The 30-Minute Recipe for B2B Revenue Growth

It is usually not easy to decide to do either project A or project B because we cannot accurately measure the return on investment (ROI) on dollars spent or the return on effort (ROE) on time spent. You don’t have to do everything, but you do have to do something. Action almost always trumps inaction and there are things that you can do in 30 minutes or less to add value and create positive momentum.

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Are You a Clone Business?

How to Transform your Clone Business and Stand Out

Every day, entrepreneurs invest huge amounts of time and money to build a business that they think will be better than the competition. However, all too often entrepreneurs struggle to articulate how their value proposition is fundamentally different from their competition.  These businesses are what I call clone businesses. 

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The Simple Truth Why Business Plans Cause Business Failures

Conventional business advice is that in order to have a successful business you need to write a business plan. However, did you know that the simple act of writing a business plan can often lead your business to fail?

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How to Define Your Content Marketing Goals to Pay Dividends

How to Define Your Content Marketing Goals to Pay Dividends

When it comes to content marketing there are three primary goals, search engine optimization, customer retention, and authority. In this post, we explore the three content marketing goals as well as review the content marketing strategy types so you can develop a solid content marketing strategy that will pay dividends for your business.

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How to Crush The Competition With 3 Content Marketing Strategies

How to Crush The Competition With 3 Content Marketing Strategies

When it comes to content marketing there are three broad content marketing strategy types you may want to consider; inbound, addictive, and tentpole. In this post, we explore the three content marketing strategy types so you can understand how to apply them in your business.

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5 More Helpful Content Marketing Ideas to Attract New Customers

5 More Helpful Content Marketing Ideas to Attract New Customers

At its core, content marketing is the creation and distributing of online material that will attract the attention of a prospect. By design, content marketing exists to help the prospect come to know, like and trust you. Once they trust you, they may come to buy from you but not before. This post looks at five more forms of content marketing.

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5 Helpful Content Marketing Ideas to Attract New Customers

5 Helpful Content Marketing Ideas to Attract New Customers

Many new businesses are starting to find content marketing indispensable. At its core, content marketing is the creation and distributing of online material that will attract the attention of a prospect. This post looks at five popular forms of content marketing.

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Your Brand Promise – Why You Need a Big Idea!

Your Brand Promise – Why You Need a Big Idea!

Some marketers and business owners believe that the strength of their product or service is what determines success. While this is no doubt true in a few rare cases, most often, even a great product or service has to be marketed properly to succeed. And the best marketing is centered around what we call a BIG IDEA.

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Confused about content marketing? Here is what you need to know.

Confused About Content Marketing? Here Is What You Need to Know

Many new businesses find content marketing strategy indispensable. At its core, content marketing is the creation and distributing of online material that will attract the attention of a prospect. By design content marketing exists to help the prospect come to know, like and trust you. Once the prospects trust you, they may come to buy from you but not before. Sounds simple but the devil lies in the details.

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10 Quick Fixes to Make Your Website Marketing More Effective

10 Quick Fixes to Make Your Website Marketing More Effective

Most companies utilize website marketing as part of their lead-to-revenue (L2R) process. Whether you use your website for creating awareness, educating prospects, generating leads or selling directly you need to maximize its efficiency and effectiveness.

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6 More Powerful Marketing Channels That Rent You Access to Prospects

6 More Powerful Marketing Channels That Rent You Access to Prospects

When it comes to marketing channels there are 12 channels which can rent you access to their audience for a fee. These 12 marketing channels attract a particular demographic based on their content and will rent you access to their customers for a fee. Previously we discussed the first six channels.

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Billboard

6 Powerful Marketing Channels That Rent You Access to Prospects

When it comes to marketing channels there are 12 channels which can rent you access to their audience for a fee. These 12 marketing channels attract a particular demographic based on their content and will rent you access to their customers for a fee.

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9 Marketing Channels to Attract Prospects to Your Brand

9 Marketing Channels to Find Contacts You Attract to Your Brand

When it comes marketing channels designed to attract prospects to your brand, there are nine primary channels. These nine marketing channels rely on the type of content prospects will find via some form of search. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), therefore, is essential to create the kind of gravity to attract people to your business.

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6 Reasons Why You Need to Use Social Media Marketing

6 Reasons Why You Need to Use Social Media Marketing

No matter where you turn social media is making an impact on small business marketing. While social media is not the “be all end all” of marketing efforts it does have some significant advantages over more traditional marketing. This post looks at six reasons you need to consider social media marketing for your business.

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Luxury Tech

A Relieving Look at How the Definition of Luxury has Changed

The attributes that consumers have always associated with luxury items have changed in the last few years. The terms that business owners use to convey their value proposition also needs to change lest they miss out on this trend. In this post, I share a personal experience that has galvanized this lesson in my own thoughts.

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Epic Tax Code Changes to Increase Interest in Entrepreneurship

Epic Tax Code Changes to Increase Interest in Entrepreneurship

The changing landscape of the US tax code continues to create tailwinds for the business owner. Today, when it comes to earned income, the amount you make may matter less as compared to how you make it giving rise to more small businesses. With the massive surge toward small business ownership will be an increased need for qualified small business knowledge.

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How to Apply the Rule of Three to Improve Your Communications

How to Apply the Rule of Three to Improve Your Communications

The human brain has limitations. Chunking of information is a life hack that allows us to overcome some of these limitations and is ubiquitous in storytelling forever and for a good reason. By incorporating chucking into your communication, you will improve your ability that the other party remembers your message.

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Thought-Leadership

How to Get Prospects to Read and Engage with Your Marketing Content

There are three questions you and your company need to ask to be a successful content marketing practitioner.
1, How do we get people to read our marketing content? 2, How do we get people to engage with our company? 3, How do we measure results and get better over time?

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Business Failure is less when you help others

The 1 Simple Thing That Contributes to Most Business Failure

One thing contributes to more business failure. If the reason you want to start a business is you want the flexibility to work when or where you want, to become rich, or because you just want to be your own boss, you have a higher likelihood of failure. You are more likely to fail because your reasons for starting a business are self-centered and not externally focused.

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Use Content Marketing to Establish B2B Thought Leadership

Use Content Marketing to Establish Thought Leadership

There are 3 essential questions about content marketing that need to be answered to determine your go vs. no-go content marketing strategy: 1, Can we be industry thought leaders? see the benefits of being a thought leader/branded authority but aren’t sure how to get there. 2, If so, what do we talk about? 3, Can we create enough quality content?

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PULL Marketing vs. PUSH Marketing – The Shifting Battleground

PULL Marketing vs. PUSH Marketing – The Shifting Battleground

When you are deciding how much of time and financial resources to allocate between push and pull marketing strategies, keep in mind that the battleground has shifted and the prospect is the one who holds the high ground. Rather than fight this reality, just accept who has the real control and find the best ways to help people buy in the way they want to buy, instead of the way you want to sell to them.

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How to Drive Growth by Correctly Targeting Traffic

How to Drive Growth by Correctly Targeting Web Traffic

Naively many entrepreneurs think all traffic is the same. They use advertising to get in front of a prospect and then ask for the sale before they have even had the opportunity to build a rapport. It is important to understand that not all traffic is created equal and that the goal should not be to get the sale up front but to convert all traffic to owned traffic where you can control when and what message they see.

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8 Essential B2B Marketing Questions: Ignore these at your peril

8 Essential B2B Marketing Questions: Ignore these at your peril

Asking the right questions is crucial to your ability to optimize or turnaround your B2B marketing and sales operations. But even if things are going well, it is a good idea to periodically test your assumptions. Competitors are not standing idle and technologies, channels and customer needs are constantly shifting. Here are eight important questions to get you started:

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A Revealing Behind-the-Scenes Look at Product Attractiveness

A Revealing Behind-the-Scenes Look at Product Attractiveness

In a quest to discover what contributes to product attractiveness, I uncovered the power of belonging vs. standing out. What I discovered was that more affluent people like to buy products that help them stand out in a crowd. By contrast, the working class tends to prefer mass-produced products that are associated with an in-crowd they aspire to be like.

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Critical Formation Errors that Will Destroy Your Business

Critical Formation Errors that Will Destroy Your Business

There are a number of common mistakes many founders make that can destroy everything they worked so hard to achieve. Most occur when there is some business success. Some mistakes are made out of ignorance during the initial filing process with the Secretary of State and others are the result of failing to finish the process.

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How to Pay a Shareholder of an S-Corp

How to Pay a Shareholder of an S-Corp

When you are just an investor in an S-Corp, ostensibly you do not work for the business and you do not participate in its management as an officer. You are therefore considered limited in your liability and your income from the business based on your ownership share of the business is usually considered passive income.

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Super Simple Way to Test Your Business Model

Super Simple Way to Test Your Business Model

Businesses all too often commit resources to developing a product or service based on the verbal feedback they received from some potential customers. This is no way to test your assumptions that people will exchange hard earned money for what you are selling! Employing a simple 3-page website can ultimately help you determine if customers are willing to exchange money for your offering.

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An Unbelievably Simple and Overlooked Strategy to Crush Your Market

An Unbelievably Simple and Overlooked Strategy to Crush Your Market

There are 2 kinds of customers out there: Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-For-Me customers. Most businesses only consider the same type of customers others in their industry are already targeting. Targeting the same customer with similar solutions leads to less opportunity for growth and tighter margins. Few businesses see the potential to offer an alternative solution.

An Unbelievably Simple and Overlooked Strategy to Crush Your Market Read More »

How to Pay a Non-Partner General Manager of Limited Partnership

How to Pay a Non-Partner General Manager of Limited Partnership

In some cases, all the partners of a limited partnership may be investors only and not managers. The partnership may hire an outside general manager (employee) to make the day-to-day decisions, and therefore, acts as the manager. In this case, the general manager is an employee of the business, but since they are not a partner (aka owner), their income is just like that of an employee in any business.

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General Partner

How to Get Paid as a General Partner of Limited Partnership

A partner in a limited partnership that is a decision-maker (general partner) is considered an employee of the business by the IRS and is treated differently than limited partners. Income for general partners is considered earned income and is subject to additional taxes but also to additional potential tax deductions. Moreover, as a general partner, you are exposed to additional liabilities.

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Credability

When It Comes to B2B Marketing, Should you be Credible or Incredible?

Should you be Credible or Incredible? Lets’ face it, it is a free market where you can say anything you want about your product or service, true or untrue. Making incredible claims can snag you some customers, but today “Trust” is a business’s most valuable commodity. Here are six strategies to build and keep trust and credibility:

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Non-member general manager

How to Pay a Non-Member General Manager of a Multi-Member LLC

In some cases, all the members of an LLC may be investors only and not managers. The business may hire an outside general manager (employee) to make the day-to-day decisions, and therefore, acts as the manager. In this case, the general manager is an employee of the business, but since they are not a member (aka owner), their income is just like that of an employee in any business.

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Non Manager Member

How to Pay a Non-Manager Member of a Multi-Member LLC

When you have an investor in your LLC, who works less than 500 hours in a given tax year for the LLC, and they do not participate in its management, they are considered limited in their liability and their income is usually considered passive income subjecting the income to only federal and state income taxes based on their marginal tax rate.

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Get Paid Limited Liability Company LLC

How to Get Paid in a Multi-Member LLC

A member in an LLC that is a decision-maker (manager) is considered an employee of the business by the IRS and is treated differently than non-manager members. Income for managers is considered earned income and is subject to additional taxes but also to additional potential tax deductions. Moreover, as a manager, you are exposed to additional liabilities.

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Get Paid as Sole Proprietor or single member LLC

How to Get Paid as an Owner of a Sole Proprietor or Single-Member LLC

As a sole proprietor or as a single-member LLC you are the only owner, and as a result, you do not take a salary or a wage from a business. Instead, you can simply take out excess cash from the business, which is known as an owner draw, to pay yourself.

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Pass Through Entities

How to Get Paid as an Owner of a Pass-Through Entity

How you pay yourself as an owner depends on the type of entity you are and how many owners there are. This post lays the groundwork and defines a few terms that should help demystify how entities pay the owners of the business.

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Franchise Price tag

So Why Does a Franchise Cost So Much Anyway?

A franchise investment isn’t as high as most people think, especially when you put the investment cost into context and compare it with starting a business from scratch. There are eight factors that determine a franchise’s investment costs.

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Watch the Leader and Profit by Capitalizing on Their Mistakes

Watch the Leader and Profit by Capitalizing on Their Business Mistakes

It is often far better to see what the market leader is doing and just be a little different in your value proposition. Being the first to market means you will make lots of costly mistakes that your competitors can learn from and then capitalize on at your expense. Keurig and Xerox were not the first movers but today they dominated their markets by capitalizing on the dominant players mistakes..

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Serial Entrepreneur or Serial Starter? – That is the Question

Serial Entrepreneur or Serial Starter? – That is the Question

I believe there is a difference between taking advice from a serial starter vs a serial entrepreneur. A serial starter has played the game of business but not yet won. While a serial entrepreneurs in my definition, has not only played the game, but has also won the game by reaching either a natural conclusion to the business or achieved a profitable exit.

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VIDEO: A Free Alternative to Costly Influencer Marketing

VIDEO: A Free Alternative to Costly Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is where you get a famous person with an established audience to endorse your product or service. Right now Influencer marketing is all the rage when it comes to marketing a business. However, getting an influencer to endorse your brand is costly. In this video, learn that there is an alternative to Influencer Marketing that is FREE.

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Be Unpredictable to Drive the Competition Crazy and Make Huge Profits

Be Unpredictable to Drive the Competition Crazy and Make Huge Profits

When assessing one’s business competition, we often look at their strengths and weaknesses and attempt to predict how they will respond to various situations. Based on this information, we design a plan to deal with the competition. Yet, what happens when the competition acts in unpredictable ways? Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was one of Germany’s

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Is Social Media Really a Better Marketing Strategy than Email Messaging?

Is Social Media Really a Better Marketing Strategy than Email Marketing?

Some recent research has caused me to completely rethink my marketing strategy. For years, I have heard that email marketing has a greater Return On Investment (ROI) than social media marketing. However, with my social media fans measured in the thousands and my email subscribers measured in the hundreds, I was sure that trying to

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How to Make the Most of Equity Financing

How to Make the Most of Equity Financing

Basically, there are two ways to fund a new business: debt and equity. Debt, commonly thought of as a loan, requires that the borrower/guarantor has an adequate cash flow or has enough unencumbered liquid assets to pledge as collateral. This collateral covers the debt’s principle and any liquidation costs and discounts in the event that

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The Big Difference Solution-Selling Can Make

The Big Difference Solution-Selling Can Make

At first glance, the difference between selling a product or service and selling a solution may not be very apparent. After all, aren’t all products and services created to provide a solution to solve a customer’s problems? Most businesses create a product or service that is a “one size fits all” solution. Rather than designing

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VIDEO: The Real Reason for Registering an Entity

VIDEO: The Real Reason for Registering an Entity

Most people associate registering their business with the Secretary of State as the proper way to secure their unique business name.  While this reason is partially true, it is not the real reason a business needs to register their entity with the Secretary of State. In this short video, we discussed the real reasons why

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Focus on Success

Seven Things You Can Do (or Not Do) to Increase Marketing Success

Guest post by: Christopher Ryan CEO or Fusion Marketing Partners and Center for Business Modeling. Chris is a SCORE colleague and a marketing and sales maven. We are super fans of each other’s work.  The following post was published by Chris on his blog in April of 2017 and is chock full of valuable advice.  

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Franchise

Are You Working with an Ethical Franchise Consultant?

In any industry, you will find good, and not-so-good businesses and business associates. The same is true in the franchise consulting industry. Franchise consultants play an important role in the franchise industry. They can be a sturdy bridge between individuals seeking franchisees to invest in, and the franchisors who are seeking good franchisee candidates.

Are You Working with an Ethical Franchise Consultant? Read More »

Loan

What You Think You Know about Credit Is Just Wrong

There is a huge difference between consumer credit and business credit. Consumer credit funds consumptions while business credit is known as “leverage” and is applied to the purchase of an income-producing asset. As individuals, consumer credit is generally a method we use to obtain what we desire sooner than if we were forced to save

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Hunting Blind

An Amazingly Simple, No Bullshit, 2-Pronged Marketing Strategy

Putting together a solid hunting plan to hunt pronghorn antelope has a lot of similarities to putting together a solid marketing plan for your product or service. As any regular reader of my blog or someone who knows me personally would know, I’m obsessed with archery hunting for pronghorn antelope. As anyone who is familiar

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New Rules of Marketing and Sales

New Rules of Marketing and Sales

When it comes to marketing and sales, the internet changed everything. The changes caused by the internet, and its offspring social media, have not caused an evolutionary step in the way businesses go about marketing and sales but caused a revolutionary step. The internet and social media have caused businesses to re-think their old marketing

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The Feeble Role of Government to Stimulate Small Business

The Feeble Role of Government to Stimulate Small Business

while the government may understand the importance of small business in the overall economy, its definition often differs from the way most entrepreneurs may define them. As a result, the methods in which the government can inject money are primarily limited to guaranteeing loans and creating projects for a narrow slice of the business community.

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