Bernice's Blog...

www.BerniceCheung.com

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Dyslexia among entrepreneurs requires new marketing tactics

Read an interesting article and thought I'd share...

Warrillow Weekly
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Dyslexia among entrepreneurs requires new marketing tactics

A new study released last week shows dyslexia is even more common among entrepreneurs than previously thought.

The study, overseen by Julie Logan of Case Business School, found fully 35 percent of entrepreneurs in the United States claim they have dyslexia. The incidence rate of dyslexia in the general population is approximately 10%.

So what’s behind the link? People with dyslexia have trouble reading and often develop above-average oral communications skills to compensate. As good talkers, they become good at selling anything from a widget to a vision, which of course comes in handy when starting a business. Researchers also found dyslexics learn to delegate from an early age because they have to rely on others to help them read. Many dyslexics also suffer from low self-esteem, given their early challenges in school.

Take an ambitious person who is a convincing communicator, quick to delegate and fuelled by a need to prove himself or herself to the world, and you get an entrepreneur. The poster boys of dyslexia among entrepreneurs are people like Kinko’s founder Paul Orfalea, Charles Schwab and Richard Branson. Celebrity entrepreneurs aside, you can assume at least a third of your market has some form of dyslexia, with the number of undiagnosed cases likely to move that percentage even higher.

How do you market and sell to entrepreneurs with dyslexia?

1. Use visual aids: Special education teachers use visual aids to explain complicated theories to dyslexic kids instead of the written word. Look at your marketing pieces that rely on words and ask yourself if they could be translated into pictures, images and tables.

2. Use simple language: Not only do small-business owners not have the time or inclination to read your literature, perhaps a third of them may not be able to wade though it at all. Intuit, for example, hired a People Magazine editor to simplify the descriptions used in its small-business accounting software “Simple Start” .

3. Give them a “do it for you” option: Faced with the daunting challenge of reading a manual or a nine-step set-up process, dyslexics are very comfortable with delegation. Offer a “do it for you” option alongside your “do it yourself” version. Unlike competitors who offer do-it-yourself website building kits, Websitepros offers to handle all aspects of creating and building traffic for a small-business owner’s website. In short, they offer to “do it for you”, which means an entrepreneur picks up the phone and talks to someone about how they want their website to look and function instead of having to read a number of forms and instructions.

Re-launch of Bernice.ca!!!

Finally I've had a chance to update www.Bernice.ca for 2008!! It was left unattended since I graduated university in 2004 / 2005, so it requires a major overhaul!

I've chosen to use a different colour theme (Yellow Sunflowers), instead of the previous blue feather theme, as it's a lot brighter and warmer. Blue seems a bit too melancholy (although I doubt my marketability will be based on the "mood" of my website). I've also changed the font to a basic, san serif modern font. I actually miss writing HTML (a geek at heart!), so this has been a good practice for me. Didn't do much to the structure of the page, so it only took me a night to finish it.

I'm so glad that I took the initiative to refresh Bernice.ca, where my information is much more relevant information & up-to-date. I hope to upload some of my photos from traveling up on this page so it becomes a little more "human".

All in all, very excited at the re-launch!! =)