Basic Rules of Branding: Crafting Your Image in the Public Mind

A lot of people spend time merely trying to mimic the business models and ad campaigns of iconic brands without really looking deeper into what makes those brands stick. Whether you’re putting together a new brand for your start-up idea or you’re conducting a brand refresh to focus your messaging after major market shifts or…

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Things You Should Never Say Out Loud at Work

Depending on where you work, a day at the office could sometimes be compared to a zoo or even a WWE cage fight. (If so, you have my sympathies.) You may have to contend with difficult clients, strange co-worker personalities or even a demanding and unreasonable boss. Everyone has to deal with politics in the…

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Focus on Recruitment Strategies that Really Attract Talent

It should be continually astonishing to anyone paying attention the way that many HR departments and hiring managers operate when trying to fill key positions. It takes way too long, often happens rapidly or not at all, and displays a large degree of incompetence all around. This is a serious vulnerability that a lot of…

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How to Diffuse Online Criticism of Your Business

Have you ever looked up a business online and some other site is outranking their homepage for their brand name in the search results? I see it pretty frequently while researching companies that come across my path, and frequently those other results are bad reviews, negative blog posts or other mentions of the company that…

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What is Your Company Culture?

Experts claim that company culture can have a huge impact on the success of a business. A healthy, vibrant company culture makes for better employee performance and satisfaction. But, what makes company “culture” and how do you create one that is enjoyable? What Makes Up a Company’s Culture? Vision – A company mission or vision…

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Stop Using the Marketing Buzzwords, I Beg of You

Clichés are like roadblocks of thought, meant to prevent you from reaching some real thinking. They’re mental shortcuts, often used in propaganda of one sort or another to get the audience to agree and nod their heads without saying anything of substance whatsoever. And just like politics, the business and marketing world is full of…

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How to Know Your Business Idea isn’t Ready for Prime Time

The odds are against any given idea for a product or service actually succeeding. There are a lot of things that can go wrong, and common business mistakes sink new businesses even before they really get rolling. Assuming you have your wits about you, and you’ve learned from experience what mistakes not to make, how…

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Why Persistence and Luck are the Keys to Success

Success in business requires that you follow a few sound and well-tested principles and nurture some important traits. Throughout the years, we’ve seen the same things over and over again – truly successful entrepreneurs can be characterized by their determination, knowledge, persistence and… luck? We hear it a lot. Someone will claim that a certain…

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What are Best Practices?

My business book describes many “Best Practices.” A Best Practice is an ideal procedure for your business. It might be a certain hiring strategy, a certain production plan, or a certain marketing technique. You must employ a Best Practice in each of these areas to be successful. Get the right people on your team, find…

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