PRESS RELEASE

THE MERRY BIRD’S Premier Wedding Invitation Line Flying in! September 27, 2007-

Trumbell, CT- Late September 2007

Kristine Sheehan, Owner of The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company is flying in to announce The Merry Bird’s premier bridal invitation line. Bells are ringing for The Merry Bird's new line of wedding, bachelorette and tea invitations, which are displayed on her business website located at http://www.themerrybird.com. With a distinct pen-and-ink stippled style, her formal and romantic wedding invitations offer a unique way of saying I love you, you’re invited! Any quantity of the bridal invitation line can be custom printed for the bride to be! And if the bride prefers a unique pen and ink design, Kristine will deliver a beautiful and meticulously hand drawn design especially for her.

Vendors and buyers are welcome to contact The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company at: info@themerrybird.com for samples. Contact Information: The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design Kristine Sheehan www.themerrybird.com

Company Bio:

The Merry Bird....pen, ink and design company of Trumbell, Connecticut has officially been in business since March 2006. Kristine Sheehan, the owner, began working in the design/art industry because her passion is drawing with pen and ink, painting and photography. Her company offers a line of pen and ink motifs on note cards, holiday cards and invitations. The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design is ever changing and adding more beautiful ideas to choose from, come take a peek, Fly in! http://www.themerrybird.com *********************

"Offline Advertising for Your Online Presence"

by Apryl Duncan

Online Sales Through Print Generate traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits. Those words are gold to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs don't ever reach their goals of gold. This is mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web advertising. It states you can only be successful on the Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this should be a factor in any company's marketing efforts but there's an old rule of advertising you should consider... offline. Flip through any publication. From Yellow Pages to college newspapers, these days an advertisement almost looks bare and incomplete without a Web address. These ads are designed to peak your interest. By going to the Web site, a potential customer should find complete details on the product and order information. There are three offline advertising mediums worth investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote your dot com presence effectively.

Print
This category includes everything imaginable: weekly shoppers, classified ads, flyers, Yellow Pages, magazine ads, newsletters, local TV guides, coupons, billboards, hanging ads on doorknobs, company letterhead, even business cards. If there's paper involved, there's plenty of opportunity to advertise your Web site. No matter which method you choose, there are certain guidelines you can follow to turn your potential customers into online consumers. Offer special incentives for visiting your site. More information, discount coupons, blowout prices and online ordering are a good start. Just make your customers feel like they will actually gain something from checking out your Web site. People are more likely to logon to the Internet than they are to call you or request info by mail. So make your Web site URL stand out in a large font style. Most advertisers bury their URL in tiny print, making it practically impossible to read. While your telephone number, address and company name are all important, your URL should get equal consideration if not a bigger type size.

Radio
A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary depending on your area's population. Even still, you can negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a bulk amount of commercials. One of the many advantages of radio is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and lifestyles are all defined by the station's format. Ratings also help determine this information and can help you choose the best station and time slot for your company's commercial. The key components of your radio commercial include your name, address, telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice and, again, tell them what they'll gain by visiting.

Television
Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You don't have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable ad dollars to hit the airwaves. Buying airtime on your local television station is actually very affordable. But for an even lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates. You also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target audience. If you sell sporting goods, your ad can run on SportsSouth and ESPN for the best possible prospects. Your cable operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local community. Infomercials aren't too far behind commercials as a low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at the same time. Just like with print, make sure your URL is prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial. Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19" screen. New technology forces us to adapt to new advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business into the money-making wave of the future................................................


Read her bio here

http://advertising.about.com/mbiopage.htm

Ref Link: http://advertising.about.com/od/creating/a/offlineonlinead.htm

The Green Movement

An article in a recent trade magazine brought my attention to the green movement. Everyone and anyone must know recycled products and material are absolutely necessary for the well being of the planet. The stationery industry is no stranger to this concept. Dating back to the 70’s to the early 90’s, the popular trend of printing on recycled paper was well known and is a practice that is widely used for stationery production today.

But, the millennium holds “An Inconvenient Truth”. Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth," shows us that global warming is indeed happening to our earth. With this knowledge, the green movement is even more necessary as a worldwide endeavor. Starting with all retailers and manufacturers of products, the well being of the earth must be considered well before production.

Retailers and manufactures must be an active part of the Green Movement. If everyone incorporated these suggestions in their manufacturing processes we may save the world.

Utilize recycled paper
Larger manufacturers keep tabs on packaging sizes (i.e.: General Mills took the initiative in package reduction which resulted in 500 fewer trucks on the road and 2.2 million fewer miles driven. Sited from an article by The National Retail Federation)
All companies big and small should do their part by highlighting eco-friendly products on the shelves or on websites and in catalogs.

As for The Merry Bird, I will do my best to mix the pleasures of web world efficiency and preserving the quality of personalized invitations and postal mailed cards. Recycled paper being an inevitable part of business!




Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com/

How successful will stationers and stationery designers be in near future?

How successful will stationers and stationery designers be in near future? Will they become stationary (spelling intended)?

This question looms over head while I take on the first steps of operating my invitation/card business here online. My objective is to attract online and offline vendors that sell boxed notes, find brides that want a special pen and ink, hand drawn invitations or sell birth announcements and other paper imprintables to individuals or shop owners. This can all be done through an online venue, which is an incredible medium for communication. The internet will allow me to reach more people than on foot. This is the upside of what I love to do.

On the other hand, what I’m finding is that the stationery industry depends on postal service, paper and the need for more trees and printing. But as the web world takes over with e-invites, “Green” sites and email thank you notes, along with the postage increase for letters and shipping, I’m wondering if I am doing this job in Vain. Will stationers become obsolete?

One shop keeper said “No way! The stationery industry depends on the sentimentality of the customer as well as the professionalism of the purpose behind the purchase”. I began to think positive again and reached deep within to ask myself a couple of questions. One: would I ever send a wedding invitation via email? And two: how do I feel when I receive a letter in the mail from a friend or relative? My answer didn’t surprise me. I would never send a wedding invitation via email ( I didn’t back then and I wouldn’t now) and I love to receive letters from friends and relatives on lovely stationery or note cards. So I beg to agree that as long as people are sentimental or long to project a tangible professional image about themselves or company, stationery designers and stationers will continue to thrive.

As a designer I know the need for technology is imminent and is impressive when it comes to the “new” tool department. We no longer need just pencil and paper, paint and canvas or clay to mold. So with this in mind I welcome technical advances while I hold onto the old school of thought that romance can be found in letters, and that sending an event invitation projects the image or theme of the day, while professionalism is evident in custom stationery.

Why think in only 2 dimensions. It’s receiving that quality note card, stationery or invitation in the mail that makes the 3 dimensional world interesting!

Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com

It's a Case of Memories

IT'S A CASE OF MEMORIES

Today the greeting card business is worth over 7 billion dollars in the United States alone! Can you imagine all the written, sentimental memories being held onto out there? This fact made me wonder, what the hek do people do with all the wonderful greeting cards they receive? Do they save them? File them? Box them? Throw them away?

I heard the answer with a drum role ….. The Greeting Card Case Company, a solo owned business located in Akron Ohio, knew exactly what people needed to have, to organize greetings, invitations and paper memories in one place, a greeting card case.

In a personal interview with Yeukai, sole proprietor of the GCC Company, I learned that a big plastic bag of saved cards, that were received on birthdays and other events through the years inspired the GCC Company. Last year, Yeukai created something cute and portable to store all of the cards and memories in, a greeting card case. Yeukai said, “I really believe that the cases help to protect our memories. When I read my greeting cards from the past there are all sorts of funny jokes in them and the greeting card case helped to treasure those memories efficiently”.

This patented idea immediately pushed the manufacturing process to begin and the cases are presently on the designers table overseas. The cases will be offered in different sizes and materials (leather, cloth etc.) The cases should be available this August 2007.


The GCC Company will be extending its product line and will be introducing 3 new products in 3 months. So don’t be an unorganized sentimental fool! Keep your personal greeting cards in a Case of memories. See the GCC Company at http://www.gcccompany.com/

Author/Interviewer
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com

No Pain, No Gain

To make the sale, you need to do what's difficult.
By Barry Farber Entrepreneur Magazine - July 2007

Sales breakthroughs have a lot to do with your ability to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. In many situations, success comes from understanding

how to turn present discomfort into future gain. Many of the actions that aren't enjoyable now--such as making cold calls or working after hours when you feel like stopping but know you need to finish--are necessary to add value to each new step you take. Here are some thoughts to keep you motivated when the going gets tough.

· Hard work now will pay off later. All the sales you've ever made did not happen overnight. They were likely accounts you worked on for long periods of time. Everything you have today was brought forth by all your past efforts. Think about what you've accomplished by doing the things you didn't want to do.

· Learn from every experience. Understand and appreciate that the upside of difficulty is that there will always be new opportunities for learning and improving your skills.

· Focus on the positives. Find something unique about each contact you encounter during the day to make something you might not enjoy enjoyable. Once I was making phone calls to new companies shortly after a snowstorm, and I found it to be a great time to make calls. You'd be surprised at how many people were in pleasant moods. On one call, I was speaking with the assistant to the vice president of sales, and she said she loved the sight of the snow outside her window. She was in a great mood and was very helpful. Following the call, I sent her a nice handwritten note about our brief talk and thanked her for her time. This won't close a sale, but it builds your chances of standing out in a positive way as you move forward with your next steps.

· Pick the difficult action over the easy one. Doing so will make you grow stronger as a person, not just as a salesperson. Call on the bigger accounts, start at the top and sell your way down and across departments, and make the calls after you're ready to go home. In the long run, this is what will separate you from the average performer.

· I'd like to share a technique I use as a metaphor for both sales and life. A good friend of mine told me that he takes cold showers every day and rarely gets sick. Right after a hot shower, he turns off all the hot water and lets the shower run down his spine and all his joints. Does it feel uncomfortable at first? Yes. Does it shock your body? Yes, but then something strange happens. After a few weeks, your body becomes warm after a few seconds of the pain. Eventually, you begin to look forward to it. What was once uncomfortable is now comfortable. There's no difference between this and making uncomfortable calls to new people or making a presentation to a large group. In the beginning, it's difficult and uncomfortable, but later it becomes easier and produces rewarding results. I've been taking cold showers for more than four years now and have not gotten sick since.

Remember this the next time you're uncomfortable working through the details of your sales cycle--and take comfort in being uncomfortable.

Barry Farber, author of The 12 Clichés of Selling, has taught thousands of individuals and corporations how to break through barriers to achieve their sales, management and personal goals.

PRESS RELEASE

June 27, 2007- Trumbell, CT

This March 2007 Kristine Sheehan, Owner of The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company, delivered Samantha her second child, a welcomed addition to the family business.

The joyous event also marks the "birth" of The Merry Bird's new line of boxed Note and Holiday Cards, which are displayed on her business website located at http://www.themerrybird.com./

With a distinct pen-and-ink stippled style, her note cards offer a unique way of saying thank you, sending invitations or spreading holiday cheer.

Twenty-five holiday cards are beautifully presented in a gold box with Merry Bird ribbon. The holiday variety themes include: Soldiers, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, Santa’s Bag, and Holiday Bells. The new cards in the holiday line will be displayed on the website by late August 2007.

The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company is flying in to announce the start of the holiday season this July 19th and 20th at the Women Business Owners (http://www.womenowners.com) very own Christmas in July sale.

Vendors and buyers are welcome to contact The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company at: info@themerrybird.com to receive a “buyer flyer”. Your buyer flyer will allow you to view the cards and place your holiday orders.

Or, if you prefer to send one card at a time, The Merry Bird…Card Service makes it simple to choose one card and forward it to a friend. You can choose your font and a stippled motif, fill in the card service order form, and submit the order. Voilà! Your card is in the mail. Payment is simple, just click on the appropriate PayPal button and the card is forwarded via postal mail for you.

Contact Information:

The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design

Kristine Sheehan http://www.themerrybird.com/

Company Bio:
The Merry Bird....pen, ink and design company of Trumbell, Connecticut has officially been in business since March 2006. Kristine Sheehan, the owner, began working in the design/art industry because her passion is drawing with pen and ink, painting and photography. Her company offers a line of pen and ink motifs on note cards, holiday cards and invitations. The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design is ever changing and adding more beautiful ideas to choose from, come take a peek, Fly in! http://www.themerrybird.com