Ooba Creative

Better to "do"... than "doubt". You can always apologise or fix it if you do it a bit wrong.

Keep moving forward.

Have a look at all the Apps that come when you get your free gmail account.... If you have a gmail already, then you already have access to all this for free. You don't need a Workspace account or pay: https://about.google/products/

You have to have a gmail account to run a business if you have a website. But, even if you don't. you need your GoogleMyBusiness/Maps profile anyway... In my mind, it's essential.

Browse All of Google's Products & Services - Google Browse a list of Google products designed to help you work and play, stay organized, get answers, keep in touch, grow your business, and more.

This is the "To Do" and project management tool I use. It's free. It's amazing. It also does whiteboard and documents. It is a bit fiddly and a learning curve to start with, but it is incredible once you get the hang of it: https://clickup.co

My friend Mark showed me how he develops his T-Shirt designs on this. Pretty cool: ideogram.ai

If you're in the Hampshire/Berkshire area, I'd like to invite you to my new Marketing Strategy Workshop on 23rd February 2024. New Year is a time many businesses start thinking about marketing, and I've already had some 'conversations' with clients about how "just doing lots of stuff" isn't what is going to make the difference. It's time to think Strategically and stop just "doing lots of doing" or paying someone else to be "doing lots of doing" for you, and hoping that, somehow, this year it will all be super-amazing. Please come along and get 2024 off to the best start possible.

Stop Marketing Doing! And Discover Marketing Strategy For Better Results By the end of this 1/2 Day workshop, you will have your "Strategic Marketing Workbook" filled in and ready for you to use in your business.

1MinuteMarketingTips: Stop doing all the doing, and focus on strategically building marketing assets instead. An advert, brochure, website etc are all marketing assets where as randomly posting on social media or doing content based around "special days" is just wasting time and effort. Build assets that are long term (some call them evergreen) and stop the hamster wheel marketing behaviours thinking it will catch people's attention.

See our 1/2 day workshop in February:

Stop Marketing Doing! And Discover Marketing Strategy For Better Results We'll show you how to get results by focusing on your marketing strategy instead of constant 'marketing doing'.

OK... half day workshop event ready to go for end of February (23rd 2024). It's going to be awesome! https://oobamarketing202302.eventbrite.co.uk

Stop Marketing Doing! And Discover Marketing Strategy For Better Results We'll show you how to get results by focusing on your marketing strategy instead of constant 'marketing doing'.

Here's another lot. Never give up.

Col. Harland Sanders: Rejected over 1,000 times before finally getting someone to invest in his fried chicken recipe, which became the foundation of KFC.

Mary Kay Ash: Rejected by over 20 companies before starting her own cosmetics company, Mary Kay, which is now one of the largest direct sales companies in the world.

Vera Wang: Rejected from the Fashion Institute of Technology and told she would "never make it in fashion," but went on to become one of the most successful fashion designers in the world.

Charles Darwin: His theory of evolution was initially met with widespread ridicule and criticism, but is now considered one of the most important scientific theories in history.

Amelia Earhart: Was denied a license to fly by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) because she was a woman, but went on to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Marie Curie: Was twice denied the Nobel Prize in Physics, but eventually won it in 1903. She is the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Was considered a child prodigy, but his later works were initially met with mixed reviews. He is now considered one of the greatest composers of all time.

William Shakespeare: His plays were initially criticized for being too "lowbrow" and "vulgar," but are now considered to be some of the greatest works of literature ever written.

Abraham Lincoln: Failed in business and politics several times before eventually becoming the 16th President of the United States.

Thinking that you've tried and failed or you've been rejected and feel like "it's all over"... Here's 10 people who failed and then succeeded:

Milton Hershey: Rejected three times before opening his own candy shop, eventually founded the Hershey Chocolate Company

Oprah Winfrey: Fired from her first job as a television news anchor, became one of the most successful talk show hosts in history

Stephen King: First novel, Carrie, was rejected by 30 publishers before being accepted, became one of the most popular and successful authors in the world

J.K. Rowling: First Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was rejected by 12 publishers before being accepted, became one of the best-selling book series of all time

Michael Jordan: Cut from his high school basketball team, became one of the greatest basketball players of all time

Albert Einstein: Not able to speak until he was four years old, also considered to be a slow learner, became one of the most famous and influential scientists in history

Thomas Edison: Fired from his job as a telegraph operator because he was "too interested in science," invented the light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera

Henry Ford: Failed in his first two attempts to start a car company, founded Ford Motor Company, revolutionized the automobile industry

Walt Disney: Fired from his job as a newspaper editor because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas," created Mickey Mouse and other beloved Disney characters

Steve Jobs: Fired from Apple, the company he co-founded, in 1985, returned to the company in 1997 and led it to become one of the most valuable companies in the world

This looks really good. Integrates with Canva too. Lifetime Deal through AppSumo!!!

Ocoya's Lifetime Deal: AI Meets Social Media Management I'd like to introduce you to Ocoya -- I love its unique blend of AI and social media management. And best of all, Ocoya is part of AppSumo's Black Friday sa...

The Story of the Chinese Farmer

Alan Watts ~ The Story of the Chinese Farmer Listen to Alan Watts Audiobooks on Audible for Free ~ https://amzn.to/3ORFvoIʚ Support Wiara :∷ Support on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/Wiara ∷ Buy Wiar...

Canva is awesome. If you're bigger business, it's not going to be fantastic. And you should really use a professional designer. BUT, I'd say anything up to £10m turnover 'could' probably utilise Canva - as long as you are brutally strict with your brand look and feel and don't get distracted with endless colours/fonts/layouts etc.

For micro businesses, it's freakin' amazing for the price. Well, the free account is incredible... Free!!

One of the amazing things is that, with a PRO account (£99.99 / year), you get 1TB of storage!! That's a lot. And a great way of storing your marketing/design assets somewhere other than in the chaos of your company shared drive.

I'll be using Canva for video editing partly due to this - all the videos and raw footage is stored off my laptop and on Canva. Plus, the video editing and new Magic AI studio stuff is great.

Canva: Visual Suite for Everyone Canva is a free-to-use online graphic design tool. Use it to create social media posts, presentations, posters, videos, logos and more.

However, in order to be successful in business, you must stick out of the pack. It's imperative. But human nature is also to be a Zebra. (ignore the image of Joe Rogan... and the title of the video is just clickbait.... bit the content is good.)

Jordan Peterson REVEALS The Psychology Behind Selling ANYTHING In this video, Jordan Peterson goes into the psychology behind selling products and starting a business.If you enjoyed this video, check out these other fan ...

I just spent the morning trying to convert a on a to a . Tried a LOT of online tools. Until I found https://www.vecticon.co/image-vectorizer-5 . This tool nailed it. I just did a bit of cleaning up of the layers and it was done. Boom. Wow!

Vectorize your images online | www.vecticon.co Vectorize your bitmap images 100% automatically with professional quality. Use the editor to get a perfect result and download in high quality

I still think this is relevant if you are a looking to get your digital world ( and ) on a shoestring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaILJsBQTiU

Also... why not follow the YouTube Channel and Subscribe 😀

Why is Wordpress and Joomla no longer the best website solution for your small businesses? Joomla & Wordpress used to be the go-to solutions for having a webiste. That's no longer the case. Watch this video to discover why.

As grow, the overwhelming temptation is to automate and systemise using technology. But, many businesses have gone so far that their customer service capability is now flawed. Most call centres and multi channel integrations are completely broken - leaving the customer on hold and not being looked after.

You HAVE to be thinking, "What does my customer need/want right now?" and not, "How can we deflect, offload, delay and box our customers in so we don't have to do any work"... Allowing the customer to help themselves is not the same as leaving the customer abandoned. Customer centric thinking and innovation is key.

When I got my degree in Marketing, it was really a whole business degree. Why? Because Marketing IS the business. It can only operate and function and work if it has absolute integration with your Finance, Customers, Sales, Operations, Product Dev etc etc.... mismatch is so damaging.

So, when your and give it the big "it does everything. It's amazing. It solves all your problems. It works 'out the box' just how you need". And then the or the or the (although good) is nowhere near the hype ... This is very bad! Stop putting marketing into a silo.

And... marketers... stop focusing just on "the doing" and "the tricks" and "the creative" and make sure you're integrated with the entire business plan. Or you'll fail.

If you want to move your to be more of an , then you must get your operations and delivery flow to be better than other purchase channels. If it's not, will (1) keep using the old way (2) get frustrated.

Finally got the new website live: https://www.oobacreative.co.uk/ . It's "live", but still needs SEO work done throughout and a bunch of tidying up.. However, we are finally "Joomla Free". The site built in something called Nicepage - which has it's own shedload of issues.

So, we'll be rebuilding it with our own ultra-light and SEO friendly website CMS using Bootstrap and a HeadlessCMS tool called Cockpit very soon. But I needed the new site up ASAP so we could start doing Google Ads and Networking. Sometimes you gotta do stuff in incremental stages.

Business, Marketing & Innovation Training in Basingstoke A fusion of Consultancy, Mentoring, Coaching & Training to enhance your Business, Marketing, and Innovation capabilities.

Well. Seems like are doing one of their sales again, so here's a link to one of my courses: "The One Million Pound Formula" https://www.udemy.com/course/1m-formula/?referralCode=686FFB79049FD8A5CE23 . Snap it up while it's discounted.

£1m Formula explained A journey into how wealth works, the habits of rich people and the habits needed to make your first million.

https://namelix.com/ Namelix generates short, catchy names with a state of the art language model.

Business Name Generator - Easily create Brandable Business Names - Namelix Namelix uses generative AI to create a short, brandable business name. Search for domain availability, and instantly generate a logo for your new business

An article written by people who evidently have almost zero understanding of . You know that Nike is represented by a just a tick, right?. xAI is just brilliant. As a logo. Job done.

Adam Clark on Twitter “An article written by people who evidently have almost zero understanding of . You know that Nike is represented by a just a tick, right?. xAI is just brilliant. As a logo. Job done. https://t.co/lkjIg2Yckf”

But.. you need a bridge to your Golden House of Enchantment. So... here's an update. And a shot Zoomed Out as well. (I', using Bing.com/create to do these. The good thing is you can then reference previously made images and ask it to adjust them.

In my training courses, I use the metaphor of a Golden House of Enchantment as your business and marketing activities. So, I got AI to create a few images for me. Look amazing.

Currently putting together a course around innovation and intrapreneurship to combat Workplace Poverty. And found the concept of "Poverty Premium" very interesting indeed.

The "poverty premium" refers to the additional financial burden faced by individuals or households on lower incomes, where they end up paying more for goods and services compared to those with higher incomes. It is a concept that highlights the economic disadvantage experienced by people living in poverty.

There are several reasons why the poverty premium exists. Here are some factors that contribute to it:

Limited access to affordable options: People living in poverty often have limited access to affordable goods and services. They may be geographically isolated, lacking options for affordable grocery stores, transportation, or utility providers. As a result, they may end up relying on more expensive alternatives nearby, leading to higher costs.

Restricted access to credit and financial services: Individuals with lower incomes often have limited access to affordable credit and financial services. This can result in higher interest rates and fees for loans, credit cards, or banking services, making it more expensive to borrow money or manage their finances.

Higher insurance premiums: People on lower incomes may face higher insurance premiums for various types of coverage, including car insurance or home insurance. Insurers often base premiums on factors like income level, location, or credit history, which can disproportionately affect those in poverty.

Inefficient use of resources: Due to limited financial resources, individuals in poverty may have to make decisions that prioritize immediate needs over long-term cost-saving measures. For example, they may lack the means to invest in energy-efficient appliances, which results in higher utility bills in the long run.

Lack of bulk-buying discounts: Low-income households may struggle to take advantage of bulk-buying discounts or purchasing in larger quantities to save money. They may have limited storage space, lack the financial resources to make large upfront purchases, or have unpredictable income streams that make such strategies challenging.

The poverty premium perpetuates a cycle of financial vulnerability, where people with lower incomes pay more for essential goods and services, leaving them with less disposable income to improve their economic situation. It can deepen the challenges faced by individuals and families in poverty, making it harder for them to escape the cycle.

Time to get creative because since 1990's more and more people are now in Workplace Poverty. One in Eight of us apparently. Let's get organised, creative and innovative and start supporting ourselves and our community so we don't have to rely on our failing Governments/Systems/Corporations all extracting the little wealth we have.