Let’s take a look back at your favorite articles of 2018. Revisit your favorites and catch up on any you missed. See something worth sharing? Forward to a friend!

Strategic Planning: What to do When the Plan isn’t Clear

Strategy and strategy execution are essential to running a successful business.  Effective leaders can step in, assess a situation, and come up with a strategy for improvement or progress. What about in the times that it isn’t so obvious? How are you supposed to be a strategic planner when the plan isn’t clear?

Why Hire a Strategic Planning Consultant?

All companies, at one point or another, will get to a position where they are planning to make strategic changes that are going to impact the direction of their organization. Often times, senior leaders in an organization may be either lost on what avenue to take or may have significantly different views about what the strategic direction they should take is. Deciding on an approach to take and developing a plan and process for strategic change and management is essential. There are many times that hiring a strategic planning consultant is very beneficial to a company.

Good Managers Lose Bad Employees and Bad Managers Lose Good Employees

The people involved in an organization truly do ensure the success or failure of it. The effectiveness of its managers can make or break an organization. If you want to look at the effect that a manager is having, just look to see the culture of the company itself. How are people interacting? Which people are going and which people are staying? An effective way to measure how good, or bad, of a job a manager is doing is to take a look at who is leaving the company.

Why People Buy From You and How That Applies to Consultants

I had a meeting recently at a networking group that I’m a part of. This group, Synergy Business Connections, is a part of the Greater Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce. During this networking meeting, we heard a presentation given by Harriet Cohen of training solutions. The gist of this business training was to discover why people buy from you. What I discovered was a lot of great insight into the reasons that people buy and how that applies to consultants.

Never Get Too Comfortable in Business

It’s a good feeling when you have a great working relationship with those in your organization. Especially as a consultant, every new client is a litmus test. You never quite know what the culture is going to be when you walk in as an outside source. Fortunately, at times, you end up having a great working relationship with your client. As with any great relationship, you start to get comfortable. It’s a great feeling, but it’s also dangerous territory.

Minimum Viable Product: To Develop an MVP or not to Develop an MVP

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a software development technique.  This is where a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy the early adopters and early requirements. The final, complete set of features is then designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s initial users. Consider it as a product built with a minimum feature set. So, should we be developing the features that the customers are asking for as the minimal requirements? Should we just be doing the bare minimum or should we be going above and beyond to satisfy a larger audience?

Consulting: How to Find New Clients

As a consultant, you are working for yourself for the most part. The next client hardly ever just falls into your lap. A well-tuned marketing approach, a strong online presence, and a great network are all essential assets to securing new clients as a consultant. But, what about beyond marketing and networking? There are some new tools that are emerging for businesses who are looking to engage with other businesses. Lead-generation platforms can be a successful way to initiate new business as a consultant.

5 Twitter Lessons I Learned from Gary Vaynerchuk

As marketers, we are constantly looking for new ways to learn. The industry is in constant motion. New tech developments, fresh platforms, and an ever changing audience are just a few factors that can make maneuvering the world of online marketing more difficult.  Platforms like Twitter are a critical asset to marketers and businesses alike. While looking to improve our strategy, we decided to take a look at a few experts in the field that are completely owning it right now –this is how we started following Gary Vee.

CES 2018: Top Tech Predictions

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) continues to be one of the biggest technology shows in the world. CES 2018 is sure to deliver. This Las Vegas event kicks off and runs January 9th – January 12th. These will be four days jam packed with some of the biggest tech announcements and demonstrations available to the industry.  Companies like Sony, Samsung, LG, Google, and more will be hosted on keynote stages and in booths to showcase all the must-see tech of 2018. So, what are we predicting to be some of the most popular technologies this year?

The Ultimate Social Media Marketing Guide for Small Businesses

We’ve led the way in running successful social media marketing campaigns for countless clients over the years. It can be difficult to know where to start and which strategy is the right one for your business. It’s also imperative that you know the ins and outs of each social media network that will benefit your business. We’ve written an e-book to share our insider secrets and tips from years of experience.