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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
    Follow Reflections
    Ethics

    When Talk Isn't Cheap

    Ask questions when a policy or practice is not ethical or logical. We may not get the policy to change, but at least we have introduced the question of its sanity to others. 
    Merchandising

    Marketing made manifest (Part I)

    Part 1 of the series. Each industry, community, and business must manifest this concept in different ways.
    Marketing

    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.
    Retail

    Why Are We Still Fighting About Lab Grown Diamonds?

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

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

    Leadership

    Navigating the Coronavirus: Working from Home and Planning Your Future

    Andrea Hill gives specific guidance and tips about working from home, and reflects on one way to make this experience as positive as possible.
    Management

    Diddy or The Donald? What Should One Expect from an Employer (and what should we expect of ourselves?)

    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

    The Small Business Leadership Challenge

    Leadership requires a lot of consistency and discipline and is one of the biggest challenges facing small business owners.

    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

    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

    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

    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

    On DNA, Ruts, and Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

    Why business diversity? Because when a business embraces many different perspectives, thought processes, and world views, it fires up the collective brain.
    Management

    Cinderella Teams and Giant Killers

    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

    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

    WYSIWYG

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

    Hello Kitty

    The question of how to create and sustain accountability for behavior is one that comes up regularly in business. The answer to this question is clear, but it’s not easy.
    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.

    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.

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    jewelry industry, marketing

    marketing, strategy

    branding

    ethics, personal development

    marketing, management

    Strategy

    Branding

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

    "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.

    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.

    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.

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

    Society and Culture

    Follow Social Articles

    Crazy-Ass Gods Get All the Press

    You Don't Own Me

    More Empathy. Less Entitlement.

    The White Conversation About Racism

    Prayer for a Nation

    All Hail the CEO: The Trade-in of Democracy for Power

    It's Not Locker Room Talk. It's Violent Foreplay.

    Shades of Gray

    Guns, God, and Platitudes

    Profile the Future