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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

    It's Risky Business Speaking for God

    It is a complicated world we live in. A world in which we require conviction about certain things in order to center ourselves and make our way. A world in which those same convictions can sometimes blind us to a greater truth or realization about life, love, and God.
    Merchandising

    Kind of, Sort of, Free

    Publicity is not really free – there is a cost to the effort. But in a world where branding, where telling our stories and connecting to our customers (beyond price, selection and service) is essential, it’s a powerful way of making meaningful contact. And it’s sort of free.
    Marketing

    It's a Large World After All

    Before you start fantasizing about being an international player, you might want to evaluate how much opportunity for growth still exists close to home.
    Retail

    Embrace the Internet to Increase Business Value

    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.
    Branding

    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

    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.
    Management

    Make Time to Plan

    Making time to plan is the most important thing you can do.

    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

    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

    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

    Make Time to Plan

    Making time to plan is the most important thing you can do.
    Management

    Being a Better Leader Part 2: Be the Chief Customer Finder

    To be a better leader, become the Chief Customer Finder. Foster a strong sales and service culture, support your sales organization, and demonstrate true customer leadership.
    Management

    Auld Lang Syne

    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

    Be a Better Leader Part 5: Be the Brand Builder

    Strong brands are a direct reflection of strong leadership. Embrace your role as the primary brand builder for your organization.
    Management

    The Secret to Small Business Success

    There are several business skills you must cultivate to ensure the survival and profitability of your company.
    Management

    Your Twitch is Showing

    Twitch your nose all you want, but then you should probably get down to the grown-up work of evaluating, making informed decisions, being patient, accepting current reality, and creating incremental change.
    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.
    Management

    Don't Play a Zero Sum Game

    Selling is understanding what a customer needs, then providing solution to their needs. A good sales effort tells the customer what to decide.

    Video

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    jewelry industry, marketing

    marketing

    branding

    ethics, personal development

    marketing, management

    Strategy

    Branding

    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.

    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. )"

    Perfectionism is a luxury for (starving) artists, or artists with benefactors. The rest of us must learn the difference between being in love with our own ideas and being in love with 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.

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

    "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

    Society and Culture

    Follow Social Articles

    And Now for an African-American First Lady

    The White Conversation About Racism

    Guns, God, and Platitudes

    More Empathy. Less Entitlement.

    Who Gets to Marry Whom? According to Which Religion?

    My Granddaughter's Heroes

    Education 3.0

    Humanity is Not a Zero Sum Game

    NASCAR for Politicos

    You Can't Have it Both Ways