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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
    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
    Merchandising
    Before you start fantasizing about being an international player, you might want to evaluate how much opportunity for growth still exists close to home.
    Marketing
    Each advertising medium has its own value and plays a role in each message. It's time for all of us to understand the inherent message in the website medium.
    Retail
    Designers throw their life savings and energy into creating jewelry lines. Custom jewelers are asked to copy it. How do we avoid knock off designer jewelry?

    Leadership
    There are natural consequences for taking more than one gives or expecting more from others than one does from oneself.
    Management
    A business living on auto-pilot ultimately dies of its own apathy. In business, every time is a time for change, and change is the only way to grow.
    Management
    Sexual harassment isn’t about sex. It’s about power.

    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
    Push people because you owe it to them, not because they’ll appreciate it – because they won’t.
    Management
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    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
    A great leader goes beyond those characteristics to combine a blend of intense personal will with great humility.
    Management
    The right action of which I speak is the right management, right planning and right leadership action necessary to run a profitable business that will fund the rest of our altruistic notions.
    Management
    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
    Focusing on weakness or even mediocrity at the expense of rewarding strength will lower the average performance of your organization.
    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
    Getting a management team engaged is both financially and personally rewarding. The concepts described here will help get you started.
    Management
    Had I stopped to think deeply about it, I would have realized much sooner that profit and a higher purpose are not mutually exclusive.

    Video

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    "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

    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.

    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.

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

    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.