a good product or service is a customer-retention tool. If we give our customers a great product or service experience, they’ll buy more from us, they’ll refer other people to us and they’ll build up the brand through positive word of mouth. However, before customer retention, we need to think about customer acquisition (AKA marketing). The most su

What Is Marketing? Some people think marketing is advertising or branding or some other vague concept. While all these are associated with marketing, they are not one and the same. Here’s the simplest, most jargon-free definition of marketing you’re ever likely to come across: If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Comi

Struggling business owners will spend time to save money, whereas successful business owners will spend money to save time. Why is that an important distinction? Because you can always get more money, but you can never get more time. So you need to ensure the stuff you spend your time on makes the biggest impact. This is called leverage and leverag

They go from working for an idiot boss to becoming an idiot boss! Here is the key point—just because you’re good at the technical thing you do doesn’t mean that you are good at the business of what you do.

1. Why should they buy? 2. Why should they buy from

To be a successful small business marketer you need laser-like focus on a narrow target market, sometimes called a niche.

It’s not that the small businesses aren’t good at “branding” or mass media ads. It’s that they simply don’t have the budget to run their ads in sufficient volume to make them effective.

#2 Large Companies Have a VERY Different Budget

In reality this is the fastest way to fail and I’m certain it’s responsible for the bulk of small business failures. Here are the two major reasons why. #1 Large Companies Have a Different Agenda