Switching from Thesis to Genesis: Chris Brogan’s Influence

Would your business be sustainable if 10% of your customers walked away?

Many of you are familiar with the potential divorce between Chris Pearson (DIY Themes) and Matt Mullenweg (WordPress) over GPL compliance. I have received numerous emails from readers asking how it will effect their blogging platform of choice. Relax. Pour yourself a glass of spanish cava or red wine. Take a sip. It’s ok. What? Chris Brogan just posted an article on his official divorce of Thesis? Ok. Well. We need to talk.

Stop Buying Conversation Starters & Develop Your Business.

Once you take away all of the shiny toys, we all become the same.

You may have made the same mistakes that I did when starting my company nearly ten years ago. I was young. Stupid. I secured a large business loan and proceeded to buy everything I thought the company needed. In cash. Sound familiar? I had a kid in the candy store sort of mentality. But…

Crowd Sourcing Customer Reviews: Kmart’s Success and Angie’s List Fail.

57% of shoppers trust customer reviews as a research source.

Stores are cashing in on the popular trend of showcasing customer reviews to soft sell products in store, print and television advertising campaigns. This sales technique gained large scale popularity during last year’s holiday shopping season. It plays into three key psychological triggers of…

The Seven Deadly Sins of Failed Meetings

Avoid [these seven common tendencies] at all costs if you want to be successful. The past few years have seen a large push toward streamlining traditional business practices. The class system has begun to blur as responsibility is deferred throughout the company more efficiently. One employee can now do the jobs of many. Some of [...]

The Business Manifesto of Now: Dedicated Focus and the Suicide of Impulse

We need to focus on the most important thing in front of us at any given moment. Time began to slow as I focused my attention on a four-thousand pound vehicle taking over my lane. My hand punched toward the steering wheel sounding the horn. In one hand the driver’s cell phone. The other hand, [...]

Promoted Trends: Why Twitter’s New Ad Format Should Scare You and How to Improve It

With any successful platform there will be companies that try to spend their way into public awareness. Earlier this week Twitter began testing their new Promoted Trends ad platform; an extension of their Promoted Tweets platform. According to Twitter, “These Promoted Trends initially appear at the bottom of the Trending Topics list on Twitter and [...]

Utilizing Social Media to Provide a Better Customer Service Experience

Reassurance that problems will be fixed is not enough. More and more companies are looking to Social Media to facilitate and engage their customers. Life can be incredibly stressful depending on the support system in place. We want to know that we can trust your brand or service before we are customers. To know that [...]

Our Ability to Turn Down Work Is Directly Influenced by Our Consumer Lifestyle.

Alexander the Great once said, “It’s better to burn out than fade away.” I disagree. He didn’t sit in front of a computer all day. Our society is based upon two common principals. Ambition and consumerism. A desire for rank, fame or power and the desire for ownership of materials. Cavemen ventured into the wild [...]

Everything I Learned About Business and Freelance, I Learned from Monopoly.

Success is equal parts luck and preparation. Luck can get you the perfect roll. Put you in the right place at the right time. But preparation will always close the deal. I am often asked for advice about launching a start up business or the process of leaving the work force to become a full [...]

How ABC Capitalized on 95/5 to Create Repeat Customers with Lost Finale.

ABC has convinced its customers to repurchase product they already own just to get their hands on the coveted 5%. On May 23, 2010 the Lost series finale aired. It was watched by 13.5 million viewers and became a trending topic across social media networks immediately. Dedicated fans argued the effectiveness of the final episode [...]