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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

    Gender Bias in the Jewelry Industry

    Gender bias is not unique to the jewelry industry. But as a small industry that predominantly serves women, addressing it may be essential to our survival.
    Merchandising

    Improve Your RTS (Return on Trade Show) With These 10 Important Tips

    You know the basic tips: Show everything, make appointments, manage your budget. But to get your return on trade show, you need to do these 10 things well.
    Marketing

    Why Are We Still Fighting About Lab Grown Diamonds?

    The jewelry industry continues to take polarized positions on lab-grown diamonds.
    Retail

    What I Wish Consumers Knew About Buying Designer Jewelry

    When you introduce someone to the joy of buying art the experience can be transformative. Consumers should have that experience buying designer jewelry.
    Branding

    The Importance of Experiences

    Live from the Coral Ridge Mall in Iowa City, Iowa, Andrea Hill talks about the importance of offering your customers experiences that are relevant to your brand and your products.
    Leadership

    A Woman

    Management

    Being a Better Leader Part 1: The Balancing Act

    First in a series of 8 articles on becoming a better leader. How do you balance patience with people against impatience with progress?
    Management

    Getting Focused

    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

    What's "Fair" Anyway?

    The definition of fair means to be free of favor to any side. But in business we really do favor some things.
    Management

    Past Time for Change - A Post to the Jewelry Industry

    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

    Sit. Crawl. Walk. Run. Stairs. The Strategic Process

    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

    It's Just Conflict

    Conflict has value. Any alliance without an occasional clash of diverging ideas will be as satisfying as a diet of chicken broth or a dip in a tepid bath.
    Management

    That cash won't hatch! Don't let your strategic players just sit on it.

    Managing a business through recession is all about cash flow. Keep in mind the entire system when you try to figure out who is sitting on your cash.
    Management

    Help is On the Way! (but did you ask for help?)

    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

    Criticism: The fire in the forge of great leadership

    A great leader goes beyond those characteristics to combine a blend of intense personal will with great humility.
    Management

    Take a Hammer To It?

    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

    Getting Employee Reviews Right

    An annual employee review process can be a powerful driver for business growth and innovation. Unfortunately, in most companies it's not used for that at all. Here's how to improve.
    Management

    Surviving Tough Times: Part I

    The Jewelry Design Professionals’ Network (JDPN) invited Andrea Hill to prepare two presentations for their members and students, to help them manage their careers and business during the Covid-19 crisis.

    Video

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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

    Well, Catholics pray to saints," I mutter to myself as I begin my nightly prayer to RBG.

    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.

    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. )"

    Society and Culture

    Follow Social Articles

    It Really is up to Women

    The Embalming of American Women

    The Religion Trap

    The Bitter Cycle of Victimhood

    Be the Change. Every Two Years.

    More Empathy. Less Entitlement.

    Home School – Going for the Least Damage, When the Most Good Isn't an Option

    We Are Who We Lead

    Zero Sum Gamers and the Covid-19 Moment

    Who Gets to Marry Whom? According to Which Religion?