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Small Business Help | Obama’s Public Health Plan

Each year the cost of health insurance increases, placing a huge strain on the American public, who are forced to choose between paying astronomical insurance premiums or facing financial ruin if someone in the family becomes ill. It’s hard enough for employees of large companies to pay their portion of the premiums.  Small businesses, who […]

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Web content, sales copy and gobbledygook

Editing has always been important to writing good sales copy, but the ease of publishing on the web has taken writing out of the hands of professionals and into the hands of anyone who wants to put up a website, blog or even to (excuse the expression) tweet. In an effort to appeal to the search engines, […]

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Are you running a business or just freelancing?

An interesting dialogue appeared on the Open Forum a while back which brought to mind the distinction between the mindset of a business owner and a freelancer.  In my experience, the business owner mindset positions you for success because you build an entity that will survive long term.  A business owner has a vision for what they want to achieve and takes […]

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Relationship Marketing | Cultivating Your Referral Base

Alex is a financial planner with a solo practice in Chicago.  He’s been in business for about 4 years, but his income has taken a beating over the last 6 months or so, since the recession hit.  He’s lost a bunch of clients, and can’t seem to find new ones to replace them. Geoffrey’s financial planning practice is going great […]

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Niche Marketing | Why trying to serve everyone doesn’t work

When a general practice attorney named Joan called me about 9 months ago, she was a bit concerned about the future of her small firm.  Like many solo attorneys, she left a larger firm to go out on her own, only to find that landing new clients was difficult.  Joan had been surviving on some referrals, but […]

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Soft Skills Training | Interpersonal skills make all the difference

Liza runs a graphic design studio in lower Manhattan.  A competent and talented professional, she’s always kept up with the latest design trends as well as the most cutting edge technology.  But as her business grew larger and demands increased, Liza began to feel as though she was out of sync with her staff and her clients.  She found it uncomfortable to […]

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Marketing Ethics | Balancing Effectiveness and Values

Rob really wants to fire a difficult client who’s sapping his energy and taking too much time, but can’t afford to, so he finds himself working to keep them instead. Victor’s marketing isn’t working and he desperately needs more clients, but since he’s not comfortable with any of it, so he stays stuck. Andrea is bearish on the market and […]

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Business Motivation

The subject came up the other day about what drives business motivation, and a client came to mind whose story is well worth mentioning. Charles is a software engineer who has been running a consulting business for about 6 years in New York City.  Busy with the day to day details of keeping up with the work and managing the business; time flew by; […]

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Inbound Marketing | Can you be found?

It’s been known for years that to be able to market effectively, you have to have the right message in front of the right audience, at the right time, in the right place.  And today, the right place is very often online, using inbound marketing strategies, because some of the more traditional techniques are too expensive […]

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Referral Marketing: Fire that client!

I’ve long been a proponent of getting rid of clients and projects that drain your energy and give you little in return, so I was delighted to see a recent post on the marketing catalyst blog about how saying no to a client can be a profitable marketing tool.  See if you agree that Bruce Allen has […]

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