TDZ Blog
Guest Blog Posts
In addition to our own posts by title below, check out the following guest posts:
Focusing on Successes and Strengths vs. Failures and Weaknesses
The Best Place to Spend Your Marketing Time & Money
Customer Expectations: Mind the Gap
Key Topics
Rockstars have magnetism and devoted fans–both good things for small businesses. Here’s my brief rundown of what we can learn from them: 1. It’s all about the show. Whatever’s going on behind the scenes doesn’t matter when we hit the stage. 2. Sometimes the leaders must pull the weight and/or create a distraction so the […]
Many small businesses or even mid-to-large-sized businesses with geographic dispersion have marketing people in-house or at least marketing-minded employees, whether at the top or within the company’s ranks. But oftentimes, there’s not a dedicated, experienced resource at the C-level. The lack of a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or equivalent leadership role often results in a task-based […]
During the Q&A session of Gary Vaynerchuk’s talk last night, one guy brought up his annoyance with the bank tellers (at Wells Fargo) asking him questions about himself and making small talk. I forget the exact question but Gary’s response was that this is an annoying experience because it isn’t authentic. They want a piece […]
A while ago I saw a quote someone re-tweeted from Michael E. Gerber, the author of The E-Myth and Founder of Club E: “The entrepreneur sees opportunities everywhere we [sic] look, while many people see only problems everywhere they look.” This statement made me wonder: Is seeing opportunities (aka optimism) vs. problems (aka pessimism) a requirement […]
Small business owners sometimes buy print/radio advertising, social media, and other tactical marketing solutions based on the recommendations of a sales representative for those services. Because they haven’t been able to look at all available solutions and make informed decisions (without sales pressure), the owner can incur unnecessary costs, create more work, and achieve little to […]
Oftentimes, I get the specific request to help market (i.e., “promote”) a product or service from a small business or microbusiness leader. The assumption is that the barrier to sales is market awareness, understanding, or knowledge and that “marketing”—marketing communications or promotion of the product or service alone—will solve the problem. But I don’t like […]
Although my clients typically aren’t banging the door down for process change and oftentimes are focused on other things, I’m always trying to (re-)focus on the business of doing business. This means building repeatable processes and tools to support them to lessen the workload and prevent waste. (Part of the foundations of business.) I suspect that […]
Most micro and small businesses started a company website at launch in order to establish a brand identity, build credibility with potential buyers, cross temporal communication barriers, create another opportunity for lead generation or customer education, or even conduct online sales. However, as the company has grown and more information has been added, the site […]
Criterion # 1: Sufficient Experience . . . As Evidenced by LinkedIn (or other professional online network) Background: I get asked sometimes by friends (even those who have made hiring mistakes in the past) about how they can “screen” an independent contractor or small marketing agency based on its leadership and what to look for. This […]
While I strongly believe in investing in professional relationships, I realize I cannot have coffee or lunch with everyone who suggests it. While I understand the importance of networking, there’s no way I can attend all of the networking events where my target market hangs out. I guess I’m not too different from any other small business owner, solo service […]