Month: January 2018

ENS Ltd’s MD Rebecca Hopkins, a leading sport PR and Crisis Management expert, shares her tips for involving employees in leveraging sponsorship:

“Despite the recession, companies’ involvement in sponsorship has increased and of those sponsorships, sport has proved that it once again leads the field in attracting corporate bucks.

Having worked in the sports sector for well over a decade, advising blue chips on leveraging sponsorship, it surprises me that employee engagement still features in the drop zone on the campaign programme.

To my mind, the larger the company, the harder the organisation should work to engage its staff, as they have the potential to be the biggest advocates of a brands sponsorship activity. When I first started in the sector, I worked for a brand that invested a significant sum in rugby at a time when the company share-price was at rock bottom. For the weeks immediately following the announcement, each of the sponsorship team endured a conversation with a colleague who would suggest that the sum would be better invested in football (as the national passion) or better still, not invested at all. An interesting turn of events came when the employee reward and recognition scheme was implemented. By ensuring that a large percentage of the workforce had a fair chance to attend matches, win signed memorabilia and meet the stars of the sport, the sponsorship team turned opinion around.

Conversely, despite our strongest recommendations, we have seen brands flat out refuse to provide any associated benefits to staff; on asking one brand manager for his logic in denying a small number of tickets to his colleagues, he explained that the sponsorship was for the benefit of the company, not a jolly for the staff. It is my firmly held belief that the staff are a pretty crucial part of any business and the happier and more involved they feel, the better they perform. By all means, ensure that the sales team are provided the bulk of access, if the strategy behind your sponsorship is essentially networking, but dont exclude the reception staff, loading bay operators, engineers or the HR team simply because they cant always produce a tangible ROI from attending the game. The pleasure and sense of participation you can give them with a match ticket or the chance to meet a star will usually generate more goodwill than you can measure.

Here are my tips for involving employees in leveraging sponsorship:

1. The Hello Factor: if you are using any brand ambassadors to promote your business as part of the sponsorship, make sure they do something that gives employees access to them. Even something simple can be effective, such as a personal appearance in the office, so staff can get autographs and pictures.

2. Share the love: dont make tickets the sole preserve of the sales team! You probably have a raft of people who would love the experience of going to a stadium event, even if the teams or sport involved werent ones they would usually support. For example, consider your receptionist. They rarely get these sorts of perks but since they greet everyone who crosses your office threshold, they have the potential to be very positive advocates of how great your sponsorship is provided they have seen first hand what it is you are doing.

3. Doing it for the kids: a number of companies in sport have become heavily involved in creating initiatives for children dont forget that many of your employees are parents too and probably have sports-mad kids at home. Make sure you find ways to present opportunities to them too.

4. Glamour is relative: dont over-estimate the level at which your staff are prepared to help. For example, one company we worked with asked for volunteers to be human signposts at a top-level event which basically meant they could be standing in the rain for eight hours yet we still received over 5,000 responses and the people selected absolutely loved being involved in something so totally different from their day job.

5. Size isnt important: to my mind, sponsorship starts with something as small as getting a box at a football or rugby club. Even this has the potential to go wrong when one manager, who happens to be a huge fan of the team in question, has made the box their fiefdom rather than a company resource. In tough times, expenditure such as this should be made to work even harder. Involve as many staff as possible in this, much as you would in a major initiative.

ENS assisted BT in staging a staff-engagement event prior to the Singapore summit that saw the IOC announce the winning host city of the 2012 Olympics. BT was a premier partner in supporting Londons bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

With the objective of inspiring staff to Back the Bid online, ENS recommended staging a one-day indoor rowing competition, led by BTs Bid Ambassador James Cracknell, across the four regional head offices (London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff). BT personnel were set two challenges: one was to Crack Cracknell to row further than James did in one minute; the other was to go Rowing for Gold, which involved clocking up kilometres at any chosen speed in a collective attempt to get their building the nearest to Singapore.

The event was staged in such a way that it was open to all staff, including wheelchair users, while employee engagement was maximised through webcasting the event over the company intranet and having challenge results updated every 30 seconds online.

Staff and celebrities took part across four locations with thousands of staff joining in, viewing the events live or signing up to BTs Back the Bid webpage and one staff member, the last to take part, ended up out-rowing James”.

Bathrooms have an average recoup rate of 102 percent that is a great return on your investment. A minor bathroom update replacing the sink, bath, tile, floors, toilet, vanity and fixtures will cost around $9,750 and a recently renovated bathroom like that will generally bring in an average of $10,700 at resale. A fresh coat of paint and a tub re-glaze are inexpensive options that can really make an old bathroom look brand new. Bleaching and scrubbing grout and re-caulking around the tub can really take years off an outdated bathroom as well. These are just a few of the many home staging ideas that exist for your current home or for a property you are trying to sell. Whatever the case, the following are great tips to consider when remodeling a bathroom.

Step 1
Decide on a budget. You can remodel a bathroom for a fraction of the cost by doing it yourself or you can have it done by a professional contractor. Renovating inexpensively doesn’t always mean going with cheap materials necessarily. It is simply finding the ways and means to renovate using good materials and staying within your budget.
Write down how many tiles you need to buy.
What kind of sink or faucet you will use.
Are you going to have a full remodel or a partial remodel?
Will you be re-using existing cabinetry or existing shower doors or are you replacing them?

The answers to these questions will impact your budget. It is important to have a fixed budget and to stick with it!

Step 2
Draw out a plan of action. Before you start ripping off the dated tiles, you need to have a solid plan.
Are you doing a full remodel?
Are you going to change the footprint of the bathroom?

If you are, then that would mean you might have to re-work the plumbing and electricity. Include the new pricing in your budget.

Step 3
Do it Your-self or not. The largest amount of money people spend often goes to labor more than materials. If you do most of the work yourself, you would be surprised at how much money you would save with the project. If you are not a handy person, hire a reputable contractor.

Step 4
Hire reputable workers and contractors by being your own subcontractor. Eliminate the middle person, and hire the contractors directly yourself. You can go to home improvement stores in your area and request information of contractors they can refer to you. They would be more than willing to assist since you are buying materials from them. Also, ask for references through any of your friends or industry professionals.

Step 5
Buy materials directly through distributors and shop around for best prices. Make sure to measure correctly. Discontinued tiles are priced lower since they will no longer be available; just make sure to buy an extra box or two for future needs. There are Internet discount stores you can buy from as well. If you are planning on buying granite to replace your current counter, you can buy directly from manufacturers. Ask for scraps and see if your measurement fits, then pay a little bit of extra for finishing the edge and cutting a hole. A standard sized one sink vanity would cost anywhere between $100 – 250 if the scrap materials are available. Most manufacturers and dealers would be willing to negotiate on the price rather than just letting these unused pieces go to waste. If you cannot find bargain granite slabs, buy granite tiles instead to keep that look.

Step 6
Use existing cabinets, toilets, bathtubs and shower doors. You can refurbish or refinish them to make them look brand new again. Do not buy a new mirror if your existing one still works, you can frame it to make it look attractive.
Inexpensive (DIY) Options

Paint
Take a good look at the walls. A new coat of paint can change the look of any room and give it the new look you’re looking for. Painting your walls is easy and doesn’t take a whole lot of time. You’ll be surprised at what paint does to a room and this won’t break your budget.

Fixtures
Fixtures are another easy thing to change in your bathroom without spending your entire budget. You can buy some nice new fixtures for the sink and bathtub, and new light fixtures that are inexpensive from any home center like Lowe’s or Home Depot. You can hand pick them yourself and spend as much or as little as you want. The nice part about buying new fixtures from a home center is that if you have absolutely no experience taking old ones off and putting new ones back on, employee specialists can help and show you how to do it.

Flooring
If you are experienced with tile, you might want to consider laying tile on your bathroom floor. They are relatively inexpensive and if you do the work yourself you don’t have to pay for any labor. Tile is very popular and is a great way to change the look of an old floor. If tile is not an option however you can always lay linoleum. You can buy it in sheets or lay the linoleum squares. Both are inexpensive and easy to do. Changing the look of your floor can make a big difference.

Shower Area
Hit the shower. Nothing says “spa” like a great showerhead, and some styles, such as distinctive-looking rain-jet showerheads, provide visual interest as well as a great shower. Adjustable-height, hand-held showerheads can satisfy the tallest (or shortest) person, and also can be used as a sprayer for an easier method for cleaning the tub or shower.

Mirrors
Replace old single pane mirrors with picture frame mirrors. This is an inexpensive way to update and add charm to the bathroom. Mirrors cost between $20 – $80 each and are easy to mount.

It has been noted in a survey that this kind of property styling serves more beneficial than reducing the cost of the property. The house doctors are experts in staging homes that get your property noticed in a shorter span of time as compared to a property that is not staged. The home design London companies very well understand that an empty space is more difficult to sell. In contradiction to the popular believe, empty room looks smaller than an effectively staged room. This is because in an empty room you will not have anything to compare the dimensions with. The house doctors arrange the furnitures and other dressings to show a possible layout of the area to their perspective customers but in a very appealing way.The home design companies take care of all the requirements of sourcing the accessories, furniture from furniture rental shops, supplying and installation of the furniture. The house doctors even take care of arranging the tradesmen and managing the project in case major changes like changes or repair work in flooring, building new bathroom, making new kitchen or garden are required.

The furniture rental London shops rent furniture for home staging so that you can save a huge amount of capital in purchasing the furniture and still are able give your property interior a high quality look and feel. The home staging gives your property a look that is so appealing to the prospective customer as if the design is straight out from any design magazine.
The home design companies start by viewing and surveying your property and understanding your requirements. They have a verbal discussion on the areas that require more attention and changes. After this verbal communication the house doctor will make a quotation that fits your budget and requirement. A clever sourcing is planned by either renting or buying the required accessories and dressing at the best possible deals. The house doctor arranges the sourcing of the dressings and furnitures from the furniture rental shops and also takes care of the installation of the furnitures. They are also in charge of removal and return of the pieces at the end of the contract. Most shops rent furniture for the property styling for a period of one month to three months. The home design London companies get you bespoke furnitures as a package for a particular room and also at times pick individual pieces of art work and dressings to go with the theme of your property. They show homes from the perspective of the customers. The house doctors are capable of transforming any dull space into an interesting useable area.

We spend a lot of time thinking about what our homes look like when we are trying to sell them. Don’t forget that the sense of smell is one of our strongest senses. Because we spend so much time in our home we can no longer tell what it really smells like to others. This is no time to be shy- get an honest opinion from someone you trust. Chances are if you have a dog, love scented candles or enjoy cooking different foods your home could use some neutralizing of scent. This doesn’t mean masking with perfuming deodorizers. Clean is the best smell of all. Your home can not be too clean and any scent of mold or mildew will spark a big question in the noses’ of buyers. Think about your old carpets and dirty clothes in laundry hampers. Put fresh linens on the bed and clean, new towels in bathrooms. Give your home a breath of fresh air by saying good bye to odour and hello to a fast sale.

oOpen some windows for at least 10 minutes. There is nothing worse than walking into a stuffy house or one that smells of smoke and pet odors.

Use candles for aromas…NOT sprays which are obvious and indicate something concealed Play soft music during tours (if possible because it helps people to relax). Bake breads or cookies and leave the dish out for visitors. DO NOT cook smelly foods (fish, onions, garlic and grease) prior to sales tours. Keep the home spotlessly clean. Would you want to buy a dirty and unkempt home? Repair any damaged wood, tile or lino flooring. Clean carpet of stains and odors and replace worn carpeting. Remove pets or have them put in the laundry room or garage with a sign to not open door.

Colette Robicheau, President of Organize Anything, is a consultant, coach, and public speaker offering corporate, residential, and personal organizing services. For more information contact Colette Robicheau, Organizing Consultant and Coach visit her website www.organizeanything.com, email , or read her blog at http://organizeanything.blogspot.com/

Despite the fact that each individual has his or her own demands together with tastes, the majority of us still possesses a the same understanding of luxury and comfort. Due to this, staging a home for sale, it could be not so difficult to follow some general points, used to create an attractive atmosphere within the exterior and interior of a house, that could be appreciated by many.
So, first of all it is actually crucial to make your home looking nice and trim. The presence of garbage or clutter will surely spoil the impression produced by your property, if you will demonstrate it to your prospective buyers. Secondly, the rooms at home need to be well-lit, to permit your prospective buyers to observe the furnishing of the home. And thirdly, the furnishing of your home along with its style ought to provide the atmosphere of harmony and comfort, where your prospective buyers will be able to relax and enjoy their time, while residing at home.
You can attempt to make such an pleasing atmosphere, using your individual knowledge of comfort and style with some general principles we’ve mentioned above above. On the other hand, if you wish to get the best results, while making the house looking expensive as well as obtaining the highest price for its sale, it will be essential to think about the advices of an expert concerning how to stage a house to sell.
Presently the real estate staging a house to sell definitely seems to be quite intricate issue that requires a distinctive approach and consideration of the amount of significant points, that could be missed by non-professionals. Just to start staging a home we offer you to read about the decorating ideas provided by Lise Desormeaux, which is called a successful Home Staging and Decorating Educator. Her home staging tips present an excellent guide as for realtors as for homeowners, which are wanting to transform their houses into the million dollar homes, which might be quickly sold. These hints will be also ideal for those, that are planning to embellish their abodes into the clutter-free and beautiful homes by not employing a decorator.
Go through the ideas of Lisa Desormeaux, on www.lisedesormeaux.com, and you will be able to save big money, discovering the powerful recommendations for home staging.