Why you should plan your business expansion ahead of time
An old proverb says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second-best time is now. The same thing goes for planning to grow your business and expand on your facility and services. While you might take a year to decide exactly when to break ground on a building expansion […]
2013 SoMe Impact Awards – Large Category
SBN Interactive proudly presents the Midwest Social Media Summit inaugural class of SoMe Impact Award winners! These awards recognize marketing executives who took a leap of faith into the groundbreaking world of social media and in doing so, drove substantial value for their companies. Nominations were received from the Cleveland, Akron, Columbus and Pittsburgh regions […]
Ravi Kathuria: Is your customer engagement model an asset or a liability?
How well thought-out and executed is your customer engagement model? Is it something that has developed by default without proactive and deliberate thought? In your company, does every salesperson and service-delivery team member develop his or her own engagement model? Simple sales typically involve commodity items such as printers or copiers. The customer’s engagement with […]
CreateAthon 2013
Forty marketing professionals. Fifteen pots of coffee. A hundred new marketing ideas. All in just 24 hours, on zero sleep and at zero cost to the community. The WhiteSpace Creative 2013 CreateAthon was our largest, most substantial effort yet. One agency re-branding three deserving nonprofits — the Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet, the Battered Women’s Shelter […]
How to earn a good name
It’s safe to say that individuals are more likely to do business with organizations they trust. With that in mind, establishing and preserving a good name is critical to the long-term success of any organization. In my book “Trust Is The Tie-Breaker” I provide checklists, step-by-step instructions and real-world examples organizations need to succeed. Here […]
Art Weinstein: Ten recommendations to creating a better customer experience
The size of the service sector, global competition, rising labor and technology costs and demanding customers all force companies to create excellent customer experiences. The challenge firms face today is knowing their customer’s definition of service quality and how to deliver that at a reasonable cost to create superior customer value. Customers use service encounters […]
Mark Pentecost sees growing pains as High-class problems that can’t hold a match to It Works! teamwork
Mark Pentecost knew it was time to work on the substantial growth his company, It Works!, was experiencing — and stop putting out fires all the time. The health and wellness company, whose flagship product is called the Ultimate Body Applicator, grew from $29 million in revenue in 2010, to $45 million in 2011, to […]
For successful wellness programs today, it takes incentives and support
One of the key challenges for wellness participation today is for employers to find ways to motivate behavior change. We hear far too often to “just do it.” Yet as anyone who has ever tried to lose weight, or start an exercise program knows, catchy phrases are rarely enough to get and keep healthy lifestyle […]
Three steps to avoiding lackluster hires
Neil Sedaka’s song “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” was obviously aimed at personal relationships, but when a new hire has to be dismissed, breaking up is hard to do. No one hires a new team member with failure as the goal. In terms of real world situations, 46 percent of new hires fail in […]
Keep profits rising: Progress your business forward by using these three tips
Whether your company is large or small, staying profitable will likely depend on how prepared you are to innovate in order to advance your organization. A built-in, long-term effort to assess and monitor your technology investments involves the same time-tested tactics you use in everyday business planning. Your success will depend on how well you […]