So there I was sat in a Steve’s office listening to him talk about all the reasons why his business wasn’t a success. “And do you know what?” Steve said rhetorically, “I’ve had executive coaches before and nothing has changed”. “why did you bring me in?”, I asked. “We’ve realised that by keeping on doing [...]

I went to a menswear shop in Manchester today. It’s not in a particularly great location, and yet it’s close to the city centre. Plus it has free parking in the streets nearby. I’d popped in once before because I was intrigued by its location and I suspected that it probably wasn’t doing too well. [...]

Put strategy versus tactics in a boxing ring and strategy gets a knockout every time. That was the thought that ran through my mind as I discussed this very subject with a potential client. And yet that isn’t obvious to an ambitious, or desperate, business owner. Many times a business owner wants to have a [...]

I’ve just heard from a friend that there is to be no funding for social media training. Interesting… Internet marketing has radically changed the way we all do business. Social media is one component of that. It’s the newest and it too has the ability to change the way you do business. And it’s not [...]

Business cards are often the only thing someone has to jog their memory once they’ve left your presence. And it’s not through lack of attention, it’s just that business life has become more frenetic and we’re all networking hard and consequently meet many businesses. So, what does your business card do for the person you [...]

Social Media Marketing or social marketing as it’s becoming better known has actually been around for quite a few years now. It’s not just Twitter or LinkedIn. Social marketing also covers blogging, which only really started in December 1997 and started to take off much later around 2003/2004. Similarly Twitter started in March 2006 and [...]

Social Media Marketing – the workshop to workout whether to do it, what to do and how.

Corporate Christmas gifts are always difficult to buy. And the reason is simple. Whilst you may know your clients in a business context you don’t always know what they would like as a gift, or even if they’d prefer just to pop out with you for a Christmas drink. Obviously the solution is to sound [...]

I tweeted about an interesting subject earlier today: Google Caffeine. Google Caffeine is an exercise by Google to improve search results. It’s actually gone live in one Google data centre and it’s going to be rolled out across the rest of us in due course. The important point is that this appears to be a [...]

Social media hype drips from the keyboard of many enthusiasts. Yes, it’s a way of developing a conversation, yes it’s a way of improving rapport and yes it’s possible to display your expertise. However, without making sales, or promoting sales the whole exercise with social media is pointless and a complete waste of time. Remember [...]

Manchester has an interesting funding arrangement at the moment. It’s called Creative Credits. Creative Credits aims to help Manchester SME businesses get creative input from other businesses registered on the Creative Credits gallery on their web site. The way it works is as follows: Creative Credits As A User Initially eligible users register on the [...]

Wonder who should be in a proposal team? Wonder no more!

When do we really start to recognise that Internet marketing is beginning to dominate the way we think about and do business? At the moment we’re in the same place as the American rail barons where just before the automobile, it’s cousin the lorry and airplanes took a lot of business from them. Strategic Mistake [...]

Your business, every business, faces issues at the moment because of the fear generated through the current economy. That fear has slowed demand and made some organisations delay orders to their suppliers and consumers put off their own purchases. We can all see it simply by watching the news every day. In fact now is [...]

Marketing myths get propagated around businesses. I’m going to pick on two and debunk them. If you want you can debunk your favourite marketing myths in the comments. "Referrals Are The Best Source Of Customers" It’s true that referrals are a great source of customers. And there’s no doubt that they are more loyal and [...]

I’ve lost count of the people who earnestly suggest that Digital Marketing is the saviour of a company in trouble, or is a complete must for every company, or a company will go the way of the dinosaur without it.. Digital marketing is a set of tools that are available to any company. How to [...]

Do desperate times mean that a business should pay more attention to their marketing? Let me look at a few marketing strategies/tactics that Jay Abraham usually incorporates in his marketing to answer that question. The Strategy of Preeminence Jay Abraham often speaks about the strategy of preeminence. In a nutshell it’s all about the following [...]

On the popular GrokDotCom they’ve commented on a piece of research that shows e-commerce is still too complicated. Not just for the over 65′s but for everyone pretty much equally. If it’s too complicated people will leave the site rather than confuse their brain cells further. So in the interests of improving web sites sales [...]

Rich Schefren has been announcing a great seminar that he and the world’s top marketing guru are running. Of course in my mind the only person who can have the accolade of Top Marketing Guru is Jay Abraham. His materials are the ones that started and propelled me further along the marketing path and have [...]

It seems like everywhere you go on the Internet now there’s video. The day when we watch the Internet rather than NBC or the BBC is getting closer. How does that translate into offline marketing? In fact it can translate quite nicely. Remember that the Internet is just another marketing channel. So everything you do [...]