resources
From all accounts, Zoom calls are going to remain a part of the business day.
For years companies ran WebEx, Teams, and other video conference meetings, but it wasn’t until 2020 that we all started playing in that arena on a regular (read: daily, or even hourly) basis. That shift was startling to many...
Business routines are backwards these days. It used to be I’d build a relationship with someone, then they would become a client. Now, clients decide to trust us to help them and then at some point afterward we begin...
Late last year something happened in my business’ sales cycle and it got me thinking.
To support another organization, I placed a call to a friend of mine whom I had known for about a dozen years. In the course of the conversation about this other topic, he asked me about marketing and advertising. He wondered how we help clients...
The year was 2003 and sequels were all the rage – The Lord of the Rings, Matrix, and Terminator movie series were topping the box office. Speaking of Terminators, it was that year that Arnold Schwarzenegger became California’s Governor too. The government was...
It’s fascinating when a client says something to me that I’ve already thought or said myself many times. As if hearing the idea for the first time, their comment hits my head (or my heart) and drives home a concept chock full of value. That’s exactly what happened to me during a recent Zoom call with a client.
We were talking about their media plans and how they suggested we approach their strategy for the coming season. We were working through their goals, their budget, previous success, and some new ideas to...
This fall, out on a walk, I noticed a house in my neighborhood that provided the perfect picture for what we tell our clients. It was so appropriate I decided to snap a picture. Hopefully it isn’t your home. I’m hoping it can illustrate an important point about your business. Think ahead.
Thinking ahead is good advice for...
Someone makes a move, then the opposing side responds and makes a change. It's the way the sports world has worked for centuries. It's also how business functions.
Football teams played the Single Wing and...
While I can’t remember every single detail, I do clearly recall that years ago, a friend of mine – Brett Winter Lemon, was showing me his iPhone on Kirk Avenue in Downtown Roanoke. It was spring. We were outside. He excitedly started...
Every market has one of these types. Here in the Roanoke-Lynchburg television market, where our marketing firm is based, we are lucky enough to have two.
I’m talking about car dealers with terrible commercial campaigns.
No, it isn’t limited to just automotive marketing, but these guys are the...
For the past decade, I’ve noticed something that seemed kind of odd to me initially. Over time, I continued seeing this pattern and I figured it was time I identified it.
Some of the smartest people I know own companies, invent products, or find a better way to accomplish a goal. They are brilliant at what they do and have built a product or service based on some sort of genius technological solution. The work they do takes...
A while back I saw the familiar look of a Chicago Police cruiser. It was the same as I'd seen in movies like the Blues Brothers or Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Like water, your business may flow in a natural direction, picking up speed as you move forward - often faster than you desire. Until you redirect, harness, and capitalize on the power generated, you're likely to watch it race out of control.
For years I have looked for business principles in odd places or at random times. Usually I file them away for some future use. While it might have been smarter for me to read all the leadership books I could find, observing what others were doing shaped me as a businessperson and has worked out okay.
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This month, I was all set. Ready to share what was on my mind as usual --- until I saw the following piece in Sports Illustrated. It was a classic case of two well meaning departments not cross checking the master calendar.
While doing some research on what other marketing companies are doing with their web sites I happened upon a Roanoke-based firm who had a “What’s New” section on theirs.
How to be a room shifter.
Where did the curiosity of our youth go?
“We’re actively recruiting for…..”
This is a phrase, or even a buzzword, that c-levelers and human resources management types often toss around without a lot of thought.
Remember the old saying, “curiosity killed the cat”? Well, the lack of curiosity has done-in more than a few businesses and leadership teams. Strong questions make a big impact.
Mister Starr was my 10th grade geometry teacher. I didn’t do so well in his class. I do, however, remember him clearly reminding our class to “check your work”.
We enjoy giving it as a gift to our clients at the holidays. I also love to meet with clients, and prospects, and potential employees as they drink it. While I feel like I should enjoy a cuppa joe, the reality is: “I do not drink coffee!”
About twenty years ago, in a city far from where my agency is located, I learned a valuable life lesson.
Gathered with me in an old room with dated furniture on a cloudy fall day were 12 people who I’d never met prior to that week. A few days before, we went through a tryout of sorts, and that was also a strange experience. I always wanted to...
People want to improve. Well, most people do anyway. They’ll talk the improvement game. They’ll go to conferences. They’ll read those books. Most will target a...
On the first night of November (which did seem weird), the Houston Astros captured their first-ever baseball World Series Championship. Just four years ago they were the laughingstock of the baseball world and had lost over 100 games – a near record for futility.
In the marketing world, we tend to be heavily focused on the next month, quarter, or year.
I will often judge how much we’ll enjoy an act at The Spot based on one natural interaction: I watch how the artist treats our magical, kind, and helpful sound engineer, Travis. If they care for him and treat him well, their performances are almost always extra enjoyable.
B2C Enterprises invests over a million dollars in media most years, while at the same time, interacting with salespeople from at least seven states. That’s a lot of business transactions and a lot of sales appointments.
Use someone else’s informative and entertaining story until you create your own to share. I did this when I was younger and I also did it seven years ago when I started my advertising agency.
They’ve ruined the process for many. Certainly they’ve made a lot of work for those who genuinely do put their prospects' best interests first. Typically when a salesperson walks through the door, the potential client leans to the position of distrust. It may be unfortunate, but it’s generally the case.
You get in and settle into your job and before you know it, the realization hits there are lots of other things that need to get done.
Here’s a reality! Not all marketing and advertising concepts are absolutely critical to your business’ growth and development.
Sometimes you hear a song and realize, hey I know that. Sometimes those songs are for advertising. Maybe it’s a musical branding piece done specifically for a company. Often, it’s a remade song that is newly incorporated into a campaign.
Before and After advertising is as old as... well, advertising. I mean, who hasn’t seen an ad for Weight Watchers, and marveled at the Before and After comparisons of this highly effective weight loss program?
People are unique. We can all agree on that statement. Yet, when looking at marketing decisions, it seems the experts want to lump us into categories with the assumption that everyone occupying that category has the same patterns, desires, interests, and passions.
What’s Content Marketing? Simply put, Content Marketing is the foundation for an entire marketing and communication strategy. Content Marketing can help your website rank on search engines, position you as a subject matter expert, build your stakeholder list and engagement level, and nurture...
Social media accounts are proven to help businesses build brand loyalty, direct users to websites, and collect customer feedback.
Google Analytics has been giving companies and organizations vital information about their website users since 2005. While the world was listening to music on Apple's colorful iPod nano, Google released an innovative new tool online. It allowed marketers and business owners to see who went to their website and what they did once they got there. This tool provided insight on page views, sessions, and bounce rates. Now known as Universal Google Analytics, this powerful database gave viewers valuable information and reporting capabilities to make strategic marketing decisions.
St. Patrick's Day observes the death of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Today, the holiday is celebrated with parades, special foods, music, dancing, drinking, and a whole lot of green. While many brands take advantage of holidays to create special promotions or campaigns, here are some ways to make your own luck with marketing!
Advertising can seem expensive, but it does not have to be. If you use the right strategies to maximize your budget, you can get the most out of your marketing dollars. Here are some tips to help you reach new customers without draining your budget or cutting into your profit margins.
When it comes to marketing for your business, monsters aren't the best advice-givers. In fact, their insights are quite terrible! When our monster-handling team at 5Points Creative heard about the Marketing Monster's "12 Holiday Marketing Mayhem Tips", we had to...
Kitchens in the ’70s and ’80s had this appliance. It was a hit in suburban households for decades and an omnipresent part of the home back in the olden days.
How do most of us get along without the Trash Compactor now? It’s hard to say, but it’s been decades since the average home has been built with one of these contraptions – at least as far as I know anyway. Back then, the homeowner would...
Late last year something happened in my business’ sales cycle and it got me thinking.
To support another organization, I placed a call to a friend of mine whom I had known for about a dozen years. In the course of the conversation about this other topic, he asked me about marketing and advertising. He wondered how we help clients...
It’s fascinating when a client says something to me that I’ve already thought or said myself many times. As if hearing the idea for the first time, their comment hits my head (or my heart) and drives home a concept chock full of value. That’s exactly what happened to me during a recent Zoom call with a client.
We were talking about their media plans and how they suggested we approach their strategy for the coming season. We were working through their goals, their budget, previous success, and some new ideas to...
This fall, out on a walk, I noticed a house in my neighborhood that provided the perfect picture for what we tell our clients. It was so appropriate I decided to snap a picture. Hopefully it isn’t your home. I’m hoping it can illustrate an important point about your business. Think ahead.
Thinking ahead is good advice for...
Someone makes a move, then the opposing side responds and makes a change. It's the way the sports world has worked for centuries. It's also how business functions.
Football teams played the Single Wing and...
Budget to increase profit.
Compelling stories sell.
One-size-fits-all—except when it doesn’t.
There are plenty of tools at our disposal at any given time, and we have to know when and how to use them to fix our clients’ problems. You’re running your business and it’s not necessary for you to understand how to apply those five critical tools we use in our business . . . you just have to know who to call.
Through the years, I’ve shared my professional background in television advertising sales. As a salesperson, I kept a close eye on the annual Emmy Awards. The more awards our shows won, the easier it was to sell commercials to advertisers – plus it was more fun to brag when you represented a network affiliate that won a big haul.
If you’ve ever looked at the sales process then you already know that people buy from people they know and trust. If you haven’t thought about it, now is a good time to consider what I call the “headwinds” in the sales process.
We get it. It’s a big commitment. You don’t want to invest all your time just to get hurt again. You want someone who listens and communicates, someone who supports your growth and grows with you, and most importantly, someone you can trust.
What’s Content Marketing? Simply put, Content Marketing is the foundation for an entire marketing and communication strategy. Content Marketing can help your website rank on search engines, position you as a subject matter expert, build your stakeholder list and engagement level, and nurture...
Fear is a powerful motivator.
That’s a commonly shared saying that struck close to me a few springs ago in March of 2020. We rebranded our decade old marketing and advertising firm.
It came up yet again in a recent leadership meeting at the agency.
One of our Directors joked that in advertising – patience is a virtue. It’s just like real life and that long-shared saying applies to the marketing world too.
Anyone with today’s technology can send an email anywhere, at any time. But you’re not just anyone – you’re a hard-working someone who is going on vacation this summer, and your eyes could use a break from your digital mailbox. Before you trade in your laptop for your flip flops, there’s one vital and innovative mechanism you absolutely must remember to activate before you take to the skies: your email’s autoresponder!
So many of our clients are using marketing and advertising to support their sales process. Marketing and sales typically go hand in hand and, in fact, many companies have combined those departments. When we engage our clients in an advertising program, it is often to help them with “direct response” results.
While it seems like it was just yesterday, I remember back in the ‘80s when my workplace was decorated with those motivational posters featuring a beautiful photograph and a strong statement intended to lift the spirits and inspire everyone. I bet you’ve seen those, too.
Your business website is designed with your customer in mind. But have you also considered the possible jobhunters who will navigate your website?
You’re pretty careful not to hand your car keys to just anyone, right? I mean, sure – a valet, the guy at the car wash, your spouse – to those folks you’ll toss ‘em and take your chances. Your teenager? That may be a different question. How about someone you don’t know very well? Not likely.
I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream.” That might have been the first food marketing campaign in the history of America (or not).
One of the best meals I’ve ever had was in D.C. at a tapas restaurant. It was late in the evening and the kitchen was about to close.
It seems the closer we get to something, the more we accept it and just move into a routine. Some routines can be good; they can produce fruit that helps us grow and develop. Others trap us into a false sense of comfort. How do you know the difference?
Most of us are more likely to be uncomfortable. Yet, almost everyone still finds themselves in situations where they have to mingle, network, communicate, or break into a crowd of people. It's not easy, especially if you're not wired for that setting.
In late 2009, I wrote my first B2Seed. Since then I've written over 60 columns and even in the months (like last month) when I wonder if I'll have anything to share, something strikes me.
It's easy to get into a routine. Patterns - good and bad ones both - form before we know it. Before too long they simply become the "way we do things around here". The fastest way to break a routine is to learn new things.
There has been a big snow storm in the east and southeast. A lot of my readers from the Midwest think I am overstating it, but we recently got about two feet of snow here in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia.
The B2Seed is typically reserved for entertaining, edgy and exciting content. This month we're going in a different direction.
Jason Martin decided he'd had enough sluggish Monday nights. His restaurant stays crowded most days - serving great food Monday-Saturday and turning into a hip live music venue later in the evenings.
It’s the time of year for planning and strategizing. In your personal life, you may be figuring how to break bad eating habits or get into better exercise patterns.
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