From the category archives:

Branding

Do You Apologize Too Much?

January 30, 2011

Has this ever happened to you? Here’s the scene: My husband and I are standing at an elevator with a male tour guide . A woman is walking towards us. The tour guide sees her and says, “You look lost. Can I help you?” She looks at him awkwardly, drops her head down and says, [...]

7 comments Read the full article →

Would This Make You Stop And Eat

September 29, 2010

A few weekends ago my husband and I were driving from San Antonio to South Texas. If you haven’t traversed that route, there are stretches of flat highway interrupted by little bitty towns. Our trip gave us unfortunate, visible evidence of what the recession has done to small business owners. Many of the places where [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

My Blogging Ethical Dilemma

August 23, 2010

I haven’t written a blog post in three weeks. I’ve tried. I’ve sat in front of my computer screen almost every day and attempted to come up with something meaningful, smart and witty. But it didn’t happen. So I decided to stop trying so I could figure out what was going on and I realized [...]

20 comments Read the full article →

What You Need To Know About Your Competition

June 22, 2010

True story: With high expectations, I recently attended a conference held by a nationally renowned company. Surprisingly, the company’s speakers weren’t very good and most of the curriculum was rehashed information I saw in other programs for years. The company was shocked by the lack of enthusiasm from the attendees. And we were shocked to [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

March Marketing Madness With Todd Schnick

March 31, 2010

Have you enjoyed March Marketing Madness as much as I have? Well it’s not over yet. I have the great pleasure of introducing you to Todd Schnick. Todd is Chief of The Intrepid Group, a marketing firm out of Atlanta, Georgia. Todd specializes small to medium-sized companies (one of the reasons I wanted him to [...]

5 comments Read the full article →

March Marketing Madness Featuring Eric Fletcher

March 30, 2010

Welcome to March Marketing Madness! All this week, you will have access to several marketing experts’ opinions and ideas. And today, I am happy to introduce you to Eric Fletcher. Eric is the Chief Marketing Officer of McGlinchey Stafford PLLC, a national corporate law firm. He is a former broadcaster, advertising agency creative director and [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Following My Own Advice

January 27, 2010

It’s funny how being a coach causes me to turn inward and examine my business practices. I regularly have to ask myself if I’m taking the advice I give to my clients. Unfortunately, the answer is “not always,” particularly with regard to niche markets. You see, I’m doing a lot of work with clients (and [...]

10 comments Read the full article →

2010 What Ifs

January 6, 2010

A preview to my San Antonio Business Building Boot Camp, January 13, 2010: One of the things I love about Twitter is the ability to connect and speak with people I never would have met otherwise. This week I had the fortunate experience of speaking with two super-intelligent business owners: Patty Farmer of Envoy Mortgage [...]

5 comments Read the full article →

Purple Cow Prospecting

December 14, 2009

In case you have not read “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin, go get it – today. It’s about being remarkable, how to exceptionally market yourself, your products and your services. The idea is that in a field full of cows, if you’re purple, you’re going to stand out. Long-term business success requires more than purple [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

How To Create An Irrelevant Brand

December 9, 2009

None of us ever wakes up, looks in the mirror and says, “Today, my goal is to be irrelevant.” When you go to a networking event or a Tweetup you don’t introduce yourself by saying “Hi. My name is Rose Pineda. I’m a mortgage lender with Mortgages Are Us and I’m irrelevant.” Of course not! [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

Vampires Friends And Sales

October 29, 2009

So I’ve got a couple of friends who are emotional vampires. Take “Sherry” for example. We started out as great friends! We’d laugh together, shop together, support each other and just hang out. Something started changing though. Sherry started having drama in her life. Serious drama. This happened, that happened and “it’s so terrible.” Over [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Please Dont Like Me

September 17, 2009

This is one of my favorite scenes from the movie “Ocean’s Eleven.” This is where Rusty (played by Brad Pitt) is instructing the newbie Linus (Matt Damon) how to con the casino owner. Ever felt that way? Just like Rusty, well-meaning people in your life will tell you what you need to do to be [...]

4 comments Read the full article →

Is Your Picture Worth A Thousand Hits

September 2, 2009

I was on an excellent conference call Monday with Bill Boorman. The topic was, “how to get noticed in social media.” When I was asked what causes me to pay attention to someone on Twitter, my response was “the picture.” I’m not certain that answer went over well; perhaps everyone was expecting something a bit [...]

9 comments Read the full article →

Rational Or Emotional Decisions At Disney

August 21, 2009

August 19, 2009 – Day 3 When I heard that the Disney Institute was going to take us through new employee orientation (called “Traditions”), I was skeptical. I’ve been in the HR field for over 15 years. I’ve participated in and facilitated countless orientation programs and I was not looking forward to this. Surprisingly, I [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

July 27, 2009

You’ve got things to do, so let me get straight to the point. You need a brand. I’m not talking about a logo, website or business card. I’m talking about you and your professional brand.  Why? Because there are a million widget makers, tutors, coaches, accountants, restaurant owners, recruiters, etc. You are in an ocean [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Tools Twitter And Foundations

July 22, 2009

I had the opportunity to attend the San Antonio Tweet Camp last Saturday. What a great experience! We had people from Austin, Corpus Christi and even Houston attend. If you click on this link, you’ll find expert sessions from Michael Long (aka The Red Recruiter) and more. One of my favorite presenters was Colleen Pence [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Brand Building for Your Bottom Line – Burger King, Butts and Branding

June 30, 2009

Burger King, Butts & Branding Most everyone knows about branding in the context of commercials, brochures and logos. But in working with my clients, I have found there is a gap in understanding what professional branding is and how powerfully it impacts a business’ bottom line. So this is the first in a series of [...]

5 comments Read the full article →