I have been working for a couple of weeks setting up a new business (Scott Sharon Consulting) and I received a notice from Facebook this morning telling me I should post something telling people what I am doing with that, so here it is. Many of my friends and family have already seen this on the social media channels.

Some wise person once stated, “If you do something you love you will never work a day in your life”. I am one of the fortunate people that can honestly say I have proven that to be true. I have thoroughly enjoyed my career for the past 40+ years (including my military career) and I plan to keep on going as long as I am in good health and my mind works as well as it does now. I have worked on many exciting projects in my career that still excite me when I think about them. However, what I am most grateful for is the huge number of friends I have been blessed with all over the US and several other countries around the world. These friends are customers, suppliers, and even competitors. However, I have decided to do something a little different.

During my career, I have completed a huge number of consulting projects in many markets. I did not receive a contract and payment for some of them because I did many because my customers had a problem they wanted me to solve or they wanted me to develop a new product for them, plus I enjoyed doing it. However, I did get to provide some of the products I developed for my customers and others helped me sell more of my existing products. But some of the projects had nothing to do with my business.

While recently looking back and reviewing my career I realized that what I enjoyed most was the consulting projects. So, I’ve decided to concentrate more on that part of it. I’ve been involved mostly with signage, menu boards, displays, merchandisers, interactive displays and other communication systems. I have been working on the development of digital signage and menu boards, primarily for outdoor products, for many years. I have also been working on new applications and technology such as facial & retina recognization, geofencing, text and mobile phone ordering with developers, manufacturers and end users. Friends have asked me to get involved in some of these products and some are consulting projects.

Following is just one example of how I get involved in projects. About 20 years or more ago some friends from KFC developed a new restaurant design. I think it was when they introduced their buffet program. They had just completed retrofitting a restaurant in Louisville near their HQS. with the new design and they asked me to give them my evaluation of the design.

When I arrived the outside looked good but inside there were signs everywhere. There were many window signs, hanging banners and displays in every direction I looked. They had a huge menu board but they even made the soffit where it was mounted larger and put more signs and promotion boards there. They created what I refer to as “Information Overload”. There was so much to look at it was very confusing and the customers noticed very little of it. They also had most of the prepared food items out where they could be seen.

I developed what I call a 9 zone marketing communication plan for them. The plan told them the 9 important touch points where they should communicate with their customers. It told them what to say, where and how to say it and what to use. They eliminated over half of their signage and the restaurant looked and worked great. At the time they did not realize the most important communication tool they had was the actual hot food on display.

I recently found an outline of that plan which I would be happy to email anyone that wants to see it.