We just wanted to let you know that a HUGE majority of the Phoenix Ad Blog staff is heavily involved with Phoenix Design Week coming up this October 21st through 25th, thus the lull in posts.

We will be back starting November, so don’t worry. In the meantime get ready for PHXDW!

It is going to be a major event, filled with exhibits, film festivals, national and local keynotes and lots of networking with like minded marketing/ad professionals, interactive, motion and graphic designers.

The full schedule has been posted at http://www.phxdw.com

AND if you haven’t purchased your tickets, it is a STEAL at $40 for everything, exhibits, film festival, evening party and conference.

Purchase your tickets here: http://phxdw.eventbrite.com

Finally, a big thank you to all the people in Phoenix who have helped support the event. Take the time to visit our sponsor list, as there is an amazing group of individuals, agencies small and large and related businesses that have donated a bit more to make this week happen.

The following is a guest post from Margie Traylor, CEO of Sitewire Marketspace Solutions

Any business person will tell you just how difficult it is to say no to new business. It seems counter intuitive especially in this economy and for anyone trying to achieve their sales goals. But let me tell you from experience, it can be one of the best things you can ever do to grow your business.

How do you say no? How do you know when to say no and why? Why would saying no to customers help grow your business? These are just a few of the questions I’m sure you are asking. You need to have well defined qualifying criteria to assess fit of new opportunities by answering the following questions. Who is your ideal customer? How big are they? How much budget should they have for your product or service? Do they value what you have to offer? Who is the ideal buyer? What industry or geography are they in? What is their persona? What are their points of pain? Are they in a financially viable industry? Where are they in the buying cycle? What is the status of their relationship with the incumbent firm? All of these questions and more need to be answered before you can say no to anyone.

Once you’ve answered those many questions then you are ready to create your target filter. a target filter is the set of guidelines you use to determine whether or not a new opportunity is a good fit for your business. When you are done creating your target filter you should be able to consistently and with discipline know when to say no and why. To test your target filter take a few of your existing ideal customers and test the target filter against their criteria. If they pass 80% of the target filter tests, then you are on the right track, and ready to grow your business. If they fail, you may want to assess whether your target filter criteria are right of if you’ve got an existing customer on your roster that really doesn’t fit anymore.

We learned how to create our target filter when we were introduced to the Whale Hunters methodology for landing big deals. At Sitewire, our target filter has saved us many hours of chasing business and wasting our time on new opportunities that don’t fit. Typically chasing one of these “non-conforming” opportunities results in either us not winning the business, or if we win it, lower than average profits and short-term customer dissatisfaction and turnover. Saying no early to business that doesn’t fit allows us to pursue fewer, higher quality deals and has translated into a 50% close rate for new business. Our customer relationships are much more satisfactory and profitable because they are a good fit from the beginning.

So, if you want to just say no to business that doesn’t fit, develop a strong target filter, apply it consistently and with discipline. Learn to say no to new business and watch your bottom line grow!

More about Margie:

Margie Traylor is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sitewire Marketspace Solutions, LLC. As an online marketing agency in Arizona, Sitewire is focused on customer attraction, conversion and retention through strategic, customized online marketing efforts. These efforts often include search engine marketing, social media consulting, media buying and planning, Web development, Web and advertisement design, and much more.

Get all the info over at http://bit.ly/eS8St and don’t worry, proceeds will go to support Twestival/St. Mary’s Food Bank.

Today’s post is from a guest author, Bill Woodward, Director of Corporate Communications for SunCor Development Company.

Why does everybody call it the “client side” and the “agency side”?

I thought we were all supposed to be working together as a team.

Haven’t we all been in situations where disagreement, ego or confrontation has resulted in opposing camps taking sides in yet another episode of Client vs. Agency.

That ain’t teamwork.

As a vendor, I have endured the pontification of the know-it-all client who made me wonder why he even hired an agency to begin with. As a client, I have endured the condescending arrogance of the award-chasing creative director who wanted to burn up my budget to bankroll the work that he wanted to use as the platform for his next career move.

Who needs all the drama?

Aren’t we supposed to be working together as partners to solve problems, creating win-win-win situations, making money and having some fun?

Clients have their reasons for asking for things that agencies sometimes don’t want to do. Agencies have reasons that they propose things that some clients would never do. But that’s part of the glorious challenge—trying to figure out how to talk to our teammates before we can go out and talk to our audiences.

Healthy debate, rational discussion, seeing things from different viewpoints and some good ol’ disagreement can be good for the cause.

But the lexicon of “sides” has never made sense to me. There aren’t “sides” in a healthy client-agency relationship.

Perspectives, yes. Experiences, yes. Positions, yes.

If it feels like your client-agency relationship is one where everyone is taking sides, regardless of which side you’re on, it’s probably time to start thinking about moving on. Because that’s where you’re headed eventually, anyway.

Meanwhile, I’m often asked whether I prefer working on the “client side” or “agency side.”

I have had the wonderful opportunity to do both, several times, throughout my career. And if you’re any good at this marketing communications thing, I really don’t think there’s much difference.

Successful communicators are creative, up to speed with the latest technology and good writers—even if it’s internal e-mail and correspondence with colleagues and not breakthrough ad copy that you’re writing. We all know how important it is to multi-task, to be well-informed, and be respectful, honest, enthusiastic and accountable.

I do believe that the opportunity to learn more skill sets on a faster track occurs in the agency business. If you don’t produce, you don’t survive. There’s nothing like pressure, a daily adrenaline rush and a little fear to help people assess whether they’re cut out for the communications business. And the entrepreneurial eat-what-you-kill mentality that successful agencies foster is a missing link in a surprising number of private business and corporate cultures.

Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the business have come from corporate jobs, yet if I were going to advise someone about where to gain the most experience in the fastest way possible, I’d steer the person to an agency setting—not the “agency side.”

Then, after getting a taste of the business, I’d urge the person to look for a job that was creative, team-oriented, challenging, fulfilling and financially rewarding in either the agency business or in private industry—wherever it’s possible to work as part of a great team.

So, which side are you on?

Bill Woodward is a marketing communications professional with 32 years experience working in-house for three of the largest employers in the Valley, serving as the VP of public relations at two of the largest ad agencies in the Phoenix area, eating what he killed as the principal of his own PR consulting firm for eight years, and covering the news as a reporter and radio talk host for eight years.

Domainr is simple – enter in a domain idea and it looks up available URLs. What makes this tool awesome is that it digs deep into international and country names to come up with never thought of before combinations.

From their website:

When you type a search term into Domainr, you’ll see all the different possible domain names it creates. You’ll also see generic domains like .com, .net and .org. If you’re looking for a non-Latin internationalized domain name, you can enter characters with accents or other diacritics, and even scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese and Hindi.

What does this mean? It means unique URLs like www.sandwi.ch or (my personal one) www.®uss.com.

When that .com is taken for your awesome new product or company name, Domainr helps expand your options in a flash.

Be warned though, every country has a different set of rules for registering a domain there. Some simply charge more money (like Japan or the UK) others require a physical presence in the country or business registration forms.

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What is your name and position?
Melissa Rzeppa, PR & Marketing Director

What’s ZooLoo?
ZooLoo is a complete online environment for today’s Internet, on your own domain name. With ZooLoo, you can build your own website, and you control exactly who sees your content. Everything is private until you make it public. You also get a personal Web dashboard where you can keep track of all your favorite news sources, blogs, social media sites, videos and more. Plus, ZooLoo has an on-demand entertainment center, a personal shopping mall, a full media center for photo and video storage and sharing, custom photo gifts and prints, blogging capabilities, organizational tools to manage your life online and more.

Tell us about how it started, either the what sparked the idea or need?
ZooLoo’s founder, Jeff Herzog and Jill Miles, both believed that the Internet was becoming overwhelming for the everyday consumer. People are now visiting 5, 10, sometimes 20 different sites a day to get the information and tools that they want. Importantly, there were no real privacy controls out there…many sites offer privacy settings, but there are major loopholes that just don’t protect the individual. Jeff and Jill knew that there had to be a smarter, more personal way to experience the Internet. Thus, ZooLoo was born.

Discuss some of the marketing initiatives you pursued prior to the official launch?
We started out marketing ZooLoo as a secret, since we kept the idea of ZooLoo a secret until launch. That was accomplished mostly through social media. We had some celebrity endorsement videos, a “super fantastic” marketing intern contest, and everyday we talked to future ZooLoo consumers through Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other avenues. We built our marketing plan based on a local launch first, but it has expanded to national faster than anticipated… something I won’t complain about! We also devoted extensive time reaching out to bloggers; we knew they would be vital in helping us spread the word.

What was your largest marketing success?
Well, that’s still to be determined! I’d say the fact that we got USA Today to cover ZooLoo (the story runs in print tomorrow, but a blurb ran online yesterday) was pretty cool. But our most successful tactic was definitely having real conversations with potential ZooLoo users through social media.

Largest Failure?
So far, nothing has truly failed. We are trying a bit of everything…grassroots, videos, contests… so I’m sure something is bound to not be as successful as another tactic. But, we’re all pretty positive here!

Why should advertising and design professionals be interested in ZooLoo?
We have so much to offer, ZooLoo is really for everyone. Advertising and design professionals could use ZooLoo to simplify their online experience every day. They can manage all of their social media accounts in one place, blog, create a website with their portfolio and resume, market clients, easily use social bookmarking to promote client’s content, host photos (and even protect the photo rights), share videos and more.

Anything else you’d like to say?
We’ve gotten so much local support for ZooLoo, so thank you! I hope everyone will check us out.

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Special offer for Phoenix Ad Blog readers if you’re interested in a Zooloo Plus account (normally $29.99) use the code PHXAD to get $5 off a during sign-up!

To help make this blog better we’ve put together a reader survey and hope everyone can take a moment to answer the 9 questions.

Also we’re looking to open up three spots for a weekly contributor to the blog. If you’re interested, and committed, please fill out the survey with your info at the bottom. Thanks so much everyone.

If the survey form doesn’t show up for you just follow this link here.

I do have to admit, at its core they are running one hell of an awesome direct mail campaign.

Does anyone know who is doing the printing and/or campaign itself?

Forty must have thought this was our official rebuttal, however they are very mistaken.

Not to be outdone, we made a little video ourself. Make sure to turn up your volume and see you all tonight.

Agency Throwdown Bowling – Keane’s Rebuttal from Russell Perry on Vimeo.

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If you’d like to submit your meetup or event to the calendar, just email us and let us know. Thanks everyone!