Small Business Sales & Marketing

June 19, 2009

America's Best Independent Retailers

Great location, fantastic selection, competitive prices. These are the oft-cited qualities that help one retailer prosper while another fails. But there are other, ...

June 12, 2009

Customers Your Company Doesn't Want

Do a quick exercise: Take a minute and jot down three types of customers your company doesn't want. Oh, and this is important: You can't choose people like shoplifters...

May 15, 2009

In Advertising, Consistency Pays Off

I recently purchased a new digital TV. Normally, Circuit City (CC) would have been on my list as one store in which to shop, but the struggles the company was facing ...

April 24, 2009

In-N-Out Burger's Marketing Magic

How do you build a word-of-mouth following for your product or service—and then refrain from screwing it up if you're lucky enough for the concept to gain ...

April 10, 2009

Why PR Is the Prescription

Times are tough. It can be difficult to keep your focus on driving the top line when the bottom line is bleeding red. A lot of us can identify with John Krafcik, ...

March 13, 2009

Four Keys to Warding Off Challengers

Competition is a fact of life in business. But that doesn't mean you have to make it easy for other companies to take what's yours. In fact, you should make it as ...

February 27, 2009

To Beat Recession, Indies Launch Buy-Local Push

The buy-local movement isn't new. For the past decade, independent businesses have banded together to urge local consumers to spend more of their dollars closer to ...

February 10, 2009

What Should You Spend on Advertising?

One of the questions I'm frequently asked is: "How much should my company spend on marketing and advertising?" It's a conundrum that vexes many corporate leaders, from...

January 12, 2009

Autopsy of an Indie Bookseller

For decades, Cody's Books was a Berkeley (Calif.) institution with an international reputation as a modern-day agora. From the start, the independent bookstore was ...

November 21, 2008

Small Retailers Push for Online Sales

Nicole DeBoom (BusinessWeek SmallBiz, 4/16/08) watched online sales at her women's sportswear company drop 25% in early November—a sign that buyers were pulling ...

November 18, 2008

Selling $300 Jeans in a Down Economy

A little over five years ago, Michael Ball looked at his then-girlfriend's expensive jeans and decided he could design a much better pair himself. Not long after, ...

November 7, 2008

Determining Where to Sell Online

Whether you're unloading collectibles from your attic or taking your thriving brick-and-mortar store online, there's a surfeit of Internet marketplaces where you can ...

October 21, 2008

How to Tell Business Is Cutting Back

Nelson Villanova doesn't need to watch the stock market indexes, the TED spread, or gross domestic product to gauge the health of the economy. He just has to look ...

October 7, 2008

Don't Let Hard Times Derail Your Advertising

Life is not a zero-sum game. O.K., maybe in politics it is. If your candidate wins, the other guy loses. That's one reason why political advertising tends to get ...

September 23, 2008

How Small Stores Can Lure Holiday Shoppers

Call it a customer service Christmas. Consumers are expected to rein in spending this year, and the retail climate favors big-box stores that can offer bargains. But ...

September 12, 2008

The Case for Brand Accretion

Marketing is an investment, not an expense. You've heard that before, of course. But it's one thing to invest in marketing when times are good, and quite another to ...

August 22, 2008

Marketing to Millennials

Ask Dan McDonald about millennials—those elusive 12- to 26-year-olds raised among text messages and Twitter—and he'll chuckle emphatically. "They're the ...

August 15, 2008

Where Customers Go to Praise (or Bash) You

If you run a consumer business, chances are pretty good a few of your customers are posting their opinions about it on the dozen or so Web sites that review local ...

August 8, 2008

How to Sell Against the Tide

Last month, Batman: The Dark Knight put up the biggest opening-weekend box office numbers in history. That certainly was no surprise, given the overwhelming hype that ...

July 28, 2008

Cheap Photo Sites Pit Amateurs vs. Pros

As barriers to the design and photography industries fall, the professionals are getting nervous. Independent graphic designers and commercial photographers, as well ...

July 18, 2008

Vying with Starbucks: A Love-Hate Thing

In July 2004, Kinley Pon was throwing his annual block party at his El Paso (Tex.) coffee shop, Kinley's House, on the same day that a Starbucks (SBUX) across the ...

July 11, 2008

Five Don'ts for Marketing in Tough Times

Unpredictable. Slow. Bleak. Grim. Gloomy. All words that have been used to describe the economic outlook for the balance of 2008—and depending upon who you talk ...

July 7, 2008

Convincing Consumers Your Food is Safe

I've always enjoyed shrimp, but it has been a year since I've grilled it, ordered it in a restaurant, or sampled it as a party hors d'oeuvre. Last June, the U.S. Food ...

June 5, 2008

Indie Filmmakers Hit Their Target

As they waited in line outside Cinema Village, the art house theater in downtown Manhattan, Carol Frohlinger and Lindsey Pollak didn't know they were part of the ...

May 30, 2008

Wolfgang Puck vs. Wolfgang Zwiener

Earlier this year, a large sign appeared in Beverly Hills that read: "Coming Spring 2008 Wolfgang's Steakhouse." For most of the denizens of the gilded Los Angeles ...