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Business Insights from Andrea Hill

Most Popular Article

What a Trade Show Can Teach Us About Good Marketing

Trade shows function like temporary cities, bringing buyers, sellers, education, marketing, and operations into one shared space. When they work, alignment is visible. When they don’t, misalignment is just as clear. This article uses trade shows as an analogy for B2B marketing, exploring what happens when organizations lose focus on their primary customer, how drift happens quietly, and what it takes to restore clarity and long-term value.

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
    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
    Going with your gut is inadvisable when determining the safety of an electronics device. But it's an essential part of the toolbox when working with motivation and relationships.
    Marketing
    The future of branding and marketing is content development & sharing. Here's a shout-out to some writers in the jewelry industry leading the way.
    Retail
    The jewelry industry continues to take polarized positions on lab-grown diamonds.
    Branding
    Most people don't know where to start with branding. They're not even sure what it is.

    Leadership
    Management
    Strong leaders are integral to healthy business behavior. To influence the behavior of your organization, define a business culture and cultural norms.

    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
    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
    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 business will suffer.
    Management
    Leadership requires a lot of consistency and discipline and is one of the biggest challenges facing small business owners.
    Management
    Do you have enough information to analyze your business from product to price to timing to turns?
    Management
    It’s no longer enough to just have a website. You must have a website that looks and feels current, and offers more than just a few pretty pictures.
    Management
    A thoughtful review of your business vision (the strategic one) will yield surprising insights that can jumpstart your business again.
    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
    The larger a business grows, the more difficult it is to manage communication among all of its constituents. Some policies are unavoidable, but it is desirable for an environment to operate on sound principles rather than rules and policies to the greatest extent possible.
    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.

    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.

    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. )"

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

    Maybe the reason its so hard to remain in quarantine is that it's hard to outrun sadness when you're forced to be still.

    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.