How To Keep Your Disagreements From Becoming Arguments
The workplace is typically a veritable hodge-podge of different personality and styles. This tends to lead to passionate discussions about issues that arise in your business. Being able to manage disagreements is an important skill to keep discussions productive. Ed Muzio, CEO of Group Harmonics, talks about this very subject on BNET.com. The first step to managing a disagreement is to define what you actually must agree on. From there Ed gives 5 Building Blocks of Reality to help you manage the conversation. 1. Information- This is where you lay out facts. What are the objective aspects of the issue. 2. Situation- This is the context with which the information
Easy, Affordable Online Marketing
Yesterday I talked about the importance of becoming an online expert with regards to marketing. Today I want to take it a step further and talk about some of the more easy and affordable ways that you can market your business. I just read a great Q&A on the subject of inexpensive marketing this morning. In the interview, Sylvia Browder, Project Director, Business Coach, and Consultant with the Women’s Business Center, she talks about 6 methods that business owners can use to market their business. Among the online tools she recommended were: press release as well as various online platforms such as blogging, social media, newsletters, search engine optimization, pay-per-click
The Best Business Marketers Are Online Experts
As a small business owner, you are most likely the first line of defense when it comes to sales and marketing for your business. The evolution of marketing to more of an online forum, means that business owners can market their businesses cheaper than ever before. The problem that business owners face is that some are technologically challenged and avoid these online avenues for marketing their business as a result. The reality is that to grow your business on a tight budget, you need to develop some online savvy. Don’t worry, I am not asking you to be a total online expert in every area but you should have a
Trust=The Value of Your Business
The landscape of today’s marketplace has changed dramatically. With more and more products becoming commodities, having a great product is not always enough to get your product/service off the ground. Differntiating yourself means creating a superior experience around your product/service. Trust is the #1 component to building that relationship. Without trust, your business has little value. You may be thinking that trust has always been important and I think to a certain extent that it has. In today’s information society with tons of information at people’s fingertips in a matter of seconds, your reputation needs to be solid. In the past it was much easier to fake certain things and
The Business Of You- A Lesson in Branding
At the start of a business venture, there are a lot of things to consider. Some of the considerations revolve around market research, putting together a business plan, assembling a team among other things. The one area that doesn’t get as much consideration is you and what you bring to the table. You are the key to your companies’ initial brand. As I said in yesterday’s post, how well you manage the internal aspects of your business will dictate how positively the public perceives your business. In the beginning of a companies’ life cycle, the business owner is the foremost dictator of how things play out in their business. This
The Best Business Owners Know Their Brand Starts Day 1
Branding is a highly debated subject these days. Questions arise about when a business should worry about a brand, what activities should they be involved in with regards to their brand, how do they begin building a powerful brand etc. My feelings are that a brand starts the day a business owner decides to open their doors for business. One thing that I feel is overlooked about branding is the fact that a solid brand starts from inside the organization and then spreads out to the public by way of the organization’s actions towards the public. In a lot of instances the small business owner is the only one responsible
Blog Theme Has Been Changed
This is just a quick note for those of you who read my blog regularly. I changed the theme over this past weekend to a format that I feel is a little cleaner. If you have any feedback on the look, would love to hear it
Book review: Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Finished this book last week. As someone who enjoys learning about what makes humans tick, I thought this book offered a fresh perspective of what you need to be successful. Hint: It’s not inherent talent. So what does it take to be successful? It takes identifying what you like to do and then putting in deliberate practice every single day. He gives a ton of great examples of people who have demonstrated this. Geoff Colvin’s research flies straight in the face of the long argued logic that we achieve things
Not Self Hosting Your Blog is Soooo 2008, My Top 5
Technology amazes me. Things that I never would have considered doing a few years ago are now commonplace because of the advancement of technology and the ease of use that has been created along with that advancement. There are still many discussions that go on about whether or not you should self host your blog. Despite all the benefits of self hosting your blog, people are still reluctant to do it. I think the main reason is that even though technology advances, our mind sets are stuck in the past. This has historically been true. Today’s issue is the state of print newspapers (RIP). In the past it was records
The Fallacy Of “The Path of Least Resistance”- Blogging Edition
Bootstrapping, creativity, maximizing resources…All of these things describe how a business owner survives in their initial stages of business. However, there is a fine line between being resourceful and not preparing yourself for the long term. Blogging is one of those areas where small business owners try to cut corners and travel the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, small business owners learn the hard way that, in some cases, the path of least resistance is a fallacy. It seems like I have been getting tons of questions about blogging lately and a lot of it is coming from inside my own house. My wife has a business and she started
