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Business Insights from Andrea Hill

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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

    On DNA, Ruts, and Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

    Why business diversity? Because when a business embraces many different perspectives, thought processes, and world views, it fires up the collective brain.
    Merchandising

    Old Advice New

    Somebody always makes money during a recession. Might as well be you.
    Marketing

    Surviving Tough Times Part II

    The Jewelry Design Professionals’ Network (JDPN) invited Andrea Hill to prepare two presentations for their members and students regarding how to manage their careers and businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
    Retail

    Why Are We Still Fighting About Lab Grown Diamonds?

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

    Hold the crystal goblet, give me the Boone’s Farm

    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

    To Be Present, Read Each Moment Like a Book

    I have become better and better at reading each moment like I read a really good novel – lost in the story and wanting it to last forever. I’m a fast reader, but I purposely slow my reading speed as I reach the end of each book, just to prolong the experience of it.
    Management

    Being a Better Leader Part 3: Be a Student of Business

    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

    Who Says Purgatory's Just for Catholics?

    Tips on how to make meetings more powerful, to develop strong facilitators, and to become more effective as a management team.

    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

    Diddy or The Donald? What Should One Expect from an Employer (and what should we expect of ourselves?)

    We all owe ourselves and all our present and future employees something very important – a commitment to excellence and continuing knowledge development in our chosen fields of endeavor.
    Management

    Help is On the Way! (but did you ask for help?)

    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

    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

    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

    The Small Business Leadership Challenge

    Leadership requires a lot of consistency and discipline and is one of the biggest challenges facing small business owners.
    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

    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

    All of the Responsibility, None of the Authority

    Here are some of the key structures that are absolutely necessary when converting to a more team-based organization.
    Management

    We Are Our Own Tragic Villains

    Too often, rationalizing is an unhappy accident that leads to loss of market share, loss of profit margin, loss of jobs, and loss of a business. Unintended consequences are expensive.

    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.

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    jewelry industry, marketing

    marketing, strategy

    branding, selling

    ethics, personal development

    marketing, management

    Strategy

    Branding

    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.

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

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

    "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

    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.

    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. )"

    Society and Culture

    Follow Social Articles

    Mark Twain Wouldn't Say That!

    When Politics Becomes Religion, We All Lose

    Stupid, Egotistical, or Both?

    The Oldest Game in the (Rule) Book

    Must POTUS Believe in Evolution?

    It's Not About War. It's About Love.

    On Generation Bashing

    It Really is up to Women

    Christmas 2020 - a Reset

    Crazy-Ass Gods Get All the Press