The BUZZ Blog
The Buzz is a blog about small business marketing. Tools, tips, strategies and success stories. Subscribe and enhance your marketing position.
-
Why be a hermit?
I got a big surprise this morning. There I was having a conversation with someone who I know, like and respect, when it came up that he did not have an internet connection. In fact, he did not even have a computer in his home.Now this is not a poor, disadvantaged person from a third world country. T …
-
Your IT budget on a shoestring
Great post by Tania SamsonovaYou have recently started a business, but don’t have a huge budget for all things IT?Here are 17 free or inexpensive tools that will help you to establish your online presence and spread the word.1. Create a Facebook webpage for your business. (Not a group, though; only …
-
Why Does Electrasol Need a New Name?
If you've watched television at all in the past few months, you've likely seen the commercial for dishwashing soap, Electrasol, in which they show a lot of sparkling (plastic) diamonds and announce that "Finish is the new name for Electrasol."Huh? Does this mean that good ol' Electrasol, that's been …
-
Why People are NOT Your Most Important Asset
Michael J. Webb, president and founder of Sales Performance Consultants, is the author of Sales and Marketing the Six Sigma Way (Kaplan, 2006) We picked this post up from Jill Konrath - it's getting a lot of attention because it offers such a powerful perspective.B2B Sales executives oft …
-
The five best ways for professionals to get clients
C.J. Hayden is a Contributing Editor for RainToday.com. She is also the author of Get Clients Now! She recently had this great advice for all of us who are depending on the web to get all our new business without our direct involvement. But people either buy services from nationally recognized firms …
-
Stay angry. Stay hungry. Stay busy.
This post and the subsequent discussions showed up recently on BNETwith Stanley Bing March 18th, 2009 @ 8:40 amI just lost my job. I feel very angry and want to kill everybody. At the same time, I have to go out and look for a new job every day, put on a happy face, and act …
-
Don't be like Starbucks and lose sight of customers' brand ideals
Is there anyone who hasn't heard of Starbucks? Even if you – like more and more customers each day – buy your daily dose of caffeine from some other coffee purveyor, you've heard of the brand.Unfortunately for Starbucks, these days most of its awareness is based on ill-considered breakfast sandwiche …
-
Connect the dots—Use Your Web Site to Make Your Ads Work Harder.
Right now in Canada, almost 85% of the population uses the Internet and it’s safe to say this number will continue to expand. So why wouldn’t you use your web site to support the advertising you do in all other media? You do have a web site, right?Here’s the scoop: If you read our article last week …
-
Your Local Market—It's Where You Live!
In these days of virtual contact anywhere in the world via web commerce, it's easy to forget where we actually live. Yes, I know you're probably saying, "What, are you nuts? I know where I live!" But think of this: with everyone trying to extend the reach of their business beyond the horizon they ca …
-
Virgin: the world's best passenger complaint letter?
This is stunningly funny, and just perfect for a Monday. Thanks to The Telegraph newspaper in the UK for uploading it.( Click to see the images taken with a mobile phone on the flight) Here we reproduce a complaint letter sent to Sir Richard Branson, which is currently being emailed globally and is …
-
Employees on the Telephone. Are You Kidding Me?
OK, brace yourself, this is a RANT! Every now and then, something happens in a business situation that just makes me crazy. Sometimes it's the simplest thing—something that is so basic you would never even give it a thought if you were a business owner, yet it can affect the business in a profound w …
-
The Creative Office — An Environmental Issue
Last week I had the opportunity to visit a "creative shop" in another city. I had heard that Glue Strategic Solutions, (http://www.fixesthatstick.com), had an unusual office but I was still very surprised when I walked in and actually saw it!I should tell you that this office is not in a trendy loft …
-
Where to Advertise — Does your message really belong there?
I was driving down the street the other day when I noticed a bus stop bench with a sign attached with the words "Your message here" on it. To be exact, it actually said, "Your message h" because there was a young woman sitting on the bench (waiting for a bus I would guess, not deliberatly trying to …
-
Using Twitter for Business
Twitter has moved out of the curious trend category to something you've got to understand, use, and teach everyone in your organization to use.Maybe the siren call of Twitter (everybody’s doing it) has become too much and you’ve jumped in. Or, maybe you have no clue what it is or why you would care. …
-
Are You Kidding Me?
OK, brace yourself, this is a RANT! Every now and then, something happens in a business situation that just makes me crazy. Sometimes it's the simplest thing—something that is so basic you would never even give it a thought if you were a business owner, yet it can affect the business in a profound w …
-
A great service story about Wilson Collision
We hope you know by now that we are rabid supporters of Make A Referral Week, March 9 - 13. Which gives us a chance to rant a bit about customer service and how it helps or hinders your ability to get referrals.Last week someone backed out of his driveway and hit Liz's car. Here's the story.What a …
-
Top 5 Lies That Marketing Tells Sales
We loved this post by Geoffrey James so much, and it not surprisingly generated such a lot of response, that we are quoting it here. See the whole thing and follow the debate here. In our previous lives in large multinational ad agencies, we often got in the middle of the sales-versus-marketing sc …
-
An Environmental Issue
Last week I had the opportunity to visit a "creative shop" in another city. I had heard that they had an unusual office but I was still very surprised when I walked in and actually saw it! I should tell you that this office is not in a trendy loft space in a cool urban renewal area — it's in a recen …
-
Small business takes matters into their own hands with Make a Referral Week, March 9-13, 2009.
We are part of the network that is putting on Make a Referral Week. It's an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time.The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses and highlight the impact of a sim …
-
Does your message really belong here?
I was driving down the street the other day when I noticed a bus stop bench with a sign attached with the words "Your message here" on it. To be exact, it actually said, "Your message h" because there was a young woman sitting on the bench (waiting for a bus I would guess, not deliberatly trying to …
The BUZZ Blog
