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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
    Sexual harassment isn’t about sex. It’s about power.
    Merchandising
    They key to a good marketing strategy is asking and answering the questions who is buying your stuff, how often do they buy it, and how much do they spend?
    Marketing
    The Jewelry Design Professionals’ Network (JDPN) invited Andrea Hill to prepare two presentations for their members and students regarding how to manage their careers and businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic.
    Retail
    You already know being in business for yourself is hard work. But working this hard for no money? Differentiate.
    Branding
    When you introduce someone to the joy of buying art the experience can be transformative. Consumers should have that experience buying designer jewelry.

    Leadership
    I’m not a big one for New Year’s resolutions, but I do find myself at the beginning of each new year, thinking about my major life themes; such as how about 15 years ago I decided to stop taking myself so seriously and try being a Fool instead.
    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
    Too often, rationalizing is an unhappy accident that leads to loss of market share, loss of profit margin, loss of jobs, and loss of a business. Unintended consequences are expensive.

    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
    Focusing on weakness or even mediocrity at the expense of rewarding strength will lower the average performance of your organization.
    Management
    There are several business skills you must cultivate to ensure the survival and profitability of your company.
    Management
    A thoughtful review of your business vision (the strategic one) will yield surprising insights that can jumpstart your business again.
    Management
    Too often, rationalizing is an unhappy accident that leads to loss of market share, loss of profit margin, loss of jobs, and loss of a business. Unintended consequences are expensive.
    Management
    Every business leader preaches the importance of innovation and outperforming the competition, yet business managers are busy squeezing every threatening and/or unconventional element out of their environment.
    Management
    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
    If you are experiencing a persistent pain in your business, don’t let it slide.
    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
    Better decision making starts with accepting requests gracefully and responding to them logically. Read on too see if you are guilty of a deflection strategy that gets in the way of good communication and results!

    Video

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

    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. )"

    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.

    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.

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