave me a comment, catch me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or even come over and laugh at my attempts to be a star on YouTube.

If you’re feeling a bit old school, you can even give me a call, or catch up with me at a networking event if you’re in the Essex or London area.

However you do it, get in touch and let’s see what we can do to make your business more successful, whatever that means to you.