The Strategic Overtness of NO

You can’t be a great marketer unless you accept the strategic value of a NO.
Why are marketers afraid of getting a NO?
The stupid logic of selling people stuff they don’t want.
Some where along the way, you were trained or misled to believe that you can change people’s mind if you just kept trying and learn [...]

A story of how uncertainty can be an invitation to be creative

An ancient warrior faced uncertainty in a mighty battle. Even as small business leaders, we can learn from this story how uncertainty can be an invitation to be creative.
A great warrior was seeking certainty in the uncertainty of war.
The warrior was asked to lead his nation against the tyranny of a cruel king. He was [...]

My 15 minute small business print marketing 101 for cheap bastards

If you’re a start-up entrepreneur or a small business owner and you need to create a simple print marketing campaign for almost free and in under 15 minutes, here is how you do it…

To prove it to you, I created this simple print marketing copy in less than 15 minutes and for $3 dollars, [...]

My 7 unheard startup confessions

For the first time, I’m confessing my first year in business to hopefully help those in your freshman business year.

My 7 unheard start-up confessions are:
1. I thought because I was a Corporate America success I would be a successful start-up entrepreneur.
I was successful as a company executive, but I learned it’s different than running your [...]

What would Seth do?

I thought to myself, Am I supposed to capitalize my blog post titles or not?
I’m not going to lie, I thought grammar was a french liquor until about 7 years ago.

I realize some of you grammar girls and guys are going to tell me what I’m supposed to do, but I’m taking a different approach. [...]

Seeing Your Small Business Marketing Perspective

I lived right next to Torrey Pines and Delmar Beaches in San Diego, California and it seemed I could always clarify my perspective on things while walking or surfing those beaches. Have you seen or heard the metaphor of footsteps in the sand leading you towards something? It’s kind of the same thing in really [...]

Painting Your 3 Small Business Marketing Success Markers?

Imagine you’re walking in downtown Portland and you notice a group of people surrounding a person holding a paint brush and a bucket of paint. You ask a person standing at the back of the crowd what’s going-on here?
She says, “Some local artist has been asked to create a community mural showing different people’s marketing [...]

What is The Truth of Your Circumstance?

How can you know the truth of your circumstance?
We all experience circumstances. What’s difficult is trying to determine the truth of a situation by looking at the circumstances.

Storms and being lost are common metaphors to describe life circumstances. Like the Sunday School favorite where Jesus’s disciples are in a boat in the middle of [...]

A $22 Dollar Showcase Give Away Strategy That Earned Us $12,200 Dollars

Let’s say you’re a Portland small business owner delivering a service, and you want to have a really professional way to share your client portfolio and success stories with key prospective clients.

You could…

Go to www.blurb.com and create a hard back book with custom dust jacket promoting your client success stories.
You could download the free [...]

The 4 Style Essentials of the Portland Marketing Agency Man

I read an online post the other day featuring the different styles of entrepreneurs around the country. I thought it might be fun to share the 4 style essentials for any Portland, Oregon marketing agency dudes.

Every marketing agency dude must own a black turtleneck. It’s in the Marketing Agency Manly Man Handbook.
The classic navy [...]

Finally, A Simple Form to Help Portland Small Business Owners Choose the Right Clients

I don’t have to tell my fellow Portland small business owners that all prospects are not created equal. Or do I? What if you had a quick survey form that could quantify and qualify your gut feelings about the suitability of your prospective clients.
Do you ever get it wrong in choosing a new client? At [...]

This Strategy Gets Ideal Clients to Choose Your Small Business

In this video, we share a time-tested marketing agency strategy of how we help small business owners develop a unique selling proposition in less than 15 minutes, and delivering both offline and online in such a compelling way that your ideal clients can answer for themselves why they should choose your business vs. any other [...]