Caution in Hiring: One Bad Apple Can Spoil the Bunch
Your corporate culture is only as strong as the people you put on your team. And when you have just a few employees, each one is even more important. When it comes time to hire, make sure to look at how potential employees fit with your culture just as much as you look at skills and experience.
Read More Bad News Doesn’t Get Better with Age
Small business owners have to deal with reality. You cannot solve a problem by ignoring it. Bad news will not get better with age. An open culture means being open to honest feedback of any kind, whether positive or negative. Mistakes are ok, but you have to recognize them and move on.
Read More The Brand of You
Everyone talks about brand. But in a small business, the most important brand you can build is the brand of you. All the little details of how you run your business will communicate your brand to customers, much more than the things you say your brand is. That brand is you.
Read More Surviving the Imminent Millennial Takeover
We are close to a major generational shift. While Baby Boomers have dominated spending for decades, Millennials will soon be taking the top spot. This shift is not just interesting in terms of demographics, however; it will require businesses to change the way they market, sell, and serve their customers.
Read More Marketing for Repeat Business
The Holy Grail of marketing is getting people to come back more often to buy more. It is a very simple concept, but very difficult to achieve. If people use your product long enough and have a great experience using it, they will keep coming back to buy more and love your brand.
Read More Applying Political Terms to Marketing Segmentation
There are important insights for product marketing that actually come from the political world. One of the most important lessons is in how to segment the market, identifying which customers to go after and which ones to ignore. You can save time and money by focusing on your most productive targets.
Read More Advertising through Your Customers
The best advertising in the world comes from your best customers, not broadcast advertising or flyers or billboards. The credibility for word of mouth advertising is incredibly high, making it important to turn your customers into a powerful advertising force for your business.
Read More What Does Your Business Believe In?
For your business to really succeed, it needs to be about more than just a product. You need a deeper purpose guiding your decisions. Companies that have something they really believe in have a better chance to succeed. Find the beliefs and values that make you unique, and let them guide your decisions.
Read More Invent Your Opportunities
You never know which opportunity will end up being the one that really turns into something big, but if you don’t ever try, then you’ll never get anywhere. You have to always be thinking, always moving, always improving. The one thing you can’t do is sit back and wait for things to happen to you.
Read More How Do I Innovate?
It’s easy to say that businesses need to innovate. But it’s a lot harder to actually do it! Successful innovation comes from your business’s core insights—the way you think and the way you use your resources, knowledge, and skills.
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