In Praise of Pushy Sales People

I probably should come out of the closet. I’m a pushy sales person. Perhaps some will recommend a 12 step program or some other therapy to make me less pushy. But, to be honest, I like being pushy. My customers and clients, for the most part, appreciate it too—though at some times my pushiness makes…

Read More

How the Best Tech Companies Implement Employee Empowerment

“Empowering” employees sounds like a phony recruitment tactic. How is a business supposed to make employees feel inspired? It doesn’t seem very realistic. But at its core, employee empowerment is simply the practice of giving employees the autonomy to make decisions on matters related to their work. The concept stems from the notion that when authority and…

Read More

The “Chaotic” Buying Process

We know the importance of the marketing and sales process. It provides us a structured, disciplined approach to engaging our buyers. In theory, it should help us help the customer in navigating their buying process. Sounds good, what could be simpler: start at the beginning, go step by step through each stage, reach the end…

Read More

6 Must-Know Tips for Engaging Your Readers

With today’s mass production of online content, it’s not uncommon to write quality copy that still gets ignored. To encourage your readers to better engage with your content, you need to make sure every line of your website or blog helps them learn or accomplish something. Remember these six tips for engaging your readers. Focus…

Read More

The Good and Bad of Facebook Business Pages

So you have a Facebook business page and you use it to stay in the social media game, engage your prospects and customers, and respond to inquiries and/or complaints. With 80 million business pages, including 41% of all small businesses worldwide, is it worth your efforts? Well… yes and no. According to a study of 43 million posts…

Read More

How to Keep a Savvy Millennial Team Happy & Engaged

Opinions continue to fly about the nature of millennials. People argue over what they care about, how they view the world, and whether they’re entitled layabouts or driven idealists. In reality, of course, there are very few meaningful character generalizations to be made about them (or any other generation)—but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some major commonalities that…

Read More

The Great Debate: Defining What Online (Content) Engagement Is

The term “engagement” or “content engagement” is tossed around the blogosphere and in publisher circles around the world. Many of the stakeholders can’t agree on what really defines engagement. Is it a click, a conversion, a purchase, etc.? Ultimately, brands must decide what engagement means to them based off defined goals and strategies. However, some…

Read More

How One Innovative Company is Disrupting the Native Ads Space (And Why You Should Jump on Board)

It’s gone missing… Your engagement. Your click revenue. Your publishing business. For years publishers have relied on social networks as a means of amplifying their message and growing an audience. You’ve relied on AdSense, banners, pop-ups, and native ad widgets for click revenue. The game is changing… Your readers want the social experience for discovering…

Read More

7 Keys to Success with an Employee Ownership Culture

One of the lessons I have learned over the years as a business executive, and now as a mentor to entrepreneurs, is that if you really want employees who enthusiastically take ownership of their work, you have to start treating them like owners, not renters. Owners feel they have skin in the game, and benefit…

Read More