As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended the nationwide Microsoft women entrepreneur’s event called Vision to Venture a couple of months ago in Redmond, WA. Much of Vision to Venture was recorded and Microsoft have now made the video available online. There were some excellent speakers including our own Duct Tape Marketing founder, [...]

continue reading.....

My friend and fellow coach, Matthew Scott (Life’s Work Group Blog) has started an interesting conversation about what men should learn from women entrepreneurs.
The question arose from reflecting on our participation in the Microsoft Office Live Small Business conference for women entrepreneurs called Vision to Venture. There were over 450 women in attendance at the [...]

continue reading.....

I spent the day at Microsoft’s Vision to Venture Women Entrepreneur’s conference yesterday. Yes, I know I’m a man but who really could turn down spending a day with 400 intelligent and talented business women?
Actually I was there as a Duct Tape Marketing Coach in support of John Jantsch who was one of the speakers. [...]

continue reading.....

 
As you put together your sales prospecting plan, give some thought to strategic alliances. Working with a other companies who have

Complementary products or services
And target the same customers

can be a win win for growing leads, referrals and personal introductions. The way it works is that you are leveraging each other’s sales and marketing efforts. [...]

continue reading.....

My experience is that few small businesses do much in the way of PR. It is largely an afterthought and so no wonder that when they do give it a try they are not successful. To make matters worse, many small business owners are “product centric”. While it is understandable that they are excited [...]

continue reading.....

I read an interesting article in this month’s Marketing Management. It was about a study recently published by Rodrigo Guesalaga of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School that looked at the involvement of top level management in closing sales deals.
For small companies, often the top level management is the sales manager and the finance manager and [...]

continue reading.....

This month’s Marketing News reports that an August Gallup poll reveals that 72% of American consumers now pay more attention to which country produces the goods they buy. Sixty-five percent say that they make an effort to avoid products bought in China and expressed a willingness to pay more for goods made in the USA.
Most [...]

continue reading.....

On Tuesday I went to the Oregon Chapter of the American Marketing Association Luncheon. Dan Harbison, Internet Marketing Manager, of the Portland Trail Blazers was the speaker. His topic was “Trail Blazers on the Courts – and on the Web” and he duly explained the Trail Blazers’ web strategy and what they were trying to [...]

continue reading.....

John Jantsch in a recent Duct Tape Marketing Blog entry made an interesting point about how lack of delegation can stifle the growth of a business. The gist of his point is that not all tasks in a business are of equal value and if you can hire or outsource less important tasks. You can then focus your time on the higher value tasks and thereby generate more income.

I have seen the truth of this a few times myself. Before I decided to open Market Accelerators, I considered buying a small business……

continue reading.....

I recently read an interesting article in Fast Company about how Wal-Mart and GE are deliberately planning to kill their sales of light bulbs. Its not that they don’t want to sell light bulbs. They have recognized that new lighting technology will eventually replace traditional light bulbs so they would rather do the replacing [...]

continue reading.....