Skip to main content

Business Insights from Andrea Hill

Latest Posts

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.
Read the full article
Follow Andrea Hill's Business Posts

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).
read more

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.
read more

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.
read more

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.
read more
    Reflections
    Follow Reflections
    Ethics

    What Your 2nd Grader Can Teach You About Business Ethics

    A little grade-school philosophy may be all you need to implement a successful business ethics program. The rewards will be significant.
    Merchandising

    What Price Brand?

    Brands are the glue that holds a relationship together, and not just in marketing.
    Marketing

    The Real Real Thing

    Gone are the days when a company could build a brand around things like good service, fast shipping, low prices, high quality, or good selection. Those things are now the minimum standard necessary to compete.
    Retail

    To Knock Off or Not to Knock-Off Designer Jewelry?

    Designers throw their life savings and energy into creating jewelry lines. Custom jewelers are asked to copy it. How do we avoid knock off designer jewelry?
    Branding

    Make Your Business Values as Transparent as Possible

    This business made its values and strategy so transparent that we as customers can see what matters to them and why they matter to us. That's branding.
    Leadership

    Poor You. The World Didn't Cater to You. Again.

    Just because you believe something to be true doesn't make it true, even if others believe it with you. Personal beliefs are just that. Personal.
    Management

    A Reflection on our National Obsession with Mediocrity (and what it means for business)

    If the dangerous belief that mediocrity is acceptable, or that experts and intellectuals represent some vague threat, has wormed its way into your psyche, you have reason to be concerned.
    Management

    Cinderella Teams and Giant Killers

    Small businesses have a distinct advantage that large businesses do not have, and one of the things we must do is exploit this advantage to the maximum extent. What is it? Our ability to be flat, networked, and flexible.

    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!

    Order Yours Today
    Management

    Resolution #2: Become a Better Thinker

    Most folks don't think. We react, daydream, deny, endorse, commiserate, argue, wish, and even wonder. But being a thinker is different.
    Management

    Are You Writing Your Own Obituary?

    The bottom line is that the jewelry industry is going to be fine. But retailers and small manufacturers need to ask of themselves a few vital questions.
    Management

    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 business will suffer.
    Management

    Don't Play a Zero Sum Game

    Selling is understanding what a customer needs, then providing solution to their needs. A good sales effort tells the customer what to decide.
    Management

    That cash won't hatch! Don't let your strategic players just sit on it.

    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.
    Management

    An Improved Report Card

    If you want a quick insight injection on how to take goal setting and self-assessment to the next level, let this be your 5-minute primer.
    Management

    Your Twitch is Showing

    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

    Molecular Transformation Begins at Home

    Many people become so overwhelmed at the notion of transforming their entire organization that they never get past thinking about it. Think much smaller.
    Management

    Karma Crackers in My Soup

    Push people because you owe it to them, not because they’ll appreciate it – because they won’t.

    Video

    Check Out Our Youtube Channel!

    Go to our Youtube channel and pound that SUBSCRIBE button!

    We post a lot of videos: business educational, inspirational, motivational, and even lots of software/technical. You don't want to miss it, so subscribe to our Youtube channel today, and get alerts when we post new content.

    Subscribe on Youtube
    Get Alerts for New Videos

    jewelry industry, supply chain

    marketing

    branding, selling

    ethics, personal development

    marketing, management

    Strategy

    Branding

    "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

    I sometimes wonder what our country would be like today if Christians had thrown themselves into eradicating poverty or inequality with the same energy they invested in fighting abortion.

    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.

    Don't get FOMO over unicorns in the news. It's not usually the first person with the idea who makes the money, or even the first person who invests the cash. The person who invests the discipline is always the one to bet on.

    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.

    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.

    Society and Culture

    Follow Social Articles

    Death Expands Life

    The Religion Trap

    Ten Questions to Better Parenting

    Wet With Fear? Perhaps.

    What? No Garden?

    When Talking Gun Violence, Look at the Whole Picture

    For All the Moms of the Not-Conventional

    On Generation Bashing

    What On Earth Do We Do Now?

    More Empathy. Less Entitlement.