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It had to happen. Finally a designer has combined fashion with bullet proof clothing!  Miguel Caballero is the world’s only designer (so far) of designer bullet proof clothing.

Gone are the  bulky flak jackets – enter blazers, ran coats, polo shirts and nice crisp business shirts. Some have lovely comforting stab proof linings and others can withstand mini-Uzi machine gun fire.

Miguel is a Colombian designer who saw this unique niche and now exports around the world. His clients read like the who’s who of the world – top actors and politicians all swear by his clothing. George Segal, the President of Colombia, Andrew Carroll, Spanish Judges and others appear on the website as owning his garments.

Now – this sort of high end fashion doesn’t come cheap – polo shirts start at $7,500 and range to $9,800.

It goes to show even in the competitive fashion market there are still niches available to be found.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Web Copywriting

I love motivational posters – my office is full of them for days when I need a spark to get me going again.

My friend Anne Maybus at “My Day Off” told me about Automotivator I had to go and play. It is a site where you can create your own motivational poster http://wigflip.com/automotivator/# You can save it to your computer or get a high resolution version for printing.

Of course if you like the darker side of life check out these take-offs of motivational posters – demotivaters from despair.com.  Very very funny! http://www.despair.com/viewall.html. Who said there is no fun in motivation

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – SEO copywriter

One of the great things about the net is you can create niche businesses to serve a particular group of people. I was checking out My New Shiny Shoes blog and they mentioned a site where you can get great ideas for 21st birthday presents (there are only so many wooden keys anyone can get).

Why stop there? 18th birthday’s are a potential niche, Gold & silver weddings are a niche. Any major life event can be a niche for your business.

If you are a service business you can use these life events to set up a special promotion – financial planning to get your life on track for your 21st,  design of special promotional items for the 18th … use your imagination and you can create some great promos.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – SEO copywriter

A personal rant this morning. Steve Irwin would be rolling in his grave over the handling of Colin the baby humpback whale separated from his mother in the Pittwater in Sydney.

This is a situation of political correctness over knowing and using the right protocol gone horribly wrong.

Over the hundreds of years where we have kept animals in captivity we always learnt by trial and error. Our animal handling protocols were developed because we tried different things … sure we failed, but we learnt from those failures and now we can keep our baby endangered pandas, tigers and other animals alive because of our efforts.

By sitting on our hands and watching this baby starve to death we are no better than the Japanese whalers killing for scientific research. Where has the Aussie spirit of giving it a go gone?

However I also feel for the National Parks & Wildlife people. They are trying to do the right thing but don’t have the organisational and political flexibility to allow left field solutions in. Allowing people to try to help and potentially fail would have been better than blocking them. They have a PR disaster on their hands that will take them years to recover from.

So what impact has this had on my family? I was talking with my kids in the car this morning, trying to help them to work out the lessons from Colin. We ended up with the lesson that in life you have to try even if you think you are going to fail. Trying with even a slim chance of success is more useful and important than giving up and not bothering to try. We always miss 100% of the shots we don’t even attempt to make.

To put it into practical kids thinking, they decided that in class if they don’t know the answer to something it’s better for them to try and work it out or put up their hand and ask for the answer, rather than sitting silently and then writing in the answer later, because that is what Colin has taught them.

If nothing else, the lessons from Colin have given my kids a useful lesson in life.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – SEO Copywriter

We put your business into words

I am not the world’s best cook (OK I am dreadful!). My spice tub (I gave up on a rack ages ago) has lots of containers and packets of spices that rattle around and go out of date. There is only so much nutmeg I can use in a year!

Enter the Spice Girls, or to give them their correct title – The Seasoned Palate. Two mumpreneurs who have packaged spices the way most people really cook – in single teaspoon servings. They only use high quality organic spices and as a result their product is a premium priced item … and it is taking the US by storm.

The thought for me is how many other everyday products do we have that could do with some creative rethinking in terms of packaging and bring out a whole new profit line?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – SEO copywriter

We put your business into words

I was sent this small business tag-line yesterday

I can do it quick, I can do it cheap, I can do it well … pick any two.

This is a great tagline – it says it like it is, it is short, funny and memorable. Only problem is it is all about the person and not about the client.

What is your business tagline?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – SEO copywriter

We put your business into words

Michelle from Tonic Gifts made a great post about the winter blues. She highlighted how during winter with its dull, short days people tend to feel more lethargic and lacking in motivation.

If you think about a farmer and their crops, generally winter is a time when the ground is fallow and being ploughed ready for spring planting.

We need to acknowledge the cycle of the seasons and take a lesson from nature. Do you find it harder to motivate yourself or your team during winter?

Winter is the perfect time to plan some team-building activities to get your team ready for the oncoming busy pre-Christmas season. It is also time to take time out for strategic planning or project planning your next big project.

Even businesses can work within the seasons for maximum effect so enjoy rather than work against the seasonal energy.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – freelance copywriter

We put your business into words

I was reading Time magazine (11th August issue) and it highlighted an old trend that has become new again – calling cards. In the 1800s they were used to request to visit someone’s home and were the precursor to our modern business cards.

These days calling cards are much less formal – they are for people like mums wanting to organise play-dates with other parents, retirees who miss having business cards to share their details, teens who want to give someone their phone and email address and places where business people don’t feel business cards are appropriate to use.

It is a whole new line for graphic designers to think about. The best bit is they don’t have to follow the same old business card sized rules. They can be funky colours and shapes so you can have a lot more fun with the designing of them.

Online printing shops like VistaPrint have some great free and low cost cards (the main reason I like VistaPrint are their caricature products – I use them for school notes to the teacher).

But you can’t beat personally designed cards from a great designer like Wild Dog Design. Jo is currently tweaking my existing business card design so I may just get her to do up some calling cards while she is at it. Now … what to say on them?

Until next time

Ingrid

Heart Harmony – freelance copywriter

We put your business into words

Commenting on other people’s blogs is a great way to generate back-links to your website. The problem is that many people forget the intent is to add value and become part of the community first, before leaping in with “all about me”.

My personal favourites are the people who post comments such as “I found your site when looking for blogs about (insert your keyword here), specifically sites about (insert long tail keyword here). I agree with what you say and/or you have a great site”.

Ed Dale from the 30 Day Challenge describes the sort of crap comments that I highlighted as making withdrawals from a bank you have no deposits in. It is called robbery!

I personally moderate all comments on my blog before they appear and take great delight in deleting the comment or listing the person as a spammer when they attempt to make these sort of comments.

You don’t have to publish spam comments on your blog just because someone made them. It will significantly reduce its value to the true community members who read your blog (as well as hurt you in search engine rankings). Delete them and stay true to your readers.

So … how can you comment on someone’s blog and not be seen as a spammer? Read the posts in some detail. Find out what the flow of the blog is all about and find a post that is directly relevant and related to a point you want to make.

Take some time to craft a reply expanding on a particular point in the post, commenting on a point in the post or adding in your own point. Yes, you can make a careful and considered link using your keywords back to your post BUT (and this is a big but) you have to add value first.

If you follow these simple strategies and focus on adding value first, everyone wins.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter

We put your business into words

I was reading the Modern Goddess (online) blog and came across this quote from Eckhart Tolle.

“When you face a challenge truly, there is no thought. There is just the looking… you see what needs to be solved at that moment, and that looking is fierce and gentle at the same time. And there is an activation of a greater intelligence than whatever you have learned.”

– Eckhart Tolle

This is very true. Today I was working with a business that is in massive debt. The Directors need to stop and take stock first – deciding within their hearts if they have it within themselves to do what needs to be done to turn their business around. Are they up to the challenge of a business turnaround?

Only once they have made a decision with their emotions to stay or go will they be able to truly face the process of doing what needs to be done.

This is not an easy process for many businesses, but if tackled honestly they will be able to face all challenges with wisdom and heart and will get better outcomes as a result.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony – Freelance Copwriters

Putting your business into words