One of my all-time favorite jokes is about babies... "How many babies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" "None - they neither have the cognitive or motor skills to perform such a task!" You could imagine a baby holding a lightbulb and trying to insert it into a lamp or socket. But if you wanted to see it, you could log into an AI image generator to create one. AI opens some interesting conundrums about the use of images. Who owns the copyright? What if you use a well-known person? Can you be sued? Images are assets. These assets can be bought and sold. What once was a free image that you p ..read more

If you manage your own or other business websites, I imagine you are using Google Analytics or another data manager to explore the traffic to your website. Generally, you measure how much traffic you get, how long people stay, and which pages or posts get the most traffic. Another key indicator is where the traffic is coming from. This includes organic search (Google searches), direct (typing or clicking a URL), referral (link from another website), organic social (multiple social media sites), and something called unassigned (catch-all for all others). I have seen customers and clients who pa ..read more

I could easily take my old blogs and ask AI to rewrite them to reflect today's business environment better. That would certainly be faster than my two-finger typing, re-working sections, and asking a VA to proof and post, but would it or could it be more successful or effective? Most businesses will ebb and flow between profit and deficit, and you sometimes have to cut expenses to offset a deficit of profits. When it comes to marketing, outcomes are profits and content creation and distribution are part of the expense. As long as those outcomes lead to financial profits, marketing goes from be ..read more

I was listening to a podcast interview with comedian Mike Birbiglia. I was not familiar with him, but I found his take on comedy interesting. He believes that comedians have a one-on-one relationship with their audiences. Social media and podcasts can help to create a more intimate relationship with fans. Some influencers lose that connection because they become an outsized version of themselves. They get lost in the audience's abyss and lose the connection with individuals. They become unapproachable. I find the same thing with marketing. We tend to lose sight of that one-on-one relationship ..read more

I want to do something a little different today. I want to share with you my why. If you can figure out your why, I believe you are halfway to success. Simon Sinek tells us to start with why. But I believe that why is not all-encompassing and as simple as finding one why on your way to the top. I believe there are a series of whys. Why are you in or running a business? Why are you in the niche or market that you serve? Why do you offer the specific products or services you sell? The other thing I have found is that, over time, your why can change and evolve as you change and evolve. I believe ..read more

How do you define success? Success is not measured like temperature with a static scale or counting system. It is an abstract system that is different for every person and business. With today's Attention Economy, you may think that likes and clicks are the most important metric. But I am here to tell you that profits are the main thing to measure in business. Profits come from sales. In this Attention Economy, companies are trying different tools and techniques to stand out. You have two invaluable assets that others don't have: relationships with your current and past customers and their con ..read more

AI is machine learning. It's great for repetitive tasks. It collects knowledge and synthesizes it into useful compilations. AI machine learning can be predictable. “I” learning is what we do when we interact with people. It's as unpredictable as an amateur golf swing. Interacting with humans requires empathy, psychology, self-awareness, and patience. It is time-consuming and can have different results on different days. Interacting with people is how we do business. People do business with people, and although AI can help, it cannot replace human-to-human interaction. In the world of generatin ..read more

In business, we need to embrace systems to align people with processes. Companies spend time and money on systems to speed up or simplify processes. The one thing that stands in the way of business systems being effective is people. You are working with a group of people with different life experiences, goals, and beliefs. As much as we try, we can’t dig deep into each individual and try to align them based on their unique perspective, so we try to find a middle ground with the expectation of varying degrees of adaptation. We then create documents and training to help the alignment process. S ..read more

Businesses, especially ones that have well-established systems and methodologies, tend to ebb and flow. It’s pretty common for a business to slow in the dog days of summer and pick up in the fall, but I hear frustrations from some and jubilation from others. I was conversing with a client about how business has changed since COVID-19 (2021-2022). Before that time, you could meet people in person at networking events, conferences, and more. Marketing and connection emails were being sent and opened (albeit at a 20-30% open rate). Phone calls were being received and returned. In most ways, it w ..read more

I had the opportunity to travel to the South Carolina Coast for my son’s wedding. However, I dreaded the idea that renting a house or condo was the only way to stay on Edisto Island. I had visions of Florida or Myrtle Beach, where the coast has huge hotels and condos. When it comes to marketing a B2b business online, it’s more like Edisto than Myrtle Beach. Edisto is trying to reach a niche audience that is harder to find and communicate with. Yet, it can only serve a limited number of customers. They would love more sales, but scaling takes time and resources. When it comes to using LinkedIn ..read more