Click to view an example of an "Icebreaker" résumé!

Windermedia knows a thing or two about getting noticed. Sometimes it requires boldly stepping out of line … dressed as Sammy Terry! In a tight jobs market, your résumé could wind up in a cold, homogenous stack of hundreds. Tirelessly firing them off day after day can seem futile. That is why we invented the “Icebreaker Résumé.” This one co-opts the style and tone of a Facebook profile and cleverly employs a press release on the flipside to promote a communications guy. Designed to be printed two-up, double-sided, colour over b/w, on a letter-sized sheet and cut in half horizontally. Go big. Have them printed on glossy card stock and deliver them in person. Hand them out like business cards at the companies you’ve targeted. Trust me, they will get passed around. You will have everyone from the doorman to the mailroom guy rooting for you. The stories and smiles you get as you slide it across someone’s desk is a sign the ice has melted and you will be remembered.

It’s easy to use buttons and banners to promote your brand across your website and others. Have lots of sizes and styles created for each of your products. Don’t forget to request some in standard internet ad sizes to splash around the web. You can find out more about that at the Internet Advertising Bureau’s web site. Here are a few we created to help the Abel Creek Publishing promote it’s annual Columbia Valley Map Book.

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The informal strategic alliance between The Columbia Valley Pioneer and the Calgary Sun continues to benefit each party. Two businesses in the same industry, but not competing directly for the same customers — in this case readers and advertisers — can forge a handy alliance that pays valuable dividends to both. The Sun prints The Pioneer. The two papers regularly exchange editorial content, when breaking news events overlap.

This month, the Sun offered The Pioneer an ad insertion on their website, which is great because many of The Pioneer’s readers are second home owners who live in Calgary. It will help drive traffic to their website which is packed with lush, colourful PDFs of all their publications. Watch for this button in the Lifestyles section beginning in December.

Look for opportunities to establish informal strategic alliances in your business, offer a benefit before asking for one and, ultimately, formalize the relationship in writing with an agreement that spells out each party’s expectations.