Skip to main content

Business Insights from Andrea Hill

Most Popular Article

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.

    Merchandising
    At some point we all end up either writing our own marketing or working with someone who is writing our marketing. Here are some tricks for putting what we want on paper.
    Retail
    Consumers - female and male - buy based on emotion, not logic. No matter how many facts and statistics they cite, they ultimately buy based on how you made them feel.
    Branding
    Most people don't know where to start with branding. They're not even sure what it is.

    Leadership
    Natural Christmas Tree
    Management
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    Management
    Making time to plan is the most important thing you can do.

    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
    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
    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
    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
    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
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    Management
    An entity worthy of allegiance, clearly defined challenges that require significant effort to achieve, and strong leadership. That’s the recipe for creating pride in a workplace.
    Management
    If you follow a logical, tested, practical strategic process, you can implement all the strategic building blocks your company needs to be competitive and successful.
    Management
    Things go wrong in business for a variety of reasons. Failure to create clear expectations is a big culprit.

    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.



    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.

    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.

    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.

    "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.

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