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Business Insights from Andrea Hill

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The Small Business Marketing Trap

Most small business owners judge their website content relative to how close it sounds to the way they would have said it themselves. That standard makes no sense for businesses trying to get found by AI search engines. AI search rewards two things above almost everything else: how recently a business published and how consistently it publishes. In this story, a jewelry store analogy offers the clearest way to understand this vital concept in our rapidly changing marketing landscape.

First Things First: There's an Order to Profitability

The building blocks of profitability are clear and they even have a required sequence to them. But without knowledge of the building blocks - or awareness that these building blocks even exist! - your marketing can underperform for years (or decades).

Principles of Graphic Design

Most small business owners are doing a lot of graphic designs themselves. But without understanding graphic design principles what you save in time and fees will cost you in results. This 36-minute video will help you understand the basic principles of graphic design. Whether you are doing your own graphics or working with a graphic designer understanding these concepts will most certainly improve your marketing efforts.

Radical Inclusiveness - the Competitive Edge

In a business climate where competitiveness and innovation are everything equality and diversity in the workforce are important keys to success.

Outstanding Customer Service is a Culture Thing

The question of how to deliver the outstanding customer service consumers expect is easy to answer but harder to implement.

    Ethics
    Sexual harassment isn’t about sex. It’s about power.
    Merchandising
    When you introduce someone to the joy of buying art the experience can be transformative. Consumers should have that experience buying designer jewelry.
    Marketing
    They key to a good marketing strategy is asking and answering the questions who is buying your stuff, how often do they buy it, and how much do they spend?
    Retail
    You already know being in business for yourself is hard work. But working this hard for no money? Differentiate.
    Branding
    The types of changes you should – and should not – make during a recession are the same types of change you should consider during a strong economy.

    Leadership
    Everywhere you go, people can surprise you. They are rarely just what they seem.
    Management
    I don’t think companies can afford to continue to operate in the old hierarchical ways. Those structures will be the dinosaur bones in the dirt within this century.
    Management
    Managing risk requires an ability to analyze the pros and cons of each decision from an objective place. Here are some tips on how to do it.

    Tell Better Stories

    It's not enough to sell a product or a service any more. You must also be able to tell the story. The Pip Storytelling Deck is a tool we use at the Werx Brands to construct and tell better stories. You can be a master story-teller too!

    Management
    The most powerful thing a small business owner can do is be an effective leader, and ensure his entire organization conveys a strong message of character and integrity to his business community
    Management
    Management
    Twitch your nose all you want, but then you should probably get down to the grown-up work of evaluating, making informed decisions, being patient, accepting current reality, and creating incremental change.
    Management
    If you find yourself assembling virtual teams of home-based contract workers, you will need to develop new skills and sensitivities to motivate, manage, and assess them.
    Management
    While a healthy ego is essential to any business success, it is the ability to balance ego and humility that leads to the most influential leaders.
    Management
    Strong brands are a direct reflection of strong leadership. Embrace your role as the primary brand builder for your organization.
    Management
    Managing a business through recession is all about cash flow. Keep in mind the entire system when you try to figure out who is sitting on your cash.

    Video

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    Taking a knee ... Long the choice of peaceful, PRAYERFUL resistance.

    Perfectionism is a luxury for (starving) artists, or artists with benefactors. The rest of us must learn the difference between being in love with our own ideas and being in love with progress.

    Maybe the reason its so hard to remain in quarantine is that it's hard to outrun sadness when you're forced to be still.

    "The tricky thing about hope is to not confuse it with optimism." Rebecca Solnit

    "Millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have no interest for me. My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind.”
    William James

    At the end of the day, we all have to fight our demons alone. And I think that's the source of loneliness. If you spend your whole life insisting there are no demons to fight or hiding your demons or determined to fight them in private, you end up existentially alone.