Business Blog

New Microsoft Excel Tutorial Teaches Business Users How to be More Productive

Online course from CompanyBright helps beginning users get up to speed with Excel spreadsheets quickly.The Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program is one of the most critical software applications for businesses of every size. Its simple grid of columns and rows hide a powerful engine for capturing and manipulating data that millions of users to make business decisions.Despite its power and usefulness, or perhaps because of it, Excel can be a daunting program for a new user to learn.

Local Internet Marketing: Why It's Exploding

It wasn't too long ago that only companies with a national market and .com's could participate in internet marketing. There was no practical way to target local users and minimum buys were too large to be practical for small and medium local businesses.

That has changed.

The Digital Marketing Workflow

To be successful marketing your business online in the long term, you need a digital marketing workflow.

What is a digital marketing workflow? It's a set of simple steps that will help you get going with your marketing and maintain direction once it's underway.

Why You Need a Digital Marketing Workflow

Digital marketing is confusing. There are too many options, all of which change frequently. There is also a great deal of hype and a positive infatuation with the latest thing, regardless of demonstrated usefulness, much less value. This translates to paralysis when starting a digital initiative, and wandering about once a program is under way.

Interview With John Jantsch: Why Education is a Fundamental Part of Your Marketing

In this 26 minute video Keith West of CompanyBright talks with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing about the importance of using education as a marketing technique.

The Most Important Business Movement of the Last Year

Unimaginative is the entrepreneur who hasn't invented something that no one wants to buy.The reality is that people don't want most of the things entrepreneurs dream up. Products struggle for acceptance, startups fail. It is more than common, it's likely. The most probable result.And why is that? Smart people, hard work. Isn't that supposed to lead to success? The kind of success stories that fills blogs, magazines and TV shows?It's an interesting question. We've known how to manage companies for a hundred years.

Are You a Blogger?

I recently interviewed marketing consultant John Jantsch. He protested my introduction which labeled him as a blogger. "I'm not a blogger, I'm a marketing consultant," he said.It got me wondering, is being a blogger that bad?I think we all know the answer. Yes! It is!And I find it wonderfully liberating to say so.Why? Because blogging sucks. It's time consuming. It's painful. It doesn't stop.Never have I thought that it would be great to be a blogger.

Are You Paying Yourself Enough?

Few issues are more emotional in business than who gets paid what.That emotion is amplified when the person being paid is the owner, because everyone is interested in what the owner makes. Self sacrificing owners everywhere are worried about their employees thinking they're making too much.Most owners should direct their worry to other places. In my experience, far more owners are making too little rather that too much. There's even a term for it, "sweat equity".I'll be the first to admit that I've put in my share of sweat equity.

What Role Should Politics Play in Your Business?

Perhaps you haven't heard that there is a presidential election in 2012. In that case feel free to subscribe to my blog and move on to the next post, you're in no danger of getting sucked in to the hoopla.

If on the other hand you can't wait for the primaries to get started, now would be a good time to think about what role your politics should play in your business. The time to decide is now, not when a local notable that you would like to accommodate is pressing you for support.

Let's not be coy and act like we need to reason through a process to conclude that you should keep politics out of your business. It's clear common sense. Unless your business is to specifically serve a political need, your involvement in politics will only harm your business.

Should You Quit?

I followed a link to a really sad post on a political blog last night.

I'm not going to call the poor woman out publicly, but the post was a very long lament about why bloggers of a particular political persuasion get such little support (meaning donations). She can't afford $50 to buy a device to record calls to post to her blog and is even worried about not being able to pay for her internet connection.

I actually woke up in the night thinking about this lady's plight. She's obviously intelligent enough to think and write about issues and make some headway in the political blogosphere. But, in the matter of conducting an activity that supports itself or turns a profit, she is woefully unprepared.

So, I'll share some of my experience with the woman, business advice she would do right to ignore.

Ignored or not, the woman's blog was set up in such a way that it will never make money as it is now. The pink pages, jumble of ads, Amazon links, unfocused posts, and small amount of traffic are simply not a formula for success.

Should the lady quit? Should you, or I, quit?

{C}

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