Career Coach. Management Consultant. Writer. Marketer. And a dash of Accountant.
I recently stumbled across a letter an incarcerated man wrote to his son on June 12, 1984.
He opens talking about a story of a hill he runs everyday in the yard and how just three weeks prior he couldn’t even reach the top.
What may surprise you is this letter was written by a man many consider to be one of the greatest copywriters/direct response marketers who ever lived. His name was Gary Halbert. [Read more…]
I feel your pain.
After pouring your mind, body, and soul into crafting the perfect product or service, worrying about how to brainstorm and execute a small business marketing plan is the last thing you want to do.
Let’s be honest about it, though. Maybe part of this feeling is because you just can’t add this “necessary evil” as one more thing to do. Or the more likely option is you’re overwhelmed by the complexity of all the different small business marketing tactics you see out in the wild.
Here’s some good news, marketing for your business CAN be complex but it makes more sense to start simple and work your way up. For one, it’s cheaper. For two, it allows you to better understand what works in your marketing strategy before investing in shiny new things to automate unproven results.
The truth is marketing is the lifeblood for your business. And we all know what happens when you have no blood…
Besides, if you have an offer that’s going to help a lot of people, don’t you think you owe it to the world to make sure that offer gets seen by as many people as possible? You know, for the greater good, which coincidentally puts money in your pocket. Win-win.
This post is going to answer the nagging question,”how do I market a small business?” by showing you not only what you need to do but some quick, easy-to-digest examples of how to execute, including the right time to look at marketing automation software (and which tools you should look at when that time comes). [Read more…]
Do you ever feel like your day has so many meetings they all start to blend together?
So many details to capture. And sometimes not even knowing anything about the meeting topic.
It’s a real struggle. And because of this, one of the most important things you can do in your career (especially management consulting) is make sure you know how to take notes in meetings.
Working on consulting engagements, it’s not uncommon to have multiple meetings to prepare for the “real” meeting with the client. If you’re lucky, the meetings will yield some useful information.
There’s a huge problem with all of these meetings though – people have short-term memories. By the time the participants leave the meeting and get back to their desks, they remember minimal pieces of the discussion.
And even worse, when you ask people later about their commitments made in the meeting, they act like you’re speaking in a language they’ve never heard before. (Maybe accountability could be considered a language and that’s why they’re not familiar with it.)
That’s exactly why you’ll find the rich and powerful to be avid note takers.
When it comes to meeting notes, you’ll want to email those out to all invitees and be sure to focus on capturing the 6 following pieces of information.
Don’t worry if you’re having trouble following along in meetings. I’ll show you what to do in that situation too.
A first chance to serve in a senior role by reviewing returns… thought I did a great job until it came back a sea of red. [Read more…]
It’s a week later and I’m still embarrassed.
I put myself out there and it didn’t work.
Here’s the email I got last week. It took me a little bit to process it…
I’m not even sure I told my wife…
I’d be setting you up for failure. I think it would be much better for your career to get some more experience, maybe as a freelancer or another smaller financial publisher…
Here’s how it went down: [Read more…]
I thought I might dip into the archives this week for a this week’s failure Friday but nope. I have a fresh one on deck. [Read more…]
Here me out on this… it’s NOT about negotiation as some have guessed when I told them what I was planning on writing about.
So let’s get into it… [Read more…]
You might get a kick out of this.
I just came across a post from 10pm est on April 15 (aka tax due date) of someone saying “for some reason H&R block is experiencing heavy call volume”, and then proceeding to ask a question about how to answer one of the tax prompts on work location. [Read more…]
So in addition to a less than satisfying season premiere of Game of Thrones yesterday, something else historic happened, something causing speculation that some sort of synchronized onion-cutting had taken place.
Right at the moment when Tiger Woods won the Masters – the most prestigious golf tournament in the world – and celebrated with his son. [Read more…]
I don’t know if you’ve heard… but there’s this show called Game of Thrones, which inspired this post. For the unindoctrinated, a quick google will tell you more than you need to know about the show and all the related conspiracy theories.
Now, on to what I really wanted to talk about.
If you tilt your head about 36 degrees to the left, close your left eye, and slightly squint your right-eye, the corporate world looks frighteningly similar to Westeros (the fictitious where most of the show takes place). [Read more…]