An Audio Branding Blog By TreBrand

Over the next few weeks I’ll be spending a lot of time in Toronto working with composer Tom Third. As music composers one of the things we discuss is how to get in and out, musically speaking that is. To elaborate, we need to find the best place for music to start and end. We don’t want the music to stick out like a sore thumb.

I have discovered that many situations in life require thought on how to get in and out as well. For example, how do you start a conversation with someone. Of course the answer to this depends on who the person is and their relationship to you. Similarly in music we need to decide what relationship the music has to the picture of lyrics.

It takes time to master this but with dedicated practice you can become great at getting in and out. Take a look at expert networkers. How do they enter and leave a conversations? It should look pretty natural. Take time to study those around you and remember the conversation is about the other person.

Following the TV series trend this week’s sticky song is the theme from Friends.

This past week I was in New York at the Audio Branding Congress. Aside from the conference I learned a valuable lesson about what a good airline should be.

As many of you know I am located in London, Ontario which is about 2 hours from Toronto. To get to New York requires one of two things flying Air Canada or taking another airline from Toronto.

Air Canada to me has for a long time been a low value provider. Their customer service is generally sub-par, their planes are regularly late and it’s expensive. I like to avoid them at all costs. So, this time I did. What an awesome idea that was.

My airline of choice was Porter Airlines from the Toronto Island Airport. Their service was like business class for all. Nice lounge, free food, my flight arrived EARLY! Yes, early. Oh, and how can I forget free beer.

What I have learned is that if your service is good people will put up with a little inconvenience. So, please amaze me if you want my business.

Congrats Porter Airlines – you’ve won me over.

Every week I’ll post a song or sound that sticks in your head – a sticky song.

Seinfeld was an innovative TV series popular in the 1990s. It’s still a must watch on syndication. The main music theme for this TV series was written by Jonathan Wolff. A truly innovative score. He used sounds made of pops and clicks created by his mouth.

Check it out.

Seth Godin talked about this in his blog a few weeks ago. He brings up a valid point. Expectations tend to skew the results and they also make it harder to make contributions to important tasks, you know the real work.

Striving to be good or the best at something is not an expectation – it’s the work you must put in. Expectations on the other hand tend to direct you in a direction. It’s like a hypothesis in science and is a reason double blind testing is used. Your mind will only shift in the direction you expect it to go. When you do this innovation is tough to come by.

Focus on the contribution and innovation will come.

If you are a SEM buff then you know remarketing is a super effective method for advertising on the web. If you’d don’t know what SEM means that’s okay because you don’t need to.

Remarketing is a process that allows web site owners to pull you back to there web site. They do this by adding a small file to your computer. When you go to another web site that runs display ads you will most likely see an ad for the site you just visited. Yes, it’s a little creepy but it works.

Recently, I’ve been doing this the old school way. Most Fridays in the afternoon I’ll go through my contact book and find five or so people I haven’t spoken to in a while. Depending on the relationship I’ll either call them or send them an email just to connect. There is no intention of making a sale here, I’m truly interested in knowing the person. I could careless if I make a sale here or later for that matter.

That being said I’ve been able to keep my accounts profiles up to date and learn about new opportunities all the while learning more about another person.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

Every week I’ll post a song that I can’t get out of my head – a sticky song.

Who wants to go where everybody knows your name? I do!

Lets take a trip to the TV sitcom where everybody knows your name. Cheers!

Cheers! TV theme song