How to construct a brief that sells.
Putting together a good brief is a foundation of successful business, whether it be a brief to a creative agency, engineering team, or outsourced service of some type, and irrespective of the platform to be used, a great brief plays a key role in achieving your goals....
12 things to think about when considering digital advertising
I am speaking to small businesses all the time, and there are a lot of common conversations that occur. One of the most common is about advertising, particularly as it relates to advertising with Facebook and Google. The conversations take a pretty common route. The...
Why many small businesses ignore marketing…until it is too late.
20 years of working with small businesses and it seems the attitudes to marketing have not changed much. Most recognise the change in the tools. They seek to engage with social media by being "on facebook" and "Liking" a few people, having a few Apps and sharing...
May 12 “crunch” time
A business that does not make money will not be around for long. While money is just the mechanism to count success, or failure, the lack of it is terminal in every case. Well, every case but one. Government. They just keep on putting it on the national credit card,...
6 stages in your sales process design
Everybody in business is in one way or another, in sales. After all, you do not make a living by giving stuff away, you actually have to sell it. It is also true that not everybody will want your stuff, in fact, usually very few will want it, so the challenge is to...
The single best sales tip I ever got.
Shut up!!. I have been spending a bit of time recently helping develop and implement strategy in a very interesting start-up with an innovative, and potentially extremely valuable piece of Intellectual Capital. Even after doing this stuff for so long, there is always...
A niche in the market, a market in the niche?
There may be a niche in the market, but is there a market in the niche? This question was posed to me many years ago as I pondered a new product business plan. There was pretty clearly a niche in the market that was not well inhabited by competitors, but I was asked:...
The 4 secrets of small business marketing
Albert Einstein would have made a great marketer. He made a number of statements that are highly applicable, but one that sticks in mind is: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, no simpler" Marketing is simple in concept, but becoming ever more...
The eleven things I see small business doing wrong in social media
Small businesses are all aware of the power of Social Media, usually want to play, and mostly get it wrong. Following are the 11 Mistakes I have most often seen over the last few years. This is despite facebook being around since 2004, Twitter since...
Does the mere promise of product provenance add value?
"True Aussie" meat products have been around for 12 months or so in export markets, and we are told of its great success, Japan is particularly pointed out, where "That True Aussie beef logo can be found on more than half of retail packs in Japan now, and...