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Business Insights from Andrea Hill

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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.

    Merchandising
    How you market determines how your customers respond to you. That's definitely not something to leave to chance.
    Marketing
    You already know that reading, writing, and an education are a requirement for success. Now you must add technical skills to that list.
    Retail
    Consumers - female and male - buy based on emotion, not logic. No matter how many facts and statistics they cite, they ultimately buy based on how you made them feel.
    Branding
    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.

    Leadership
    Apparently we need to start saying crazy things like "God doesn't want children to go hungry and without health care!!", "God doesn't want us to cut education and give that money to billion dollar oil companies who will be profitable either way!!" "God gets to decide who is worthy enough to go to heaven!"
    Management
    Though being a good leader is hard work, the components are simply common-sense.
    Management
    If you are experiencing a persistent pain in your business, don’t let it slide.

    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
    To deliver outstanding customer service, create a customer service culture.
    Management
    Management
    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
    Though being a good leader is hard work, the components are simply common-sense.
    Management
    Millennials are changing everything we know about luxury. Here are 5 key areas your luxury business must master to stay relevant.
    Management
    Strong brands are a direct reflection of strong leadership. Embrace your role as the primary brand builder for your organization.
    Management
    The definition of fair means to be free of favor to any side. But in business we really do favor some things.
    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
    When I consult for entrepreneurs I invariably encounter some version of this problem. The entrepreneurs who have hired me like the idea of enhanced planning and communication, but they always balk when they realize that they, too, must use the systems that are being put in place.
    Management
    Why business diversity? Because when a business embraces many different perspectives, thought processes, and world views, it fires up the collective brain.

    Video

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

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

    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.

    I suspect the fear of being afraid is the most destructive fear of all.

    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.