This is the first post in our new series, "Five Questions With..." in which we ask partners, clients, and SW team members questions about the ways sales and marketing impacts their roles at their respective organizations. First up is Joe Hektor, Senior Marketing Manager here at Sharp Wilkinson.

Simply put, branding professionals are charged with the task of building relationships with a given audience. It’s their job to create, strengthen and communicate, largely visually, a company’s value by establishing a brand identity through various marketing efforts. Though there are many deliverables associated with branding, one of the primary focuses of branding and marketing efforts is logo design—a process by which creative experts attempt to convey messages, ideas and principles representative of the brand in the simplest possible form.

For salespeople, time management is one of the most challenging disciplines to master. Reps typically have several important tasks competing for their attention all at once. In my time with sales reps, I’ve noticed that one of the differences between good salespeople and great salespeople starts with how they use their time. Great salespeople are constantly in tune and fine-tuning their schedules: never allowing a day to end without knowing how they're going to use the next day effectively.

If you're reading this, you already realize the importance of using a professional graphic designer to convey your image or message. Now the question is how do you communicate your ideas and information to a graphic designer to get the best results?

You've created your personas. You've researched keywords. You created some killer pieces of content to use on your conversion paths and you designed some eye-catching calls-to-action (CTAs). You're blogging on a consistent basis and sharing your blog posts across different channels. Now, you're actually starting to see some leads roll in. Sweet success. Mission accomplished, right? Not necessarily.

The first of January is a perfect time for new beginnings. The motivational aspect of starting with the blank slate of a new year draws people in and inspires them to accomplish personal goals and pursue a path of self-improvement. As marketers, we are no exception. We all have things that we could do better or be more diligent about.

Christmas is an enchanting time of year when we are all filled with fond holiday memories. We all remember the sights, smells, and feelings of this special time, especially from the magical time of our youth. It comes as no surprise that these memories also include the plethora of commercials and advertisements that are ever present during the holiday season.

Sure, logo design is to some extent, a function of taste. But only to some extent, as there are also many technical factors involved in logo design. Inexperienced designers and especially amateur designers are often at a disadvantage when it comes to designing an effective logo—the face of your company. So, before we talk about taste, I’d like to start out with a few technical reasons a DIY logo is a bad idea.

Today, 72% of Americans are on at least one social media platform; 74% of Facebook users and 63% of Instagrammers use the sites daily. With so many people living out their existence in cyberspace, we started to piece together rules for social media managers: here are 6 simple tips that will improve your social media presence.

As a kid growing up in Indiana, basketball was the altar at which I worshiped and one player stood out to me above all of the rest: Larry Bird. Larry was a legend to all Hoosiers and his name was synonymous with hard work. Larry was one of the most prolific scorers in the game and in his 13 years as a Celtic, he made 89% of his free throws. His ranks as the 12th best free throw average in all of NBA history. So, how did Larry do it? Habits! As a high school student and throughout his collegiate and professional career, Larry developed the habit of shooting 500 free throws each and every day, even when he was on crutches.