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Focus on Customer Excellence, Sustainability, and Quality and mean it! Over the last decade retailers like Wal-Mart have evaporated margins, chased away U.S. manufacturing and brainwashed the consumer to believe that cheap is good regardless of quality or service. Read More

Do you know the number one reason people leave their jobs? It's not because of money or the company dress policy. It's not because they did not get the corner office or because they were passed over for that much-deserved promotion. Read More

Great article for sellers of products online that discusses very practical tips for increasing conversions from online shoppers. These are good tips for any ecommerce store. Read More

A review of social media in different regions of the world as many businesses look at how to use social media within an international marketing campaign. Read More

Short article highlighting the issue of business owners trying to do everything themselves in the mistaken belief that they are saving their business money in doing so, and then exploring why this is the case, and what they can do to rectify the situation. Read More

In this post, I'll offer 10 suggestions for how small businesses can supercharge their marketing efforts by leveraging social media. For each suggestion, I will discuss a basic strategy — for those who simply want to get their toes wet, as well as an advanced strategy — for those who want to spend a bit more time and go a bit deeper in their socia Read More

It may be easy to forget in an age of blogging and social media, but e-mail remains an effective way to market online and to grow a small business or startup franchise with limited resources. Gail Goodman makes some suggestions in this article from Entrepreneur.com posted in the Microsoft Small Business Center. Gail points to the key aspects of gr Read More

Though opportunities exist for outsourcing many functions in small to medium sized businesses to China, especially manufacturing, care must still be taken n exploring these options. In an article for Small Business Review, writer Gary M. Stern suggests careful investigation to avoid unscrupulous suppliers and careful research to be sure your busin Read More

I wasn't sure what to talk about at Startup School, so I decided to ask the founders of the startups we'd funded. So I sent all the founders an email asking what surprised them about starting a startup. I got over 100 other responses listing the surprises they encountered. There were very clear patterns in the responses; it was remarkable how of Read More

If you're not getting the response you think you should be getting, look at the offer first. The strategic process in old-fashioned Direct Marketing is matching up the right list with the right offer— segmenting the list into micro-segments (or “splits”), and tailoring specialized offers to make the offer more relevant. Read More