I'm a huge fan of small businesses and the amazing people who make them work. That's why I love it, when I see a small business using the strengths to successfully compete against national and multi-national companies. This morning for example, I visited a Costa Coffee shop in North Lincolnshire. I love ...
Twitter follower numbers mean a great deal to a lot of people. However, it seems that as Twitter matures as a service, the number of followers someone has, has very little to do with their influence. For those of you like myself, who use Twitter as part of your marketing mix, ...
I regularly get email from people, asking how I manage to write blog posts most days and still keep the ideas and content flowing. It's easy to see why, when you consider that a regularly updated blog with useful content is more commercially valuable, than one with fewer, valuable blog posts. So, here are a few ...
Small can be beautiful. In commerce, for example, some of the finest businesses are small businesses. It's easy to see why, when you consider some of the advantages small businesses have over large businesses and corporations: Smaller businesses can adapt to new opportunities far quicker than ...
Over the past few months, I have used flickr for all the post images here on the marketing blog. There are millions of great pictures available and it's extremely easy to use. However, I have recently noticed a ...
One of the common traits among every successful business owner I have ever met, is their ability to build a great team of people around them. These people may be; consultants, marketing professionals, accountants, lawyers, IT professionals, media contacts or people with influence within their ...
I have 2 quick questions for you today, which can help you massively increase your sales: What is the single most powerful form of marketing that you use? Why don't you use it more often? 2 million in extra sales, with 1 simple idea! Back in 1997, I ...
All too often, small business owners market their services based on what is most appealing to them. They make offers that they think are great. They focus on benefits that they think are important. Here's the challenge with that approach: It's very ineffective! Your prospective clients buy for their reasons, not yours. If you want them to ...
How well do your business resources match your marketing goals or sales targets? You may want "more business" right now, but if it came, if your marketing was so effective and compelling that all the extra business you want actually arrived, how well could you service it? Many people say that this is a "great problem to ...
In the 2nd post I published yesterday, I stated that we are all capable of incredible things, so long as we put everything we have, into everything we've got. In today's post, I'm giving you 5 practical ways to get the most from your current assets. First, I would like to something with you ...
No matter where you are right now, how little you have in the bank or how many past experiences you wish had never happened, you are capable of achieving the most amazing things! It's not what we have that counts, but what we do with what we have. ...
Yesterday evening, I received an unsolicited email from someone I don't know. What follows is his entire email, other than his name and address: "WOULD YOU CONSIDER Doing a 30-minute webinar for real estate agents on Monday, August 2, at 10 a.m. Central time U.S., 4 p.m. London. And talk about marketing in today's world!" The email ...
I once asked someone if they were a "glass half empty or glass half full" kind of person. She relied; "I'm neither Jim!" This got my attention, as I had always heard people giving one of those two possible answers. She went on: "My glass is actually 100% full - Half with water and half with air!"
Over the past 24 hours, I have seen 2 people advertising their services as business blogging experts. In both cases, I decided to check THEIR blogs out. As a marketing guy, I was curious as to what kind of blogs these expert business bloggers had. I'm really glad I did, because it motivated me to ...
One of the great things about where I live, is that I get to meet with some really diverse and interesting people. Yesterday, I was listening to a local gamekeeper. He said that someone had told him that they left the door to their rabbit hutch open JUST ONCE and that a fox got in ...
If your Facebook or Twitter account got suspend or deleted, what impact would it have on your business? I ask this question, because I'm seeing more and more people invest huge amounts of their valuable time building social networks on 3rd party sites, ...
It's a fact: The best marketing ideas in the world will not work, unless you use them. Over the years, I have discovered that small business owners can be divided into 2 groups, when it comes to marketing. Group 1: Those who find marketing interesting, but just dabble and ...
I spoke with someone earlier, who told me that she was "no good at marketing." She went on to say that she would never be any good when it came to marketing. This lady is bright and she has lots to say, that's worth listening to. However, she has failed to learn one of the ...
Following on from yesterday's post, about the need to be a student and not a sheep, today I would like to focus briefly on the importance of improving our comprehension in the era of information overload. It's one thing for us to read something of value, but if we fail to comprehend what ...
As a marketing coach, I am always studying the power of influence and influential people. For example, we all know the power a celebrity can have, when they give their personal endorsement to a politician or their paid endorsement to a product. This is because a large chunk of the general populous, uses ...
