The best way to ask for a referral is to be prepared for it. You prepare by first, evaluating your audience.

1. Have you established your value with the client?
2. Are your clients really sold on you?
3. Do your clients understand you?

If your clients realize your value and understand the full array of solutions or products your provide, they will often make statements like:
"Working with you has helped to grow our business."
“What you do is great.”
“We are so happy the way things turned out.”
“I really appreciate your work.”

Second, timing is everything. The best time to ask for a referral depends on the relationship you have built with the client. Most will ask for a referral when the sale is closed. Only a daring few will ask before the sale or service is complete. If you have not established yourself as an effective and positive, trusted force, then asking for a referral can be less successful. Don’t ask for favours like referrals, if your clients don’t think of you favourably.

Lastly, people are busy. Asking in person is best, telephone is second best and the last would be by mail. Remember, your personal service for a product demands a personal request for a referral. Know your value with each client you ask for a referral of. If you are unsure, they are too.

Basic points of asking for a referral are:
- Tell your client you enjoy working with them.
- Tell your client you are interested in growing their business.
- Describe the value of working with you and describe the benefit to them.
- Do they know of anyone who needs or wants similar benefits by working with you?

Evaluate, describe your value and benefits and then ask for it.

Need help fine tuning your referral request process or marketing your product, call us at (204)772-4061. We can help you refine your targets, marketing and referral rewards program.

There are many business truisms that have been re-written in the last few years because of change in the social and business economy. So, let’s look at a few of them in relation to advertising.

Business as usual. This term no longer works. Technology used everyday in the businessplace can be disruptive, but it is also provides a means of learning about consumers, reducing costs, increasing speed and providing new ways to think about business structures. For example, our creative agency rarely presents proofs or mock-ups to 85% of our clients. Usually, on-line proof versions are approved. Then, these are sent to the printer or publisher’s ftp site for printing. This eliminates a lot of time and cost as well changes can be adapted quickly.
Advertising research, like focus groups, kill really great ideas. Actually the targeted group can generate insight. This insight is usually the fundamental truths about the product or service that can sound like a comment from your Uncle Louie, but is usually the basis of a great advertising campaign. Examples of this would be the ‘Got Milk’ and the Polaroid camera, ‘See What Develops’ campaigns.
You don’t have great strategy until you have a great ad. Successful ads are not built straight from business needs to effective campaigns. Instead, building memorable advertising is a complex, rational and emotional task.
Getting the ad right meant asking the questions in the right order. Right? Wrong. The words and thoughts are presented and this becomes a doorway for the creative process. When you have the right combination of talent, brains, raw energy and focused clients, it is a success.

Good research, effective, creative minds and a good dose of common sense will give you effective and sometimes, simple ad campaigns. Remember your target market is smart. So, when baiting a mousetrap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse.

Looking for a better ad, strategy or just have a cool mousetrap to advertise? Call the team at Edge at (204)772-4061 and separate the truths from the lies.

You may not think you need to be creative in the business role that you play, but creativity can help you do a better job of whatever your responsibility. Creativity teaches us that innovation can solve problems, gives new solutions to old problems and makes you feel more satisfied and fulfilled with the job you do. To survive and thrive in business today, you need to be a potent idea generator.

Great ideas are the root of everything new. Every new product, service improvement, cost saving and efficiency has come from human creativeness. Every market conquering, competition smashing concept is the result of someone thinking of something never thought of before, or in some cases, an old concept reenergized to perform a particular task.

Creative thinkers approach a problem that needs a creative solution with research. This approach is based on understanding the client's unique needs, circumstances and objectives.

The vital need for creative thinking is just as prevalent as computer terminals and electronic communication in business today. Great ideas are the root of everything new.

Would you like to increase your idea power and up your creative I.Q.? Our team of creative professionals are committed to providing creative business solutions for your business needs. We have uncompromising commitment to quality, service and innovative approaches.

If you have a problem you'd like solved or an opportunity you want to take advantage of, put Edge's creativity to use. Call us at (204) 772-4061 for a creative meeting today.

Edge has just launched a new self promotion. "We're excited to be promoting ourselves in this controversial way," exclaims Robert Mensies, principal of Edge. "Some people in the industry will see us offering a $10,000 coupon off our business solutions as desperate means in a tough economy. We see it as a dynamic way of creating interest (and hopefully a buzz) about Edge."
There are of course certain criteria that needs to be met to receive the $10,000 off, but Mensies hopes that he'll see a few coupons presented at the Edge offices.

"We're constantly looking for new promotional opportunities for clients. Sometimes we see something that we ourselves can't pass up," explains Mensies.

Edge is not investing a huge amount of dollars into this campaign. "We're seeing how the Winnipeg Free Press website, specifically the business section and related articles, works for marketing business to business services. "The website is pretty much an untapped marketing resource for b2b right now."