Buzz Builder

Espresso Arts Catering: Demonstrating Passion & Quality through Coffee Tastings

For food and drink manufacturers and retailers, tastings are excellent way to create buzz for new products. From Costco  to my local neighborhood grocery stores, I've noticed that samples are being offered with greater frequency. However, rarely have I seen somebody providing knowledgeable insight into what makes a product new and different.  What a wasted opportunity!

Last week, at Connect (an outstanding networking group in Portland, Oregon to which I belong), Christine Herman made a presentation that demonstrated the passion for her business and the quality of her products. She spoke for 20 minutes about the evolution of coffee in the United States. The first wave of coffee was Folger's, Maxwell House, and Nescafe which utilized robusta coffee beans, the cheapest to bring to market. The second wave, which Starbucks  dominates, brought better quality coffee to Americans made from Arabica coffee beans. The third wave of coffee has only taken off in a few markets. In Portland, Oregon, which has the highest per capita coffee consumption of any city in the United States, discriminating coffee drinkers are driving the growth of artisanal coffee producers like Stumptown Coffee and Ristretto Roasters  which roast a wide variety of coffee beans that are ground just before they are made into delicious drinks.

Following her informative presentation, Christine led us through a tasting of five different coffees from Stumptown Coffee which is her exlusive coffee provider. As we sampled each one, she did a marvelous job explaining the flavor profiles using interesting comparisons to a wide range of food and beverages. Her passion and expertise were so clear and her coffee so good that I would certainly hire her company, Espresso Arts Catering (503-475-3979 or christineh2@gmail.com), when I want to serve the very best coffee and pastries at a party or social event.

The above photo shows Christine at a Stumptown cupping at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland during the NW Barista Competition. Photo credit belongs to Serena Davidson, an excellent photographer based in Portland, Oregon.

LinkedIn: A Good Way to Grow Your Network

Over the last four months, I've noticed an uptick in the number of invitations that I've received to join people's LinkedIn networks.  LinkedIn is an online network of eight million experienced professionals from around the world. It's rapid growth is featured in an excellent story on NPR's Morning Edition today. For those interested in building a word of mouth marketing network, LinkedIn is a valuable tool and a great way to tap into wider networks.

When you join LinkedIn, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals. The key to leveraging the power of LinkedIn is to fill out your profile as completely as possible. Make sure to include as many keywords as possible relating to your business or the type of opportunity that you're seeking.

I'm confident that online networks will never replace the need for real world neteworking since many people will only do business with or refer business to people that they know and trust. That said, online networking is quite viable for many and has a  lot of room for growth so now is a great time to jump aboard the online networking bandwagon.

Prophet CRM Software from Avidian Superior to ACT!, Goldmine, Maximizer, and Salesforce

When I first started shopping for CRM software, I thought choosing ACT! 2006 from Sage Software would be a no brainer. Even though  I had never used ACT! in the past, I had always heard that it was the best CRM system for small businesses. Yet, when I started poking around, I found hundreds of horrible reviews complaining about buggy, slow, and ineffective software that was giving users fits. Check out  the product review page  on Amazon to see how ACT! 2006 is driving people nuts.

I looked at other CRM systems such as Goldmine, Maximizer, and Salesforce. These systems were all more expensive than my budget allowed, and they all suffered the wrath of many users and media critics. Thanks to Google, I discovered Prophet 3.0, a CRM alternative from Avidian in Bellevue Washington. The positive user testimonials  that I discovered on the Prophet  website were intriguing, and I couldn't find any negative review through the major search engines. Instead, I discovered a lot of positive press that convinced me to buy the product. 

Prophet is simple add-in for Microsoft Outlook which allows me to leverage my existing contact database with cool features such as enhanced contact management; a sales assistant that lets me send pre-set, timed e-mails to my contacts; a workflow engine that helps me automate sales-cycle actions and create consistent sales processes; advanced reporting options; and an opportunity-management console. I was particularly impressed with how easy it was to set up, and I nearly fell out of my Aeron chair when I called the company for assistance and a live service person answered the call on three rings and was able to solve my problem on the spot. Figuring out how to use Prophet has been no harder than learning how to utilize Outlook.

While Avidian might be newer to the CRM game than some vaunted competitors, there is no doubt that it will dethrone some of its competitors. Avidian is a quality product that is so easy to install and use that positve word of mouth is inevitable.

Realtor Larry Blackmar: A Case Study in Doing Well by Doing Good

Headquartered in Eugene, Oregon, Holt International is one of the country's oldest and most prestigious adoption agencies specializing in international adoption. I just received the Fall 2006 edition of Holt's quarterly magazine, and I was impressed with an article profiling Larry Blackmar, a realtor in Portland, Oregon, who has been committing 15 percent of his real estate commissions every year to Holt. He called this contribution a "combination of of my passion for my family, my community, and a job I enjoy every day."

In the article, Blackmar said, "Through Holt International's help we experienced firsthand the thrill of bringing two beautiful girls into our home. We also  experienced the dramatic need for more adoptive parents and foster care programs to care for so many more children."

I admire Blackmar because his contribution comes from the heart and his fixed-percentage contribution to Holt is generous and straightforward. It's also a great example of how to leverage charity to create positve buzz. His print advertisements, which specify the percentage of the commission that he gives to Holt, stand out from the vast majority of real estate ads which feature grinning agents with undifferentiated ad copy. Professionals and entrepreneurs who clearly explain their generosity in marketing materials might be surprised with the goodwill and good business that their contributions inspire.