Mark Cuban Makes Shark Tank Change Its Contract

Up until recently Shark Tank required contestants of the show to give up 5% equity in order to be on.  Read how Mark Cuban made the producers change that clause.  http://www.inc.com/will-yakowicz/mark-cuban-forces-shark-tank-to-remove-equity-clause.html

New and Improved Marketing Blog

At Hasseman Marketing, we are constantly working to be a thought leader in our industry.  We want to provide you content that is relevant and interesting to marketing, advertising, selling or simply growing your business.  With that goal in mind, this blog will become a daily source for information, news and opinions on the marketing and branding world.

Please check back in regularly...and let's go sell something! 

Senator Proposes New Wear American Act

Thought this was interesting.  Thoughts?

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is introducing legislation that would require government agencies to only buy apparel that's American-made, amending current laws that offer much greater leeway. The proposal follows the recent news that U.S. athletes will wear uniforms made in China during the opening ceremony of this summer's Olympic Games.

"We know how to make things in America, and the textile sector employs more than half a million workers in the United States – which is why the federal government should be purchasing, whenever possible, apparel that is domestically produced," Brown said. "With our widening trade deficit, we should be doing everything we can to support American manufacturing and job creation."

The bill proposed by Brown, named the Wear American Act of 2012, would mandate that textile and apparel items bought by federal agencies be manufactured from materials grown or produced in the U.S. Current so-called Buy America statutes only require 51% of apparel products purchased by the federal government to be made domestically. "Manufacturing helped make this country great," Brown said. "Good-paying manufacturing jobs have allowed hundreds of thousands of Americans to buy homes, send their children to college, and retire with security."
Each year, the federal government spends approximately $3 billion on apparel, according to Brown's office.

The Power of Packaging

My 10 year old daughter gave me a quick lesson in the Power of Packaging last night. She was taking a shower in my bathroom instead of hers (don't ask me why). But in checking out our shower, she called me into the bathroom to ask for "girls shampoo." I was totally confused. You see, my wife uses our shower, so the idea of her not having shampoo that would work in our bathroom had not occurred to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked her. She pointed to the shampoo that I use and said, "That's boys' shampoo. It has baseball on it."

Funny, the company was doing a cross promotion on their packaging that promoted baseball. So now that was boys's shampoo.

The lesson here is that how you package your products or marketing DOES matter. What image do you want to portray to customers or prospects? Keep in mind that if you don't have the right image on the outside, you may not have the right tone for the inside. Or worse yet, you might not even get them to open the package in the first place!

You don't want them to see your product and decided that it's "boys'shampoo."

Small-Business Hiring Expected To Increase

Feeling more optimistic about economic growth in 2012, small-business owners are planning to hire more employees this year to match expected revenue and profit gains, according to a new survey. Data from firm Vistage International shows 55% of small-business executives anticipate adding to their staffs in 2012, a 9% increase compared to polling done in the fall. The latest results closely follow positive news about the U.S. labor market and steadied consumer spending. "The very fact that things didn't get worse is for some people a cause for optimism," said Rafael Pastor, CEO of Vistage.

About 41% of survey respondents said they thought the economy improved in 2011, more than double the response in the third quarter of last year. Meanwhile, only 12% of the 1,600 CEOs surveyed said the economy had gotten worse. The boost in optimism lifted Vistage's confidence index to 98.8 in the fourth quarter of 2011, a significant jump from the 83.5 and 92.9 readings posted earlier last year. While small-business confidence is up, data shows CEOs still have several concerns heading into 2012, including the effects of Europe's financial crisis (cited by 43% of respondents) and the perceived failures of Congress to address U.S. debt and deficit increases (69%).

Coinciding with the mostly positive data from Vistage's survey, a separate report released by Intuit this week showed U.S. small businesses created 55,000 jobs in December and also increased working hours for employees. For 2011 overall, Intuit said worker compensation was up by 3.4%, offsetting the 3.3% rise in inflation. "All of the figures we track show a stronger small-business environment in December," said Susan Woodward, an economist who helped prepare the report.

New Job Posting for HMC

Let's see who is paying attention out there!

Customer Service Representative/Sales Assistant
Hasseman Marketing is looking for an energetic, organized candidate to fill the position of Customer Service Representative/Sales Assistant. The right candidate needs to be able to multi-task, have good phone skills, be flexible, have a good sense of humor and must have proficient computer skills. This person will be critical to the success of a growing organization. Some of the duties include; interacting with customers, assisting sales people, product research, coordinating artwork and other project details, as well as basic filing and telephone answering. This person will also have some order entry responsibilities and other jobs as assigned. Though basic computer efficiency is very important, we will train the right person on specifics. Pay will depend on qualifications and experience. Our office is a fun place to work, so don’t apply if you can’t laugh at yourself!

Interested parties must submit a resume’ to Jed McCoy at Coshocton County Job and Family Services. You can either drop resume’s off or email them to him at mccoyj@odjfs.state.oh.us with the subject line HMC job opening.

Create an Incentive Program to Motivate Staff

When executives of the Seattle arm of Comcast, the cable-communications giant, wanted to cut the company's insurance premiums and medical costs by reducing the number of injuries among its field workers, they turned to a local distributor to create a super-successful safety program for the operation's 700 outside employees.

At the outset, Comcast didn't have a program concept in mind. They simply wanted to keep their people more focused on safety by rewarding them for keeping hardhats on, wearing their boots, following rules for working with cable and electric, and more. The first move of the program involved personal and specific products that employees chose themselves.

The online points-based program that was created rewarded individuals and teams alike after spot checks plus random calls to customers (who earned a free movie). Consisting mostly of items between $5 and $25, the program was diverse, offering items like flashlights, picnic packs, personalized pen sets and watch sets.

The program's results came rapidly. Just two months into the program, safety incidents fell to 17 from 54 versus the same period one year prior. What the program unquestionably saved was money: The number of incidents over the full year was low enough that the firm paid $125,000 less in insurance premiums, and saw many fewer sick days used. Total cost of the items redeemed in the incentive program: $65,000.

Contact your Hasseman Marketing rep to help create an incentive program that will help you save money!