Hi everyone I just wanted to take a few minutes and share something with you. I am sure you all have that someone in your life that you listen to. Make room for one more.Tony Robbins I have never listened to him that I didn`t get something useful out of it. Tomorrow night Tony starts a new show on TV. It will only be 6 shows but past experience tells me it will be the best six shows I have ever watched.   Experience your Breakthrough starting Tuesday, July 27 at 8/7 CST on NBC. For over thirty years Tony…

The headline to this article is a quote from a client of mine – Belinda Bond. Belinda is the visionary behind the Celebrity Mama Tour. I thought it was the perfect bit of advice for entrepreneurs. How many times have you sat down for a chat with someone and they are pondering the age old question, “When is the best time to launch my idea?” or “Is it the right time to go into business for myself?” As someone who has been on their own for some time now, I don’t believe there is a right or wrong time to…

We received news of these reports a few days ago and wanted to put the word out so you can take advantage of these business research reports by Aberdeen Group. The reports covers a wide variety of topics. We’ve been told these are time sensitive offers, many of them expire July 30th. After that, they are sold for $399. So this is your chance to really save big and get your hands on some solid research data. Some of the topics you can expect to find are: How Closers Seal The Deal Customer-Centric Retailing: Effective Strategies for Rapid Change Working…

In our office, all long distance including calls out of the country are done via Skype. And why not. It is cheap and for the most part, gives you pretty clear calls. I also particularly like Skype for audio interviews because it means I don’t have to hook up extra hardware and deal with a tangle of wires – blech. Thankfully, there are many options to record Skype calls. Total Recorder. This is the software I use and have been using for a while now. I purchased a license for this not only for Skype but because it can also…

Building web sites is not rocket science, but it is job that requires many skills you can’t learn overnight. Not if you want a good looking, yet functional and efficient web site. It is certainly a full time job on its own. So having this important task outsourced is smart. On the other hand, when you’ve never done the job before, it can be a little difficult to know what to ask of your web designer. This list of questions should help you out. What skills do you or your team posses? HTML, CSS, Drupal, WordPress, MySQL, PHP, CGI, Ruby…

How fast do you return a telephone call or an email from a potential lead? I ask myself this every time a lead remarks to me, how quickly I responded. I wonder if perhaps most businesses do NOT return contacts as fast as they could. I try to respond the moment I get a contact. Even if I am busy, I at least try to respond and inform them that I will return their call when I have time enough to respond properly. Yesterday I left a message with a store, asking them to give me their store hours. The…

There are lots of ways that you can approach your brand to make it more effective. Some can be costly, while many are simple and relatively inexpensive. It is the latter that I will outline for you today. They don’t take much thought or effort but can impact your brand in a big way. 1) Sponsor a local adolescent sports team. This is not so much to get your logo on a jersey but it is part of giving back to the community. Volunteerism speaks to your brand values. Not to mention that many of the organizers are also leading…

Because our business does not employ full time employees (yet), some articles in business magazines don’t apply. Yes, we outsource and there are many parallels, though not always applicable. But while reading one an article by Jason Fried (co-founder of 37 signals and co-author of Rework) recently I was drawn to the many helpful points he raised. One of which really stood out for me because that’s what I’ve been sharing for a while too. In the article, Fried says that they generally, prefer to find out how to do a job before they start hiring someone to do it.…

This is going to be a slightly different type of post, one where you tell us what you think. In the last handful of years, there are certainly many brands that have fallen from their golden positions. Some fell much harder than others. To name a few that come to mind: BP Toyota CircuitCity.com Can these brands bounce back? What do you think they should do now? Keep in mind, there were brands who went through some pretty rough times and come up on top, stronger than ever like Tylenol and for those who are too young to remember ;)…

Hi It’s Ken Chandler. Some of you may recognize the name from Vera’s farewell post. Well, that’s me she’s talking about I am sure most of you do not know me yet but I hope to  change that. I have worked on military aircraft for almost 3 decades both as a U.S. Marine and as a civilian. I started my first offline business around 1992 and I have been working online with my own business since around 1996.   I  can easily understand how important your time is simply from my own experience. Given all that, I believe I will have…