The Blog - Where Business Collides with Human Nature

As of today, two people are joining Linkedin in every second.  Who are they?   Are you one?  Is it something to set up and forget about or a dynamic marketing tool?  Can a relationship really be supported on Linkedin? 

The infographic shows how most people on Linkedin have between 500 to 999 connections in their "network", use only the free account option and let their 1st level connection see their entire 1st level network. The most helpful feature is "who viewed my profile" followed by the automated suggestion tool: "people you may know".

Take notes from this infographic to better understand who you are connecting with and what they find most valuable:

The Great American Story can be told again with a 100+ year old company by the name of Brown & Haley in Tacoma, WA which started manufacturing Almond Roca 90 years ago. 

While Codecademy is the topic, this is about you and your inability to understand even the simplest things in regards to your website or online marketing.  For instance, <b>your text here</b>  wlll turn the text bold as you see here:  your text here

Simple enough, don't you think?  The came can be said for other very simple terms such as <center> or <u> or underline. 

Instead the entrepreneur "gets by" because there is a belief it is "difficult" or too expensive.  It does seem a little silly to spend big money on an expert coder to do simple things which can be done in seconds.

Celebrations happen every day in the day of an entrepreneur.  A new idea, a new problem conquered or a new introduction made are part of the path to success.  Today (June 21), we celebrate the birthday of Richard Gabel.  In my world, Richard Gabel is a celebrity and trusted advisor.  Professional, personal, committed, knowledgeable and open minded are words which would not be enough.

If you are local to the Pacific Northwest, you have a big opportunity to meet Richard in person.  He does not juggle, do magic or stand on his head to get your attention.  In fact, he becomes a perfect example of how those who are most valuable may not be talking the most because they are busy getting things done.

A friend ran across this article on the 50 worst charities and I am compelled to share it with you.

Collectively these charities collected around $1.5 Billion and only $429 Million of it actually went to the charities themselves. That is only around 28.6% of donations going to the charities.

Some of those listed spent almost 95% on Fundraising leaving a paltry 5% for the actual charity.

Once it becomes obvious that personalization has impact, creating software and automated tools to appear more personal just have to be built.  Since Facebook and Linkedin are large personal information farms, everyone is sure to receive new personal messages as if they are your next door neighbor.

It appears though that people are either smarter than that or they simply have little patience for shallow and insincere messages.

Marketing Charts article reviews the data in a recent study about how customers say "What ever" to personal messages.

Effective link building is no longer based on technical tasks which can be easily assigned.  In fact, to refer to it as "link building" is not the best way to express marketing plan activities. The infographic below has rephrased it to be "link baiting".

Link building has a history of physically adding links to external websites such as article sites, blogs, forums, etc.  The options to "drop a link" are going away as software evolves and webmasters limit the options for commenting.  Many times 3rd party tools such as Facebook or Disqus have become a method to limit web spam which comes by way fo automated link tools.

An excellent webinar from Practical ECommerce which has ChannelAdvisor experts talking about how a business can get started with international sales.

Here is a video about how to rank better on YouTube. Each month YouTube receives over 800 million unique visitors who watch more than 3 billion hours of video, traffic we can't afford to ignore. So how do you get videos to rank for competitive terms on YouTube? By paying close attention to these 12 important ranking factors.

The unique challenges facing today's working women drives many out of the workforce and into an entrepreneurial venture.  There are two option:  Continue to carry the burden and live a paradox, quit and be a stay at home mom or start a small business which offers more flexibility and balance of life.

As we age, neuroscientists tell us, our thoughts and patterns become more ingrained.  The way our brains process, sort and ultimately respond to questions is akin to taking the same path through the garden over and over.  We get to know the path very well, and it becomes familiar to us. As long as the problems we face are familiar, so are our approaches to solving these problems. We are in our intellectual “comfort zones.” 

What happens if our efforts to solve a problem aren’t producing innovative results? The thought might occur to us, “How do I go about thinking differently?”  When we are asked to deviate from the paths ingrained in our minds, it may seem like an interesting notion, but here’s where the going gets tough.  Despite trying to think differently, we typically end up with little to show for our efforts.  Our steps continue to lead us down the same old garden path.