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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 jewelry industry continues to take polarized positions on lab-grown diamonds.
    Merchandising
    Business owners are frequently offered solutions for which they have not yet defined the problems. Problems are defined by asking questions. So let’s start there.
    Marketing
    You already know that reading, writing, and an education are a requirement for success. Now you must add technical skills to that list.
    Retail
    When you introduce someone to the joy of buying art the experience can be transformative. Consumers should have that experience buying designer jewelry.
    Branding
    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
    Natural Christmas Tree
    Management
    Knowing you need help and willingness to ask for help are very different. Only those who truly want help can benefit. And help often determines success.
    Management
    If you are experiencing a persistent pain in your business, don’t let it slide.

    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
    Millennials are changing everything we know about luxury. Here are 5 key areas your luxury business must master to stay relevant.
    Management
    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
    Getting a management team engaged is both financially and personally rewarding. The concepts described here will help get you started.
    Management
    To be a better leader, be a student of business. This article gives advice on what areas to study and where to go to find that information.
    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
    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
    If business is about continuous improvement, then people must be continuously improving too. Giving better feedback will help your business improve.
    Management
    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
    Sexual harassment isn’t about sex. It’s about power.
    Management
    If you are experiencing a persistent pain in your business, don’t let it slide.

    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. )"

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

    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.

    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.

    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.