The Ultimate Conundrum: Trying Too Hard

One of the biggest mistakes people make is this: they try too hard.

Before you kickback in your seat at the office, throwing your feet on the desk to catch a quick snooze, that’s not what I meant. What I mean is that people are so antsy to achieve success and perfection that they end up forcing a mediocre, less impressive final result...just to get it done. People tend to envision a final goal, just to reach it, even if they lose possibilities along the way.

We see this every day. We see it in the singers on the X-Factor, belting out off-key “notes” in an attempt to show their range in a short time. We see it in fashionistas, who, as they endeavor to start a trend, create obscure outfits that, although providing shock value, do not reflect their talent at all. And, in marketing, we see it in advertisements that utilize loud colors, patterns, and designs so thought-out and unoriginal as to be nearly blinding and, in the case of neon, headache-inducing.

In college, I took a visual communications course, where our semester project was to re-brand a communications room on campus. The room was going to be the epicenter for meetings, group discussions, student-led seminars, and a variety of other things, as well as a creative study space for students when it wasn’t otherwise occupied.

It was actually a really cool idea, and I was excited to be a part of it. In a society where competition thrives, we were split into groups. At the end of the semester, a “winner” would be declared, their brand image used. As an English major, and the current in-house writer for CGR, my experience with visual arts and graphic design was limited to the occasional use of Photoshop and personal web design.

As a group, we decided that the best way to complete the project would be to work individually-together. What I mean is that we each decided to create a model for the brand requirements (ie: a business card, a logo, a brochure, etc.), and together we would fuse our favorite aspects of each individual’s design into one final product. We were all happy with this plan, as it would give us each plenty of hands-on work to complete, and we also thought it would give our client the opportunity to choose without limitation.

But there’s always that one group member who rocks the boat.

For us, his name was Jon, and he was the quintessence of this kind of “trying too hard”--aka going nowhere, fast. At the start of each class, two of the other group members and I would congregate a corner in the computer lab, where we would work, show each other our designs, and help each other. It is one of the best group experiences I've had, second to working at CGR. Without fail, Jon would come bursting into the classroom about thirty minutes later, in a red hoodie (every day—for a semester—the same hoodie), mumbling some excuse about how he hated the bus, and take over. He’d shove my hand away from the mouse and restructure my designs, or he would loom over the shoulder of another group member and criticize their work. And then he did this really cool thing where he would interrupt our idea-sharing discussions to say, “That's okay...but I have a better idea--much easier, more efficient.” He also attempted to write our final brand report, insisting, "People like it when you use long words. It makes it sound better. I just make them up to sound smarter."

Hi, I'm all for creativity, but no.

Jon did very little actual work, and his ideas were appalling, as he utilized vulgar humor for the logo and a lack of professionalism and creativity for everything else. His only goal was to finish the semester, to win, and to attract attention…with minimum work and as little exertion as possible because sometimes trying too hard to "be done" is the same as not trying at all.

It should come as no surprise that the other group members and I were sick of it. At one point, we met with the client to show him our progress and to receive feedback. The three of us had a variety of examples of our combined work, as well as a portfolio containing each individual’s examples so that we could cover all bases and give him the power to choose. Imagine our surprise when Jon showed up with his own manila folder and announced that he would be presenting independently. Somewhere in the midst of being late to class and wearing his red hoodie, Jon had found the time to complete his own brand work.

At first I was worried that the colorful, shock value of Jon’s approach would appeal to the client.

But guess what?

The client was unimpressed, calling Jon’s overdone work “distracting”, "unoriginal", and “forgettable”. What he was impressed with, however, was a logo design that the other members and I had made through our combined efforts. We had placed it at the bottom of the stack because it was honestly a creative mistake. It happened one day in class, when we were really tired, and really bored, so we just frantically clicked random buttons on Photoshop. What resulted was something like a tiger slash in the middle of the screen. Did I mention that our school mascot was a tiger?

But a slash. That was it. We couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it, so we included it simply to bulk up our portfolio.

And that’s what impressed the client. It wasn’t the well-planned designs or the perfectly centered logos, and it certainly wasn’t Jon’s “one and done” approach. It was a slash.

In a society where competition reigns, but no one wins, we discovered that, at some point in the semester, our client had secretly planned his own brand design and never intended to use any of ours. Regardless, we discovered something about work: it can be fun. It had been what happened when we weren’t trying too hard or focusing on the end that had given us personal success. It was what happened when we were having fun.

I think we all learned a lesson from that class. Well, all of us except for Jon, who, at the end of the semester, snatched from my hand the large binder we’d spent days organizing and handed it to our professor saying, “All of these ideas are mine; they just didn't credit me" before walking out the door. (I’m not kidding. Luckily, the professor had already told us that Jon would be failing the course based on his attendance and...surprise, surprise...lack of work.)

My lesson to you is this. You should always try your hardest. You should always have a goal in sight. You should be great because you are great. But sometimes you’ll find the greatest success when you take a deep breath, relax, and let yourself have fun because, sometimes, it isn't the end that matters--it's what you did to get there.

Besides, why do lackluster work when you’re better than that?


-Hayley Lyons

"I'm Not Creative": Myth Debunked

“I’m not creative.”

This kills me. Whenever people say this to me, I’m tempted to patter on about how “Everyone is creative”, “You just have your own sense of imagination”, and “Creativity isn't limited to art”, but, despite the fact that these are my true beliefs, I know that it comes off as nothing more than a sales pitch, with a side of motherly advice. At least I don’t include the tag “in your own special way” at the end of my pattering. Right?

...Right?

I mean, I, for instance, could easily say, “I can’t paint.” But that’s not true. Despite what fellow classmates in a painting class may have told you, I can put a paintbrush in my hands, dip it in some paint, and slap it on a canvas. Voila. I painted. What I should be saying is, “I won’t be recognized for my painting.” Oh, well. For whatever reason, people tend to believe that they aren’t creative if they don’t get paid, if other people aren’t ‘entertained’, or if they're unable to receive outside approval.

Why, oh why, would you let other people determine your creativity? Have you seen other people lately? Miley Cyrus cut her hair to look like Draco Malfoy (if you know what I’m talking about, virtual *high five*), they’re bringing sideburns back in style, and, on a personal note, I can hear my next-door neighbor serenading her chihuahua through the walls. It seems to me that these ‘other people’ may not be the end-all-be-all determining forces in discovering your creativity.

Oh, and it’s your creativity—emphasis on you.

Still don’t believe me? Well I’ll help you with the first step right now.

What is something that makes you happy? No--more than happy. I hate that word, anyway—it never seems strong enough. So what gives you that indefinable, indescribable feeling of happiness, euphoria, joy, and bliss all in one. And then, what does it inspire you to do? For me, I can best describe it as a chai tea latte after a refreshing run in brisk autumn weather, with Joe Purdy playing in the background. And then, when I get that inspirational inclination that others describe as “happy”, I write.

What is it that you like to do when you’re inspired? I’m not asking what inspires you (although I am interested in that, as well). I’m asking what do you do when you’re inspired?

You may not paint, sculpt, perform, write, or take pictures, but creativity is not limited to the expected outlets. Maybe you have a favorite sport, and, when you’re inspired, you want to play a game, or a match. You thrive on the competition, both with yourself and with opponents, and you push to better yourself each time. Or maybe you've started your own business, and, after years of searching for your purpose, you've found it. You go into work each day with new ideas to improve the business, and, although you’re physically tired at the end of the day, you secretly look forward to tomorrow, your motivation remaining strong. Poetry isn’t always on paper, after all. Sometimes it’s in the kick of a soccer ball or the innovation of a business.

A friend of mine believes that he isn’t creative.

“I just wasn’t born with it,” he says, insisting that his strengths are “strictly logical”.

But I’ve seen him build six-foot tall shelves, without taking a single look at the instruction manual, fix chairs that were labeled irreparable, and even untie the knots of necklaces that were considered to be permanently tangled. And, I know what you're thinking, he isn't even Superman! Kidding aside, he is able to look at building, creating, and repairing in a way that most people can't.

Can his creativity be put on paper or burned to a mix tape? Maybe not. But not all creativity has to be mainstream. It’s 2012; don’t we reject the mainstream anyway?

So the next time you try to say, “I’m not creative”, please reconsider: Anything you do, especially that which you feel inspired to do, is creative and unique to you. Maybe you’ve improved a homemade cake recipe. Maybe you have perfect comedic timing in everyday conversations, which, although it may not take you to SNL, makes your friends and family laugh. You might give really good advice or know how to make people look at basic situations in a different light. Or maybe you’re one of those people who sets your shampoo bottles upside down, so that the shampoo is already at the lid when you’re ready to open it--By Jove, I think you're onto something!.

Okay, maybe I was reaching with that last one, but you get the idea. Creativity can sometimes be found in the mundane. And, for my last bit of motherly advice, I believe in you!

Get creative!


-Hayley Lyons

Out With the Old, In With the New: A Couch Story

I recently moved into a new apartment. Almost as soon as the lease was signed, I began to plan its interior design to the point that I considered pitching myself to HGTV for an interior design show because, you know, there really aren’t enough of those already. I’m only partially kidding. The only thing holding me back from this endeavor was the fact that I know next to nothing (and less) about interior design. That being said, I am convinced that my interior style, termed by others as “tacky” and “confusing” (thanks, Mom), will one day be “in”. This generation just isn’t ready to combine Moroccan with Country French, which, according to my aunt, is exactly what I’ve done in my apartment.

First on my list of things to get was a couch. The couch I had been using had been in my parents’ first home, before they gave it to an uncle, who passed it on to another relative, and so on. It was eventually bestowed upon my brother when he was in college. He gave it to my sister. She gave it to me. It spent its off years in storage units, in the depths of dark basements, and in the far corner of the garage with the rest of the junk, which we intend to eventually organize…eventually (when we get around to it). Always, however, the couch has managed to find its way into the heart (and seat, I guess) of a new owner.

Being the most recent inheritor of the couch, I found that I’d grown especially fond of it. Although I’d disguised its bright blue and green plaid upholstery with an ill-fitting slipcover, the equivalence of a paper bag for unsightly furniture, I've always appreciated its history. In a family without a specific heirloom (unless a sweet tooth counts), this couch seems to have lived and grown with my family from the very beginning. It is the couch that has been used in “first apartments” and “first homes”. Although seemingly a placeholder for a new and improved couch, it actually represents the start of something new, of new beginnings, of a new life. Not to mention the fact that the cushions have been worn down to perfection; it has never refused me the perfect nap, nor I it.

These clearly over-sentimental feelings for a couch caused me to be torn in the weeks before my move, when relatives and friends asked which couch I was taking. When I told them, reactions varied, if by “varied” I mean that everyone was really against it. They all feared what my new neighbors would think of me if they saw an old couch with a broken armrest; the word “weird” was thrown around a little too loosely. It took some convincing, and the promise of frozen yogurt, but after one trip to the furniture store, I decided to buy a new couch. It was beige, with a fun, colorful trim and came with a trendy ottoman, and don't even get me started on how fluffy the cushions were; I was too stubborn to admit it, but it was love at first sit.

The long-winded point that I’m trying to make is that sometimes, a lot of the time, change is good. My old couch worked for me. It was, in the most basic sense of the word, comfortable. The same can be said when marketing a business. You may use the school of thought “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, when what you should really be thinking is, “If it ain’t broke, fix it before it is.” This may sound like a cynical approach, but the truth is that things change quickly. What attracts people to your company one day could bore or even go unnoticed by them the next. My old couch, for instance, is the perfect exemplification of the past. It worked, sure, but, to be truthful, the cushions had been worn to near flatness, and the slipcover didn’t even fit, causing glimpses of faded plaid to peek through. I opted for change and embraced a new idea, and everything has been better because of it, especially naps (I mean, metaphors aside, I am still talking about a couch). Creativity, uniqueness, and ability to change are the triad to success.

That being said, even though I got a new couch, I didn’t set the other one on fire, or send it to a black hole in space, never to be seen again. I left it at my parents’ house, where it first began its journey, to come full circle in its life because, just like everything else, it has a cycle and may just reemerge again when the new stuff becomes outdated.



-Hayley Lyons

Exact Match Domain is King?

So any SEO worth their paycheck knows that exact match domains are a big part of the SEO game and the top search results, but what exactly is the science behind that?

If Google has the advertised 200 factors being considered when coming up with 100% of the final figure that determines the order in the SERPS, how much of that is exact matching a domain?

An exact match domain is basically the domain name for your exact search.

If you are a customer searching for the finest Charlotte web design company, you may type in “Charlotte web design”. This is a high volume, high competition and high skill level search result. You will find here companies making a living putting good, usable content. But, as in most searches, you will also find the guy who used the incredible skill of “buying the name first”.

Why would this be such a heavily weighted factor in Google’s quest for the most relevant and fresh quality content?

Google beats us over the head with their message of “content is king” and telling us to “write good usable content for you customers not for search engines". Google then goes out spidering sites and gives perhaps 10%? 20% consideration to the guy with the domain name purchased fastest?

Remember 20 years ago when anyone that was selling car insurance could easily be found by customers under their OTHER name “AAAAAInsurance”?

SEO of 20 years ago consisted of putting a lot of AAAA’s before you company name to appear first in the phone book. The phone book had an algorithm of exactly one factor, Alphabetical.

Now 2 decades later we have the world’s most advanced search technology yet it still seems to decide contextual relevance by the name you put on it. If I write “War and Peace” on the front of a phone book does that make it an award winning novel?
Todd Kron

Shaping the Urban Century

April 19, 2012 - Tonight the Center City Partners will be hosting The Vision Awards Sponsored by Presbyterian Healthcare and Wells Fargo. The event is put together to honor, recognize, and celebrate the contributions of individuals, businesses, and organization that have made the Center City a more vibrant urban core.  Jim Rodgers, Chairman & President of Duke Energy is among those who will be receiving honors tonight. Owner & CCO, Jason Ramsey will be attending the event tonight, as well as Annetta Foard of the Community Building Initiative.

The Vision Awards will be held in the Crown Ballroom at the Charlotte Convention Center, 501 South College Street. The event will be filled with many surprises and unusual twists, as can be expected from a CCCP event. CGR Creative is honored to be a aligned with such a great group of organizations. The building, strengthening, and progression of our Charlotte is something that we hold very dear to our heart.

Site Structure Must Be Step One

I have seen many sites lately that lack direction. Websites that are not built with proper on-page SEO generally are the king of mediocre. In this I mean the sites have a lot of information and content but lack a format that breaks it into topical pages and sections.

These sites generally are established businesses with sites that possess a good amount of link juice and natural reputation in Google’s eyes, but at the same time haven’t given Google what it needs on each page to rank top 10. You can count on good content and good links to your site to get you to the top, or you can make the changes to maximize that chance. It’s just common sense that if you have a person search “What’s new in blue widgets?”, even the #1 blue widget site online may be at page 3 if 20 other sites have addressed this topic specifically.

So you are selling Blue Widgets in Atlanta.

·Are you writing about them on every page? (Too many?)

·Did you take your top 10 keyword list and make sure each one has a page specifically addressing it?

·Did you do the obvious, like make sure your heading and title tags line up with each page’s intended keyword?

·Did you pick a target page to represent each variation of  keyword specifically?

·Does your homepage identify your target regions?

·Did you include other commonly searched usages, like “How much are blue widgets"?

·Did you include comparison phrasings, like “Why Blue Widgets are better than Red Widgets”?

·Did you include pages to target your competitions customer base, (Blue Widgets Jacksonville?) without diluting your own website’s region?

·Did you build a social following and social footprint for your website with RSS feeds and account?

·Did you make sure to section your site off by region you serve so you can build links to each section with the proper city name keywords?

·Did you make sure to move your best converting keywords to the homepage where they have the most juice?

·Did you eliminate links that have useless terms in the ALT tags or anchor text, like “click here” and “learn more”?

·Did you eliminate repetitive sidebar content, like feeds and welcome messages that appear on every page and reduce the originality of every page?

·Did you utilize a Q/A section so you can rank on page one for people typing product questions?

If you don’t have all of these thoughts in mind when you first lay your site out, you may be playing from behind for the next 10 years to the guys who did.

This list is about half complete of the checklist a site designed by CGR Creative will keep in mind for your project. If a single sale pays our cost as Charlotte SEO’s for your business, and you are confident you can convert the leads you receive from being on page one. This is a no-brainer to pursue for your business.

Todd Kron
Online Marketing Director
CGR Creative

Charlotte Defensive Search Marketing

What is Defensive Search marketing?

Defensive SEO is the process of filling the top 20 spots for your name with positive items about your business and you mission towards your clients. This process includes:

·       Producing public pages highlighting a professionals skill set, contributions, what their philosophy is and anything else we can create that presents and highlights positive things.

·       We continue to flood their name with these items to occupy as many top 10-20 spots as possible.

·       We create pages, blogs, Blogspot, Wordpress Free blogs, Tumblr accounts, guest books and anything online to create as many results with positive references as possible. This keeps anything negative from getting an easy ride to page 1 and becoming damaging.

·       We also monitor and add review sites and local search reviews if there is any reason to. By maintaining high reviews on all review sites we protect the star rating of your business as it shows in the form of bright yellow stars next to your name in searches every day.

What happens when someone gets bad press to land on page 1 of google?

·       We would provide or repost the good reviews to drive it down the page and always keep ALL you review sites at 4+ stars.

·       We would seek out other review sites, large Q/A sites like Yahoo Answers or use public forums like craigslist or city-data to write about your company and get your name above them to drive them off page #1. With about 86% of users choosing to click on page one of Google and this negative publicity will not damage you livelihood.

·       Contact the website to get it removed.

·       Comment beneath it in response to show good customer service and explain the view of the company.

What makes this so valuable to a local business?

You are currently working hard to build your rank. Search positioning gets all of the publicity and is the goal of any business that is online. You need to also pay attention to what to do when they do find you. Any established business or business that has long-term plans and goals needs to understand that a lot of their business will not see their website first.

With the growing numbers of review sites, public forums, and rising blog ownership the chances that you won’t get to state your case to clients is going up as well. We all know the sayings about first impressions, and this is how you control all sources of those first impressions. A good plan means accounting for all sources of clientele to your business. You need to control the top 10 spots for your name and your business reputation at all times. **86% of all searches end on page one of Google, so to control those spots for your name and livelihood is imperative. 

Being proactive is the only way to be sure that you get to decide how you are seen by online searchers and shoppers; it is as important where you are located in searches to decide what they read when they do find you.

And what they don’t read when you are busy doing your job.

** http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049695/Top-Google-Result-Gets-36.4-of-Clicks-Study

by: Todd Kron

Charlotte Reputation Defense

What is reputation defense?

Reputation defense is the monitoring, control, and improvement of a person, professional, brand, or company’s name on the internet through the eyes of their prospective customers.

Reputation defense involves monitoring social media accounts for the company. It also means monitoring the search terms that are often referring customers to the company on social media and search engines.

A large part of the modern local search involves monitoring review sites on your behalf. Sites like Yelp, Google, Yellowpages.com, YP, Superpages.com, and Yahoo all provide reviews with very little protection for the business owner.

A bad review on here will be highly visible and can damage your business without you knowing it exists. Business owners are at risk of bad press without a chance to respond in many cases. This is why we watch all avenues and make sure a response and a resolution or removal happens fast every time.

Examples of Reputation Defense:

For a local restaurant we would monitor the review sites, monitor sites like city-data, city based search sites, food review blogs and websites, tripadvisor.com, and mentions of the restaurant by name in newspapers and blog searches. We would monitor social media for customers commenting on the quality, cleanliness, or service, as well as anything with your name or market mentioned.

In the case of bad reviews, comments about staff or service, or other issues, we would reply to the comments, report the bad press to the site owners and put higher positioned good comments and reviews above them to drown them out for a quick fix.

We could also use the company’s loyal customers on Facebook and twitter as a tool by encouraging them with social posts to go to that page and share their good experiences to drown out the bad.

If your company has a newsletter, we could call on that to drive traffic to the review website and provide dozens of great reviews in a matter of days.

Reputation defense has become a mainstream industry, and in professional fields it is even more prominent, where bad publicity can hurt for years if someone is spiteful or has a billing issue and decides to rant about it online. Doctors, lawyers, and high-end professionals cannot risk the professional reputation they spent years achieving.

A public page can last for years; it is important to address it quickly and either get it resolved or get it removed.

Negative posts on a lot of social or public sites can go to page one very fast on sites like yahoo answers, review sites, BBB, complaint report sites, and other sites that rank very well and update very quickly. This is the reason having constant monitoring is important.

A business owner can go months without seeing the bad publicity and in that time could lose hundreds of customers due to the angry comments of one bad experience online.

One other way we lessen this bad news, if or when it happens, is through defensive search marketing.

by: Todd Kron

CGR on Fox News

CGR's very own Julio Colmenares was interviewed for Reboot Charlotte on Fox news. It was a piece about leaders in the hispanic community that are making an impact in the Charlotte area. Check it out!

Chairs and Tables

By Embra King

This Friday CGR Creative helped put together and deliver the Community Building Initiative’s annual stakeholders breakfast. The title for this year’s event, Chairs and Tables, is a play on the idea that, despite our differences, we are stronger together than apart. The event was a huge success, drawing in almost 300 people to the Mint Museum on a crisp December morning.

Among the many speakers at the event was Charlotte’s own mayor Anthony Foxx, who spoke on the need for us to move beyond just talking about equality and the importance of connecting within our community. It was a great experience for all who attended and a lot of great stories and perspectives were presented.

We here at CGR are very grateful to be a part of such an important organization. If you want to learn more about CBI, please visit their website listed below. We at CGR look forward to moving forward with CBI in spreading ideas of equality and community across the Charlotte area.

To add to the conversation on the topics discussed during the stakeholders breakfast, simply use the hash tag #CandT to add your opinion on the ideas of equality and community in Charlotte.


Get connected to the Community Building Initiative:
www.communitybuildinginitiative.org
Twitter: @CommBldgInit
Facebook: communitybuildinginitiative

Pictures From Julio's Presentation

Pictures From Julio's Presentation

Julio Colmenares of Charlotte's CGR Creative Talks About New Media

Julio Colmenares of Charlotte's CGR Creative Talks About New Media

Don't forget to take advantage of this great opportunity! Join us on May 20, 2010 and learn how to leverage technology to build awareness of your company. What 'new media' means changes rapidly, so the question becomes, "How can I keep current without going crazy or bankrupt?" The answer is simple, "Jump In!" Learning to swim requires that you get in the pool. You can research, compare, look to your competitor, etc. but eventually you must get wet. Julio Colmenares teaches you how to take control of new media and promote your business! Let's grow your business! Only $19.50!

The event will be held from 11:30 to 1:00 at Vivace Italian Restaurant in Charlotte. Vivace offers five star quality at 3 star prices with excellent presentation and service.

Click here to sign up today!

About CGR Creative: Charlotte based CGR Creative is a full service advertising agency, marketing firm, design studio, and interactive marketing agency. CGR Creative prides itself on supporting their customers in a way that larger agencies can’t, often times committing all their resources to ensure the success of their client’s projects. CGR Creative’s fundamental belief is that the client’s success is their success. The agency, with an office in Charlotte, North Carolina, is fully bi-lingual, with a Latino marketing division that offers a variety of marketing channels that are specifically targeted to reach the Hispanic market.