You’ve got a blog. Maybe an email newsletter. You’re tweeting and linking and trying to figure out the whole social thing. You even set aside time each week to meet with your team to try to come up with new ideas for how to get people interested in your product. It seems like you’re doing all the right things, but...
Inbound marketing is drastically changing the way we think about customers—down to the very terminology we use. There are a lot of new things to think about: personas, calls-to action, buyer stages and so much more. It’s about creating remarkable content, understanding who your customers are, what frustrations the...
Would you apply for a job at your business? Think about it for a moment. With where you are in your life—with your unique talents and dreams—is it the kind of place that would support you in getting closer to the life you want? Do you think you have any employees who aren’t evaluating their jobs, right this very m...
Is your blog getting you down? Do you wonder whether it’s worth all the effort, whether people are really getting something from it, whether you’re “doing it right”? Maybe you think you’re not a writer, or you simply feel like you don’t have the time to write with all the other demands of your small business.
In 2010, it’s estimated that people sent more than 1 trillion emails. That’s a staggering number. And of course, you have to ask yourself: with the plethora of emails being sent every minute of every day, how can you rise above the inbox clutter to reach your prospects?
We spent $500 billion globally on advertising in 2013. Every year we're spending more money, to interrupt more people, more often, with messages they don't care about and don't pay attention to. We've come to believe that the way to succeed is to have an advantage—by being different or better, more visible, or jus...
Can your website be your secret weapon? The silver bullet that makes all the difference?
Do you have a business where people go out of their way to be your customer? I was dreaming the other day about what it takes to build a brand that delivers clients to my door. Let's just suppose that I manage to come up with the best possible name for a business in my industry. Then I design an attractive logo an...
What if you've already found your tribe without knowing it? It's worth considering, because they're probably sending you a message about your product or service that you can easily miss if you don't listen carefully. This was true for us, and we're learning some incredible things from our 'tribe', things that migh...
Are you still putting off writing that blog or newsletter for your business? How long has it been haunting you? You keep telling yourself it's a great opportunity to get your business out there, and connect with your customers. But becoming a blogger on top of everything else?
You can learn a lot about your business through market research and customer feedback. But if you're building a brand for the long term, there's a deeper story that isn't so easily quantified. It's the more personal story you're telling yourself and then to your customers that keeps people coming back. And after t...
In this podcast, we dispel the myth that market research has to be complicated and expensive.
Shouldn't business coaches have a great business of their own? How much can they really help you if they're teaching but not doing? And by doing, I mean working on their business the way they say you should be working on yours.
It might sound strange, but one of our goals in transforming our company was to make our technology department obsolete.
Spending time (you don’t have) and money (you need for other things) on marketing before you’re ready is the Achilles’ heel of many entrepreneurs. That’s part of the reason why it’s the last point of emphasis in what we call the Seven Dynamics. Here’s what you must do first:
Can your culture handle chaos? As a business, your ability to handle chaos is dependent on the strength of your culture. With the way the business world is, chaos is not something even your best planning can expect to avoid - it just happens. Your culture is a different story. This is where you can fundamentally c...
I’m in the market for a President. My country is in need of some repair, some short term solutions tied to a long term vision that makes sense, and I’m looking for a leader who can deliver. It happened to be that two Presidential Merchants were on stage together last week, so I tuned in to hear their pitch. At the...