If who you follow is a key to deriving value from your social networking activities (and it is!), the better you do it for your own purposes, the more you’ll benefit. Here’s one bountiful way into the chaos that will help you find people and accounts sharing content you’re going to want to see in…
Someone asked me recently, “I want my curation to be telling a story. How do I do that?” Yikes! Curation is telling a story??!! I had to laugh because I’d not considered it in that way – even though my expertise is in business storytelling. And yes, my curation does tell a story! Once I…
Varying Paths to the Same Result What is it that causes so many capable entrepreneurs with a solid service to offer, to fail miserably? I’ve found that in most cases it comes down to marketing and its terrifying sibling; sales. Revenue is always a top 3 challenge in polls and rises in prominence when the…
People buy for two reasons. They are trying to eliminate pain points or they are trying to reach a compelling desire. If your small business marketing doesn’t focus on how your service helps them address one of those two issues, you’re just rolling the dice. Creating effective marketing, which I define as marketing that delivers…
How Do You Turn Clients Away? Revenue versus Growth… Turning away customers is nerve-wracking. You need clients to grow and without revenue a business is no more than a hobby. So, how can I suggest that there are clients that you need to turn away? Ironically, the smaller and younger your business, the more you need to…
The chances are that you consider yourself a master communicator but have nevertheless had issues where your instructions to someone have been misconstrued and they have felt the same about you. Considering we will be communicating in the same nominal language – some dialect of English where the words might reasonably be expected to be…
As web anthropologist Stowe Boyd likes to say, “The single most important decision we make in a connected world is who to follow.” Your social networks are your window onto the world, a lens on your market. You determine how wide your window is, and how focused the lens. Ultimately, your online connections will color…
Only the final stalwarts of the ossified advertising ancien regime still argue that online content marketing isn’t a good idea for a business. The Revolution is over; the content producers have won — even if they don’t get paid sometimes. But with great power comes great responsibility. In 2013, it’s no longer okay to just…
If owning a business is your second career, you’re in a different position than typical entrepreneurs. Let’s figure out how to maximize your advantages and minimize your challenges to build a growing and fulfilling business. You should be able to use your knowledge and experience to become successful rather quickly, if you plan correctly. You…
Saying that marketing is expensive is equivalent to beating a dead horse, but it’s the truth. With so many options today in digital, email, printing, and branding costs, just to name a few. In today’s day and age, finding influencers for your brand, either through customer acquisition or reaching out is one of the most…
