Author: Mayur Jobanputra

How to create a brochure for your business

There is an art to creating effective brochures. The primary questions you should be asking are:

  1. Who is the brochure for?
  2. What do you want people to do with the brochure?
  3. What are the top 3 takeaways that the reader should understand (ideally, don’t pick more than three)?

There are generally 2 types of brochures you would create:

  1. Business Introduction brochures – These are general information about your business like services/products provided, contact information, and the team providing the product/service
  2. Specific Product/Service offering – These are special information brochures that offer information about a specific product or service

If you aren’t sure what to include in your brochure, here is a starting point:

  1. Complete contact info (website, email, phone, social URL’s, hours of information, name of salesperson if there is one)
  2. Point form list of the product/services provided. Use sub-categories where necessary.
  3. Two to three leading questions that address the client’s primary concerns that your business solves
  4. A short “about” section. Keep this at a minimum!!  Readers don’t really care about you. The care about solving their problems.

Other points to think about:

  1. Stay away from long personal stories. This isn’t about you. It’s about problems you can solve for the reader. Focus on solutions that you can offer, and leave the long personal about stories out.  Keep the “about” section very short.. less than 500 words.. and preferably point form. You don’t need to go into a long personal diatribe, because your reader will understand your story through the products/services/branding that you offer.
  2. If you are using any professional templates.. make sure you do a printout of the brochure (any printer, even black/white will do) so that you can see how large the text is. The text should be approximately the same size as what you might see in your local newspaper.
  3. Keep the heading font sizes consistent. Less is more. The brochure isn’t a YouTube branding video, it’s a vehicle for information.
  4. Use pictures sparingly. Only use photos if they enhance the information presented. If the brochure isn’t negatively impacted by removing a photo, remove it.
  5. Point form is always better. People rarely want to read through paragraphs of text. Point form as much as possible, but without sacrificing information quality or integrity.
  6. Put your very best content in your brochure. Even if it’s something you might only offer later through VIP or Subscription.  Something worth noting about movie trailers: producers put the very best actions scenes in the trailer. They don’t hold back – except for surprise endings and stars.
  7. Get someone to review the brochure and give you honest feedback.
  8. I will say it again – PRINT it out.. it doesn’t matter what kind of printer you use, color or black and white.. as long as it approximates the final size. Once your brochure goes to a printer, it’s too late. If the final colors are important, ask your contractor to send you a “print ready” PDF file. Take that PDF file to any print shop and get a color sampling done. It might not be exactly like the final run, but it will be close.
  9. Get the brochure pre-folded if possible. Most print shops will do a tri-fold as standard practice but often have to send the job away for special brochure layouts.
  10. Focus on content BEFORE layout. Your content is the primary mover, so make sure you have the content that you want to include in the brochure. Choose your layout/design based on the content that you MUST have.
  11. Design doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think. The only page that really needs to catch people’s attention is the first fold that they see.
  12. In a tri-fold layout there are 6 panels in total. Three on the inside, and three on the outside. On the inside, the typical layout is Questions, Offerings, Offerings. And then on the back is Questions/Offerings/About, Contact, Front Page. You can switch the layouts around as you like, but I do urge you to keep the last two panels on the outside as Contact and Front page.
  13. Keep the contact information on the middle outside panel of a tri-fold brochure. That way when the brochure is folded, the reader can simply flip your brochure around and get in touch with you.
  14. The brochure needs to provide “just enough” to get the reader to take action  – visit your web site, contact you, send an email, buy something, etc, so WOW them if you can. Don’t wow them with your personal story, wow them by enlightening them about something important that they might not know. Or wow them with a fantastic product/service that solves a problem for them. Also see point 6 above regarding movie trailers. Movie trailers provide “just enough” to make you go see the movie.
  15. If you are doing a very large print run, and you are working with a new print shop, purchase a few small batches to ensure quality before making the big run happen. If the print shop doesn’t do proof samples (a final digital print that approximates the color), I would be concerned
  16. Google “full bleed” printing. I’m not going to repeat what someone else could describe better.

Resources:

  1. Upwork.com – find a contractor here that has experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, and perhaps even brochure work.
  2. Graphicriver.net – this is a great resource for brochure templates and ideas. Buy a template here and then hire a contractor on upwork.com to complete the job.
  3. In Vancouver, JukeBoxPrint. I love their quality and options and the price isn’t bad.
  4. In a pinch, VistaPrint is just as good
  5. In your local city, visit Yelp or Google Reviews and look for the top rated printers. Once you find the top 3 printers, visit their Facebook page and web site (they all have) and see what users are saying. Make sure whatever printer you use will have a large Facebook following.

Do you need professional help with brochure design and content? Get in touch!

Alexander the Great visits India

Once Alexander the Great was coming to India, his spiritual master had told him, that during your conquest if you go to India, you should get a spiritual master and bring him to our country. So when he conquered and came to India, he told his assistant “I want to see a spiritual guru!”.  So the assistant inquired and was told that in Vrindavan there was a guru. So he went to Vrindavan and told the guru “Our Alexander the Great wants to see you.”

The guru said “I don’t care”. So he got angry and went back to Alexander, and said “He doesn’t want to come!” Alexander was equally infuriated. He was angry. He said “I will teach him a lesson!” Alexander picked up his sword, sat on his horse, came to Vrindavan, grabbed the saint by the neck, and said “I will teach you a lesson! You dare disobey me? I asked you to come! Why didn’t you come?”.

The saint said, “Relax, why are you getting so agitated? Who are you? ”

Alexander said “I am Alexander the Great!”

The saint asked, “What is so great about you?”

Alexander said, “I have conquered all the lands!”

The saint asked, “Oh. What will you do now?”

Alexander said, “I will conquer more lands!”

The saint asked, “Then what will do?”

Alexander said, “Then I will conquer the whole world!”

The saint asked, “Then what will do?”

Alexander said, “Then I will get the 100 most beautiful women and marry them!”

The saint asked, “Then what will do?”

Alexander said, “Then I will get 10 sons from each of them!”

The saint asked, “Then what will do?”

Alexander said, “Then I will divide the whole world which I have conquered to my sons!”

The saint asked, “Then what will do?”

Alexander said, “Then I will relax!”

The saint said, “That’s what I’m doing now. Come and join me!”

 

Source: https://youtu.be/R3mSCFU8Miw?t=40m37s

How to be more grateful for other people’s success

NOTE: This post is tailored towards some of the teachings of the Law of Attraction and Abraham Hicks. If things like upstream and downstream don’t make sense to you, go listen to some Abraham Hicks material on Youtube here  first and then come back here.

Are you having upstream thoughts? Perhaps about someone else doing better than you? Or having more than you? Feelings of jealousy, contempt, revenge, etc?

A few ideas to get you facing more downstream…

Accept that the feeling exists within you

Working on your well-being is your spiritual work. Part of that work is recognizing that good and bad feelings exist. Just recognize them within you first. That’s all at this early stage. Recognition and awareness are the first steps in changing anything.

Every emotion has some use in your escrow

It’s OK to feel what you feel. Really it is. Now, it’s not good forever! Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to think that negative, debilitating emotions like the ones you feel, are OK. They are not in the long run. But I can give you some good news about them: they help to build a faster flowing river, even the river you are currently upstream on.

Abraham Hicks says…any emotion, felt strongly makes your river flow faster and inserts more into your vibrational escrow. When you are in the wrong vibration, you are building a vibrational escrow.. an account of energy. Once you turn downstream, that same account becomes available to you to draw and benefit from.

Know that a crazy-loop is forming

The Law of Attraction states that you attract what you feel. So if you feel a negative emotion, you get more of that vibration in your life. For example, someone else, carrying the same vibe can show up. Or an event manifests itself that confirms more of how you feel. Or more negative things happen to you. Have you ever had a friend that always stubs their toe, or gets into car accidents? Yep, that’s the Law of Attraction. What’s really freaky though is that if you aren’t careful, you might start to see the world through that clouded lense. The negative emotions build up resonance and momentum and the next thing you know, everything is headed in the wrong direction. Thankfully, however, the Law of Attraction is universal. It applies to positive OR negative emotions. You get to choose.

Feelings are like a shooting star: the more you look for them, the more they show up.

Realize it’s temporal nature

It’s pretty difficult to feel something all the time. Joy, happiness, sadness, depression, fear.. all these and more are just moments in your life. Feelings get triggered in you by life events, people, new information, and everything else you interact with throughout your life. Feelings enter and leave as you allow them to. They exist for a few minutes, hours, or days, and then dissipate over time as your world changes. Feelings will leave in order to make room for the next feeling entering your awareness. When you feel a bad emotion, just say to yourself.. “this too will soon pass” and remember that just around the corner, something new will enter.

Become the observer and not the participant

This will take some creative work on your part. It may be useful to look at yourself as someone else might see you. Not to judge or make a comment, but simply to see yourself dealing with these feelings from an observer’s point of view. Will you hold that emotion for a long time? Is there a better emotion you could feel? Don’t you know that the other person has been through so much in life? If you can practice this technique it will help you move more quickly from jealousy, to observation, to non-reaction, the next time the same emotion comes up.

Someone else feels the same about you

Someone is jealous of you right now.

OK, I’m taking a big leap stating that, but it COULD be true. Just think about that for a second. Someone else, in some other dimension of your life, feels a negative emotion towards you. They think you have this wonderful joy, freedom, love, money, etc, which they don’t have.

When you realize this, your first reaction may be “I don’t care what anyone else feels about me.” Great. Good for you. Guess what? You know that that person YOU feel jealous about? They don’t care either.

You don’t get to have jealousy/revenge/contempt all on your own. Someone else gets to have it too. And in every case, the target of that emotion probably doesn’t care all that much.

You will never know their story. You are not them.

Lets work on a specific type of feeling for the moment: jealousy. Let’s say you feel jealousy, an upstream emotion, about someone. From your point of view, they have more abundance than you (health, love, joy, etc). Let’s say that’s true. From your incomplete point of view, they have more. Let’s remember one important thing: you are not them. Your story of them is only based on what they LET you see. You will never know their full emotional and detailed story. Do you know if they faced horrific abuse, suicidal feelings, heart break, theft, murder of someone close to them? Do you? Do you know for sure? Definitely not. You will never know everything about them. And more importantly, you will never know what they FELT during their dark days.

Once you realize we are all on journey, and everyone will get what they ask for in this life, jealousy serves no purpose except to make you feel bad. So what if someone has something you don’t have. You can’t make them have less, so that you feel better can you?

Let their blessings be a guide

I used to feel a lot of jealousy and contempt towards others during a recent difficult stage of life. I felt very much that others were having so much abundance and I wasn’t. And with some recent personal work, a lot of introspection, and finally, working on my own joy, I came to a realization that I was looking at things all the wrong way. Happy, joyful people are a blessing, not a restriction. They are here to bring me good vibrations, not to drag me down. Happy people are a blessing, because they are sharing love and light, not to watch me drown while they stare down at me, but to help me find the path back to where they are, so that we can all have one big party. The world is acting to inspire me, not to laugh at me.

When you see something that you want, but don’t have yet, realize that it’s god/source/universe giving you emotional deposits for your vortex. Each good thing you see is a new emotion you get to feel and the more you see it, the more you will manifest it in your world.

The result of letting go is Compassion, and later, Love and Gratitude

The next time you feel negative emotions towards someone, let it go. Run the story in your head.. “I don’t know what they went through..” and then.. “They are a light bulb, showing me the way.. ” and then, if you can.. “I love what they represent in my life. Thank you god/universe/source for bringing so much joy into my life…” See them as a blessing, not a curse.

Nowadays, when I see others, I don’t hate them, I feel great love for them. I pray that they don’t suffer in their journey. I pray that they don’t experience the suffering that I felt. I want them to have more joy and abundance so that I can get that in return. I actively go look for happy people cause I can take advantage of their emotion in my own vortex.

When I first made this shift about other people’s success, at first I felt compassion. But soon after, I quickly moved to Love. And more recently, gratitude. Gratitude that I’m getting to see more positive emotions in my journey. Like a rocket ship accelerating off the launch pad, each new emotion and thing, replicating and inserting itself into my own life into some future moment in time.

(In the picture above: The monkey does not hate the bird cause it can fly, and he cannot)

It’s simpler than you think…

It’s that TINY little shift of energy within you.. the one you never paid much attention to….when you are doing something ordinary.. making breakfast.. driving.. at work.. ..the one where you start to sing along when a song comes on the radio ♫♪♫…and you start tapping your feet and smiling..

Can you remember it now? Yep.. thats the one.. and then suddenly like the clouds parting, everything seems more clear and bright, and makes a lot more sense.. and you find hope and light and love again..

How to get their? Start with hope.. the voice of hope speaking within you.. a voice of guidance asking you smile and laugh and tap your feet.. hope is asking you first to believe, to dream, to never give up…. an once you let it speak to you.. the voice will change… and reflect the new you.. and then your world will change.. one tiny shift at a time..

See it on Facebook here.

The Cold Within, a Poem

The Cold Within

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story’s told.

Their dying fire in need of logs
The first man held his back
For of the faces round the fire
He noticed one was black.

The next man looking ‘cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.

For more info about this poem, click here

God doesn’t play favors…

With a friend on the phone…
 
So I’m trying to show a friend Hicks… and I send a few Youtube videos.. and give them a week and then ask if they watched…they tell me they aren’t ready cause it scares them….They say..”WHO is Abraham????” I respond.. “Well I don’t know either exactly, and I don’t worry about it all that much.. there is just good advice about happiness there.. thats why I gave it to you cause its what I use.”…Nope..it doesn’t help… they aren’t ready…they make excuses and say it scares them or that they think I’m controlling them.
 
So I change the subject and ask how their day is going.. small talk… then at one point the friend says “You know, you are so blessed.. you always get parking spots and things aren’t hard for you.. your life is so easy! Not like me.. everything is so hard!”.. and I say once again.. “Life is not supposed to be difficult or painful.. at least not all the time.. life is supposed to be mostly joy”
 
I just shake my head
 
Moral of the story.. even your closest friends can SEE the laws unfolding right before their eyes in your life.. and never clue in .. its not some bonus blessings or a blessings lottery…or God/source punishing them. Its them. God/source doesn’t play favors. We all get an equal share.
 
“If source can’t make them see, what makes you think you can?” – AH

Value your Time

Value your time wisely my friend…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guVxubbQQKE

You know the old saying.. its attributed to confucius.. but who knows if its confucius or not.. “Seek revenge and you shall dig two graves, one for yourself”. You always have to ask yourself, How do you want to spend your time? How do you want to spend your time and your energy? Do you really want to do that trying to right some … even its legitimate wrong? Lets say someone actually did wrong to you. Is that really how you want to spend your time? I don’t think so. I think most people, if they step back, take a deep breathe, they would say I’m gonna go on and do great things. I’m gonna do amazing things in the future.

Jeff Bezos
Amazon Founder

#jeffbezos #amazon #bezos #success #successprinciples #bezos #codeconference #goalsetting

For more inspiring ideas like this one, visit my page at http://facebook.com/thoughtsfaceb

Mooji – Speaker, Author, Teacher

A recent discovery you might enjoy…Moojiji

“When you truly find love for others inside your heart, it is so empowering, so beautiful, because you are seeing with the eyes of God. There’s no selfishness there. Selfishness did not create this world. A great love and generosity did.”

https://www.youtube.com/user/Moojiji

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooji

http://mooji.tv/

 

Get out of the GOOP

Get out of the GOOP (good opinions of other people):
 
It’s not that they don’t want to make you feel good (as much as they love you, they probably don’t if they really had to think about it). It’s actually more about you. If you rely on others, you can never truly find source/vortex/god, assuming you want to that is.
 
Why is GOOP bad? Because you always see others like an “air compressor”, pumping you up when your “tire pressure” is low. Looking around for someone else to “pump up” your state, makes you reliant on something outside yourself. It makes you weak and ineffective and stops you from really looking at yourself.
 
LESSON: every time you look outside, you simultaneously miss an opportunity of looking inside.
 
Once you aren’t attached to the opinion of others, you can begin look within yourself for source/god/vibration/vortex. It’s a beautiful way to live. Knowing that something bigger than you (or anyone else) is within you, working for you. As you go deeper into this mindset you reach a new state of awareness.
 
From this new vantage point, you will start to see other people as they are: beings on their own journey. You will watch others passively with a kind of beautiful detachment, enjoying their entire presence, and yet not being involved in it. You can appreciate them more fully and that in turns brings you closer to alignment and more downstream.
 
If you find it hard to make this shift, a simple strategy is just reaching the awareness that there is an opportunity cost every time you look for GOOP: a moment of time to find source within yourself.
 
#nomoregoop