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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.
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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

    Expertise, Hubris, and Success

    How do you balance the requirement for expertise with the hubris that sometimes accompanies it? In this video, Andrea Hill explores this topic and makes to important suggestions.
    Merchandising

    The More Things Change . . .

    Social Media has an important place in at the table of marketing disciplines. But it's just one chair. If you are feeling burdened by your lack of a Facebook presence or the fact that you can't figure out what to blog or tweet about, here are a few things to consider.
    Marketing

    Old Advice New

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

    In it to win it: Don't let generic retailers and pricing models drag you off your designer strategy

    You already know being in business for yourself is hard work. But working this hard for no money? Differentiate.
    Branding

    Design Isn’t Decoration. It’s Strategic Infrastructure.

    Leadership

    Holiday Wishes

    My holiday wish for every one of us is that we each choose to fill our own experience with those attributes, so that together we can create a shared world that's worthy of living in.
    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.

    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

    WYSIWYG

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

    Auld Lang Syne

    Many companies will conduct their annual employee reviews at the beginning of the new calendar year. Here are the key elements for ensuring a good review process.
    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

    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

    An Ode to Difficult Geniuses

    Every business leader preaches the importance of innovation and outperforming the competition, yet business managers are busy squeezing every threatening and/or unconventional element out of their environment.
    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

    Karma Crackers in My Soup

    Push people because you owe it to them, not because they’ll appreciate it – because they won’t.
    Management

    Getting Focused

    Management

    Give Better Feedback - Get Better Results

    If business is about continuous improvement, then people must be continuously improving too. Giving better feedback will help your business improve.

    Video

    Check Out Our Youtube Channel!

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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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    jewelry industry, supply chain

    marketing, strategy

    branding, selling

    ethics, personal development

    marketing, management

    Strategy

    Branding

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

    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

    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.

    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.

    Society and Culture

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    You Don't Own Me

    Profile the Future

    What On Earth Do We Do Now?

    Mark Twain Wouldn't Say That!

    A Logic Puzzle About Gun Ownership

    The Bitter Cycle of Victimhood

    Trump Defined

    Our Grammarless Society

    Who Will I Stand For?

    Not Other