A recent post on the Viral Garden got me wondering how many small business people finally understanding how to blog for business and connect with customers through Facebook and twitter are hearing us dismiss blogging, and diagnose social media as terminal and thinking they’ve missed the boat. I’m here to tell you, Mr. and Ms. Small Business, the ship is just coming into sight for you. Stay focused on your goals and strategy, and spend time delivering value and encouraging communication with your customers. If it’s working (don’t waste...

I had some great professors in college, although even the best of them made me want to fashion voodoo dolls from old leg warmers (hey, it was the 80s) and spend afternoons slashing their little voodoo term papers with a thick red pen. One I remember quite vividly is my freshman English Lit. professor. I had spent tons of time on a paper that was returned to me with a pulsating “C” on it. “What gives?!” I thought and marched up to her desk, requesting an explanation for why she panned my 18-year-old brilliance. “This is nothing...

Last fall I read a WSJ article about “Mystery Worshippers.” These professionals are like mystery shoppers only instead of rating customer service and inventory they rate things like pew orderliness and the length and strength of the sermon. I can’t get this article off my mind because it means that people are shopping around for their churches. And if they’re shopping around for church – unimaginable when I was a kid – what does that mean for businesses? More than ever before, people are expecting and demanding exactly...

Every time I get involved in a discussion about social media and how they fit in the marketing/PR puzzle, talk turns to rules. “How many people should I follow on twitter?” “How much is too much self-promotion?” “How many times a week should I blog?” “What percent of my tweets can be personal/off topic?” My answer is always the same: I don’t know. Sure, I can make suggestions, but only after asking a lot more questions. If anyone tells you she has definitive answers, especially without spending some time...

So the word on the street is that 2009 is the “year of small business.” And everyone’s looking for the marketing silver bullet. How to integrate old and new? How can I use Facebook? What role might twitter play in building my business? Where do I begin? What’s the ROI of all this friending, tweeting and linking? As David Meerman Scott is fond of asking, what’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning? There are no easy answers. Building a business is more about faith than fortune. It’s more about passion than profit....

Dane Cook does a great bit about his days working the drive-through window at BK. One customer who really drove him crazy was the “soft talker.” She – it was usually a she – would talk into the speaker so softly that the conversation would sound something like this:    Cheeseburger…pssst….pickles…iccce…pssst…how much? Hard to have it your way when the guy in the window can’t understand what “your way” is. This carries over to lots of other services you request, including copywriting....