A half hour meeting that accomplishes exactly what you need is feasible. But it requires smart (not time-consuming) planning; discipline during the meeting; and a laser focus on achieving results (getting what you need in 30 minutes). The information that follows applies to meetings of 10 people or less, but not to extraordinary meetings called for extraordinary purposes. In line with this, Open AI Founder Sam Altman believes that meetings should either be 30 minu

Before you start planning any new projects, revisit last year's duds. A project that appears to be dead may be a prime candidate for revival. Make a list of projects that either you or someone else started, but never finished over the last 12 months and ask yourself these questions: · Why did we drop the project? · How far did it get? · What’s changed since we dropped that project – company objectives, the competitive environment, project personnel, technology,

Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at Wharton, authored an excellent book for anyone that wants to take advantage of everything AI has to offer in their daily work. The book is called “Co-Intelligence” and I highly recommend it. It is focused on learning to work with AI, rather than have AI do the work for you or dismiss AI altogether as too esoteric or complex. In Part I, Mollick lays out Four Rules for Working with Co-Intelligence. They are as follows: 1. Always Invit

Confirmation bias is one of the most persistent obstacles in sales and marketing. It’s the brain’s shortcut for making sense of a noisy world—favoring information that confirms what we already believe and ignoring anything that challenges it. Convenient? Yes. Accurate? Not always. As the volume of information continues to explode, confirmation bias only grows stronger. For well-established brands, this can be both a blessing and a curse. On the upside, positive pe

It’s frustrating when you are confident that what you are offering provides considerable value, your current clients love you, but you can’t convey exactly what you do in a way that your prospects can easily grasp. What you need is less than an elevator pitch, but more than a generic description—ideally just 3-5 words that encourages word-of-mouth. Coming up with the best short description does require considerable thought and ingenuity, but once you’ve hit on th

The Hawke Marketing Method[1]-created by super-marketer Erik Huberman- is meant for larger businesses, but a smart marketer could scale the system down for any small business. The method is based on the following 3 pillars of a tripod. 1. Creating Awareness: The goal is to let your prospects know you exist, what you offer, and how you can solve their problems. There are many tools available to accomplish this: from media releases, to search optimization, to social media. C

A robust website metrics platform (more than Google Analytics) reveals critical information about website visitors—what is and isn’t working, trend data, competitor website analysis, etc. But if you dig a little deeper, there much more value hidden in there. Here are 4 bits of important product-related information that higher level analytics can infer. 1. Proposed product viability. While products are still in the concept stage, search behavior will be able to give you som

Smaller companies usually try to get by with no marketing employee or a 1–2-person marketing team. It works out OK, but many activities necessary to support sales and growth end up falling through the cracks. Here are some common ones: 1. Content Distribution & Repurposing: Even the smallest companies, usually have someone on staff that can write well enough to get by. But it’s not enough to write (even compelling content) if no one sees it. Companies sometimes forget to m

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT published a blog post this week with his personal tips for being productive and...

Most small businesses (and even some large ones) realize they need to boost their marketing efforts, but don’t know what will actually...