What do you do, when you need to come up with some fresh, inspired ideas? One of the things I do, is to take a break and have a dedicated 2 day thinking trip. Today, I'm heading off for this year's thinking trip - to the stunningly beautiful North Yorkshire Moors. How my thinking trips work Between now ...
What do you think, when you visit a commercial website and find the information there is out of date? I have just booked accommodation online for a last minute trip, and found that details on each of the 5 hotel websites I found, were out of date. One had a "latest news" section, which had not ...
One of the great things about being in business today, is that we can get an idea, write it down, click a mouse button and get it in front of thousands of people in seconds. Better still, we can reach all these people for little more than the cost of our time. However, instant communications ...
I've received quite a few emails recently, from people who want to market a new business venture, even though they have no budget. Whilst it's common for new projects to have limited budgets, having zero budget is still thankfully relatively rare. Several of these emails closed with the statement ...
I'm about to write a blog post, which I really didn't expect to be writing. It's about my experience ordering a Dell PC and the level of service I received. Dell customer service experience On Saturday 26th June, I ordered a new PC from Dell. The ordering process was simple and within 10 minutes, I ...
One of the primary reasons that so many small business owners miss out on sales, is that their marketing messages lack clarity. When it comes to sales, clarity is king. In fact, one of the oldest sayings in the business is: "A confused mind always says NO!" In other words, if ...
You may recall me recently mentioning that I was moving this blog to a new hosting provider? Traffic into this blog has increased massively over the past 6 months and the time was right to upgrade. Our new host offers me far greater resources, which will allow this blog to continue growing without ...
When I was starting out in marketing, almost 24 years ago, I remember my boss giving me some advice, which seemed odd at the time. I asked her what she liked best about being wealthy. I figured she would know, having built a multi-million pound business from scratch. Her reply was simply this: "Jim, the ...
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me, is the number of small business owners and entrepreneurs, who are always looking for the next new thing; without ever finishing whatever they had previously started. I spoke with the owner of a start-up business earlier this year, who had ...
Recently, I have had a lot of people asking me how I come up with fresh ideas for new posts. So, here's what works for me and hopefully, will be just as useful for you! The short answer is that the more you write, the easier it gets. For example, I used to publish blog posts ...
Have you ever wondered about the value of posting content to a business focused blog, like this one, during the weekend? If you have, you might find my experience interesting. Blogging on a Saturday Reader numbers here drop like a stone on Saturdays. I get around 50% of my weekday average, sometimes even fewer. Yes, there are ...
Yesterday, I received some fantastic news! You know, the kind of news where you immediately burst into tears of joy - that kind of fantastic news. One of my closest friends, got the results from a scan and found out that he is going to be fine. This came after 3 weeks of tests for what ...
What do the links on your website or blog tell prospective clients and customers about the kind of person you are? One of the reasons that Google has become the dominant player in the search engine market, is that so much of what it does, reflects the way humans think. If Google's algorithm spots ...
I had a great conversation yesterday, with the owner of a New York based SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) business. We were talking about the way that Google penalises websites, if that site links to what Google calls a "bad neighborhood." Here's a brief clip from the Google Webmaster Guidelines; "...avoid links to web spammers or "
If you have some BIG challenges facing you right now, this post is written JUST for you! In my experience, most business owners greatly underestimate their ability to make things happen; to turn things around and create a big, positive impact. They see some of the challenges facing their business or their life in ...
It seems that some things in business just never change. Like those people we affectionately call time wasters. I was prompted to write this, after being emailed today by a reader, who had wasted a lot of time dealing with a time waster. This guy claimed to be interested in using her ...
How would you describe the way you market your business? When I used to speak with marketing students, I would explain the three basic small business marketing approaches like this. Marketing approach 1: Chopping down a tree with a hammer Yes, you can chop a tree down with a hammer but it ...
Yesterday, after one too many unanswered tech support emails, I invested in a new web hosting provider. The new provider is around 400% more expensive than the previous one, but their customer service is extremely good. I had already researched them months ago and was really impressed. My old provider offered an ...
Do you find it odd, when business owners complain about the growing pains caused by the success of their business? After all, it wasn't growing that caused them the pain. It was their decision not to plan ahead! As business owners, we need to always have an eye on the future. ...
What do you want to achieve by the time you reach your next landmark birthday; (ya know, those birthdays that end in a zero?) What do WE want? We live in an age, where we are being professionally influenced for the vast majority of our waking hours. Every time we listen ...
