It’s official: I’m skipping the holiday cards this year. The thought of printing up hundreds of holiday cards and envelopes and mailing them makes my head spin when I think of all the resources - paper for the cards and envelopes, transportation of the cards to me from the printer, and transportation of the cards to each individual recipient.

My fabulous copywriter, Kelly Parkinson of Copylicious, came up with a very clever note for the eCups I will be sending, a virtual cup of coffee that the recipient prints out on there printer and can (hopefully) walk over to Peet’s to enjoy. Kelly also sent me a link to an article on Salon, detailing a number of great green gifts for the holidays.

Go green!

Several of my clients are wondering what to do for their clients this year. I’m wondering, too. How can I differentiate myself? We all receive dozens of holidays cards, which get shuffled around and maybe set on the side table in the conference room and ultimately thrown out. In this era of reduce, reuse, recycle, this doesn’t seem very “green” to us at Peridot.

We are designing a chocolate bar for a client to send to their clients. Our designer and copywriter put together an eye-catching design with clever copy, which we are producing as a Belgium dark chocolate bar and delivering in a shiny metallic blue envelope. I think this is a great way to separate yourself from the masses when it comes to small, affordable holiday gifts.

Peet’s Coffee has ECups, a very clever way to say hi and thanks.

From the Fast Company’s Blog:If you want to create a transformational holiday experience - as opposed to the typical transactional approach - consider the following three questions:

(a) what kind of unique experience can you create that your family or friends will remember for years?

(b) what kind of gift can you give that will self-actualize your gift recipient (for example, how about donating $100 to a teenager’s favorite cause?)? or

(c) what’s an educational experience you can gift someone that will boost their sense of esteem and will benefit them for years to come?

In sum, as the feverish shopping season kicks into gear, consider a new approach to creating a more meaningful season of giving.

Fast Company’s Blog lists The Seven Steps to Instilling Confidence. When you become clear about the following seven questions, you will find that you are better able to articulate them, which will result in more confidence when discussing your business. It will help you in all of your sales and marketing efforts!

1. What do you love making (product) or doing (service) that has enough value that other people would be willing and want to pay for (your DREAM)?

2. What desire or problem is your product (what you make) or service (what you do) the best answer or solution to (your VISION and MISSION)?

3. What people or what company has a desire or problem that most urgently needs your product or service, i.e. who are the ones that “Gotta’ have you!” (your MARKETING)?

4. How do you get those people or that company to be aware of their urgent need for your product or service (your ADVERTISING)?

5. How do you convince those people to buy that service or product that they “gotta have?” (your SALES)

6. How do you get your product or service to those people or that company (your PRODUCTION and DELIVERY)?

7. How do you continue to increase the satisfaction and enthusiasm for your product or service, so they’ll tell others (your CUSTOMER SERVICE and CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT of products and services)?

What these questions ultimately demand that you think about are your company’s benefits and results and your ideal client. These are invaluable tools in business, because without them, you don’t have a clear direction. What is a benefit of your product/service? And what does that do for your client?

For example, I might say, “Peridot has a tremendous amount of resources available for a wide variety of projects.” That’s a benefit. What does that do for my client? I can easily answer that with, “Peridot provides it’s clients with one-stop shopping.” Well, again, that’s a benefit, not a result. If you can say “so what?” at the end of the phrase, you haven’t identified the result. If I say, “Peridot’s clients know that whatever curve ball they throw our way, we have the resources to handle it, which saves them the cost and time of finding another resource.” Can you say, “so what” to that? No, because I have identified the most common client desires: How will Peridot save me time and money?

Once you have solid answers to these questions, you will be ready to start talking about your company, your service or your product, in a confidence-inspiring way!

Wikipedia’s definition of credibility is “the believability of a source or message and is composed of of two primary dimensions: trustworthiness and expertise.”

How do you enhance your trustworthiness and expertise, your credibility?

In order to meet prospective clients, I attend networking events. Those meetings may be the only face time I have with a prospect before we decide to do business together. Sure, it helps if I am nice, friendly, and well-dressed. But what happens when the prospect returns to their office and pulls out my card? If they are serious about doing business with me, or perhaps even if they are just curious, they will pull up my website before picking up the phone or sending me an email. I am not selling anything online - no custom made t-shirts or books here - so why visit my site?

Visiting a service-based site is a way to determine whether or not the business is one you want to work with. If you’ve just met someone at a networking event, they may look presentable and are well spoken, but what happens if you return to your office, pull up their card and realize their website is poorly written, slow to load and disorganized? What if they don’t have a website and they have an old fashioned aol.com email address?

What do you think of them now?

Now imagine you’ve just met someone at a networking event who was well presented with interesting things to say. You return to your office, pull their business card out of your wallet, and type in their site’s URL. You instantly view a clean, easy to navigate, and attractive website. What a wonderful follow-up to the impressive in-person meeting you’ve just had! In your mind, that person’s business is a credible one. And credibility leads to trust, which is one of the pillars of persuasion.

Credibility web sites are the most common type of web site for service-based businesses. I wouldn’t have thought this when I started my business, but I have come to realize that they are also the least understood type of web site.

The internet actually makes it easier for you to make your business visible to your customers, potential customers and the public. It is important for you to ask yourself, “What do I want this visibility to do for my business?” Think, for a moment, about what you are trying to express about your business on your web site.

You can use the internet to:

• Find new customers

• Pitch your service

• Position you and your company as a resource or expert on a specific topic

• Establish your credibility

Credibility helps you demonstrate your capabilities to potential clients; clients can become repeat clients and can generate referrals to help your business grow.