You may have heard the recent news report (September 22, 2015) about how a federal judge in California ruled that the song “Happy Birthday” is not subject to the copyright claim of Warner/Chappell Music. That company had purchased what it insisted were the successive rights to the song that was originally copyrighted back in 1935. This legal ruling declares that the song, which is said to have originated with two Kentucky sisters back in the late 1800s, is in the public domain and may be used freely, no longer entitling Warner/Chappell Music to collect some $2 million in annual royalties.

Campground owners are probably already familiar with the licensing rules that must be addressed when showing films or playing music within their parks. The entire concept revolves around the fact that intellectual property is, in fact, property. Perhaps not as tangible as a three-dimensional object that you have purchased, that intellectual property is the result of the work of one or more people (typically thousands of people in the instance of a feature film) who earn their livings by creating this work, just as you earn your living by running your campground. Without compensation, we have no more right to use their work than we have the right to take a ride in a car that we admire that we see parked along the side of the road. (Personally, I would like to take a spin in a nice Tesla Model S!)

When it comes to films and music, associations such as National ARVC have negotiated group discounts with licensing organizations such as the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation (MPLC) and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). As a member, you should subscribe to those member programs in order to stay on the right side of copyright compliance.

Photography is another copyright zone that may directly impact your business. If you hire a photographer to take photos at your park, confirm in advance that you will own the rights to those photos without further compensation. If you are using stock photography, on the other hand, there are two basic types of usage rights: royalty-free and rights-managed. With royalty-free images, you pay a one-time fee to either a photographer or a photo agency, allowing you generally unrestricted rights to use a photo. Reproduction of images on articles for resale (such as posters, calendars, postcards, or coffee mugs) is generally not included, and the photographer retains the right to sell additional royalty-free rights to as many people as may be willing to pay the requisite fee. There is always the risk, of course, that your company and another company might purchase the same usage rights to the same photo, potentially creating an embarrassingly awkward situation.

Rights-managed photos, on the other hand, involve very specific licensing fees that are based upon how and where a photo is being used. These fees are always going to be substantially higher than the fees for the royalty-free usage rights that are more than adequate under most circumstances. Companies with deep pockets might choose to pay even higher fees for exclusive rights to an image, preventing anyone else from using the photo.

The important thing to keep in mind is that, if you are using a photo that you did not take yourself, you must be sure that you have paid any applicable licensing fees. Even a photo that you have taken yourself, if it includes another person or another person’s property, may not be yours to use in a manner that involves public distribution (either in print or online). If you need a stock photo or graphic, turn to one of many online stock photo agencies. You are likely to find the perfect image, and you may then pay a reasonable fee for royalty-free usage rights. (The stock image illustrating this story is a perfect example of a royalty-free image, rights to which I have purchased for this specific purpose.)

What you must not do is carelessly assume that you have the right to use a photo simply because it appears in a Google image search. For example, I just did a search for “John Wayne”, and I can assure you that somebody owns the rights to each of those photos. In fact, the family of the actor has even attempted to copyright the name “Duke”, taking legal action against Duke University in the family’s efforts to license the actor’s nickname for a line of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey.

I was recently contacted by one of my company’s campground clients who had received an e-mail from Getty Images (a very large rights-managed stock photo agency), demanding compensation for copyright infringement. My client questioned the validity of the e-mail, since there are so many phishing scams these days that look quite official. Unfortunately, this demand notice was very much the real thing. Apparently, one of my company’s employees had somewhat carelessly found a photo of a red-tailed hawk in flight (no doubt using a Google image search) and used it to accompany a link to information about a nearby raptor migration lookout.

It is clear that companies like Getty Images are using some very sophisticated image recognition technology to actively seek out and pursue cases of copyright infringement, regardless of intent or knowledge.

Their correspondence included the following notes:

• Ceasing use of the imagery does not release your company of its responsibility to pay for the imagery already used. As the unauthorized use has already occurred, payment for that use is necessary.
• You may have been unaware that this imagery was subject to license. However, copyright infringement can occur regardless of knowledge or intent. While being unaware of license requirements is unfortunate, it does not change liability.

In this case, I took responsibility for the error in judgment on the part of one of my employees. I removed the image from our client’s website, and I paid Getty Images the $520.00 that they demanded in settlement. A friend of mine who runs a travel website later told me that he had once been sent a demand in the amount of $4,200.00 for using a historic photograph of Abraham Lincoln on his site. Even the images of one of our most beloved Presidents are apparently not in the public domain.

In summary, let me offer fair warning and a word to the wise, urging my readers to be cautious to an extreme when using stock photos. In the meantime, let’s all sing a round of “Happy Birthday”, since it is somebody’s birthday today and every day.

The 2015 Outdoor Recreation Participation Topline Report from the Outdoor Foundation includes a breakdown of outdoor participation by activity for everything from Adventure Racing to Wildlife Viewing. In summary, it reports that 48.4% of Americans participated in at least one outdoor activity in 2014, translating into 141.4 million participants engaging in a total of 11.8 billion outdoor events. These are impressive numbers, many of which are skewed – either positively or negatively – by weather patterns; however, it is important to examine individual industries in order to get a better grasp regarding trends.

With the gathering of statistics going back to 2006, the report includes 3-year changes within individual activities that provide a quick snapshot of either increases or decreases in participation. There are similar trends exhibited between Alpine/Downhill Skiing and RV Camping. Putting aside the reported 3-year changes, I think that it is even more compelling to compare the 2014 participation numbers with the high water marks within the 9-year survey period. Measuring people ages 6 and up, skiing peaked in 2010, when there were 11,504,000 participants, decreasing 24.8% to 8,649,000 participants in 2014. Similarly, camping peaked in 2009, with 17,436,000 participants, decreasing 16.1% to 14,633,000 participants in 2014.

Beyond Blaming the Weather, What Is Happening?

I have been working with the family camping industry since 1982, although I started my business in the New England ski industry back in 1980. With an intimate understanding of both industries, one of my most fascinating recent reads was Hal Clifford’s “Downhill Slide: Why the Corporate Ski Industry Is Bad for Skiing, Ski Towns, and the Environment”. In this compelling exposé, Clifford documents the evolution of skiing from its roots in Scandinavia, through a growth spurt following the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid (New York), through the development of Sun Valley (Idaho) as the first destination ski resort back in 1935-1938, through the return of World War II’s 10^th Mountain Division veterans, through another growth spurt following the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley (California), through the “industrial tourism” that it became in the 1990s – when 3 major companies then controlled 24% of ticket sales from coast to coast. I believe that there are parallels between the downhill skiing and family camping industries.

The ski industry in the United States was essentially given birth in the first three decades of the twentieth century, including the development of Sun Valley as the first destination resort by railroad magnate W. Averill Harriman. By 1938, Harriman understood that there was far more income to be generated than what could be realized through lift ticket sales, adding tennis, golf, fishing, rodeo, hiking and swimming. The “golden age” of skiing took place in the 1950s. This was the period of time when 2,000 veterans from the Army’s 10^th Mountain Division returned home from the Italian and Austrian Alps to kick-start the post-war ski industry, founding, managing, or running the ski schools at 62 American ski resorts. In New England alone, there are 605 former ski areas (most operating in the 1950s) that are documented by the New England Lost Ski Areas Project. Most of these were “mom and pop” operations run on snowy hills, with rudimentary rope tows run by the likes of tractors or old Packard automobile engines. In Massachusetts alone, my company has at least two campground clients with campsites that are partially located on the remnants of the slopes and trails of former ski areas.

In the 5 years following the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, skier days increased by 50%, with the greatest increase going to destination reports. The handwriting was on the wall for the mom and pop areas attempting to compete. A decade later, in 1975, there were 745 ski areas in the United States, a number that would drop to 509 by the year 2000. Despite the advent of snowboarding, total visits to ski areas stagnated in the 1980s and 1990s, numbers which would have witnessed double-digit declines if not for snowboarding. According to Clifford, only 15% of beginners go on to become serious skiers. Although 33 million Americans considered themselves skiers or snowboarders (at the time when the book was written, in 2003), only a third of them actually go out even once in any given year.

Part of the problem with the ski industry is the aging of the post-war baby boomers. Statistics have shown that, once they hit the age of 44, the average skiers hang up their skis for the last time. The changing population does not bode well for the ski industry. People today have less leisure time, less disposable income, and new interests – such as fitness clubs and the Internet. Another strike against skiing is that it requires a learning curve, and most people today want instant gratification.

Lift Tickets Equate to Campsites

It is a well-documented fact that most of the ski industry is no longer in the business of selling lift tickets. Even with single-day lift ticket prices topping $100.00 at many ski resorts this past season, those ticket sales cannot begin to cover expenses. In the year 2000, a Poma detachable quad chairlift would cost just under $3 million to install, plus another 15% for site preparation. Then it would cost about $14,000 per month for the electricity to turn the lift. At the same time, an 8-place gondola carrying passengers only 2,200 ft. would run about $6 million, with a monthly electric bill of about $20,000. Not pocket change, even some of the biggest corporate players have faced economic challenges.

Then there are snowmaking costs. Again in the year 2000, the air compressors to run a bank of snow guns cost about $250,000 each, basic snow guns cost about $1,000 each, fan-driven snow machines cost about $10,000 each, and the electricity to make the snow might cost a large resort $1,000,000 per season. Clifford cites an interview with the general manager of Sugarbush Resort (Vermont), who said at the time that his snowmaking costs were $1,000 per acre per inch, with a monthly electric bill of $300,000 to $400,000. For all of this money, skiers and snowboarders get snow conditions that are as predictable as a MacDonald’s hamburger … something that not every skier actually wants. Whether or not skiers demanded the industry improvements, or whether they got caught up in the competitive one-upmanship of corporate skiing, the industry has changed. Just like the cruise industry, the theme park industry, and perhaps what is beginning to happen with camping.

In the ski industry, the profit center is now real estate development, with million dollar building lots for second homes, condominiums for every middle-to-upper income level, fractional ownership, absentee homeowners, and artificial “ski villages” that are designed to keep all of the dollars spent in the resort’s pockets. People who were once attracted to authentic ski towns and their ambiance have found those towns displaced by the new manufactured village concept, with bars, restaurants, shops and hotels all designed to capitalize upon that now lost romantic notion of the ski towns of yesteryear.

At one extreme is the relatively new concept of the private membership ski resort. The Yellowstone Club, in Montana, is only open to members who can demonstrate a net worth in excess of $3 million, paying an initiation fee of $250,000 and an annual $16,000 membership fee – along with the mandatory purchase of property at the resort. Then there is The Hermitage Club, in Vermont, (located at the former Haystack Mountain, one of my favorites back in the day), with an initiation fee of only $75,000 and billboards along Interstate 91 in Connecticut and Massachusetts touting “your own private ski resort”.

The good news is that there is a backlash in the ski industry, with a growing popularity of back-to-basics skiing, often cooperatively owned, at ski areas like Vermont’s Mad River Glen, California’s Bear Valley, and British Columbia’s Shames Mountain. There are also many of the healthier “mom and pop” areas that are still maintaining their niches in their markets.

Yes, there are many parallels between what is happening in the ski industry and the family camping industry in North America. I will leave it to my readers to connect the dots. The bottom line is that there are forces that are driving up the price of camping, that profits cannot be based solely upon campsite fees, and that there is plenty of room for diversity. There are many definitions for the “perfect camping experience”, and it will continue to be the goal of every campground to effectively market itself within its niche target market. Define your park’s experience, and then do everything you can to get the word out, helping the people who want precisely what you are offering to find you.

Change might be inevitable, but the survival – and continuing success – of your business is held within your own hands.

Early in the summer of 2014, one of my campground clients e-mailed me to let me know that she had sold her campground. She provided me with the name and cell phone number of the buyer. The following day, I called the new owner to introduce myself, encountering a highly unprofessional outgoing voicemail message but leaving my own message that explained the purpose of my call and asking him to get back to me. There was no response. I tried again a few days later with the same outcome.

I realize that some people have an aversion to what they may perceive as sales calls; however, my call did not include the words “I need to speak with the person who orders your office copier supplies.” I was not trying to sell him anything, I mentioned the name of the seller, and suggested that he might like to discuss changes that should be made to the website that my company had built and was hosting. He might like something as simple as having us add a notice that said “Under New Ownership”. There was no response, and I moved on to other things … such as being of service to people who return my calls.

About a month after the park changed hands, I started getting error logs from people submitting reservation requests on the campground’s website. The request forms were set to be sent to the campground’s Comcast e-mail address, and the new owner had cancelled the previous owner’s contract with Comcast. After four reservation requests were rendered undeliverable over a weekend at the height of the summer camping season, I made another round of calls to the new owner’s cell phone. I listened to his same childish outgoing message, and told him specifically why I was calling, that he was losing business, and that he needed to provide me with a new e-mail address for the reservation request forms on his website. I also called the campground’s main phone number. Once again, no response.

As of this writing, there have been 82 people who have attempted to make reservations through the campground’s website, some of whom were inquiring about multiple sites or stays of one week or longer. Let’s presume that the average request was for a two-night stay at the campground’s $35.00 average nightly rate. That translates into $5,740.00 in lost business from the undelivered forms alone. Stated another way, this is $5,740.00 in lost business because my phone calls were not returned. Of course, I have no alternate e-mail address, allowing me to reach out in another manner. The campground’s website hosting service (prepaid by the former owner) expires in July. Will he call me when his website is disabled? Time will tell.

The point of all this is to stress the value of industry vendors. Yes, we sell products or services. However, selling is not a crime. In fact, it is the backbone of our economy. I have always had a policy of providing up to an hour of free consultation services to anybody who calls me and who would like to plug into my expertise. There are no sales attempts or strings attached, and my base of knowledge extends well beyond the services that my company provides. For example, at the recent Northeast Campground Association conference, I participated in the “Learn from the Experts” roundtable sessions, where my topic was online and office security standards.

If you have a question about payment processing, insurance, wi-fi installation, or which store merchandise will provide the greatest return on investment, ask an industry vendor. If you want to know the pros and cons between alternate lines of laundry equipment, golf carts, power pedestals, lawn mowers, or picnic tables, ask an industry vendor. With very few exceptions, the people who I know who are serving the family campground industry are truly committed to the industry and can be relied upon for honest and objective information. I believe that most put the interests of their customers and the overall industry ahead of their own interests. There is a tremendous resource at your disposal. Put it to good use. Those who fail to do so may suffer the consequences.

Acronyms and abbreviations surround us and have become a part of our everyday lexicon. You are familiar with acronyms: words that have been formed from the initial letters of a series of words and are then pronounced as words themselves. Abbreviations, on the other hand, are also formed from the initial letters of a series of words but are not pronounced as words themselves. For example, NASA is an acronym for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and KOA is an abbreviation for Kampgrounds of America.

Many acronyms originated with military jargon, including RADAR (which stands for radio detection and ranging), AWOL (absent without leave), and SNAFU (which I will leave undefined). More recently, a whole new generation of acronyms and abbreviations has been generated by the proliferation of technology and the Internet. Many of these terms have become part of our everyday conversations, but how many of us really know the definitions of the words that we use?

It is the start of a new year, and I thought that we could take this opportunity to have some fun with a little quiz that will allow you determine whether you are a true geek or simply a nerd in geek’s clothing. I will throw in a few easy terms, just so nobody feels totally discouraged. I will provide you with the acronym or abbreviation, along with a brief definition. See if you know the words that provide the origins for the terms. Have fun and see how you do, checking for the correct answers at the end of the quiz.

1)    RAM – Usually found in pairs of “sticks” that fit into “slots” in a computer, these allow a computer to perform calculations quickly. Variations include SDRAM and VRAM. Not to be confused with an early solo record by Paul McCartney.

2)    PDF – These are pages of content that can be downloaded online and will always render identically on every display and print consistently on every printer.

3)    DSL – This is a form of high-speed Internet access over telephone lines that replaced the screeching sound and excruciatingly slow speed of dial-up modems. The next breed of this will use fiber optic cable.

4)    CPU – This is to your computer what your brain is to your body. Without it, your computer would be nothing but a case full of components.

5)    BSOD – This is the last thing that a Windows computer user wants to see on his monitor. It is also known as a stop error or bug check, and it displays a memory dump that typically includes thousands of characters of text that are totally undecipherable to the average human being.

6)    CMYK – These represent the colors that comprise four-color process printing, as opposed to the RGB colors of digital displays. Most folks read out the letters in this abbreviation, but other people pronounce it as the acronym “smick”.

7)    Wi-Fi – This is a means of connecting to the Internet without the use of cables. Everybody at your campground wants this available at their particular campsite, and it better be fast and free.

8)    USB – Before this was adopted as a standard, there seemed to be a different type of cable for every device connected to a computer, each with a unique plug and computer jack. Of course, as devices got smaller, there is now mini-USB and micro-USB found on things like smartphones. Thanks to USB, you probably have a box full of old cables that you cannot even give away.

9)    URL – This is the address of your website or any other particular page on the Internet. It is even more precise than a 9-digit zip code.

10) HDMI – This allows a single cable to transfer video and audio between devices such as computer monitors, video projectors, and digital televisions. Thanks to HDMI, almost nobody uses two tin cans and a string anymore.

11) HTML – The websites that you see online work because this allows text files to be “tagged” in a manner that allows them to display specific fonts, colors, graphics, embedded content, and links. Some people think that this is magic, but it is really some form of HTML.

12) JPEG – Probably the most common means of compressing and decompressing digital images. When saving an image, the amount of compression can be selected. Too much compression leads to serious loss of image quality.

13) IMAP – A protocol that allows e-mail to be retrieved from a mail server, it offers added functionality over the POP3 standard, including an improved ability to synchronize your e-mail among multiple devices such as your office computer, laptop computer, tablet and smartphone.

14) FTP – This Internet function allows for the upload and download of files, sometimes using a cloud service, from one computer to another. Many people try to send large files as e-mail attachments because they are unfamiliar with FTP.

15) SQL – If a website runs some sort of structured database, that database will be programmed using some form of SQL.

16) DVD – This storage format replaced the CD due to its greater storage capacity and its ability to play high-resolution audiovisual material. Thanks to the DVD, your VHS tapes are in a box with your old 8-track audio tapes and you no longer see “Be kind. Please rewind.” stickers.

17) GPS – This provides the ability for drivers to get from point A to point B without opening their glove box and unfolding a large, confusing piece of paper.

18) ICANN – When you want to register a domain name, you perform a “whois lookup” at an accredited registrar to see if it is available, but it is this organization that keeps the Internet running by allocating IP addresses and managing the domain name system.

19) GIF – Another means of saving graphic files, dating back to CompuServe and the early days of the Internet, it is pronounced “jiff”, not “giff”. If photos are saved using this format, they will have a blotchy appearance due to the limited number of colors represented. The animated version of this format is responsible for all those annoying little graphics that you don’t use on your website, right?

20) MIDI – Not a skirt length, this term also goes back to the early days of the World Wide Web, when it was commonly used to include songs on websites. Thanks to MIDI files, people quickly learned to turn off the sound on their computers. It was more annoying than Muzak, and copyright enforcement put the final nail in its coffin.

Well, how did you do? Scroll down below for the answers. You are probably happy that I did not include EXIF, FQDN, FLOPS, GUID, PPGA, TWAIN, SOAP and TCP/IP. In all honesty, I cannot identify most of those myself. On the other hand, I try not to think of myself as a geek. Let’s hope you had fun!

Stop scrolling here, until you want to see the answers!

The answers:

1)    RAM = Random Access Memory

2)    PDF = Portable Document Format

3)    DSL = Digital Subscriber Line

4)    CPU = Central Processing Unit

5)    BSOD = Blue Screen of Death

6)    CMYK = Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (or Key)

7)    Wi-Fi = Wireless Fidelity

8)    USB = Universal Serial Bus

9)    URL = Uniform Resource Locator

10) HDMI = High Definition Multimedia Interface

11) HTML = Hyper-Text Markup Language

12) JPEG = Joint Photographic Experts Group

13) IMAP = Internet Message Access Protocol

14) FTP = File Transfer Protocol

15) SQL = Structured Query Language

16) DVD = Digital Versatile Disc

17) GPS = Global Positioning System

18) ICANN = Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

19) GIF = Graphics Interchange Format

MIDI = Musical Instrument Digital Interface

The idea to think small did not only work for Volkswagen, in the famous 1959 advertising campaign by the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency, cited by Advertising Age magazine as the best ad campaign of the twentieth century. Many people today are making a concerted effort to buy local and support small businesses. This new consciousness is behind the resurgence in family farming throughout much of the country. In a popular episode of the cult TV series Portlandia, a young couple played by Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein want to be assured that the chicken being served in a restaurant comes from a local farm.

Portlandia loves to poke fun at our modern cultural obsessions, but the desire to get to know the people with whom you do business is a growing trend. Most campgrounds are family-owned small businesses that are perfectly poised to capitalize upon this popular desire, and there is no better way to introduce yourself to new markets than to tell your personal story.

It’s Story Time

Sort of like “show and tell” back in kindergarten, telling your story is the best way to introduce yourself to people. Guess what? If they like what they hear or read, you may have set the foundation for a very long-term relationship. To get started, it would probably be a productive exercise to take the time to put your story down on paper. What is the history of your campground, and what is your story as its owner? Tell people why you bought your park, and what you are seeking to accomplish. Are you a new owner, or are you the fifth generation of Smiths to run Peaceful Acres? We are not talking about a business plan or formal mission statement. We are talking about personalizing what might otherwise be an anonymous business … just like those of your less personal competitors.

Here are a few tips for what might be included in your story, but above all else, make it personal and from the heart:

• Why did you decide to buy (or build) your park? We are not talking about how you intend to amass a fortune as part of a 5-year plan. What is it that you are trying to offer your guests or that differentiates your park?
• What did you do in life that took you to this point in time? Did you work in customer service or perhaps in a big company that downsized or moved its production offshore? What lessons did you learn, and how would you like to do things differently? Many people will directly identify with your prior experience.
• Talk about your family and what it means to you. Are there family values that are now part of your business ethics? Is your park the kind of place where you want your own children to grow?
• What are your long-term goals for your park? It is amazing how people will be willing to help you to attain your dreams and will want to be a part of seeing them materialize, but they need to know what those goals might be.
• What are you doing – personally – that makes your park different from many others? If your life includes some sort of Eureka moment or epiphany, tell the story.

Buy from a Big Box or Shop Locally?

As I pointed out early on in this essay, many people feel an overwhelming desire to shop locally. Even if your park is part of a national franchise, you should still be personalizing your imprint upon the national brand. People choose name brands because they feel that they can expect a degree of reliability and consistency, and you want to build upon those qualities with your personal imprint. Even McDonald’s regionalizes its menu. You probably want to do your best to “localize” the national brand.

Wal-Mart is a perfect example of what can happen when a business loses sight of its origins. The chain grew because it was Sam Walton’s personal story and retailing concept. When he died, his personal story died along with him. Today, people shop at Wal-Mart for one reason – and one reason only: price. Even the trucks that are ever-present on the highways tell the story: Always Low Prices. Without price, the world’s largest retailer would be out of business.

Word Association

Ask a few of your campers for the first word that comes to their mind when they hear the name of your campground. Ask first-time arrivals why they chose your park. If the answers are price, a color or a mascot, you may need to be putting greater effort into telling your story. If the answer is a word that conveys an emotion or a concept – anything from enjoyment to security to a friendly environment – you are probably on target. Use those same words in your marketing, recognizing that the qualities that are drawing guests to your park are the same qualities that will allow you to widen your markets.

Tell your story, and try to personalize every aspect of a coordinated marketing campaign. Add a personalized “About Us” page to your website, put your photo (or a family photo) in your advertising, and try to write in the first person. Speak directly to your customers, in a friendly manner, telling them what “we” can do for “you”. Your message will strike a resounding chord, and your readers will respond.

Several recent experiences have brought home the importance of telephone etiquette and its impact upon business. Particularly when a phone call might be the first point of contact with a business prospect, that first impression could create a lasting impression. With a little advance thought, you can help to ensure that the impression is positive. Let me share a few of my observations and suggestions.

Call Waiting

With call waiting, you are notified when a new call is coming in while you are on an existing call. The best advice I can offer about call waiting is not to use it. More than anything else, call waiting interrupts your existing conversation and gives the person on the other end the distinct impression that his or her call is unimportant. It gives you the choice of terminating the first call or rushing the first call to its conclusion. Either way, you are likely to put both callers at least briefly on hold. Who likes being put on hold? Nobody.

If you choose to ignore an incoming call when using call waiting, you are at minimum being distracted from the first call. If you do accept the call, the caller is given the impression that nobody is in your office, and that is not a good perception. You are far better off having a caller encounter an occasional busy signal. This, by definition, suggests that your office is busy, and that can be a good perception!

Answering the Call

Speaking of being put on hold, never answer a call using the words, “May I put you on hold?” More often than not, the person asking that question does not wait for a reply. This rude habit is notoriously abused by doctors’ offices, isn’t it? If you can’t handle the volume of incoming calls, it is time to add another person to answer your phones. If too many people are waiting in the checkout lines at a supermarket, smart management will call clerks up front to open new registers.

Last week, I had to place a series of calls to a prominent organization within the industry, and it was apparent that they were experiencing some phone problems. On one of my calls, the receptionist apparently could not hear my voice at her end. When this happens in my office, the policy is to presume that the caller on the other end can hear our voices, explaining that we cannot hear the caller’s voice before gently disconnecting. In my call last week, there was no such courtesy. The receptionist simply slammed the phone down onto its base, treating me like I was some sort of crank caller. Once again, was this a positive impression? No.

Never Say “No”

On another recent call, I asked the person at the other end if an exception could be made to a policy. The person at the other end was not authorized to make that decision, and simply said, “Nothing we can do about that.” Say what? If an employee, either on the phone or off the phone, is not authorized to make an exception to a policy or procedure, that employee should cheerfully pass the request along to a superior who can make the decision.

As a case in point (and a tip to my readers!), I have learned that every checkout clerk at Home Depot stores is given the discretion to authorize up to a 10% discount to a customer, upon request. I have made that request at each of my last four purchases, and I have been given that discount every time. Does that make me happy with Home Depot? Of course it does. ‘Yes’ is such a nice word.

Return Your Calls!

It utterly amazes me how often I will call people who really need to hear from me, repeatedly leave messages, only to have them not return my calls. As a case in point, my company had a long-time client who recently sold her campground and provided me with the name and phone number of the new owner. I called twice and left messages, as a simple courtesy and means of introduction. He never returned my calls.

About two weeks later, it came to my attention that the campground’s reservation requests were bouncing back to our server because the new owner had apparently terminated the Comcast e-mail account to which the requests were being e-mailed. I called and left two more messages with this specific information. My calls have still not been returned, and I am done making calls to someone who does not want to help himself. As of the time of this posting, there have been over 40 campers who have attempted to make reservations and who have been ignored, some looking for multiple sites or week long stays. Averaging two night stays at $35.00 per night, this translates into well over $2,750.00 in lost income.

If nothing else, my point in sharing these examples is to try to get people to understand that, in these days when everything is digital, the good old telephone is still a crucial tool when it comes to running your business smarter. Try seeing yourself as the caller at the other end of the line, and you are certain to benefit. Courtesy is profitable, and rudeness is costly.

Until about 7 or 8 years ago, I spent my summer weekends executing on-location commercial photography assignments at campgrounds throughout the East Coast. It was not profitable work, but it gave my company a competitive edge when designing brochures and building websites. We knew that the photography was not going to be the weak link that would limit the effectiveness of the finished products.

After the weather, the greatest source of frustration when it came to scheduling photography was procrastination on the part of my clients. My main concern was sunny skies (which seem to be less and less common these days), but my clients’ main concern seemed to be making excuses for why the upcoming weekend was not the right time for photography.

The excuses ranged from being too busy and too crowded to not being busy enough. With the exception of three-day holiday weekends, photos generally needed to be taken on a Saturday, which eliminated 6 out of the 7 days of the week. Saturdays were the days that were packed with activities, and the occupancy levels insured a ready supply of impromptu models. The weather could be gorgeous on a Wednesday, but empty campsites, an empty playground, and an empty swimming pool do not present a high level of marketing appeal.

Basically, all bets had to be placed on Saturdays, when the weather needed to be somewhere between partly cloudy and sunny. It does not require a statistician to know that the pieces did not always magically fall together. I spent many Thursday nights wondering if the weather would be sending me to North to Maine, South to Maryland, or West to Ohio. Even then, everybody knows that weather forecasts are notorious for their lack of accuracy.

My point with all this is to encourage campground owners to take photos when the time is right. As I write, it is already approaching mid-July, with two major holiday weekends and the entire month of June (perhaps the single best time to take photos) already behind us. If you have not already taken photos, what are you waiting for? Are you waiting for your pool to be closed for the year, waiting for the kids to be back to school, or waiting for pumpkins and mums to enhance your landscaping?

As I mentioned, I stopped taking photography assignments years ago, although my company does its best to locate talented freelance photographers who have the necessary skills for on-location commercial assignments on behalf of our clients. Year after year, I have campground owners contacting me looking for a referral the week before Labor Day weekend. Guess what? They’re out of luck.

Here are a few tips:

• Hire a qualified and skilled commercial photographer. Get a referral, then view the photographer’s portfolio. Portfolios are all online these days. If the photographer shoots babies and weddings, look elsewhere.
• Expect to pay $800.00 to $1,200.00 for a day of commercial photography. Define the day, including the expected start and finish times. If more than 100 miles or so of travel is involved, expect to pay additional travel expenses. Look at the bright side: there are no longer any fees for film and processing!
• Expect your photographer to be using professional equipment (probably a digital SLR), including basic lighting (for interiors like your store and cabins) and a tripod. Professional photographers will always use a tripod.
• Expect the photographer (or an assistant) to take responsibility for model releases.
• The photographer should know how to “style” the shots, moving things around if necessary to improve the composition, but he cannot be expected to mow your lawn, pull weeds, rake your beach, replace burned out light bulbs, repair a torn volleyball net, or paint the side of a building. In other words, prepare in advance for your day of photography. If you were selling your house, would you show it to prospective buyers when the beds were unmade and there was a pile of dirty dishes in the sink? Do not expect everything to be “fixed” in Photoshop!
• Outline in advance how long it will take for you to receive the images taken the day of the shoot and how they will be delivered (most likely on discs). Also determine in advance what usage rights will be provided. Typically, the photographer will retain the actual ownership or copyright to his work, conveying full, royalty-free usage rights to the work that was produced on your behalf. That is a reasonable expectation, particularly these days when there is no original film involved.
• To get the job done right, the photographer you need is almost never going to be the person who you see in the mirror or somebody who addresses you as “Mom” or “Dad”.

With these tips in mind, put an end to the procrastination. Photography is almost always the weak link when my company is hired to assemble brochures, rack cards, directory ads, and other printed materials. Although websites demand lower resolution than print, the difference between good photos and bad photos makes a world of difference.

So many people obsess over the volume of traffic that reaches their websites, giving far less thought to their customers’ experience after reaching the site. The wrong photos send visual messages that essentially drive away the very same people who would be attracted by professional compositions.

If you would like much more information about planning a day of photography than could be included in this article, click here to access the online version of a seminar that I have frequently presented on this topic. The more you understand about the basics of professional photography, the better that photography will work to promote your business. Have you ever heard how a single photo is the equivalent of 1,000 words? Ensure that those words are all positive!

There is a lot of buzz about branding these days. In fact, there is so much indiscriminate use of the term that it sometimes sounds like marketing’s latest pet rock. When properly orchestrated, nothing could be further from the truth. Proper branding can make the difference between success and failure. It is the combination of many facets of marketing, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Your brand is what differentiates you from your competitor across town or down the road. In fact, it is the founding principle behind successful franchises from Hilton to KOA. It is the reason behind the word associations between “four wheel drive” and “Jeep”, “golf clubs” and “Callaway”, and “ketchup” and “Heinz”. It should be your goal to establish that same degree of name association with camping in your area.

Probably the first step in the creation of brand identity is the design of a distinctive logo. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, logos were little more than visual icons. Most business was local, and much of the population was illiterate. An icon of a tooth identified you as the town dentist, and icon of a mortar and pestle identified you as the town druggist, and the icon of a horseshoe identified you as the town farrier or blacksmith. In the early 20^th century, as businesses began to serve broader markets and grow beyond single locations, a more distinctive identity became necessary. Simple icons became replaced by distinctive and carefully crafted logos. Think of some of the distinctive logos that have withstood the test of time, from Coca-Cola to Kodak, Ford to McDonald’s, or Sherwin-Williams to John Deere. With one look at their logos, there is no chance of confusing any of these well-established companies with any of their competitors.

The recently released 2014 BRANDZ Report from Millward Brown lists the 100 most valuable global brand names. The top 10 are Google, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Visa, AT&T, Marlboro, and Amazon. Keep those highly recognizable and distinguished brands in mind when thinking about the branding of your own business.

It All Starts With Your Logo

A successful logo may sometimes be simple, but it will always be distinctive and it should never be cluttered. As the common element of your branding campaign, avoid skimping on your logo design. It should never be delegated to one of your children who happens to have “an eye for graphic design”, and it will rarely fall within the realm of expertise of the marketing person on your staff. In addition, steer clear of online “logo factories”, where the assignment will be subcontracted to somebody who has no understanding of your business or industry.

When entering into a logo design project, provide the artist with as much input as possible. Are there already colors that are identified with your business? Are there colors and fonts that you really like or intensely dislike? Are there two or three key design elements – avoiding clichés – that might summarize the distinctive appeal of your business? Expect your logo designer to present you with several initial concepts that incorporate your input, but then carry things to the next creative level.

There should be plenty of back-and-forth communication between you and your designer during a process of fine-tuning a final concept. In the end, you want a logo that is distinctive and goes well beyond looking like a montage of unrelated pieces of clipart. Ask for variations of your logo that will maintain its integrity but allow for flexibility in usage. For example, some applications might favor a wider, more panoramic appearance. These might include letterhead stationery or the header on your website. Other applications might favor a more vertical, “stacked” appearance. You should also confirm in advance that your logo will reproduce cleanly and be legible when reproduced in grayscale color mode. This might be used in advertising on newsprint.

Your finished logo should be provided to you as one or more vector images, usually an EPS (Encapsulated Postscript) or AI (Adobe Illustrator) file. It is quite likely that you will not be able to open a vector image on your own computer, unless you have a drawing program like Adobe Illustrator or an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop installed. A vector image is resolution-independent because it is made up of lines and curves, rather than pixels, meaning that it can be opened in any size without loss of quality. The same file can be used on everything from your website to a large billboard.

The designer will probably also provide you with JPEG and PDF versions of your logo, but it is important that you always provide the vector file to people who will be reproducing the logo on your behalf – from your webmaster and printer to a sign company and people producing branded merchandise. In fact, be wary of any of these people who might not know how to use your vector file.

Beyond the Logo

To be effective, your branding should be developed with some end strategies in mind. It should distinguish your business from its competitors with its clarity, enhancing the credibility of your business on several levels, some of which will be purely emotional. If your branding is effective enough, you essentially have no competition. Ultimately, you want to establish a sense of loyalty in the minds of your customers to the degree that you are motivating them to take various courses of action:

• In the case of first-time guests, persuading them to choose your park over any and all of the alternatives.
• In the case of existing guests, insuring that they are comfortable enough to refer your park to new campers, post positive comments on social media sites, and write reviews on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor.
• In either case, encouraging your guests to raise their level of involvement. This could include making reservations for special meal functions, volunteering to assist with your park’s community service events, and simply showing up for your scheduled activities – all instances where everybody will have a more enjoyable time if more people are involved.

If you are thinking that these are unrealistic expectations, it could be the result of failed or non-existent branding on your part. To be effective, your branding should not only reach out to your customers on an emotional level, it should be based upon research into the actual wants and needs of your clientele. It is this identity that will establish the necessary emotional attachment. As a broad example, if the primary appeal of camping at your park is the opportunity to enjoy a memorable family experience in an outdoor setting, you need not concentrate on affordability or ease of access. At other parks, the primary appeal might very well be the affordability or ease of access that are not as important at your park. Do your research to properly define – then build – your brand.

The Venerable Tagline

Along with your logo, your branding might include a tagline that will pervade your marketing. Consider some of the great taglines that have been ingrained in our memories over the years. Is there any doubt which companies are associated with the following taglines?

• Can You Hear Me Now? (Verizon)
• Where’s the Beef? (Wendy’s)
• When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best. (Hallmark)
• Think Small. (Volkswagen)
• Just Do It. (Nike)
• We Try Harder. (Avis)
• You Deserve a Break Today. (McDonald’s)

There is a tagline just waiting to be born for your business, but a tagline must be totally original in order to succeed. Forget about clichés like “The Best Kept Secret” that we have all seen a dozen or more times.

Putting It All Together

Another key branding element is your color scheme. In the campground industry, what does the color combination of yellow, red and black designate? Nobody but KOA! The colors of your logo should either be the colors of – or complement the colors of – your buildings and décor.

Is your logo on your entrance sign? Is it on your vehicle signage? For that matter, do you even have vehicle signage? The last thing that you want to do is have somebody create a sign that is not consistent with your overall branding. A multitude of random elements are not components of effective branding.

The same thing applies to apparel and other “branded” merchandise that you might sell in your store or hand out as premiums. Be certain that so-called branded merchandise is actually working to advance your branding, not work against it. A t-shirt or baseball cap that depicts a pleasant scene and includes your business name is not working to further your branding efforts. Always remember that most buying decisions are based upon a long-term accumulation of impressions. Be sure that each of those impression counts!

In the final analysis, branding is all about keeping things in focus. Try to ensure that everything that you do that will impact your business is done consistently, in a positive light, in a manner that distinguishes your business, and in a way that will engage your customers or clientele on a powerful emotional level.

Yesterday on Facebook, I was presented with a link to a brilliant promotion from Ace Hardware. They call it Free Paint Saturday, and it encourages you to print a coupon for a free quart of Clark+Kensington paint. The coupon can only be redeemed at a local participating Ace Hardware store on Saturday, March 16th. It appears that the offer was also promoted on the Ace Hardware website and in its weekly circular. Here is the original Facebook post:

Note that within 10 hours of the original post, the offer had gotten 378 likes and – more importantly – 688 shares. No doubt, there were many more people who simply proceeded to download the coupon. The intermediate step took users to a Facebook App, shown below, that explained more about the line of paints and the services available through the local Ace Hardware store. It also included a link to print the actual coupon. This app had generated 309 original comments at the time of this post.

Finally, clicking on the link allowed users to print the coupon, shown below.

Okay, why do I say this is brilliant? Let me count the ways:

1. Saturday is the highest traffic day in the hardware industry. By offering a limited supply of the free offer per store, customers are encouraged to arrive early, getting sales records off to an early start.
2. Each store has an average availability of 40 quarts. How many things can be covered with a single quart of flat enamel paint? I believe that flat enamel paints are most typically used on interior walls and ceilings, where a single quart is going to provide very limited coverage. Chances are that customers will purchase additional paint (probably gallons) to go with the free quart.
3. The offer presents a perfect opportunity to introduce a new product line or to attract customers who might otherwise not think of Ace Hardware as a paint store.
4. No purchase is necessary; however, most people, once they have entered a store, are unlikely to leave without making a purchase. People who have gotten something for free are even less likely to leave without making a purchase.
5. Each quart of paint probably costs Ace Hardware a maximum of $5.00. With participation on the part of the paint manufacturer, their cost is probably less than half of that. I cannot find statistics for the average consumer transaction per hardware store visit; however, this customer acquisition cost is extremely low.

Clearly, this is an example of how profitable it can be for a business to give products or services away, particularly when the reach of the promotion is dramatically extended through the social media. Can you think of ways that this same concept could work for the benefit of your business?

Over the last month, there have been several notable changes in the delivery of popular software and online services. In the final analysis, this is good news for folks who cannot afford the price of entry into much of the digital world.

First the bad news: If you have a small business, you have been able to rely upon Google to provide free POP and IMAP e-mail hosting services in recent years. What was not to love? Google would provide you with over 10GB of storage space, some of the best spam filtering in the industry, and the familiar Gmail interface at zero cost. That all changed on December 7, 2012, when Google stopped providing this free service to businesses, a change in policy took effect after only 24 hours of advance notice. Ironically, there was an entire chapter (Chapter 8: De-Monetization – Google and the Birth of a Twenty-First-Century Economic Model) in Chris Anderson’s bestselling business book, Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing about how Google could make a fortune by giving away services – including Gmail – for free. I suspect that this chapter will be edited prior to the next printing!

Now for the good news: As somewhat of an early Christmas gift, Microsoft quietly announced on December 22, 2012 that it was was throwing in the towel on its Expression suite, including Microsoft Expression Web 4, immediately taking it off the market and making it a free download (with no technical support). Essentially, Microsoft decided that it would no longer continue trying to compete against Adobe’s more popular Dreamweaver software. The software that you could purchase for $149.95 on December 21st could now be downloaded for free. Finding the download link can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, so here is a direct link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36179

More good news came today, March 7, 2013, when Adobe announced that they would make the second generation version of their Creative Suite available as a free download. Keep in mind that CS2 is a ten year old version of one of the world’s most popular software suites, currently in version 6, CS6. That said, most people cannot afford to shell out up to $1,899.00 for the current version of the software (or $49.99 per month for the cloud version that Adobe is now promoting). This free download is a nice alternative to people who previously settled for one of the open-source Photoshop alternatives, such as GIMP. As the entire Creative Suite, the package includes the CS2 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, along with Acrobat Pro 8.0. Here is a direct link to the download page:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

Whereas Microsoft appears to be essentially admitting defeat in a highly competitive market, Adobe’s strategy is as brilliant as Google’s earlier strategy with e-mail hosting services. By introducing new users to their products, chances are that they will like what they use and decide to upgrade to a newer version. This is the same reason that most software developers have made academic versions available over the years, fully featured versions of software that are deeply discounted and intended to be used by students and teachers. They know that most people tend to agree that the later price of admission is lower than the cost of learning to use an alternative product. At the moment, many consumers are now on the winning side of the equation.