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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
    We don't get to tell people how to vote. This violates one of the most important responsibilities we have as human beings - respect for the other's right to his or her own values and opinions.
    Merchandising
    But the sale prices we see today are the desperation moves of companies that have run out of ideas for getting customers in the door. Margins are essential to survival. Always.
    Marketing
    Your Merchandising Point of View is the thing that draws your ideal customers in, keeps them engaged, and differentiates you from your competitors.
    Retail
    You already know being in business for yourself is hard work. But working this hard for no money? Differentiate.
    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
    Andrea Hill gives specific guidance and tips about working from home, and reflects on one way to make this experience as positive as possible.
    Management
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    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

    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
    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
    We may be in the grip of a virulent form of mass business codependence.
    Management
    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
    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
    Most folks don't think. We react, daydream, deny, endorse, commiserate, argue, wish, and even wonder. But being a thinker is different.
    Management
    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 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.
    Management
    Sexual harassment isn’t about sex. It’s about power.
    Management
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    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.

    Video

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    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.

    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

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

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

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