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Business Insights from Andrea Hill

Most Popular Article

What a Trade Show Can Teach Us About Good Marketing

Trade shows function like temporary cities, bringing buyers, sellers, education, marketing, and operations into one shared space. When they work, alignment is visible. When they don’t, misalignment is just as clear. This article uses trade shows as an analogy for B2B marketing, exploring what happens when organizations lose focus on their primary customer, how drift happens quietly, and what it takes to restore clarity and long-term value.

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
    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
    Merchandising
    How you market determines how your customers respond to you. That's definitely not something to leave to chance.
    Retail
    It’s no longer enough to just have a website. You must have a website that looks and feels current, and offers more than just a few pretty pictures.
    Branding
    Given a choice between delivery devices and content (assuming the delivery device isn’t required to get at the content) one should choose the content!

    Leadership
    I suspect that the key to lifelong vitality may be the ability to change my own mind.
    Management
    When I consult for entrepreneurs I invariably encounter some version of this problem. The entrepreneurs who have hired me like the idea of enhanced planning and communication, but they always balk when they realize that they, too, must use the systems that are being put in place.
    Management
    There are several business skills you must cultivate to ensure the survival and profitability of your company.

    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
    Strong leaders are integral to healthy business behavior. To influence the behavior of your organization, define a business culture and cultural norms.
    Management
    Many companies will conduct their annual employee reviews at the beginning of the new calendar year. Here are the key elements for ensuring a good review process.
    Management
    Getting a management team engaged is both financially and personally rewarding. The concepts described here will help get you started.
    Management
    We may be in the grip of a virulent form of mass business codependence.
    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
    What we really need now are a few good intentions.
    Management
    The job of leadership is a big one – whether it is leading a country or leading a department.
    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.
    Management
    Push people because you owe it to them, not because they’ll appreciate it – because they won’t.
    Management
    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.

    Video

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    Hmm . . . my favorite new term-of-the-week: Ratlicker
    "A person who refuses to wear a mask, or take any of the basic precautions to help society prevent an air born illness during an epidemic. ( In reference to the bubonic plague being spread by rats. )"

    Well, Catholics pray to saints," I mutter to myself as I begin my nightly prayer to RBG.

    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.

    It's surprising how many people are not aware of their reasons for doing things. They think they know, but when asked to reflect upon it, they don't. Why are you in business? Why are you pursuing this role? Why are you frustrated, lonely, anxious, doubting? Why are you making this decision? Why aren't you asking for help? If you ask why before deciding what, who, how, or when, you will come up with a stronger answer every time. In business, why is the essence of strategy. In life, why is the essence of progress.

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

    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.