In January, Amazon.com ran a promotion encouraging consumers to use its mobile app. If customers purchased an item via its app while in a retailers' store, Amazon provided a monetary incentive to choose the online …
(By Tom Borg, owner of Tom Borg Consulting)Every organization receives complaints. The key is turning a complaint into win-win situation. Too often employees and managers take the customer’s complaint personally and get defensive. It would …
By Steven StraussLast week, I began my annual look at the Top Trends in Small Business. This week we get to the Top 5 and what is interesting about the overall list is that it …
New? You bet! Who (except marketing gurus and analytical chemists) would think changing Coke’s hundred-year formula for success would be sound strategy? And then give the new product the flagship brand name? New Coke? Was …
The weatherman has the world’s easiest job. He can over promise and under deliver to his heart’s content and still keep his job. Other than a few unhappy school kids, no one gets upset when the predicted …
By David Fant, chairperson of SBAM’s Strategic Communications Advisory Committee. From SBAM’s member-only Focus on Small Business magazine. Sitting here in my home office, I got to thinking about the idea of a company of one. …
Ernesto Sirolli in his book Ripples from the Zambezi (a business book even if it doesn’t sound like one) cites three key business areas as his “Management Trinity.” He says, “If one is missing, the …
By Barbara Lezotte, APR, president of Lezotte Miller Public Relations Inc. From SBAM’s member-only Focus on Small Business magazine Technology has multiplied the ways companies can communicate with clients and customers, making marketing, advertising and public …
By Perry Ballard, Chairman of the Board of Perry Ballard Incorporated (From SBAM’s member-only Focus on Small Business magazine) Continual (Not Continuous) Growth is an Astute Business Goal Continual” growth is intermittent. Random opportunities bring you new …
(Reproduced with permission from Accident Fund Insurance Company of America) There was once a time when a person could walk into a store, grab the “help wanted” sign from the window, and with as little as …
By Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, MLIS (From Focus on Small Business, the Small Business Association of Michigan’s member-only magazine.) As a prospective entrepreneur, or the owner of a small or growth-stage business, market research may be the last …
By Emily Rozanski Social media Web sites provide small businesses the opportunity to cost effectively reach their target markets where they are spending a majority of their time online. In addition, social media Web sites …
