Here at Charles Buchwald & Friends we keep focused on one goal: your meaningful growth. We’ll help you and your business, organization or community achieve that through bigger margins, a better triple bottom line, or renewed clarity and focus… however you define meaning and success.

Sometimes it means going back to basics and working with success coaches and advisors to refine or redefine your goals. Often it means our coordinated efforts help integrate all your business materials across a range of media with focus and clarity, making for a message that is direct, consistent, and powerful.

Whether yours is a small solopreneurship, a charity, or an established Fortune 500™ firm, we have worked with clients like you, and we can help. Our experience and capabilities encompass mobile, social, web, print, photo/video, illustration, animation, software, and identity systems in traditional advertising, marketing and PR, and business systems.  Small or large, we treat you and yours with intention, care and respect.

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3 keys to simply better apps:

1. We publish everywhere. Not just iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod), but Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, and web servers… from one set of code. This increases your market penetration, opens up more income streams, and builds user networks faster.
2. We work faster. 30 percent faster by published studies of our toolset, regularly saving 2 months or more on typical projects. This means your app gets to market sooner, can cost less to develop, and follow up versions can be published faster.
3. We have experience. 20 years of interface design, software development, and marketing has won us awards, put our name on patents, and helped us serve clients like BMW, Disney and Pillsbury. This helps increase the quality of your app and reduce your risk.

Contact us to discuss your app development project today!

Charles Buchwald & Friends is offering a special on our web hosting.

The super low price of $60/year (or $9/month) comes with our outstanding personal support, as well as:

• cPanel, for easy control of all your features
• 6GB of storage
• unlimited bandwidth
• unlimited parked domains
• unlimited email addresses
• green power (wind power!)
• fast, redundant servers
• automatic weekly backup
• discount on web services

Are you an existing CB&F customer? Subscribe now and save on your current yearly hosting plan.

This special offer ends February 1, 2012.

Options

Hosting: $60.00CAD – yearly Hosting: $9.00CAD – monthly

Just in case you were wondering, Charles Buchwald & Friends is an officially Registered iOS Developer, a member of the Apple Developer Program, the iOS Developer Program, and a full member of Runtime Revolution’s LiveCode Developer Program.

CB&F is currently developing iOS apps for commercial distribution, and has just published Easy Rider, the first and only crowdsourced transit information app, currently for Vancouver’s Translink Skytrain system.

In the past, CB&F staff have been involved in several significant software development projects with clients including Fortune 500 companies as well as public and private companies in the USA and Canada.

Do you have an idea for an app? Contact CB&F today, and we’ll give you an honest appraisal of your idea’s chances for success in the Apple iTunes App Store, the Android Marketplace, and/or the Windows Mobile Marketplace.

A new member of one of my mailing lists recently asked the question, “How do I generate more leads for my small business?” Here’s my answer…

Here are some strategies I’ve used successfully:

1. Do great work; in almost 20 years of freelancing, most of my clients have come to me by “word of mouse”. Repeat clients are always more efficient than landing new ones.
2. Try pro bono work. Track your hours and submit an invoice showing the value of your donated services. Even if you can’t write it off, you’ll spread the word, and get a good feeling. I donate hosting to community groups, and they often hire me for some strategy or training or simple site setup.
3. Blog; John Chow, the Vancouver blogger, makes $40k/month just from his blog, and is in demand as a speaker, writer and consultant.
4. Learn to use LinkedIn to it’s fullest. There’s lots of hidden value lurking there. Seek out the most influential connections.
5. In Victoria, track the government contracts. (It’s a government town, after all.) It’s hard to get in, but once you’re in the loop, I’m told it’s easier to stay there.
6. Partner with established agencies; you don’t make the same rates, since they take their cut, but they can get you in where other methods fail.
7. Concentrate on your niche. It’s counterintuitive for most small operators, but essential.
8. Be patient. Closing times for new sales are about 1 month per $1k in my experience, and longer the smaller the market.
9. Ask for testimonials, recommendations, referrals, leads… and more importantly try to provide value to your contacts by providing tips, leads, testimonials, and networking introductions.

Note that none of these cost anything but time and effort, and are applicable to businesses of all sizes. Do you have tips or strategies of your own? Share them in the comments below!

Tina Huang, PhD, has been working with Charles Buchwald & Friends to develop a business identity and an online presence. Her new website went live on Tuesday. Featuring a fresh, lively design as befits the content and message, it features a custom logo by CB&F as well as many other custom elements.

Check it out at lifelongenerjoy.com, leave a comment here, or contact us to get started on designing or updating your functional, beautiful, friendly site.

Change Talk Associates, a Vancouver based consultancy that works with individuals, groups and organizations across Canada who support others in making health and related changes, has gone live with a new website, thanks to CB&F. The new site debuted just a few days ago.

A careful collaborative process has produced a refined and elegant aesthetic for the new site, reflecting the professionalism and sensitivity of founders Cristine Urquhart, MSW, RSW and Frances Jasiura, BPHE, BSW. Highlighting news, resources and events, the site is poised to become a portal into the many facets of this vibrant business.

Check out the custom logo, site structure, and custom coding at http://changetalk.ca

And watch for a new software initiative from Charles Buchwald & Friends in the New Year focused on coaches, facilitators, therapists and other helping professionals….