Business Blogs: Trends, tips, and real-life anecdotes from industry experts.

From the outside, Girl Scouts may look like most other kids. But when it comes to marketing and sales; these girls rock. Small business owners can learn a lot about marketing from those little girls in green.

I know you may find this surprising since I am always chatting about connecting on the Internet, but I am a big believer in face-to-face networking.  In fact, if you spend all your time being social on social media, it is my belief that you will get nowhere fast.  The main idea behind using social [...]

We asked 29 business owners the following question: “If you would have known then what you know now, what would you have done differently and why?” Their answers are not only insightful, but inspiring. Find out what they have to say…

Today I was interviewed for a local magazine that happened through someone reaching out to me.  I did not pitch this reporter, but rather he found me and thought that I would provide an interesting twist on his topic. He went out on a leap and emailed me.  This got me thinking back to yesterday [...]

It is common practice to set New Year’s resolutions in our personal lives, but how often do we do it for our business? Here are 28 Small Business Marketing Resolutions for the New Year that will inspire you to write your own.

Recently I asked small business owners to share the “one marketing thing” that has made the most difference for their business. I received some fantastic responses that range from practical to creative. Here are 31 of the best marketing “things” that have generated the most customers and leads for these businesses.

Since I’m new here, I’ll introduce myself and give you a brief discription of what we’ll be talking about.
I’ve been working with the creators of StartUpNation since 2001 when I was hired to shoot Rich Sloan doing yoga on the conference room table in the Birmingham Michigan office of the up and coming StartUpNation.  I [...]

Back in April, I posted an article which addressed the growing trend of “micro-shows”.  Many of the largest tradeshows in the land were adding destinations within the larger tradeshow…these “micro-shows” are devoted entirely to independent inventors and their unique products.  Two examples of these micro-shows are:

National Hardware Show’s “Inventor Spotlight”

International Home and Houseware Show’s “Inventor’s [...]

Many business owners say that their sales slow down in the summer for various reasons. But just because it’s summer doesn’t mean it has to be slow for your business. Here are 9 summer marketing ideas that will help keep your business sizzling all summer long.

Similar to our efforts on Twitter to claim the www.twitter.com/startupnation account name, we have now achieved something similar for www.facebook.com/startupnation.
As I wrote a while ago here in my blog about the Twitter squatter who was trying to extort StartupNation, there are definitely systems in place at the social media companies that support ethical companies and [...]