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.

    Ethics
    I just read that key copy drivers for 2010 marketing include Anger, Greed, Fear, Guilt, Exclusivity, Salvation, and Flattery. Really? Ick.
    Merchandising
    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.
    Marketing
    Shopping and buying have changed dramatically, creating new challenges - and opportunities! - for digital marketing.
    Retail
    The jewelry industry continues to take polarized positions on lab-grown diamonds.
    Branding
    Google's new algorithm, and how your website must be responsive to keep up with consumer requirements.

    Leadership
    Today, Andrea shares the concept of OODA Loops, and gives some practical advice for how you can spend meaningful time working ON your business.
    Management
    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
    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.

    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
    First in a series of 8 articles on becoming a better leader. How do you balance patience with people against impatience with progress?
    Management
    Here are some of the key structures that are absolutely necessary when converting to a more team-based organization.
    Management
    The truth is, nearly every manager demonstrates a little FETCH once in a while.
    Management
    I don’t think companies can afford to continue to operate in the old hierarchical ways. Those structures will be the dinosaur bones in the dirt within this century.
    Management
    Strong leaders are integral to healthy business behavior. To influence the behavior of your organization, define a business culture and cultural norms.
    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 people become so overwhelmed at the notion of transforming their entire organization that they never get past thinking about it. Think much smaller.
    Management
    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
    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.

    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.



    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.

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

    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. )"

    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.

    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.

    "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