Showing posts with label About Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label About Me. Show all posts

Monday, March 17, 2014

Hello!

After a long long hiatus to deal with a family health crisis (everyone is fine now) I'm starting to work on bringing this blog out of hiatus.
Pam Hawk

It has been over a year since my last post and I've been reading marketing books and analyzing real marketing efforts around me and I can see all kinds of material to write about. Finally, I'm starting to have some time to put these thoughts to words, form them into sentences, and organize them into paragraphs.

I really miss blogging.
The interaction with everyone, following links and learning was a big part of my life and I'm looking forward to getting back in gear and doing what I love once again.

Looking at my most popular posts, I can see a lot of you have been interested in guerrilla marketing techniques, and other low-cost, high-impact marketing ideas. This is an area I'll focus on as I write.

Is there anything else that would be of interest to you?

What would you like to know? What would you like to accomplish?

Are you puzzled how to go about connecting with your customers or increasing your sales? Tell me about your situation and I'll help you figure out your next best step.

What are you hoping to learn from this blog?

Thank you for reading my blog, thank you for your patience while I managed my family stuff, and thank you for keeping me excited about blogging.

-Pam

Sunday, March 27, 2011

PamHawk.com is now on Facebook

At long last, I have set up a Facebook page for PamHawk.com!

Please click the link above and Like the page. Thanks!

I have been using Facebook for a while, with just a personal profile, but now that I'm seeing more friends and associates on Facebook, it became apparent that my marketing tips and suggestions would be more accessible if they were published via Facebook. Like the old adage suggests,

"Don't try to redirect traffic to you;
find where the traffic is and get in front of it."

This blog will still be here - I'm just importing all of these posts to Facebook and using Facebook applications to interact more with my fans.

To all my friends and associates who have small businesses: This venture is dedicated to your success. 

Cheers!
Pam


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Friday, August 6, 2010

Focusing my Focus

Hello Dear Readers,

It has been a very long time since my last post.
(Yes, I'm making up for it by this long post, but I want to explain my plan to you.)

The last 7 months or so have been spent learning all kinds of interesting marketing things and taking care of family stuff. For example, we moved, we gained more family members (two ornery cats adopted from the humane society), we are working on some miscellaneous but important health issues, and we consolidated a HUGE storage unit with our household and now we literally have our "stuff" together.

I'm now on intimate terms with Craig's List. Anyone want a Magic Tricks kit? $5.

Did I mention I've been learning? Oh, and how. I can't wait to share some interesting things with you.

In addition to all of this, I've decided to narrow the focus of this blog. You see, my husband is a Chef and not only am I very familiar with the ins and outs of the restaurant industry, but I have seen the back-office view of many many restaurants. Some were very successful, some should have been, some were sad excuses for a reason to get out of bed in the morning. We watched as those ultimately failed.

I met my hubby when I was a Concierge at a large hotel. If you're not familiar with what a Concierge is, this is the person (usually at the fancier hotels) who helps you choose a restaurant, among other things. My daily work interaction with restaurants, entertainment venues, car rental agencies, shoe stores, costume rental shops (for a hotel VIP who wanted 20 gorilla suits in 45 minutes) showed me a lot about the back end of marketing and a lot about what simple things were the most effective for thriving businesses.

Being a Concierge sparked my love for marketing.

I'm the kind of person who naturally can tell you what's good and what's bad about how a business interacts with its customers (and I'm not shy with my opinion.) Since I had a firsthand look at most all of the restaurants in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I saw what worked and what didn't in terms of their marketing plan.

Over the years I've continued to observe the various methods used by restaurants and other small businesses and owner-operated venues. Some methods are examples of brilliant and effective marketing, while others are cheesy, desperate attempts to attract customers. Some don't seem to do any marketing, with predictable results. Of course, most people who start their own business do it because they are experts in their line of business, not because they are experts at marketing.

In this blog, you'll start to see a little less info about how you can fine tune the marketing of your website/blog/online store, and more about how you can attract new customers and keep existing ones coming back for more. I'll offer tips and suggestions that are simple to do. I'll keep my camera in my purse so I can show you real examples of what works and what doesn't... and then I'll explain why. You'll find useful and practical information if you have a storefront in town or an online store.


Because of my unique background with restaurants and marketing, I am anxious to focus on this niche. You will likely find that a lot of my marketing information leans toward the Food & Beverage industry. You can still modify my restaurant advice and tips to fit your own business.

If you are having trouble coming up with ideas on how to market your own business, please ask. I can post a handful of ideas for your situation. If you would like more specific information, or don't want your question/answers posted for everyone to read, I'm happy to work with you one on one and help you figure out what to do. 

Meanwhile, thank you for sticking with me through the last seven months while I took care of other things. If you are just discovering this blog, welcome! Be sure to subscribe or follow me so you don't miss out on tips, comments, or suggestions that will make a big difference for your business. 

Cheers!
Pam Hawk





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Friday, November 20, 2009

I'm back - and have all kinds of stuff to share

Hello - I've missed you! The past few months have been filled with all kinds of interesting things and I'm learning some amazing things that I can't wait to share with you.

While my posting here won't be as regular as it had been, I do hope to be able to share neat stuff with you a couple times a month. That might be just right, anyway... it'll give you time to tweak my marketing tips to meet your specific needs and see how they work.

I'm still crazy for your comments, so please let me know how you used these tips and/or what kinds of results you got from them.







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Thursday, July 30, 2009

Announcement!

Dear Loyal Readers,

I have some changes on the horizon to share with all of you.

Starting Tuesday, I will begin a new day job which will take up a lot more time and energy than my present job. While learning my new job, I will be posting less frequently than my usual two posts a week.

Once I get up and running with my new job, I'll be returning to college to complete my business degree in Marketing - and actually looking at a double major: Marketing and Advertising, since I have almost all the credits for an advertising degree right now.

So the downside right now is that I'll be extremely busy and won't have the time to devote to writing two posts a week. The upside is that when I do make an infrequent post, it will be really great information you can use. (Not that it wasn't before, but now it'll be really great info!)

If you don't want to miss a post, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog - there's a little box in the sidebar.

Thank you everyone!



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PS: The series I started on creating great viral blog posts is still saved in my "finish writing" folder and will be continued as time permits.


Monday, March 16, 2009

Building my resume

As a marketing coach starting out on her "solo career," I'm always looking for projects that I can work on to build my resume. One kind of fell in my lap and I'm both excited like crazy and nervous... I've got to share.


A little background: I was one of 45 students in my high school graduating class. Yes, 45. And that included the exchange student. My school was K-12 and the entire student body was like one giant family.


In 1990 the entire school district closed and the building was sold to a private party. (Can you imagine buying a 80 year old high school with a K-8 addition on it? And a gymnasium? Don't forget the playground and track and field areas.)

Fast forward almost 20 years and a long time and very dear friend joined a Facebook group for my old high school. I immediately joined and found a bunch of people I either knew or who had familiar names. The big news on that group is that an all school reunion is planned for about 18 months from now.

Of course, I have all kinds of ideas about what we could do in terms of online social networking and in terms of marketing. I mentioned to the website guru that I had and idea and bing! I'm on the IT team. Then I asked the head honcho of the entire project about some online stuff and bing! I'm the go-to person for the online stuff.

Am I overwhelmed? Ummmm, ask me in about 12 months...
Meanwhile, I just wanted to mention that I'm using some of this work (all volunteer) to build my resume. Maybe you can watch what I'm doing and use the same tools and techniques to promote your business and build a community around it. I call this Concierge Marketing, since I'm managing several different aspects of marketing like website, blog, social media, press releases, radio public service announcements, branding, media coverage, etc. All these and more, not just one single area of marketing.

Here's what we've got so far:
The main website (built my another alum) is http://ondossagon.blogspot.com/
I'll add links to this site and work with the other IT guy to finish building it into an amazing site, hopefully with photos and a history of the school.

I've added a blog: http://ondossagon.blogspot.com/
And a photo album: http://www.flickr.com/groups/ondossagon/pool/

Of course, it's all just starting, but I'll post an occasional update as stuff is added or more marketing tools and techniques are included in our prep for the big event.

Cheers!




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Monday, February 23, 2009

Apology

Sometimes my blog posts are super long, like the two from last week. I know you don't have a lot of time to read through everything, and I'd like to apologize for the long posts.

There are just so many useful things I want to tell you to help your business grow, that it's sometimes necessary to publish long posts. I have been breaking up the original post so you can learn about the concept on Monday and then learn how to put it to use on Wednesday. I hope that format works for you.

I guess you could think of this blog as a mini marketing class.

Meanwhile, if there's anything you'd like me to post about or a format that I should consider to make it easier for you to learn and improve your business, please let me know.

Thanks!




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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

: : Giveaway : :

Just a little self promotion here: I'm having a giveaway at one of my other blogs, The Pass It On Plates Blog.

If you have a minute, hop over there to enter. Would love to see one of my readers over here win over there.

Good luck!
Photobucket
Click here to enter!


(And remember, all comments are do-follow, so your comment left here supports YOU.)



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Friday, January 9, 2009

160 bowls of food

I have to toot my own horn for a minute...
My other business, Pass It On Plates started a new program called Plate Diary Dollars in December. This goes hand in hand with our other program, Plate It Forward. Both programs are designed to help non profit organizations with their fundraising efforts. (For more info on the programs, click the links.)

At this time, Plate Diary Dollars is helping to feed hungry people across the US, and today I calculated our donation based on December's Plate Diary activity. Here's the announcement made in both our Plate Diaries and Pass It On Plates blog:

Our Plate Diary Dollars have been calculated for December 2008. In our first month, there were 5 Plate Diary comments, and Pass It On Plates donated $1 per comment to FeedingAmerica.org

This $5 donation, while small, was matched by Kraft Foods and provided
160 bowls of food to hungry people in the US. That's amazing!

Let's keep those plates moving and see how much more we can donate for January.

Remember, there's no charge for you give a Pass It On Plate to anyone, and you will not be asked to pay anything or donate any money.



(And remember, all comments are do-follow, so your comment left here supports YOU.)



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Sunday, November 9, 2008

I've been tagged!

Wow, my first tag here at this blog. Cool.

My brand new friend Frieda, over at Deer Mountain Arts tagged me, so I hopped over to meet her and say hi.
...and I'm now following her blog, which is a mix of things she's doing in her wood working studio, she tells stories about relationships (the one about Jim and Mary will warm your heart - I got a little choked up when she asked him for 5 more minutes) and she's a real down to earth lady that I wish I lived next door to. Go check her out.

Anyhoo, the rules of the tag is that I share 7 things about myself that you don't already know. Then link back to the person who tagged me, and tag 7 other people.
Here goes. I hope you come back again after you read this. LOL

1. Since I don't have the links on the sidebar at this blog, I'll reveal that I have a very bloggy family. My blogs include, of course, the Pass It On Plates blog and the Plate Diaries. I also have a family blog about my Deaf hubby, rockstar-and-too-smart-for-her-boots daughter, and hyper pooch called The Adventures of Pam & Frank. My hubby's blogs are Deaf Chef at Large and Red Hawk's Deaf Musings. (The latter has been ignored lately, though.) Then of course, the kiddo had to jump on the blogging bandwagon and hers is When Confustion Strikes. She hasn't done much with it, but at one point we had talked about turning it into a Daily Photo blog with pictures of her each day. She spikes her hair and stands in front of the mirror for hours, taking picture after picture, so there is at least 365 pictures she could post. (...each month...) Ok. So we all blog. And we're all a little goofy.

2. Since moving from a single-level apartment to a two level condo a month ago, I have lost almost 5 lbs. The only thing that has changed is that I'm running up and down the stairs a couple dozen times each day. Huh. That was easy.

In a year or two I should have the perfect body. Yah. LOL.

3. I am afraid to be successful. Isn't that stupid? I think I'm afraid that I won't know what to do to stay successful once I get there. Or I'm afraid that if I get really busy with my businesses, I won't be able to keep up. That's dumb and defies logic, but that is probably my biggest hurdle right now.

Oh, and that there is not enough time to do everything I want to do. But that's another issue.

4. One time I conducted evil medical experiments on a slug. (Sorry PETA.) I know salt kills them, and our patio was overrun by slugs one winter here in Oregon. I decided I wanted to find out what else would irritate them, so I pulled out all kinds of condiments to see what would happen. The plan, really, was to use the most offending condiment as a barrier between the paatio and the surrounding bark dust (weed-resistant mulch made from tree bark.)

Things that had no effect: various hot sauces, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, pickle juice, ketchup, yellow mustard, soy sauce (that was a surprise), vinegar. Ol' Mr. Slimy didn't like Chinese Hot Mustard but he slimed up and twisted out from under it.

What really did the trick and made him light up like the night sky on the Fourth of July is Pickling Salt. There may have been some nitrates in it because Ol' Mr. Slimy foamed up in a puff of orange and pink foamy slime until he was about the size of a mango.

If you're feeling sorry for him at this point, I suggest you spend a little time in the Pacific NW and try stepping on one barefoot when you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I had to use nail polish remover and sandpaper to get the slime off the bottom of my foot and out of the carpet. And I was so grossed out and upset that I couldn't get back to sleep for the rest of the night. Well, I was up for three hours trying to remove the slime from the bottom of my foot, so I guess by the time I was done it didn't matter anyway.

I've had Slug Skittishness ever since.

(I had to bleach the patio to clean off the slimy mess. And yes, this changed my mind about nitrates in my own diet.)

Oh phooey. I just remembered. I have 3 uncarved pumpkins sitting on the front step. They're probably slug restaurants by now. I'd better haul them off before they're uncarryable slime pits.

5. 99% of the time I answer questions with long answers and detailed stories.

6. My favorite candy is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups but I do have a thing for Bridge Mix and Licorice Allsorts. I think I enjoy the unexpected. (See? I'm trying really hard to keep this short.)

7. I have the same preference when listening to music. I love certain songs and have a huge playlist of favorites, but given a choice, I prefer to hear new stuff that I've never heard before. BTW, my playlist is all indie, punk, and alternative stuff that's not on the radio (most stations anyway) and most people have never heard of some of my favorite bands. If you're interested, go to 94.7 KNRK and listen to their stream. That's the station set in my car and on my radios at home.

Yes, I said I listen to punk, among other things. But I look like your normal average suburban mom. You'd never know... Unless I drove up to where you are, with the subwoofers pumping out a bass line from British Sea Power, Modest Mouse, or The Beastie Boys. Or Beck and Moby. Oh, I'm on a roll. I'd better stop before I drive you nuts with all these links. I have noticed that my music (car windows up) does tend to turn heads when I'm driving around downtown. I think that surprises people to see me in the car with all the noise. (My little car came with some really powerful subwoofers; I didn't put them in. This was discovered after we bought it. Lucky me!!)

Now to tag 7 other people. How about my regular reads?
Laurie B of THE LOOKING GLASS
Denise of Denise Clenney's Changing Designs
Amy of Bellas Boutique
Melanie of Everything Etsy
FairyAlchemy of In the name of Fairy Bubbles! and a bit of Food!
Libby of ~* Auroras Garden *~
Jenna of CorgiPants

Ok. If you didn't get named in the list above and you're still here after reading this, you get a prize: consider yourself tagged, too!


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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

About Pam Hawk Marketing

Pam Hawk Marketing is a creative marketing service for small business owners.

Do you need inexpensive and easy ways to promote your business?

Would you like to bring in more customers and enjoy repeat sales from existing ones?

Is your business stuck in a rut?


I can make you look good and help you make money.
All on a shoestring budget.

Projects include creative and cost-effective guerilla marketing services, support, and training for independent businesses such as:
+ small online shops
+ handcrafters and artisans
+ owner-operated food service and entertainment venues
+ public events
+ local musicians and bands

My menu of services includes:
Website design
Online social network training and mentoring  see an example here
General marketing services
Guerilla marketing services
Consultation for marketing & promotion

Contact me today to get started marketing your independent business!

To read more posts in this blog, visit the main page at http://pamhawk.blogspot.com/







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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The identity crisis is over

There's nothing else to do with a restlessly creative brain while moving and unpacking and painting (and painting and painting - 6 rooms and half an office so far,) so I spent all that idle brain time musing and planning.

During that time, I think I have solved this blog's identity crisis. My focus will be to help Etsy stores and local crafters, as well as local farm market vendors, and other independent small businesses do the following:

  • Come up with creative, inexpensive ways to get their business recognized
  • Bring in new customers
  • Increase sales and profits
  • And establish themselves as an expert in what they do
I also offer one-on-one planning sessions to help you figure out how to solve a certain marketing challenge, find a new approach to marketing your business, or help you change something that is holding your business back from finding its full potential.

Just contact me at pam [at] passitonplates.com or call me at 503-569-2665 (9am-9pm PST, any day but Sunday) and we'll talk.

To kick off my new identity (my brand), I found this new Blogger template at Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates. The colors and style fit my personality to a T. Hopefully it'll set the mood here and you can get to know me and my style a little better as you read my blog posts.

(It's very "Pamish" and if you know me in person you're probably nodding your head right about now. If you don't really know me yet - stay tuned. You'll see...)








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Monday, September 29, 2008

What the heck is Biz Bling?

A couple weeks ago I introduced a new category of posts called Blog Bling. These are my reviews about tips and tools available to enhance your blog, and often a brief tutorial on how to add them to your blog.

This week I want to tell you about another new feature I call Biz Bling. Because this blog focuses on marketing your creative business and/or small business, my job is to let you know about new tools and techniques available today to really get your business in the forefront. These new tools make a greater impact on your customers and your bottom line.

They don't teach these things in business school and I know you don't have time to scout out and experiment with all the new stuff online. Let me handle the finding out, learning about, and trying out and I'll give you the lowdown so you can decide if it's something you want to pursue. My blog posts are written in plain English and I always try to break down technical jargon or explain tech-y stuff in real terms. Ditto for all technical tutorials I post here. If it's not easy to read, who's going to waste their time trying to figure out what I'm saying?

Again, these blog posts are my opinions only and I am not paid or compensated to blog about any other company. Nobody asks me to blog about them, either. I tell you this because I want you to trust what I have to say and not wonder if you're reading some sort of advertisement. When I want to advertise to you, I'll say so.

That said, please check back often to see what's new. Subscribe, bookmark, or follow me (see sidebar widget) so you don't miss any tasty tidbits.

Cheers!

Monday, September 22, 2008

What the heck is Blog Bling?

There are so many interesting and useful blog enhancing widgets available for free I thought you might be interested in learning about what's available, how they work, how to install one, and what you could use it for.

I call all of these little gizmos Blog Bling. Nobody pays me a dime to blog about them and I'm not asked to do any reviews. This is all based on what I find (and I mention where I found it), what it looks like, what my opinion is about the widget, how it works, how to install it, etc.

As I blog about them I'll add a link to my sidebar
so you can find the link easily or refer someone over here to grab the link.

If you have one of the widgets I blog about on your blog, please leave a comment here with your URL. I have disabled the nofollow on my comments, so every comment counts. Plus, if you are reading about a widget and want more info before trying it out, I strongly encourage you to check out the URLs in the comments to see the widget in action.

Commenting and following is just good blog karma, anyway.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Dual Blog Posts

Sometimes, I will post the same info here as well as on the Pass It On Plates blog.

Even though this blog officially began 9/1/08, you will see posts from before Sept 1st that were copied from the other blog. These posts are marketing-related and needed to be re-posted here for relevancy. You'll see a lot of dual posts through about the middle of September 2008.

From September 8-13, I will be attending an intense, week-long Guerrilla Marketing seminar in Los Angeles. After the marketing seminar, the topics on the two blogs will start to diverge and it will become a lot more clear where you can find the kind of info you need.
I can't wait!