As business owners, the word ‘freedom’ has a deeper meaning. We have the opportunity to create freedom in our lives that most people don’t and never will.

It’s important that you recognize that there’s a critical handoff between your marketing and sales team. If you can’t make this exchange cleanly and well, your sales team is going to struggle and you're not going to grow your business as quickly.

I was having this conversation today and decided to make it into a blog post. These are three of the most impactful books I've read as a business owner. They cover a broad topic area - from building business systems to branding and messaging to advanced marketing strategy. But they've each been very valuable for me and my businesses....

Every business relies on its marketing to fuel growth. Effective marketing produces a steady, predictable flow of qualified leads for a business, which their sales team converts into paying clients. But if the flow of leads dries up, so does business growth.

Too many business owners compartmentalize their marketing and don't spend enough time thinking about it.

It's like they put "marketing" in a little brown box, seal it up, put it on a bookshelf, and only pull it out once every blue moon.

Creating happy clients and customers is the key to growing your business. Happy customers are loyal customers, and they become the most powerful promoters of your business when they spread the word to their network.

The easiest way to go wrong with your marketing is to stop paying attention to results. I’ve seen business owners waste small fortunes on marketing initiatives that don’t produce. The problem isn’t that they tried something and it failed. That happens to all of us, often. The problem is that, after it failed, they kept pumping money into it...

The most expensive thing you do in business is acquiring new customers and clients. It takes a significant investment of time, thought, energy, and money to create new clients for your business. Here's an important fact: it's nine times more expensive to create a new client than it is to sell to an existing client or customer.

You need a better message than "hire me because I'm cheaper than the other guys." Even if you ARE cheaper than the other guys! Because sooner or later, you will find yourself being undercut by the competition.

The first step to building your personal brand is to define the brand you’d like to build. How do you want to be perceived? What strengths and abilities do you want to highlight? What story do you want to tell? How much of your background do you want to share, and how will you make it relevant to your...

Your business has a brand. You, as an individual, have a brand as well - your personal brand. Whether or not you want to incorporate your personal brand into your business marketing strategy is a decision you’ll have to make.

This is a simple concept that I covered on the podcast previously, but it’s a really big deal and I want to address it here as well.  You already know that one important step in earning more referrals for your business is by asking for them.  But have you ever thought about when the ideal time to ask your...

The most popular item at any steakhouse is almost always the second-most expensive steak on the menu. That’s because the second-most expensive steak looks like a bargain next to the most-expensive steak.  If you want to sell more of your $1000 watches, start listing them next to a $3000 watch.  This works because of a cognitive bias...

A personal update…   After seven AWESOME years building Spotlight Branding, it’s time for a new chapter in my life. I’ve officially sold my share of the company to Marc Cerniglia, my partner since day one.   It’s been an amazing journey. We started the business in late 2011, from a spare bedroom in my...

Some business owners are squeamish about marketing. They view it as disreputable or even unethical. This mindset will hold you back. If you feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, or ashamed when it comes to marketing and selling your products and services, you won’t succeed. Let’s start here: Do you believe that your product or your service is...

I built a million-dollar online branding agency. And you don’t need me to tell you that we live in an increasingly digital world. So you may be surprised to learn that some of the most effective marketing I’ve developed involved physical, old-school snail-mail. There are a few different reasons why “old-fashioned” snail mail still works...

As discussed in our previous blog entry, in order to create referrals, you have to create top-of-mind awareness with your network. That’s why even top brands like Coca-Cola spend billions of dollars in advertising for this purpose. Here are three tools you can use to make this happen in your business. Referral Tool #1 –...

Earlier this month we talked about why referrals are the best way for most businesses to grow. Today we’ll dive in a little deeper in order to help you generate more referrals for your business. There are two main ingredients present in every referral – understanding, and awareness. Understanding. In order to make a referral,...

Referrals and word-of-mouth marketing may not be the sexiest way to grow your business, but it’s often the best way. Referrals are generally superior to clients and customers that come through other channels, for the following reasons: Referred clients are cheaper to generate. It costs little or nothing to generate referrals. Instead of investing resources...

The purpose of your marketing is to generate qualified leads. But there’s a lot more to building an effective marketing system than a one-sentence objective may indicate. There are a multitude of different opportunities, strategies, concepts, and tactics that you can leverage. As an analogy, consider the game of football. The object of the game...

This is Part Two in our series on effective messaging. Click here for Part One. Here are five key concepts to remember as you sharpen your messaging: 1) It’s not about you – it’s about your customer. Effective marketing tells a story, and every story has a hero. The mistake most business owners make is...

How do you talk about your business in the marketplace? Surprisingly, many business owners struggle to effectively communicate what they do and why it matters. Obviously, it’s not because you don’t understand your business. It’s usually the opposite problem – you’re so deep into the weeds of operating your business that it can be difficult...

Marketing is a critical discipline that every business owner has to figure out if they’re going to reach their full potential. Yes, you need to have a high-quality product or service. Yes, you need to build, manage, and lead your team. You have to have a sales process that works. You need financial systems. There’s...