3 Simple Steps to Maximize Your Networking Event Efforts

It’s far too easy to waste years of one’s life going to business networking events and not get anything out of it.

Maybe you connect with someone once in a while and do a phone call.

But for a lot of people, most of the business networking they do doesn’t provide any substantial return.

In this post, we’re going to provide you with 3 simple steps to turn business networking into a machine for greatness. This will help you with your online and in-person business networking efforts (regardless of pandemics!). Continue reading 3 Simple Steps to Maximize Your Networking Event Efforts

The Accidental Expert – Seven Keys to Authoritative Content

Ten years ago, my first published content ultimately became my first important lesson on the value of writing with authority. A simple “best practices” article for a trade magazine led to a phone invitation from the plant manager of a farm equipment company. He asked if I could meet with him to discuss the article, and I agreed to make the 87-mile trek. Continue reading The Accidental Expert – Seven Keys to Authoritative Content

The Flywheel Sales & Marketing Model

The flywheel sales and marketing model was introduced as an antithesis to the traditional sales and marketing funnel model. The two have major league differences. The main difference between the two includes how the customers are treated. The “old-school” funnel model places the customer as an afterthought of any marketing strategy and really only focuses on new customer acquisition. Continue reading The Flywheel Sales & Marketing Model

What Does Top of the Funnel Mean?

Marketing can be modeled in lead-nurturing stages, including awareness creation, interest, and consideration all the way to the purchase phase. Throughout the process, marketers must be in constant contact with their leads to keep them interested and engaged. When doing this, the ultimate goal is to take the leads to the bottom of the funnel (where the lead becomes a paying customer). In this model, marketers must remain committed to effective top of the funnel marketing strategies to keep the funnel flowing. Continue reading What Does Top of the Funnel Mean?

How to Make Your Business Battle Ready – an Interview With Anthony Campo

I had the pleasure of discussing several key insights of small business ownership with Anthony Campo, Leadership and Organizational Development Consultant at Battle Ready Business. Campo believes in exploring all the elements involved in building a successful, Battle Ready Business. Those elements encompass Sales, Marketing, Leadership, Finance and Personal Development. On his Be Battle Ready podcast, he does the interviewing. We traded places for this blog. Continue reading How to Make Your Business Battle Ready – an Interview With Anthony Campo

What Is a Do-It-Yourself Website Builder?

Are you wanting to build a decent website on your own? With the right DIY website builder, it will be a breeze. 

Whether you’re a business owner, writer, painter, singer, or consultant, you can build your site without coding. Thanks to these DIY platforms, technological barriers can’t keep you from going online anymore. 

Remember – it takes about 0.05 seconds for a visitor to form an opinion about your website. So even if you’re a newbie, you must use something decent. That’s where DIY website builders save the day.

However, getting the best DIY website builder can be confusing and tricky. In this guide, you’ll learn the A-to-Z of DIY website builders. Continue reading What Is a Do-It-Yourself Website Builder?

Will Search Engine Optimization Make My Phone Ring?

“Will my phone ring?”

“No, that’s not what we do.”

Recently, we had a buddy of ours look into our search engine optimization service. And he asked a really great question:

“How do I justify spending money on your service, I don’t see what kind of results I’ll be getting out of this”.

Continue reading Will Search Engine Optimization Make My Phone Ring?

How To Accept Credit Card Payments When You Are in a High Risk Industry

We interviewed Matt Zertuche of Paymintz recently to ask him about how non-traditional industries can accept credit card and crypto payments. As the world changes, new ways of collecting payments from customers are adapting and we were incredibly interested in knowing more about this topic. Continue reading How To Accept Credit Card Payments When You Are in a High Risk Industry

Interview With Web Designer Kim Earp: Common Questions Small Business Owners Have About Websites – With Answers!

Why do small business owners and professionals need a website? For example, why not get by with a Facebook page?

We live in a digital age where a website serves as your digital storefront. More and more business are being discovered online it is important to make sure your business is professionally represented online. Continue reading Interview With Web Designer Kim Earp: Common Questions Small Business Owners Have About Websites – With Answers!

7 Surprising Reasons Why You Might Not Want to Be Found on Google

Everybody and their cat want to be on the first page of Google, right?

Well, maybe not everybody (or every cat). 

Believe it or not, some businesses don’t need to be found on Google. Not all businesses rely on Google for their customers. Instead, they might get their customers through word of mouth, local media, or industry connections. 

Having your business easily found on Google will undoubtedly bring you lots of traffic and attention. But with this comes certain downsides you might not have anticipated. Continue reading 7 Surprising Reasons Why You Might Not Want to Be Found on Google

Is Your WordPress Website Broken?

WordPress is a great balance of freedom and control — not as restrictive as some ‘build a beautiful website’ platforms, it still doesn’t require coding skill or IT chops. And whether you’re hiring a developer or doing it yourself, you can get a good-looking, functional website that brings in actual customers without breaking the bank or tearing out all your hair.

Until it quits working. Continue reading Is Your WordPress Website Broken?

Are You Making These 5 Mistakes with Your Website Language?

There is a lot to think about when creating or redesigning a website. Some businesses get seduced by all the latest bells and whistles. They want sliders here and videos popping up there.

SEO, keywords and splashy landing pages with bright images get lots of attention and are important elements of your web content sales strategy. But, what they sometimes fail to value is the use of clear, concise language with the power to reach an audience.

If you are about to create or rewrite your business web content, or will be working with a content strategist, here are some common mistakes businesses can avoid: Continue reading Are You Making These 5 Mistakes with Your Website Language?

How to Discover the Language Your Customers Use That Will Lead to Big Sales & Revenues

Most businesses, business owners, and sales reps have a tendency to communicate to their customers using jargon or language that their customers and prospects don’t use.

To make matters worse, businesses will also market and advertise to their prospects using the same jargon and language.

All businesses do this (at one time or another). It’s just a habit. It’s so easy to say and use the same words every day and not think about the real effects that language has on business results.

What if I told you there was a gold mine of language data out there that can boost your leads, sales, phone calls, revenues, and all that great stuff?

In this post, we’re going to do a deep dive into this very subject and come out refreshed and ready to win! Continue reading How to Discover the Language Your Customers Use That Will Lead to Big Sales & Revenues

What Creative Strategies Can You Implement For Successful Mobile Marketing?

Successful mobile marketing strategies don’t have to be same old, same old. And they don’t have to add up to: crunch more numbers. If you’ve considered the obvious, but you don’t have the need or budget for gigantic big-data trawls like Amazon, you probably need a more creative way to understand and implement the tools you already have, as well as a couple of additions that can give you an edge without breaking the bank.

First: What exactly are we talking about when we say ‘mobile strategy,’ anyway? Continue reading What Creative Strategies Can You Implement For Successful Mobile Marketing?

Want to Improve Your Business? Your Teams? Hit Goals? Then Listen to Rey Soriano!

“It takes a lot of intention to create a great system.”

Before we start, the key reason we pursued an interview with Rey was that he inspired us during a talk he gave. His premise was that you can identify what you need to change in a business to make improvements. However, if the team doesn’t believe that the changes will help or that individuals don’t believe they can change, then generally nothing will improve. Continue reading Want to Improve Your Business? Your Teams? Hit Goals? Then Listen to Rey Soriano!

A Handy HTML Cheat Sheet for Your Typical Content Management System

Knowing HTML is really useful when you’re creating blog posts and web pages. It’s the only true way to work out those formatting kinks that nearly all content management systems will throw at you. Additionally, it’s also important to know because it can help you make web content that’s more accessible for people with disabilities.

In this post, we’re going to create a cheat sheet so you know how to correctly format the HTML of your posts and get rid of some annoying things CMSs like to do (like unnecessary spaces and line breaks!). Continue reading A Handy HTML Cheat Sheet for Your Typical Content Management System

The History of the Google Home Page (1998 – 2019) & What It Means For Your Business Today

When you get to the Google home page, you’re faced with an uber-simple interface and yet on the other side is a virtual library that has indexed trillions of webpages. There are so many interesting things we can learn about both the home page and the search results themselves.

Let’s first take a look at how the Google home page has evolved over the years. Here is a sampling of screenshots from 1998 – to today – of the Google home page. Continue reading The History of the Google Home Page (1998 – 2019) & What It Means For Your Business Today

Infographic: On-Page Search Engine Optimization Cheat Sheet

on-page search engine optimization seo cheat sheet infographic

We have a few clients that are currently building web applications and their main marketing websites from scratch. In some cases, they’re not using any frameworks or templates to build from (which is totally acceptable). If you’re doing something similar, be sure to use this cheat sheet to sanity check the HTML template you’ve created. Continue reading Infographic: On-Page Search Engine Optimization Cheat Sheet