Marketing & Sales
Facebook Marketing Strategy: 5 Fast and Effective Ways to Engage Your Fans on Facebook
Facebook may be fun for personal interaction but it requires strategy, tools, and shortcuts to be effective for your business. Engagement with your fans on a consistent and persistent basis is vital and it definitely is about being social, not just businesslike. People do business with people they KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST and that means…
7 Reasons I Suck at Marketing
As I deleted another day of over 600 junk mails from my junk filter, wrapped up skimming through 3K unread deletes in case I missed anything critical (is anything critical anymore?), it struck me that I suck at marketing. Oh sure, I’ve read about it, learned about it at live events and virtual classrooms, been…
Marketing Strategy: How to Get the Stinky Stuff Out of Your Business
We all have it, stinky stuff in our business. What do I mean? Well look closely and you will find at least one and likely several long neglected actions you meant to take to move things forward. These are the things that nag at you every day in the back of your mind. They send…
Marketing Strategy: How to Build Trust with Your Market Quickly and Simply
Albert Einstein once declared, “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.” And by standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us that we can get ahead faster. Success does NOT have to be as difficult as most people make it. Here…
10 Ways to Find Success by Phone: Are you breaking these rules?
While I know that most of our communication these days seems to be by email and text, I’ve noticed that phone manners have really gone downhill. Perhaps it is because of a lack of use and there are younger people coming into telemarketing and the workplace in general and they didn’t grow up with a…
3 Fast and Easy Ways to Fail at Email Marketing
At a recent networking function I met an experienced business consultant who was actively seeking new business. Following meeting live, he invited me to connect on LinkedIn and I connected. His next action surprised and dismayed me. He put me on his email list as a subscriber WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. This is not okay. Yes,…
Business Model: Neiman Marcus or Walmart, What’s Your Pick?
I’ve been in business over twenty years and I’ve seen a lot of business models. It always intrigues me to see the difference between those who go after only the high end markets (The Neiman Marcus models), those who only go after the masses and the low end markets (The Walmart models), and those who…
Marketing Strategies for Small Business: How to Win Customers and Influence Clients
Got some awesome lessons in customer service during a recent stay at The Hotel Palomar in Chicago. First I should say that I am a sucker for modern luxury hotels, however with a business degree in hospitality management I am also a stickler for details and pay close attention to service. They began with a…
The Marketing Trap: Perfect Won’t Get You to Profits
We are living in the Age of the Amateur Invasion. With the gazillions of online marketing methods available today and the popularity of “reality” TV, anyone at any level can make a name for themselves. You don’t have to be an expert, a professional, or a guru. You can claim your status and portray yourself…