Professional Networking Tips

Promote Your Business by Building Relationships

Building the best business relationships usually means meeting in person. Find out why and how to give yourself an edge with the professional networking tips in this article.

Networking = Marketing

Professional networking at MeetupsBusinesses don’t survive without marketing. And almost all businesses benefit from increasing or improving various types of marketing. More than one tactic should be tested and used. Keep the best and eliminate the rest.

What marketing works best depends primarily on 3 things…

 

  1. Identifying your target audiences (and there are usually more than 1)
  2. The needs or solutions being sought by each target audience
  3. Where those target audiences hang out and how they can be engaged

Continue reading →

Learning from Crooks and Pornographers

The Wolf of Wall Street went to prison for his crimes. But, oh, what we can learn from his techniques!

thewolfofwallstreetPeople are always a little amused (or bemused) when I say that as Digital Strategists or web developers, we can often learn from the porn sites.

And no I haven’t visited one in a long time. <smile>

But the truth is the guys running porn sites were pioneers in attracting website visitors and selling online content.  While others learned how to sell physical products, including magazines and videos and anything you might find in Mr. Grey’s playroom.

Find a rabid audience. Determine what they want.
Make it available. Tell them where to find it.
Make it easy for them to get it.

I started thinking about this watching a couple of recent episodes of American Greed on CNBC.

The Wolf of Wallstreet, Jordan Belfort, was recently featured. He was the guy that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character was based on in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wallstreet. (2013)

The Belfort character was portrayed as a convicted stockbroker thought to have swindled as many a 1,500 people. Some called him a born salesman. The FBI referred to him as “about as close as you’re going to get to a financial serial killer.”

He was a very good salesman, but served time in prison for swindling millions of dollars from clients of his brokerage, Stratton Oakmont, Inc. Continue reading →

Pete Cashmore Interview on CNBC

Mashable is 10 Years Old.

How can that be? It seems like just yesterday…

Pete Cashmore interviewed on CNBC

Credit: CNBC

Mashable’s founder & CEO, Pete Cashmore, who created the site at age 19, appeared on CNBC to talk about the site’s success and looked ahead to the future.

Pete Cashmore Interview

In the brief appearance Feb 3, the Scottish entrepreneur with boy-band good looks said that the most important thing they’re learned in their first 10 years online is how to tell stories for the web and Millenials. Millennials, also referred to as Generation Y, were mostly born in the 1980s and 1990s.

The operative verb in his statement is “tell stories,” and reflects the type of content his target audience resonates with.

I’ve heard that there is a trend away from the often popular “how to” types of content in favor of stories, which can also come in the form of case studies.

He added later that they have also been interested in telling stories across multiple platforms and new apps.

People, especially Millennials, are consuming content on a broader list of devices, such as Smartphones and tablets.

He said they originally set out to be the “newspaper of the web”, but this year they are trying to be more like the TV channel or magazine of the web.

Interesting perspective. Continue reading →