Which would you rather be in your business: Efficient or Effective? If you're like most people, your gut-level response is BOTH of course! And you can be. But.... have you ever stopped to think which one needs to come first? Steven Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People said:

It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at efficiently climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy - very busy - with being very effective"

This is especially true when it comes to marketing. When your busy working on your business most people often make the mistake of "doing something, even if it's wrong", mistaking activity for effectiveness. It's easy to do in the real-time world of social media where everyone is looking for instant gratification in the technology world we live in. They get busy placing adds, buying lead lists, building a web presence, sending out mailers, attending networking events, creating brochures, and so forth. In other words, they get busy doing something and in this blog I'm going to talk about how to be efficient and effective while using both strategic and tactical marketing to your advantage so read on and enjoy!

It’s a feeling of heaviness deep within you.  You try to ignore it, but you can’t.  Dread and discouragement gradually seep into your thoughts.  Fear and apprehension soon follows, until you are completely paralzyed to take action, and your defeated before you even try.

I feel just like this when I start a new project or tackle something that I've been trying to accomplish.

It makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry.  I feel lost and alone and my heart races and I my mind starts wandering and thinking about everything I percieve will happen and I feel like I want to give up.  I want to fall on my bed and bury my face in a pillow.  But that doesn’t work, because the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach doesn't allow me to sleep.

Fear is terribly painful on so many levels. so in this blog I'm going to talk about how I approach my fears and want to personally challenge you to do the same, so read on and enjoy!

In my last business post (Shh...I have a secret 27 Jul 2015) I talked about the first secret to building a solid customer service plan and how to decide what your vision is. 

In today's blog I'm going to talk about the second secret to turn your satisfied customers to raving fans. You must know what your customers want. Know who your customers are and you will know better how to serve them. Demographics are really important here. An upper-class woman in her 30’s is going to have completely different expectations than a working class man in his 50’s.  So read on and enjoy!