Most corporate email accounts restrict attachments to a mere 10 MB. A few offer up to 20 MB. That’s enough for a small group of uncompressed photos, PDFs or graphic files, but not enough for most videos, bigger photos or larger files. Which leads frustrated users to file transfer companies.

Today’s growing file sizes have fueled the demand for file transfer companies, dozens of which have cropped up online recently. Competitively priced, secure, convenient and fairly simple to use, these services eliminate the need for traditional email attachments. Materials are uploaded to the site instead, and a link – as opposed to the actual file – is sent to recipients who can then access and download the files.
File transfer service companies offer users a variety of features and price points ranging from free for smaller file transfers, to $99 per month for larger file transfers up to 2GB. Prices are based primarily on the number of users and the variety of applications. Here is a criteria comparison chart of three of the more popular file transfer companies and services:

DEFINITION OF TERMS
Max File Size – The limit set by the service provider on the maximum size per file uploaded or received.
Max Download Per File – The number of times a file can be downloaded once the file is uploaded and link sent to a recipient.
Sign Up Required – All services require that the user signs up in order to use the service, although the recipient doesn’t need to sign up to download.
Users – The number of unique login names you can have. (These are essential in order to have an accurate audit trail.)
Send and Receive Capable –Services include sending and receiving files. Companies offer a drop box where your associates can upload files for you to retrieve.
Online Storage – Uploaded files can be stored on the server so that they can be resent without repeating the upload process.
Control Expiration – Once a file has been sent, the recipient has a limited number of days to download the file. The expiration period is controlled by the sender of the file.
Custom Page Setup – The ability to customize your login page with your brand and logo.
Secure Encryption – When transferred, files are encrypted for security reasons.
Audit Trail – History of who sent who which file and when. The same capability goes for files received.
Software – Various application types that allow you to use the service.
Max Send & Receives Per Month – This sets the limit of how many file transfers a user can perform a month.

Don’t know exactly what to put in a leasing brochure? Think of the 7 notes in the musical scale A through G:

A is for Aerials

Aerial photos speak a thousand words. So do cars in the parking lot. If you’re scheduling a shoot, do so on a big sale day or sunny Saturday when crowds of shoppers are at the center. Add supportive call-outs to your aerial shot on your leasing package: label area roadways and benchmarks. If your center was having a bad day, get your photos retouched: if the weather wasn’t compliant, put in a blue sky; if the cleaning crew missed a spot, remove unsightly debris; and if shopping was atypically light, it’s less expensive (and ethical) to add some cars in the parking lot than to re-shoot. Of course, ground shots could be used as well. Just make sure they are presentable, indicative of the center, and hopefully include shoppers.

B is for Benchmarks

Trade area benchmarks add validity to the project and represent vital data on the area’s economic base. Indicate major employers, universities, hospitals, retailing, convention centers, etc. within the trade area. Also include other important area data like impressive employment rates or nearby developments.

C is for Contact Information

Make it easy for the prospective tenant to reach you by providing every possible form of contact possible. Be sure to include: leasing person’s name, company, address, general phone number, direct phone number, cell phone number, website address, email address, and fax number.

D is for Demographics

Current demographic facts, statistics and traffic counts are essential to make your property information credible. Include population and household income figures based on the three rings that define the property location. For instance, urban centers should have shorter rings; rural or regional centers should have farther rings. Indicate spiraling growth patterns if applicable. Also include traffic counts for the surrounding streets and nearby highways.

E is for Easy-to-Understand

Your property site plan needs to be current and comprehensible from the retailer’s perspective. It should not include extraneous, cumbersome architectural information that has no relevance to the prospective tenant. Existing major national and regional tenants, parking, surrounding streets and traffic lights should be indicated. You may want to highlight the availabilities and square footages, and indicate shadow anchors and adjacent retail projects. Colorizing the plan enhances readability. Also keep in mind that legends are more difficult to read than labeled spaces, and retail logos are easier to interpret than typed names.

F is for Facts

Include all the property’s factual and descriptive information: name, location (address, city, county, suburb, state, and MSA if applicable), GLA, number of parking spots, and any other highlights and details about the property that are pertinent and beneficial information for the retailer to be aware of (ie: recent renovations, expansions, exceptional area sales figures, visibility, accessibility, neighboring projects, etc). And keep in mind that bulleted items are easier to read than verbiage in paragraph form.

G is for Geography

This is the location, location, location section. You need to include a detailed map, or several maps showing the location on a street, regional and state level. You may be tempted to pop in a map you pulled off Google, but keep in mind that it cannot be manipulated to highlight certain attributes. If it’s within your budget, consider a custom illustrated map so that you can simplify the diagram by removing irrelevant roads and information while highlighting important specifics and benchmarks (ie: the corporate park across the street) making the map easier to read and understand.

Last “Note”

Retailers are looking for information they can rely on, so be accurate and don’t inflate the data or you run the risk of discrediting all your information. You need to present the data that will help the retailer make a sound, profitable decision. A profitable, satisfied retailer is a reliable, profitable tenant.

Click here to read complete article.

Until the App is available for the other platforms, you can still take advantage of this technology by posting your properties on LoopNet (also for free!), enabling both online and iPhone users to be able to view your listings.

The LoopNet iPhone application features include:

• Location Finder: explore properties using the iPhone’s built in GPS capabilities;
• Custom Search: filter results by price, building size and property type (office, industrial, retail, land, multifamily, etc.);
• Driving Directions: use Google Maps to plot properties or email directions to a friend.

Visit the LoopNet site to see various screenshots of the App in action, read dozens of comments from industry professionals, get access to the free App download page, and post your property listings for free.

New iPhone App searches
commercial properties

Online listing service LoopNet introduced what it says is the first commercial real estate search application for the iPhone. The application, which can be downloaded free from the iTunes store, enables anyone with an iPhone to search for available commercial real estate properties from wherever he or she happens to be. Tapping into the interactivity created through the phone’s built-in GPS capabilities, users can locate available properties in their immediate vicinity; filter results by price, building size, lot size and property type; and use Google Maps to plot locations or e-mail directions.

“A tenant rep broker is showing her client around the Buckhead submarket of Atlanta, highlighting various available properties in which the tenant has expressed interest,” said Mike Manning, vice president of marketing at LoopNet. “After seeing the Buckhead properties, the tenant changes his mind and decides he’d like to look at spaces in the Perimeter Center area in North Atlanta. … With the LoopNet iPhone applications, the broker can immediately pull up properties in the new area, review them with her client, and use Google’s mapping feature to get directions to the new listings. Business gets done in real time on the fly, from wherever the broker and the prospective investor or tenant happen to be.”

Several hundred thousand properties are searchable for free, according to the company, while access to all 745,000 of LoopNet’s listings in the U.S. and Canada is gained through a premium LoopNet membership that costs $39.95 per month. Listings posted by premium members can be viewed by basic members for free, while listings posted by basic members can be seen only by premium members.

- Excerpt from Shopping Center Today’s SCTWeek | January 22nd, 2010 Vol. 15 No. 3
- Image courtesy of Loopnet.com

Start the new year off right with a free marketing evaluation to jumpstart your business. Choose from an in-depth analysis of your corporate advertising campaign, trade show exhibit booth design and graphics, website, branding or leasing brochure program. No strings attached!

Click here to request an appointment*.

*Limited time offer. Appointments must be requested no later than January 31st, 2010.

Many of our shopping center clients are taking some very creative steps and pursuing non-retail type tenants to fill their vacant retail space. Some are canvassing schools and call centers, others are speaking to museums and employment agencies.

The easiest way to research atypical tenant types is to go through the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) [or the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)] code list and search through the various industry lists for non-traditional tenant options. (Of course you could also purchase the selected list and send out a mailer, but that’s for another Breton post.) Here’s a short list of prospective, non-retail type tenants:

Educational Services

• Bartending schools
• Music schools
• Art schools
• Cosmetology and barber schools
• Libraries

Personal Services

• Adoption agencies
• Dating services
• Photography studios
• Party planners
• Wedding chapels
• Bankruptcy services

Business Services

• Collection agencies
• Business records and document storage
• Telemarketing services
• Document preparation services
• Employment agencies
• Publishing companies
• Environmental consulting firms

Entertainment Services

• Recording studios
• Dance companies
• Caterers
• Theater companies
• Radio broadcasting

Other Services

• Translation services
• Antique dealers
• Investigation services
• Exterminating companies
• Shredding companies
• Exporters
• Immigration services
• Auction houses
• Recycling centers

There are hundreds more. Want to research further? Click here for the complete SIC/NAICS code list.

Turns out the woman thought LOL meant ‘Lots Of Love’. Ouch!

No doubt you’ve seen and used text acronyms. This cryptic looking code has grown rapidly on the Internet and has taken our social computer culture by storm. More than 82 million people are texting regularly today. Merriam-Webster has entries for LOL and OMG (Oh My God). The AP Stylebook includes IMO (In My Opinion), ROFL (Rolling On Floor Laughing) and BFF (Best Friends Forever).

Also referred to as online jargon, shorthand, initialisms and leetspeak, acronyms have become an integral part of our business culture as well, leaving amateur texters even more 404 about what experienced texters are talking about. (404 means clueless, and was derived from the Error 404 message on websites when a page cannot be found.)

New acronyms appear daily in the news and in the course of our business lives, and many busy professionals are taking aggressive steps to navigate the world of business jargon. Perhaps even you are guilty of looking over your kids’ shoulders to keep up with what’s being thumbed out on their mobile phones!

So, how texting-savvy are you? You probably know and use these 10 commonly used business acronyms quite frequently:

1. ASAP6. LOL
2. BRB7. MYOB
3. BTW8. RFP
4. EOD9. TBD
5. KISS10. TMI

1. As Soon As Possible2. Be Right Back3. By The Way4. End Of Day5. Keep It Simple Stupid6. Laughing Out Loud
7. Mind Your Own Business8. Request For Proposal9. To Be Determined10. Too Much Information

But do you know what these business acronyms mean?

1. DD8. RBTL
2. DRIB9. RFD
3. HIOOC10. STD
4. NWR11. UG2BK
5. OTP12. WIP
6. P&C13. WOMBAT
7. POV14. WTG

1. Due Diligence2. Don’t Read If Busy3. Help I’m Out Of Coffee4. Not Work Related5. On The Phone
6. Private & Confidential7. Point of View8. Read Between The Lines9. Request For Discussion10. Seal The Deal
11. You’ve Got To Be Kidding12. Work In Progress13. Waste of Money, Brains And Time14. Way To Go

As an aside, if you’re a parent, you might want to make sure you know what these teen-thumbing acronyms stand for:

1. 86. PAL
2. GNOC7. POS
3. IWSN8. RUH
4. J/O9. TDTM
5. MPFB10. WTF

The answers to the above teen-thumbing acronyms? Sorry, this Brief is G-Rated, but shoot me an email at jessica@thebretongroup.com and I’ll clue you in. For now, got to GBTW.

There are literally millions of websites out there. So every time someone does a search for a word or phrase on one of the search engines like Google or Yahoo, your website is competing with many millions of other sites. That’s where SEO comes into play.SEO is an acronym for search engine optimization and is a process by which websites are optimized to work better and rank higher in the search engines. The higher the search engine ranking, the higher the listing will be on the results page, ultimately resulting in more traffic to the site.

There are dozens and dozens of SEO techniques used by web developers and consultants, most of which are TMI for most of us. But here are six simple tips you can engage or discuss with your web developer for getting your website optimized:

1) REGISTER YOUR SITE

Most search engines use software applications (called spiders, crawlers or robots) to look for web pages throughout the Internet. Submission to the top search engines will archive your website with them and make it easier for those spiders to find your website. Here is a listing of the top four search engines in the United States displayed in ranking order* along with each respective submit address:

* According to August 2009 figures from Hitwise
** Previously MSN Live Search

Make sure your submission is done manually. Do not use submission service or submission software. Doing so could get your site penalized or even banned.

2) PAGE TITLES

Within the code of your website contains a label for the page title, which sets the text displayed in the title bar of the browser window. The title contains your keyword phrase, which are the specific words that are searched in a search engine. Sites without title tags don’t get indexed.Since your keyword phrase is so important to the search engines – and indicative of the page’s content – try to devise a great phrase for your home page and each subsequent page of your site. The phrases should be relevant and descriptive to the content of each page. The engines differ in how much of the title they index, but the general rule of thumb is that the first 60 or so characters are the most important. Do not use the exact same title tag on every page of your website, as the spiders might determine that all your pages are the same and won’t index them.

3) KEYWORDS

Also within the code of your site is a list of keywords, also referred to as meta names or meta tags,  that describe what your website is about or specific content in it. They are hidden code read only by search engine spiders. Like your page title, your meta tags should be different for every page of your site if the search engines to store and list them in the search results.There’s a lot of discussion in the SEO community about how valuable they actually are, but the general conclusion is that you can’t go wrong by adding the meta tags to your pages, and that they still play an instrumental role in meta-based search engines.

4) CREATE A SITE MAP

You want to make it easy for search engine spiders to navigate your website, and a site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site and understand your site’s hierarchy. Build a site map page and place a link to the site map on every single page of your website. This practice will ensure that the crawlers can easily navigate your website and catalog every page. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links.

5) KEEP IT FRESH

Don’t let your website get stale. Sites that have new content added on a regular basis are seen as more reliable to the search engines. This also helps you to increase the amount of relevant content on your site, which also improves your rankings. Search engines will see this as being an active and important website. One great way to add new material to your website is to create a blog, so you can keep your website up to date and also keep your visitors up to date on your business.

6) BE BIG & BOLD

Search engines see larger text and bold text as more important content. Don’t put everything in bigger or bold type, just the important keywords to what your page is about.

XYZ Projects: Developments

“XYZ has mastered the development process”

A primary component of XYZ’s real estate services is the leasing expertise and services provided to the retail properties under management. Leasing services are managed by our in-house experienced team of leasing professionals. Our team is experienced with all types of commercial real estate

One last note… a lot of content and links displayed on a website may not actually be visible to the search engines. For example, Flash-based content and content displayed as images cannot be crawled by spiders. By reducing the use of Javascript, Flash and AJAX on your website will allow the spiders to crawl it more easily.

Try this tool which simulates a search engine by displaying the contents of a website exactly how a search engine would see it: http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php

Here are a few suggestions to help you develop newsworthy releases and improve your chances of publication.

#1 Provide Worthy Tidings

Don’t waste the media’s time on fluff or sales pitches; they won’t write you up and you’ll end up wasting your own time. Newsworthy items are what appeal to them, including:

• Expansion plans
• New hires
• Exclusives and leasing assignments
• Unique financing arrangements
• Acquisitions and dispositions
• New development/construction
• Breaking ground/obtaining zoning approvals
• Lease signings (major or multi-lease deals only)

#2 Fill in the Blanks

No editor wants to do your homework, so don’t turn your release into a research assignment. Provide all the print-ready, essential elements they need, including:

• Title (this is your news hook which should look like a newspaper headline)
• Location and date
• First paragraph (include the five W’s)
• Subsequent paragraphs (most important information first; least important last)
• Quotes (if relevant)
• Photographs (if relevant, max 300 dpi JPG)
• Close with brief description of your company (not more than one short paragraph)
• Contact name, company, phone # and email address (in the event they do have a question)

#3 Text Please

You’ll have a greater chance of being published if you provide text that the media can edit at will. Either email a text document or embed the text within the body of your email. Don’t ever send an un-editable PDF.

#4 Don’t Author a Book

News releases should ideally be 250 to 500 words (3/4 page to a max of 1-1/2 page). If you have more to say, call or email the editor to ask if they could interview you for an article.

#5 Check Your Inventory

It’s essential to create and maintain a database of national and regional publication contacts. You may also want to add local newspaper editors for your market areas as well. Add to your database as needed and update your list on a regular basis to keep the distribution of your releases as expeditious and accurate as possible.

Here’s a Sample News Release and a News Release Worksheet to make creating your news releases easy.