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There's a new neat little site you might want to bookmark. One of the biggest small-business organizations has launched a new research portal that advocates and offers up support for today's SMB shops. The National Federation of Independent Business, whose mission is to promote and protect the right of businesses to operate and grow, just launc Read More

According to a study conducted by AT&T, fully one-fourth of small business owners don't bother to concern themselves with the security of their business's data. Chances are you and your organization do business with SMBs. Which means that it's your information that is being left unprotected. That should make you angry. The results are really st Read More

Web and green marketing are hot; Boomers are still the most important demo, though women, Gen X and Y, and Hispanics are catching up; and marketing basics are more important than ever, according to (pdf) a new survey of marketing executives conducted by Anderson Analytics. The survey focused on top marketing concepts, buzzwords, global areas of op Read More

A great summary of the latest in search engine optimization. For example, find out what Google thinks your website is about by using the Keyword Tool. Plus, it's not directly stated, but if you've got a web videos, host them on YouTube rather than use your own bandwidth. It's more likely you'll show up on the top of Google SERPs. Read More

There's a neat little knowledgebase, with substantial informative content, right at your fingertips and you likely don't even know it. The Insight24 directory, which aggregates business and technology webcasts, videos and podcasts, boasts over 5,000 content pieces provided by 160 companies. And we're not talking fluff and marketing spiels. The con Read More

It's every company's nightmare: a competitor enters your market with a similar product priced at a fraction of what you currently charge. You need a strategy for beating the low-ballers. So what's the best way to proceed? Read More

To pull ahead of your business competitors, you need to build a detailed profile of their strengths, weaknesses, and relationships with customers. With that information, you can compare the performance of your business with that of your main competitors, measuring factors that are important to quality of service, and use the comparison as the basi Read More

Why do budgets often bear little direct relation to a company's long-term strategic objectives? Because they don't take enough into consideration. A balanced scorecard augments traditional financial measures with benchmarks for performance in three key nonfinancial areas: 1. A company's relationship with its customers. 2. Its key internal proce Read More

Harvard professors Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed the balanced scorecard to help translate vision and strategy into action. This technique can make strategic planning a core part of any business. They showed that financial analysis, which is largely a look backward over past performance, isn't enough to guide long-term investment decisio Read More

Anyone who has worked with me over the past 25 years knows my mantra has always been: “Benefits, benefits, benefits.” Benefit headlines — benefit copy — benefit subheads — benefit captions — anything to hammer home the customer benefits. Benefits still are a vital key, but today, copywriting needs much more than just benefits. To sell the most, co Read More