Ever see an amazing band perform and wonder why you’ve never heard of them
before? Ever see an astonishing artist on the street and wonder why isn’t their work
isnt in a gallery? Ever see an astounding independent film and wonder why people
all over the world don’t know about it?

Me too!

It breaks my heart to know that there are musicians, painters, sculptors, and
filmmakers everywhere starving. Starving… for their art.

Why is a branding expert like me, who mostly deals with entrepreneurs and small
business owners, addressing musicians, artists, and filmmakers? It’s simple. Artists
are the ultimate entrepreneurs.

Think about it. Some create products and look for a market; others look at a market
and create products. Every entrepreneur starts the same way! It’s the notion of
business that often trips artists up.

Creating any piece of music, art, or film, is like creating a product. I’m not
suggesting that all products, art-based or otherwise, are equal. We all know a good
product, or painting, or film or vacuum cleaner when we experience it. Its just with
some artists, imaginary barriers get created. These illusive barriers can keep them
from creating the very success they want.

All creators have the same goals: to make a good product that is useful or
meaningful, have it well liked by many people and to be paid portionally to the
market they reach. Who doesn’t want that? Making music, paintings, sculptures,
photography or film should be addressed like any business with the same attention
to the big picture, IF you want to make a great living from it. But something often
holds artistic creators back from making a great living from their art.

As usual fear is the culprit.

Artists sometimes fear that if they develop the recognition and financial success that
comes from branding from them ’selves’, their peers will think that they’ve ’sold-out’
if they ‘make it’. Fellow starving artists might say that on the surface, but what they
are really saying is that they are envious of the success that you have created. It’s
far easier to put down someone else’s success than to make it them self. What’s
more important: what your peers think OR having your ‘art’ enjoyed by as many
people as possible and having the financial freedom that comes along with it?

Another fear that may prevent artists from taking their craft mainstream is that they
think that they will lose control of it by becoming a business and, heaven forbid, a
BIG business at that. Just like the art you make, what your business becomes is in
your control. If you develop your brand based on your vision of it from the start, you
protect it from becoming something else. Business is not bad -people that run
them can make bad decisions. The power of your business is always in your hands.

The largest fear for some artists is that the very nature of getting paid, and paid
well, for their art will change it. This will then set in motion the loss of creative
connection with the ‘art’ itself. I would argue that those that get lost were not very
centered on their purpose and passion in
the first place.

It’s odd to think that financial freedom, the freedom to do whatever you want, could
cause one to lose their way. In one of our workshops, we were fortunate to have a
successful artist who was ready to take his brand to the next level. When I asked
him what does he do, he answered, ‘Whatever I want.’ Who doesn’t want that?!

With the money you get from branding your craft, you can set up systems so that it
doesn’t interfere with your focus; donate to causes, invest in real estate, create
other products/partnerships. You can even hire the people to manage it all.
Leaving you free to… create.

The bottom line is simple, everyone has control over what they do and what they
manifest, it’s just that most people haven’t been shown how. Commitment to your
‘art’ does not preclude your ability to make money from it. In fact, the more
financial freedom you create for yourself, the more art you can create. A branding
mindset is taking that control into your own hands and owning the future. And it
must truly start from the inside -from your innate talent and your grand vision for
your art. Branding your art comes down to your commitment to yourself and to the
art itself. Branding is not only slogans and TV ads; it’s the power to be who you are
and communicating it to everyone proudly.

The definition of artist:

1. somebody who creates art

2. somebody who does something with great skill and creativity

3. somebody who is very good at doing something

Nowhere does it say you have to starve to make good art or good products.
Remember that the next time a musician, or painter, or sculptor, or filmmaker you
know breaks through to success. Ask yourself, what are you really committed to?
Don’t cheat the world of your gift. Developing a
brand mindset with integrity from the inside out is guaranteed to reach more
people. Period.

If you do something that you really love, you’re really good at it, and people pay you
to keep doing it, then branding it is not selling out, it’s selling in… to you!

Written by Kim Castle, the Co-founder of BrandU the home of only step-by-
step process for developing your business as a brand from the inside out!

To get information on upcoming BrandU one-day workshops: http://
www.whybrandu.com/Public/events/workshop/index.cfm?semID=13

Get your Why You?!(sm) monthly ezine for easy-to-read tips and informative
insights on branding. To subscribe: http://www.whybrandu.com/

“BrandU Big Business Success No Matter Your Size”

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Everybody knows that poker player at their local game that will play any ace you put in his hand. In fact there’s probably a lot of them out there, maybe you are one of them, who think that Ace Nine suited (”it was suited!”) is worthy of putting your money on the table for. In the long run, though, for every time you’ve won a pot with one of those hands, there will be at least 5 other pots exactly like it where you end up losing money.

The problem with playing raised pots with weak aces is that it’s just too hard to lay it down when you pair the ace and you end up giving your money to a player with a higher kicker. Against most of the range of hands an opponent could be raising with, ace junk is losing to most of them, slightly ahead of a few, and absolutely crushed by a decent percentage. If you aren’t flopping aces up, it’s hard to be confident in your hand enough to take a lot of heat, so what are you playing it for? It’s a money losing hand.

In fact, a hand like Ace Five is more valuable (though still not worth it) than playing and Ace Six or Ace Seven, etc. as it has the added equity of being able to make a wheel (the lowest possible straight Ace 2 3 4 5) with both hole cards, whereas the mid range kicker aces have no straight value, and often can’t win a big pot with kicker alone.

Most players who still find themselves playing these kinds of weak aces for a raise could easily fix what is probably a big leak in their game by cutting these kinds of hands out completely, cold turkey.

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Over the years, I have grown really attached to my home theater system. I must say, of all the rooms in the house, my own little movie theater is the one I could not live without. I am absolutely in love with my home theater system and, if you are anything like me, I am sure you will love yours too. I found, when I was initially building my system, that there was so much information to absorb. Every product out there seemed better than the next, and I found myself unsure about which to buy. Here are a few things to keep in mind when shopping for a new home theater projector.

There are two main types of projectors on the market; DLP and LCD. DLP stands for digital light processing. It was invented by Texas Instruments, and utilizes a microscopic array of over 2 million mirrors. DLP has a higher contrast than LCD, but there are some unfavorable consumer reports that note something called the “rainbow effect”. The “rainbow effect” is noticeable when looking from one side of the screen to the other, and is characterized by a sudden burst of color.

LCD stands for liquid crystal display. These projectors have three distinct glass LCD panels inside; one for each component of the video signal (red, green, and blue). While DLP chips reflect light, the LCD panels allow light to pass through them. LCD projectors produce brighter images, and they are known for having excellent color saturation. In the end, you will be hard-pressed to notice a great difference between the two types of projection systems.

When shopping for a new projector, keep your particular needs in the forefront of your thoughts. As I mentioned above, it is really easy to lose yourself in the minutiae of each particular system. Connectivity is a definitely something to be mindful of. Make sure that you are able to connect all of your components, including your gaming system. Nothing beats playing Halo in real-life size! Contract ratio is another important factor; the higher the ratio, the better the picture will be.

The brightness of your projector is another thing to consider. Light output is measured in ANSI (American National Standards Institute) lumens. You will want to avoid a projector that produces anything shy of 1000 lumens. As you are likely aware, the projection resolution is extremely important. This refers to the number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen. Go for something that is no less than 1024×768, as this will allow you to fully appreciate the depth and quality of HDTV. In the end, you should buy the projector that is in line with your needs and your budget. Soprano’s is coming on right now! Time to go!

Warren Thompson is like a kid in a candy store, when it comes to home theater products. When he can drag himself away from his miniature movie theater, he writes for hometheaterfocus.com - an excellent resource for information about soundproofing, digital video recorders, wiring diagrams and more.

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Selecting a male sex aid for the very 1st time will probably be a little bit daunting and a really scary experience. But once you have got your 1st male sex aid and had a go on it you will soon know what you savour and do not delight in as with everything in life. Learn a few ideas.

If you would like to have a meatier penis and you would like your sex sessions to last longer and be brilliant then try out the penis enlargers on the market. The penis enlarger is an awesome sex toy and when tried with penis enlargement lotions can really make your penis look somewhat bigger and feel brilliant. You may also use enlarger pills to go along with the penis enlarger cream and penis enlarger vacuum. Male sexual toys have constantly been on the slow side until this Xmas when the sexual aid shops are releasing some of the most realistic sexual toys on the market.

A must for all gents is acquiring the right lubricant. The most popular lubricants with males are water based as water based sexual lubes may be tried with condoms. Also, select a magnificent lube so it does not damage the material of your sexual aids. For those that are trigger happy endeavour a delay lotion to help you go on for longer in bed. You can always get a bargain with Cheap Sex Toys.

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For those men that have never tried a walking safari in Africa can find it hard to imagine the wonderful wildlife you can often see. The folks who come to a safari are regular people like you and me, some are into taking wildlife photos, some are into animals but all of them are interested in a new magnificent experience.

The breathtaking thing about a walking safari is the fact it is so different from a normal holiday to France, there are very little children. Each walking safari company will provide an English speaking guide to take you through the eye-opening areas of Africa. The most popular animals you might well see are rhinos. All of these fantastic animals are not tame and of course do not play with them. If you are interested in taking wildlife photographs of the wolves you should make sure you turn off the flash as you do not want to scare the animals. The phenomenal wildlife in Southern Africa might put a smile on your face.

If you would love to ascertain more about eye-opening safaris in Southern Africa you will probably use the search engines like Yahoo to behold a company that offers safari holidays from the UK, the costs will often range from 300 pounds to 700 pounds. Fast and reliable information on holidays such as Safari Holidays.

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Link Popularity is the one of the most important attribute for the SEO. Link Popularity means popularizing a particular link of the website for top search engine web rankings. Nowadays Link Popularity is being considered to be the most important process for the search engine optimization. Good ranks are completely impossible without the effective Link Popularity Plan.

There are some Link Popularity methods: Link popularity can be done through different methods like:

* Reciprocal Link Exchange among websites * Posting messages of your website to the various message boards and guest books * Publishing article about your website or company in other websites. To increase the Link Popularity it is necessary to conduct the Link Exchange Program:

* The First and foremost step of this program is to look out for the websites that are relatively equal to that of your site. It means to exchange the links with the sites which have the same purpose of work. * Always exchange the Link with the Higher Google PR of 4. * Check the details of the site with which exchange process are going on. * Create an HTML page in which the details of the link partners should be mentioned. * Prepare a link code of the website that you would have to submit or send through a form to the perspective partner. * Most importantly try to get more inbound links rather than outbound links for your site. * After preparing the Link code approach to the perspective link partners through Email. * Lastly submit these Link Pages to the Search Engines- Google.

Through these steps one can easily increase the Link Popularity of the site.

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A camcorder is a great way to document the important events and experiences of your life just as they happened. Still pictures are great for some things, but nothing beats a high quality recording of audio and video from a special event. Because digital camcorders record information that does not degrade over time you can actually watch it years later and it will seem like just yesterday. So if you are in the market for a compact digital camcorder here are some features to look for before you buy:

1. Make sure that you get a digital camcorder that uses a LCD screen for a viewfinder. Once you get used to using a camcorder this way you will never go back to peering through an eyepiece again. Video is often shot while a person is moving or has to walk, and watching a viewfinder allows you to still see where you are going much better than is possible when using the eyepiece. You can also shoot from angles high above your head or low down to the ground and still keep an eye on the action as you film if the LCD screen can be tilted.

2. Look for a digital camcorder that uses at least a 10x optical zoom, although 15x or 20x is even better. There are two types of zooms used on digital camcorders, optical and digital. The optical zoom is the lens itself zooming in, and it produces a nice sharp image throughout it’s focal range usually. The digital zoom simply takes the image already gathered by the lens and magnifies it with no increase of video detail, so video that is shot using a lot of digital zoom can be grainy looking and not very pleasing to the eye. So try to get a digital camcorder that has at least a 10x optical zoom and try not to rely very often on the digital zoom capabilities for the best quality videos.

3. Keep any eye on the power usage of the camcorder that you want to buy. Some sip power and others drink it at a gulp, so look for a camcorder that will let you record continuously for at least 1-2 hours before recharging. Otherwise, you will need to buy an extra battery to carry with you instead.

4. Image stabilization is a very useful feature found in many digital camcorders these days as it will help eliminate some of the shakes that many folks introduce unknowingly into their videos while filming. They may not notice it while they are recording, but once you sit down and try to watch video that constantly bounces around you will really appreciate the image stabilization feature. Of course, image stabilization still cannot make up for wild swings of the camera lens, but it can help control normal camera shake.

There are other features to look out for when you decide to buy a digital camcorder, but the ones mentioned above will help narrow your choice down to those that will most likely do the best job for you and your video needs.

Thad Pickering writes on many consumer related topics including audio and video. You can find out more about digital camcorders review and cannon camcorders by visiting our Home Theater website.

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When you get to your retirement period you don’t have to get out your retirement fund right away. Instead, you can make a decision to put-off getting an income until the ripe old age of seventy-five years old and if you do so you may possibly discover you get a healthier deal. It is branded as income draw down.

When you are somewhere aged between fifty & seventy-five years old you are at liberty to defer the tenure of your pension allowance from your insurance firm. Instead, you are able to draw as much as one hundred and twenty percent of the retirement fund that could have been got using Government Actuary rates, & leave the remaining money safe for when you call for it. On your part, all you ought to do is to make sure that you acquire a pension annuity by the point you get to 75. First Place Financial has more useful information on Income Drawdown. Visit the site here.

Nevertheless, what would happen if you decided to take the income draw down option, and then departed this life? If this did crop up then your present wife or husband or dependant(s) would have three options: either accept a lump figure, minus tax at 35%, or persist with income deduction, or getting an annuity pension with the cash. Your current partner has until they get to sixty years old to delay the control of an annuity, but no benefits are authorised to be offered in the meantime.

Why select income drawdown? Well primarily because it might end in you earning a more worthwhile settlement from your particular pension by doing so. Secondly, you are able to choose exactly when you want to obtain the pension annuity, so if you leave work at a moment in time when annuity rates are low, waiting may well be a wiser option. If the outstanding investments improve as forecasted, then simultaneously with the truth that annuity rates increase with age, you may ultimately be able to obtain a superior pension than you perhaps would have been given originally.

Moreover, it also means that when you leave this life your wife/husband or those legally responsible are secured financially, as they are properly entitled to the residual stocks, as mentioned above.

Like all financial investments, there are dangers as a consequence though. If venture performance on the remaining shares is poor, then the level of salary payable could lower. And it is essential to consider that there’s no assurance that the pension paid for will ultimately be higher than the entire figure that could have been paid for at the beginning.

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What does it mean to be remarkable?

Brian Scudamore, CEO and Founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, who in 1996 was operating the million dollar plus company at the age of 26, said it means, “You’ve got to get out there and be loud and proud… You’ve got to stand out. You have got to have a brand that is worth remarking about.”

He learned much about this type of philosophy from the book Purple Cow, written by one of his mentors, Seth Godin.

It’s kind of like Sir Richard Branson’s recent flying superhero-saving nurses publicity stunt to launch Virgin Mobile Canada.

Like Branson, Scudamore takes risks. He and his company want to make sure they get noticed. After all, they’re “building the Fed-Ex of Junk removal.” He does know, however, that beyond the gorilla marketing, his strategies and his team of motivated employees and franchise partners are key to sustaining the brand. “It’s all about the people,” he said.

After changing the company name, from Rubbish Boys to 1-800-GOT-JUNK (Scudamore was looking for a more professional name and was inspired by the Got Milk campaign and the 1-800-FLOWER model, where it doesn’t matter where you are in the country, you can call one number), Scudamore knew he would be able to build a brand. It had never been done in the industry.

“Junk removal is not something new. It’s been around forever,” he said. “But, it is similar to some other industries where brands have come in and successfully dominated and created a very branded industry.

“Look at Starbucks. There used to be a mom and pop coffee shop on every corner. You don’t see that anymore. It’s all Starbucks.”

1-800-GOT-JUNK is heading in that same direction. Perhaps you’ll never find it on every corner, but July 2004 marked its 100th franchise. The company’s short-term goal is to have 250 franchise partners with system-wide sales of $100M by the end of 2006.

And, its long term goal is to be the World’s Largest Junk Removal Company with a presence in 10 countries by the end of 2012. “We’re building something much bigger together than anyone of us could ever build alone,” said Scudamore.

He is committed to maintaining and strengthening this type of team work. The growth of the company depends on it and it’s also what makes the brand special. “We’re only as good as we make ourselves out to be. If we’re out there not delivering on our on-time service and up-front pricing that we promise, then our brand doesn’t build. People will start to look at us and say, ‘These guys aren’t as good as they say they are.’

That’s the problem with having such a well-established brand and reputation; you have to deliver on your promises. You simply cannot hide from a disgruntled customer, especially not when you’re wearing a big blue wig and standing beside a large mobile billboard, waving to the morning commuters as they pass by. The “Honk if you love junk” sign will not help either.

By Christina Lee

Christina Lee is Editor of The Image Architex Online Marketing Magazine (http://www.theIMAGEarchitex.com). Visit the site for more articles on branding and general marketing practices, opportunities, tips and ideas for small-sized business entrepreneurs, artists and producers.

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