By: Michael Fleischner

There have been times when my marketing colleagues sit in a room and discuss current customers who have subscribed to a service - wondering how to get them to renew. Unfortunately, this is the wrong conversation to have. The conversation should be about marketing activities that begin from the moment a sales is made.

The best time to renew a client is from the first day after a sale. You need to provide evidence of value to your existing customers from day one... not just day's before their service expires. Do you have products or services that must be renewed on a regular basis?

[Read Full]

By: Susan Burnash

As a Marketing consultant, I am often surprised by how few businesses actually utilize or understand the effectiveness of email newsletters (e-newsletters.) Done well, they keep you connected to customers and potential clients, help you establish and reinforce your organization's brand, and provide an ongoing touchpoint for driving repeat business, new sales, event attendance, donations, and more. But creating an effective e-newsletter and email campaign is a process and a formula.

I'd like to share with you some of the essential ingredients needed to ensure your e-newsletter is a marketing success.

[Read Full]

By: David Gruttadaurio

According to the Harvard Business Review, 91% of small businesses do absolutely nothing to retain their existing clients. That means only 9% of small business owners 'get' these facts:

- The average American business loses 50% of its customer base every 5 years.

- An existing customer spends an average of 67% more than new customers.

- It costs 7 to 9 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an old one. Mailing a monthly newsletter can eliminate all of these problems -- if you do it correctly.

A successful newsletter doesn't just 'happen'. It's composed of very specific elements. Without them, you might as well be sending your clients a comic book.

7 Elements Your Newsletter Must Have If You Want to Retain More Clients

[Read Full]

No matter how hard some people try to mystify SEO, it is not as complicated as many would lead you to believe. Despite all the techno jargon that many in the field will throw at you: SERPs, SEM, PageRank, Keyword Density, Vertical Search, Algorithms.. SEO is really simple to do if you understand some basic concepts and follow some easy steps.

Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the list.

Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time.

[Read Full]

By: Michael Montague

What is your goal for your website? When it comes to business websites, a return on investment expected. To get any kind of return, your site needs to have a goal to which all actions will be compared.

Do you want your website to inform, share news and information, communicate with different locations, entertain, or make a profit by selling information, services, or products? Imagine that you can have only one action on the website. What would it be? That's your website goal. Beyond this, only you can define what exactly you want other people to do on your website.

From this goal, you can research and develop your audience, keywords, site structure, site design, content, and promotion for your website. Ask yourself:

[Read Full]

By F. John Reh

We all get complacent sometimes. We have comfort zones. We do the things we enjoy, that feel good, that come easily. That's why many people surround themselves with people who agree with them, think like them, and support them.

Many mangers, and many companies, fail because they rely too heavily on the people like them and screen out those who disagree with them. One of the key management failure is curbing dissent.

[Read Full]

By F. John Reh

Most businesses are going through a rough period. The worldwide economy has been in a depression or a recession, depending on whom you ask, for many months. The recovery will come. For some businesses, the question is whether the recovery will come soon enough.

Do I have enough coming in or can I cut down on what's going out to keep the business going a little longer? Can I find ways to bring in more money? How can I reduce expenditures even more? If I do these things, how much longer can I keep the business afloat? Will that be long enough? How many months away is the recovery? The calculation is the same for the largest corporation as for the smallest individual shop owner. Some items may be more complex for the large corporation, requiring several accountants to track, but small shop owners use the same basic formula.

[Read Full]

By F. John Reh

We all get complacent sometimes. We have comfort zones. We do the things we enjoy, that feel good, that come easily. That's why many people surround themselves with people who agree with them, think like them, and support them. The CEO of a large company does not have that luxury.

In return for the outlandish compensation being heaped on them by the shareholders, the CEO must immerse himself or herself in the uncomfortable, the unfamiliar, the different opinion. Only in that way can they keep the company strong and growing. Only then can they earn what they are being paid. Only then can they, and their shareholders, avoid a debacle like Enron.

[Read Full]

By F. John Reh

You've been fired.

You almost never hear that any more. Now it's usually a euphemism. We're downsizing. Your position was made redundant. We need to adjust our staffing level to current market factors. You probably know several others.

Whatever it's called, losing your job is usually a painful experience. It can be a little less painful if you know it's coming and you have a chance to prepare. Like other major life changes, there often are subtle warning signs that you can see it you just look.

A lot like getting dumped

If you have ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend dump you, you know the feeling. Here again we use euphemisms. "Growing in different directions". "Need my own space". "Not ready to get tied down". These are clues your relationship is in trouble. The signs that your job is in trouble are equally visible.

[Read Full]

By F. John Reh

Every year we go through the same budget cycle. Every year we have the same frustrations. And every year we end up with a budget that doesn't make sense. There is a better way.

The Usual Way

• Get the preliminary materials from the Finance Department with the necessary forms to complete and submit
• Complain that the forms really don't fit our department well, but we complete them and submit them, usually on time
• Wait while Finance does some magic and the budget comes back with a note from above to cut it by some unreachable number

  [Read Full]

By Deborah Walker

We've all heard stories of job candidates who looked great on paper but who were absolute disasters in person. With fewer and fewer interview opportunities available in this competitive market, it's essential to make the best possible first impression. You can learn from the mistakes of others and avoid the top 10 worst interview blunders.

Poor handshake: The three-second handshake that starts the interview is your first opportunity to create a great impression. But all too often an interview is blown right from the start by an ineffective handshake. Once you've delivered a poor handshake, it's nearly impossible to recover your efforts to build rapport. Here are some examples:

[Read Full]

By Joe Turner

Here's the scenario:

You're about to have a phone screen or even a face-to-face interview.

Problem… 

(Pick one)

• You've been out of work a long time, (a gap in your work history).
• You were terminated (fired) from your last job ( or any job).
• You had a worker's comp claim filed.
• Your skill level in a particular area may be a little weak.
• You have a criminal record, a misdemeanor or even a felony conviction.
• You have some other skeleton in the closet that the employer will find out about and you just know that this vulnerability will become an issue.

How do you address this vulnerability?

[Read Full]

By Kathryn Lee Bazan

Great! You've had the interview and now you wait anxiously by the phone. A cat watching a gopher hole, waiting for the little beast to pop its hairy head out any moment now could not be as anticipatory as you are. So what do you do to forestall driving yourself and your loved ones nuts during this time? Well, let's back up a second to you at your interview.

When I was a career counselor with Snelling & Snelling, I told my clients to make sure that they asked the person interviewing them a very key question toward the end of the interview -- and to ask the question whether or not they thought they'd take the job if it were offered. The question can be phrased several different ways:

[Read Full]

By Deborah Walker

Most job-seekers wait to polish up their interview skills until they are looking for a new position. Important interview opportunities, however, can present themselves at any time. For example,

[Read Full]

By Jeanne Knight

Behavioral interviewing is an interviewing technique created in the 1970s by industrial psychologists that has become quite popular with employers. The premise behind behavioral interviewing is that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation. For those unfamiliar with this interviewing style, a behavioral interview can be a challenging experience.

[Read Full]