Sometimes we forget that the most powerful actions we can take to get customers are in person and local. To be everywhere is to be nowhere.     -- Seneca Your Challenge: How are you taking advantage of your local connections and communities to get customers for your new business? How hyperfocused and hyperlocal are you in your marketing Read more...

“Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.” – Bruce Springsteen Ask yourself:   Where are you being inconsistent in your business?   What can you do to become 100% reliable where it matters?   What can your audience, above all else, depend Read more...

Do you know what your customer would serve if they had a dinner party? Key to Capturing Attention Maybe that sounds like a strange question to you… That question is a tried and true one for anyone in the business of capturing the attention of customers through promotion – traditionally and with social media. And Read more...

The most valuable part of any business is repeat customers.  You’ve already spent your resources acquiring them, so more interactions and business from them is more profit for you. Critical to generating repeat business is to create a memorable experience for first time buyers or users AND existing customers.  And they’re probably only going to Read more...

In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity. –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of those important but completely unappealing aspects to business nowadays. Like finances, we need to give SEO attention, but it ranks down below taking out the trash and weeding the garden. Read more...

"Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up." – Brene Brown Showing up can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it just means that you actually attend or get there on time – that you made the effort to do something. That counts. Showing up can also mean that Read more...

"Man is so constituted that he then only excels other things when he knows himself." – Boethius, Philosopher "Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment." – Lao Tzu The emphasis on knowing your customer gets a lot of attention in marketing. Treated as the holy grail, that understanding enables you to craft better messages, target your Read more...

"If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters." – Harvey Mackay Integrity means different things to different people. The origin of the word in Latin comes from the meaning ‘intact’ as in whole and undivided. Modern meanings expand this to the quality of honesty and moral principles. I Read more...

"Those who say 'it's not personal, it's just business' are lying. All business is personal and the best business is very personal." – Rick Lenz On both sides of every sale are individuals, each with their unique mix of rational and emotional motivations for coming into the transaction and completing it. That mix of motivations Read more...

"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?" —Dr. Seuss People don’t remember much unless they have a repeated experience of a person, idea, experience, or place. Research about the Forgetting Curve by Ebbinghaus illustrates the rate at which the average person forgets: approximately 40% the first 24 hours; 60% the next; then Read more...

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” —Dolly Parton You know you’re successful, not when you make a lot of money, but when you are being you: you enjoy and appreciate the people you work with, and your customers look forward to working and being with you. That takes fully embracing who Read more...

“My advice for life: dance and sing your song while the party is still on.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru You have your own distinct perspective, personality, and experience in the world – singular and never to be duplicated again. Sharing yourself genuinely delivers incredible value to you and your prospects and customers: You get to relax Read more...

“Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” – David Packard Marketing connects people with opportunities to move them forward in the world. Marketing makes solving every-day problems possible—by shaping ideas into viable products, by optimizing innovation into something useable by consumers, by taking a brand-new way of doing something and helping Read more...

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” – Peter Drucker The quote by Peter Drucker isn’t talking about Read more...