Craving an umbrella so jaw-droppingly attractive you’ll never leave it in your car, cubicle, or the movie theater floor? We found some designs so breathtaking you’ll find yourself begging for rainy days.

As a long-time student and collector of umbrellas, Seattle’s Jodell Egbert’s vintage collections were the nucleus around which she began Bella Umbrella. Her venture is now the largest source of vintage and vintage-styled umbrellas in the world!

Designer umbrellas from Pare Umbrella make chic compliments to any outfit. Their full-length fashion umbrellas are inspired by the unique, fun and colorful umbrellas of Tokyo, Japan.

Tray 6 umbrellas are equal parts fashion and function. This SoCal company is committed to creating high-quality, high design products–no more plain black and boring plaid, enough with shoddy spokes and sharp metal parts!

Editors are busy people that are always on deadline. If you want to get their attention, your press release needs to be concise with a newsworthy angle. Making sure that angle is fresh and timely is crucial. Consider the amount of notice needed. Magazines work four months in advance, so sending out that spring collection release in April won’t get you any coverage. Remember, too, that the media will only write about products that their readers can purchase. If you are only selling locally, then don’t expect national publications to write about you. Your best bet is to get selling on the web because then everyone anywhere can get your amazing product, including those seemingly-elusive editors.

This guest post was contributed by marketing maven Sarah Murray, director of The Honey Mustard, founder of Fashion High, and communications director for Dress for Success Vancouver. She will be speaking at SHOP Symposium/09 in Vancouver BC, on Monday March 30. Click here to learn more and register.

If I asked you to name the five best books on selling, Green Eggs and Ham probably wouldn’t leap into your mind.

But it should.

Immortal Sam I Am is one of the greatest salesmen ever. Here are two reasons why:

1. He tries to close the sale sixteen times before he gets a “yes.”

Sixteen! The average salesperson asks twice.

Sam knew the average sale is made when the customer is asked five times.

Sam knew that 67% of all shoppers expect to return home with the item they went out to look for, but only 24% actually do.

2. Sam knew that simply asking again and again wasn’t enough.

That’s not closing, that’s being a pain in the backside.

This is key:
Sam came up with sixteen options, ideas, new ways of thinking about green eggs and ham.

Would you like them in a box? With a fox? In a house? With a mouse? In a train? In the rain? Here or there?

Cheesy sales trainers love to spout, “Ya gotta remember ABC! Always Be Closing!” But what does that mean? Hammer on people till they give in? Let us hope not. Let’s hope your sales people think ABC-UWI-TWHP. Always be coming up with innovative ideas that will help people.

Oh, you’re not a sales person? But of course you are. If you’re alive, you’re selling. Your ideas, your writing, your blog, your Web site, a product, your business… everything.

Stick with it. Get creative. Be like Sam.

(Did you know a Random House editor bet Ted Geisel $50 he couldn’t write a book using only fifty words? Green Eggs and Ham was the result.)

This blog post was contributed by Laura Christianson and Jim Rubart of He Blogs, She Blogs. Laura and Jim will be speaking at the SHOP Symposium/09 event in Seattle on March 23. Check out more about the event and sign up here.

The birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, and the flowers are blooming. Spring is on its way and it’s time to get a jump start on finding your own spring fling. Not great at casual conversation? Just follow these helpful flirting tips and you could have your very own romantic somebody in no time!

Don’t take it too seriously
Flirting is a great way to get to know people, just don’t go into it expecting to find the love of your life. Have fun and even if you don’t find your perfect match, at least you can say you had a good time.

Look approachable
Sulking isn’t going to get you anywhere. Relax and smile a bit; show people that you are fun to be around. This will open you up to more conversations with more people.

Be body language literate
Actions speak louder than words. Look for signs of interest such as mirroring. Mirroring is when a person begins to “mirror” your actions; leaning in when you lean in and smiling when you smile. Also if the person is allowing you into their personal space, it is a good indication that they are interested.

Make eye contact
Constant eye contact with the person your interested in is key. Quick glances from across the room paired with a smile are obvious signs of attraction.

Initiate a conversation
Let’s leave the political debates at home. Keep the conversation at a small talk level. A simple remark about your current surroundings will suffice. For example, something as casual as commenting about the weather will open you up to conversation. What is asked isn’t important. What is most important is getting that line of communication started.

Get to know the person and allow them to get to know you
Once you are past the small talk, give them a quick glance into who you are. Begin exchanging basic information such as what you do for a living or where you are from. Make sure that the conversation is reciprocal. Share information about yourself but don’t forget that a conversation is a two way street. Allow yourself to get to know them also.

Give the person your undivided attention
Don’t allow outside distractions to deter you from getting acquainted with the object of your affection. Laugh at their jokes, comment on their stories and answer their questions. Being an active listener is way more important than being witty.

Now that you’re body language literate, use it
If the two of you seem to be hitting if off, take your flirting to the next level by breaking the touch barrier. Lightly touch their arm while you talk or hold their hand while leading them to another room or to a table. Subtle touching like this will not only show interest but will also let you know if they are comfortable letting you into their personal space.

To date or not to date… that is the question
Now that you have gotten to know them, it’s time to decide whether or not you’d like to see them again. Flirting is harmless fun and will at times, result in nothing. However, there are those occasions where you will meet someone that you find particularly interesting. In this case, a second meeting is necessary. Be confident and let them know that you are interested in seeing them again. If for some reason they do not feel the same way, don’t look at it as the end of the world. There will be plenty of other opportunities to meet that special someone.

No matter what your business sells, it’s smart to slant your marketing toward women. Why? Because women purchase over 80% of nearly everything—and not just traditional stuff, either. From tank-tops to tires, kitchen stuff to computers, women hold the purse strings. Here’s how your business can reach them.

Connect with an online presence
Women far outpace men in researching products and services online, so no matter what your business, you need a professional website.

Consider starting a blog, too. It helps customers find you, and it helps you maintain a conversation with them. Whether you do it yourself or hire out the task, blogging is well worth the investment.

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social networks are here to stay—and your customers are hanging out there. Research shows, for example, that American women ages 45 are signing up on Facebook in droves. The stats for younger women are impressive, too. Join them by getting a personal and business profile online.

Connect with word-of-mouth referrals
Women talk to friends about stuff they love—whether it’s a new dry cleaner, a shop with the best organic veggies or a boutique with amazing jewelry. When you attract one woman, you’ll likely attract more with word-of-mouth referrals.

Help them spread the good word. For example, add a “Share with a Friend” button to your online store website. Not only do you help your customer get a friend’s opinion on that handbag she’s dying to buy, you’ll doubled the number of potential customers on your site.

Connect with cool events
Women love getting together, so help them do just that—all while promoting your business, of course.

One of my clients owns a spa where she hosts weekend events. Recently, a local handbag designer was the featured guest while the spa’s clients got a discount on beautiful totes.

Another client promotes girls’ only pole parties and bachelorette bashes at her dance studio. It only takes a single student to invite ten friends to a party. Talk about effective advertising!

Take a fresh look at your business and find new ways to increase sales through bring-a-friend events, parties and more.

It does pay—literally—to target your marketing toward women. Give these tips a try, and don’t be surprised when your sales reward your efforts.

This guest blog post was contributed by Lynn Baldwin-Rhoades, a writer who specializes in reaching women. Learn female-friendly marketing tips from Lynn on her blog. Lynn will also be speaking at SHOP Symposium/09 in Seattle. Click here to learn more and sign up.

We are excited to celebrate “National Pi Day” on Saturday March 14! It might not be the official “pie” day but any excuse to eat pie will do. Check out what CakeSpy has to say about this day and make sure to prepare at least one of the 30 recipes listed:

There’s some controversy on the subject of which day National Pie Day ought to be celebrated, either January 23 (as specified by the American Pie Council) or March 14 (as specified by the math geeks of the universe). We’ve got the perfect solution though: why not celebrate on both days? Certainly there’s enough pie love to go around.

With March 14th coming around, we decided to forgo the usual apple, pumpkin or blueberry pie in favor of compiling a list of somewhat lesser-known pies; each is linked to a recipe or page explaining its history. Maybe you’ll come across some old favorites or new discoveries. But mostly we’re curious…how many have you tried?

Make sure to check out CakeSpy’s Web site to fulfill any cake need you might have. CakeSpy foundress Jessie Oleson will be joining us March 23rd as a speaker at SHOP Symposium/09 in Seattle.

One of our favorite Vancouver, BC entreprenesses is Nancy Mudford of Le Petit Spa and Spa Boutique. She’s helped us organize numerous events in Vancouver, and assisted us with the second edition of the CRAVE Vancouver book, which came out last November.

Nancy is full of clever ideas and always offers great advice about running a small business. We found this great post about word-of-mouth advertising in the “Let’s Talk Spa” section on her blog. Click here to read the original article, or find it below.

Dear fellow entrepreneurs,

I built my business on word of mouth advertising. It was critical to our growth especially since we are a service provider. Customers came in and had a great experience. They then told their friends. We now differentiate ourselves with our ambience. Our tagline is “Discover our Secret”.

So part of our secret is to make sure that we tantalize the customer’s senses with smell, touch, and taste. When you come into the spa, you smell lavender because we have many sheaths of lavender around the spa (large bushels). When you come in, we shake your hand, introduce ourselves and lead you to the right station in the spa. In terms of taste, we have special cookies and chocolates made by Patisserie Bordeaux and Daniel Le Chocolat Belge which are businesses “just around the corner” from us. These special touches are part of our ambience and if we run out (god forbid), our customers are not very happy so we always make sure that we have them in stock. Lavender tea made by Bayswater Tea Company on West Broadway is where our fruit rooibos tea with lavender buds added is part of the spa experience. Another option is to have a glass of wine by French Rabbit. So you get the picture.

Now these cookies have been with us for FIVE years. We tell everyone where we buy them so just in case you missed it, it was Patisserie Bordeaux…just around the corner. I don’t go to Costco, I pay premium prices to support another local business and to also offer a French touch, “les petit fours” which means small cookie in French.

I have been told today that they will not produce anymore cookies for us until December 30th….so we called them and told them that we are a regular customer and we could order more next week to tide us over. We provided solutions but the response we received was, “We had the same situation happen last year with you.” Now as THE CUSTOMER, not sure why we are being spoken to this way especially in these hard economic times. They did not relent and now we are left with little choice – we must find a new cookie supplier because this customer service is horrendous. We spend $2,000 per year with this supplier and this customer treatment is UNACCEPTABLE.

Like I said, word of mouth advertising is VERY POWERFUL. Be very careful. It can work to your advantage or it can destroy you. Arrogance is not becoming to an individual NOR to a small business.

At Le Petit Spa, we work very hard to maintain our ambiance and ensure that it is first rate every day for every customer. We spend time training our staff and talking to them about the importance.

Now I understand we all have bad days and busy times but every customer is important especially those that support you every week. Make sure you take the time to thank your customers every time they come in ESPECIALLY during these busy times.

Cheers!
Nancy

What is the business case for Web PR?

It’s as simple as this: your brand lives online. People turn to Google as their gateway to the world. Our reliance on search engines, YouTube and Facebook ha happened so quickly that we don’t often stop to consider it. And now, Twitter is emerging as new form of everyday communication. Look at it this way, when was the last time you cracked open the Yellow Pages? When was the last time you responded to a direct mail campaign or a print ad? If you’re like many people, it’s been a long while. The way we communicate has fundamentally changed.

And so, PR is changing too. Here are four reasons to add Web PR to your marketing plan.

1. People will find you on Google, YouTube, Facebook, and everywhere you need to be online.
Search engines are wildly complex beasts, but they universally adore content. They reward you for publishing content that is meaningful and valuable – but only if you distribute it broadly online. It’s not enough to have interesting Web site copy. You need to create and distribute articles, news releases and video to other sites. If you’re publishing content regularly, search engines will rank you higher.

2. You’re not at the mercy of reporters.
Companies are accustomed to being at the mercy of reporters to get their stories to the market. Most companies continue to spend considerable time and money to lobby reporters to write stories, and if a story doesn’t grab the attention of the press it often goes untold (even if it may be of great interest to customers). Media relations still has an important role in business, but now Web PR exists to give companies far greater control over what stories get told. The Web allows your company to be a publisher of content. If you take that role seriously and commit to publishing work that is solid, you can get your message out without depending on third-parties.

3. You can communicate frequently, easily and cost-effectively.
Buying ad space or securing media coverage in major newspapers, magazines and on TV is costly, time-consuming and slow. Of course, these used to be our only venues of communication and so companies had to choose very carefully what to communicate and when. Stories had to be considered “big news” to be worth the investment of communicating.

Now the cost and effort of communicating has been drastically lowered. With the right tools in place, you can post a quick story on your Web site about an interesting idea for a new product feature that occurred to you this morning and seek customer feedback. You can quickly compose and issue a news release that contains information and insight that is definitely important to your customers, even if your local newspaper won’t find it “newsworthy.” Videos can be created, edited and posted the same day an event occurs.

4. Your Web site becomes more interactive and interesting.
Typically companies build Web sites with the good intention of updating them all the time. Then weeks and months pass by with minimal updating. The content starts to feel old and irrelevant. All of those great intentions you had to publish articles, news, opinion pieces and videos go mostly unfulfilled. You’ve built a powerful venue for communication, but you don’t have a communications strategy to go with it.

Web PR fills that gap in your Web strategy. It is the ongoing communications program that delivers content that is published on your site and across the Internet.

Building Brand Awareness
Brand awareness continues to be a primary goal of most marketing programs but market dynamics have changed so significantly in the past few years that many branding programs are no longer in sync with customers.

Shifting your brand-building strategy to incorporate more online initiatives will allow you to reach more people cost-effectively. It will set a new tone for your brand and it will establish you as a leader where it matters most: online.

This article was contributed by Soya Marketing, a new kind of PR agency that empowers organizations to use Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to get their stories to the market.

Soya Marketing is a featured speaker at SHOP Symposium/09 in Seattle and Vancouver. Check out more about the events here.