Showing posts with label Home-Based 100. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home-Based 100. Show all posts

Toot! Toot!*:
StartupNation names Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
one of nation's top 100 home-based businesses

Jeff Fisher LogoMotives, has been recognized by StartupNation as one of the nation's top businesses in its annual Home-Based 100 competition in the category of Most Slacker-Friendly. Jeff Fisher, the Engineer of Creative Identity for the Portland-based firm, is known for operating his company from wherever he and his PowerBook may be - foreign countries, tropical beaches, hotels in various cities, airports, coffee shops, his garden and other locales. The design business, specializing in identity design and branding, is currently celebrating 30 years in operation.

Many of the StartupNation Home-Based 100 submissions revealed that business owners are bucking the current economic downturn and finding business success in these tight times. Historically, Fisher's business has been at its best when the economy is at its worst, as new businesses are launched, existing companies jumpstart marketing efforts, and individuals concerned about possible job losses initiate future plans.

“The 2008 ranking shows that the home-based business is more relevant than ever. The current recession has spurred a new wave of home based businesses as a response to loss of jobs, the need for supplemental income and the sheer passion for blazing your own trail and running your own show,” said Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation.com, one of the leading small business networking and advice websites. “Home based businesses are the biggest block of all businesses in existence and we expect numbers to grow ever greater as extra bedrooms, kitchen tables, basements and garages become host to the innovative thinking and pursuit of success by millions of Americans.”

The StartupNation Home-Based 100 highlights 10 top-ten lists making it not just your ordinary business ranking. From the wackiest, to the most innovative, to the best financial performers – this unique and diverse list highlights the home-based businesses that usually go unrecognized, but still play a vital role in the economy today.

In addition to StartupNation staff, judges for this year’s Home Based 100 ranking included Adam Lowry, co-founder of Method Products, Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks North America, John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing, Mel Robbins, host of Make It Happen radio show. The competition was sponsored by Microsoft Office Live Small Business and FedEx Office.

Designer Jeff Fisher is the author of Identity Crisis: 50 Redesigns That Transformed Stale Identities into Successful Brands (HOW Books, 2007). He has received nearly 600 regional, national and international graphic design awards for his logo and corporate identity efforts and his work is featured in over 100 books on the design of logos, the business of graphic design, and small business marketing. Fisher is a member of the HOW Design Conference Advisory Council and the UCDA Designer Magazine Editorial Advisory Board, and served on the HOW Magazine Editorial Advisory Board. His first HOW Books offering, The Savvy Designer’s Guide to Success, appeared on bookstore shelves in late 2004. Fisher is currently writing a book about typography in identity design.

(* If I don’t "toot!" my own horn, no one else will.)

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

Jeff Fisher LogoMotives is "on fire" in 2008
StartupNation Home-Based 100 Competition

Jeff Fisher LogoMotives has attained "on fire" status on the Popularity Meter in the second annual StartupNation Home-Based 100, which celebrates America’s most outstanding home-based businesses and the people behind them. The competition ranks the best businesses operated from home in ten distinct categories. The Portland-based identity design firm is a candidate in the “Most Slacker Friendly” category and may be voted for daily on the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives competition page.

Votes for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives have come from many sources in cyberspace. Cat Morley, of Bangkok, Thailand threw her support behind the design firm through an entry on Designers Who Blog, and posts on the HOW Design Forum and About.com Graphic Design Forum. Calvin Lee of Mayhem Studios and Danita Reynolds of Creative Expertise have been leading the charge through design forum posts, micro-blogging on Twitter and mentions on Facebook. Jason Holland has been hard at work assisting my "campaign" as well. Many design peers, clients, vendors, friends and family members are also casting votes on a daily basis.

Fisher himself has made use of his Twitter and Facebook profiles in promoting the competition effort. Signature files on StartupNation, biznik, the HOW Design Forum, and elsewhere online direct potential voters to the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives competition page. Home-Based 100 related entries were also posted on bLog-oMotives, the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives blogfolio, dezumo, AdGabber, Adholes, Pink Banana Media, Cross Media Experts, Sta.rtUp.biz, Squidoo and other Internet social networking sites

With his competition effort Fisher hopes to demonstrate how social media and social networking can be used as effective marketing tools.

StartupNation is a free online business resource founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. On the site, you’ll find all the easy-to-follow, practical information you could ever need to start and grow your own successful business.

Vote early. Vote often. Thank you for your support!

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

Tweet! Tweet!: LogoMotives is all a-Twitter

Until now I've avoided joining the Twitter bandwagon - primarily due to to my addictive personality. Besides, between design and business forums, online portfolios and social networking/media I'm online way too much already. Well, those days are over.

Thankfully, I do get to blame someone else for my fall into the abyss that is Twitter-mania. My buddy Christian Messer, of Whiplash Design, wrote the recently posted article article Online Marketing: Everyone's all a Twitter… for the site biznik (business networking that doesn't suck) and I was sold.

I've been "tweeting" for almost two days and having a lot of fun in the process. I do already see the value in Twitter as a networking tool and community builder. It will be interesting to see how my participation evolves as yet another marketing and promotion tool for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives.

The url of my Twitter profile is twitter.com/LogoMotives. See you there...

By the way, Twitter has become another method for me to campaign for your vote in the StartupNation Home-Based 100 Competition. (With some help from Cal the "retweeter!") Vote early. Vote often.

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

StartupNation recognizes Jeff Fisher LogoMotives
"Home-Based 100" one-hour marketing effort

This morning I received the StartupNation Community Bulletin in my email box - and there I was as the lead story. The mention was in regards to the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives entry in the StartupNation Home-Based 100 Competition. Under the heading "1 Hour Grassroots Marketing Victories" the text read:

Home-Based 100 contestant Jeff Fisher sees everything as a marketing opportunity and with about 1 hour of effort has made a significant impact on his business. "My little "Home-Based 100" marketing campaign has a resulted in a little side effect - traffic to my blogs and website is up about 30% in the past week." ...

A link in the email then invited readers to "Learn the 1 hour marketing plan ." The Community Bulletin newsletter is also posted online. In my original StartupNation forum post I explained how, in just about an hour, I had made a significant marketing effort in my quest to be one of the businesses featured on the annual Home-Based 100 list.

Here I am today using my marketing efforts as a self-promotion example - and promoting my business, and the competition, even more.

Please remember to vote daily for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives throughout the competition. Vote early. Vote often.

Thank you for your support.

(See what other sites have been "tooting my horn" in regards to the Home-Based 100 competition.)

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives

Clickety-clacks along the "Home-Based 100" tracks

The other day I posted a bLog-oMotives entry about my business, Jeff Fisher LogoMotives, being a contestant in the annual StartupNation Home-Based 100 Competition. It seems I've got some support out there in the blog-o-sphere. A couple great posts went live during the last couple days:

Designers Who Blog - Home-Based 100 Competition: Vote for Jeff Fisher

Creative Freelancer Conference Blog - Vote for slack-a-licious Jeff "LogoMotives" Fisher

Remember to vote early and vote often! Actually, you can cast your vote daily on my Jeff Fisher LogoMotives competition page. Thanks to all who are supporting this effort.

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives.

Vote for Jeff Fisher LogoMotives in the
2008 StartupNation Home-Based 100

The second annual StartupNation Home-Based 100, celebrating America’s most outstanding home-based businesses and the people behind them, will once again rank the best businesses operated from home in ten distinct categories.

Jeff Fisher LogoMotives is a candidate in the “Most Slacker Friendly” category. The description of the “slacker friendly” category reads:

Does your business offer a day-to-day existence that’s the envy of all? If you’ve beaten the system with a "lifestyle" business, this one’s for you!

Those words made it very clear which category I should enter. Cast your vote now for my business on the Jeff Fisher LogoMotives competition page. You may vote daily throughout the course of the competition. Be sure to share my quest to be one of the StartupNation Home-Based 100 with others.

If you are a home-based business owner, you may want to consider registering your business in the competition, too. Businesses can by submitted until midnight Pacific Time on September 30, 2008. Throughout October, candidates will be judged by StartupNation and a panel of judges who are each passionate about home-based business and the Top Ten categories highlighted in this year’s competition. Winners will be announced in mid-November, 2008.

StartupNation is a free online business resource founded by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. On the site, you’ll find all the easy-to-follow, practical information you could ever need to start and grow your own successful business.

Thank you for your support!

© 2008 Jeff Fisher LogoMotives