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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
    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?
    Merchandising
    Business owners are frequently offered solutions for which they have not yet defined the problems. Problems are defined by asking questions. So let’s start there.
    Marketing
    When I walk trade shows I look for more than products. I look for examples of business magic. Here are two; one from #JCKLasVegas and one from #Couture2014
    Retail
    When you introduce someone to the joy of buying art the experience can be transformative. Consumers should have that experience buying designer jewelry.
    Branding
    There are several business skills you must cultivate to ensure the survival and profitability of your company.

    Leadership
    When we define ourselves too narrowly, we fail to see all the ways we can connect with other humans, and in that failure lies all the previous failures of humanity.
    Management
    If you have been looking for a way to help your organization move faster, get ahead of your competition, and produce higher quality, a team-based structure could be the approach you’ve been searching for.
    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.

    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
    Focusing on weakness or even mediocrity at the expense of rewarding strength will lower the average performance of your organization.
    Management
    You've created a business strategy, minimum viable product or service, and a business plan. Now you need goals, measurable objectives, and a method of monitoring and managing results; in other words, a Management Framework. This article compares and explains your options.
    Management
    Small businesses have a distinct advantage that large businesses do not have, and one of the things we must do is exploit this advantage to the maximum extent. What is it? Our ability to be flat, networked, and flexible.
    Management
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    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
    If you are experiencing a persistent pain in your business, don’t let it slide.
    Management
    First in a series of 8 articles on becoming a better leader. How do you balance patience with people against impatience with progress?
    Management
    The definition of fair means to be free of favor to any side. But in business we really do favor some things.
    Management
    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.

    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.

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

    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. )"

    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.

    "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.