What is your Motto?

Company mottos can easily be printed on a business card.

Sometimes you wonder if a company motto is remembered by anyone in the company. If you ask them, they will have to search around to see if they can find where they wrote it before they will be able to tell you. Most often, the motto is so long that it is totally ignored by everyone, except the person that wrote it. The best attack for you is to write one that has meaning and that you can recite easily to your customers. I have a friend that is President of Ionics Fidelity Purewater; his motto is printed on a business size card that he keeps in his wallet. He told me that this is given to each employee and when asked, they can always find it. By the way, the motto is fairly short and to the point, it is something that they use all the time.

A motto is only as good as it is used and adhered to. Everyone needs to buy into it and then also commit it to memory. If it makes no sense and it is not relevant to the work you are doing, it will not likely be remembered. I use my ten second pitch as my motto and encourage everyone that does work for me to use it when meeting people for the first time. My motto is "to provide corporations with the tools to maintain, repair, and tune-up business processes". If someone wants a further explanation, then I go into my additional thirty-second pitch. How does your motto fit into your client introductions?

Mottos & Credos are a good way to emphasize the way you want your customer to value your products and services. It is likely the first thing they see on your office wall or even on your printed materials. The important thing to remember is that you should make sure it is useful and can be easily recited by everyone that works for you.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. has been networking with others since leaving high school years ago. Realizing that no one really cared about what she did in life unless she had someone to tell and excite. She decided to find the best ways to get people's attention, be creative in how she presented herself and products, getting people to know who she was, and being visible all the time. Her friends and colleagues have often dubbed her the "Networking Queen". Blueprint for Networking Success: 150 ways to promote yourself is the first in this series. Blueprint for Branding Yourself: Another 150 ways to promote yourself is planned for release in 2005. For more information visit http://www.BlueprintBooks.com