It’s that time of year where many small business owners begin to scramble to create a marketing plan for the new year. To shortcut the process, here are some last minute tips that will help you plan your marketing and avoid the ad hoc mistakes that many fall into when they don’t plan. Analyze what happened [...] → Read more

I get a lot of calls this time of year to help business owners develop their marketing plan. But one common theme is beginning to stand out as I speak with more and more business owners - they don’t have a vision for their company and they haven’t determined their short term business goals. To [...] → Read more

In the post Five Key Parts to the Marketing Plan, the first thing you need to do before all else is to identify your ideal customer. It seems that most business owners don’t want to do this for fear of “leaving money on the table”. Being a generalist business that tries to satisfy a broad [...] → Read more

Register for a free workshop I am giving at the Enterprise Center at Salem State College (Massachusetts) on July 24th. The workshop is Marketing Basics for Business Growth. If your marketing activities aren’t producing results, you may be spending your resources on inappropriate activities. Identifying your ideal customer and reaching them with the right marketing activities [...] → Read more

Small businesses seem afraid to write a marketing plan. Not sure if it is because the owner feels the business doesn’t need one or whether it’s because they don’t know how. A small business benefits from a marketing plan as much as a big business, and maybe even more. Defining how you will attract and retain [...] → Read more