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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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    Reflections
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    Ethics

    Christmas 2020 - a Reset

    Our magical Christmas expectations are a product of our privilege. Our notion that we have a right to big, bright, celebratory Christmases filled with cheer and holiday spirit and piles of presents is barely 80 years old. Christmas 2020 is more normal than you think.
    Merchandising

    All Dressed Up But Don't Know Where You're Going

    Today's web development tools put the majority of web development tasks within reach of everyone but the most fearful of computer users. Put these six exercises to work for you first, and you will dramatically improve the odds that your website will deliver results.
    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

    Why Are We Still Fighting About Lab Grown Diamonds?

    The jewelry industry continues to take polarized positions on lab-grown diamonds.
    Branding

    Fairy Fasteners and Just Jules Have Business Magic

    When I walk trade shows I look for more than products. I look for examples of business magic. Here are two; one from #JCKLasVegas and one from #Couture2014
    Leadership

    Reflection on Influence and Character

    Is buffering our children from social influences wrong? How is a liberal social thinker similar to a religious fundamentalist in regard to home schooling?
    Management

    Power, Politics, Sex, and Religion (yes, this is a business blog)

    The primary goal of a business is to create value for its customers, and each business relies on its employees to deliver that value. Employees who feel respected, safe, and appreciated do a much better job of delivering customer value than employees who feel compelled to put up self-protective walls.
    Management

    WYSIWYG

    Things go wrong in business for a variety of reasons. Failure to create clear expectations is a big culprit.

    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

    The Administrative Answer to Wisdom at Work

    The larger a business grows, the more difficult it is to manage communication among all of its constituents. Some policies are unavoidable, but it is desirable for an environment to operate on sound principles rather than rules and policies to the greatest extent possible.
    Management

    Integrity is A Russian Doll

    An integrity-infused business is all-or-nothing. You’re either feeling it or you’re not, and if you’re not feeling it, it will bite you in the bottom line.
    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

    You Can't Tell Me What to Do!

    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

    The Knee Bone's Connected to the . . . (or, A Cure for All Manner of Social Problems

    This failure to make connections is not isolated to the medical community. Business owners regularly fail to make the connections necessary to ensure the health of their businesses.
    Management

    Is it about the economy? It's about the leadership stupid.

    The job of leadership is a big one – whether it is leading a country or leading a department.
    Management

    Don't be a Virtual Leader

    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

    Lead Like a Woman

    When female leaders are tough, they make the gossip sheet. When male leaders are tough, they call it news. But women are better leaders, and shouldn't emulate male leaders to fit in.
    Management

    The Lost Art of Intention

    What we really need now are a few good intentions.

    Video

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    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.

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    ethics, personal development

    marketing, management

    Strategy

    Branding

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

    I suspect the fear of being afraid is the most destructive fear of all.

    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. )"
    "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

    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.

    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.

    Society and Culture

    Follow Social Articles

    Cynical? Just a Little

    The Religion Trap

    Must POTUS Believe in Evolution?

    A Logic Puzzle About Gun Ownership

    Zero Sum Gamers and the Covid-19 Moment

    It's Risky Business Speaking for God

    Not Other

    Prayer for a Nation

    Our Grammarless Society

    Profile the Future