How to Build a Strong Community | Duct Tape Marketing

November 9, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This past month I was able to experience community in its most potent sense on two separate occasions, and I came away with an important insight about building community.

Marketers today realize that a vibrant, engaged, loyal community is perhaps the greatest asset a brand can possess and often leads to an extremely profitable enterprise – whether that’s the intent of the organization or not.

The challenge is that the kind of community described above doesn’t appear through some magic marketing trick – building a strong community around your brand is difficult, elusive, and fragile.

Born-Again Debt: What Is Re-Aging, and Is It Legal? | The Simple Dollar

November 9, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The world of credit is filled with terms that can sound quite foreign to most people who don’t work in the industry. Once such term is “re-aging.” And, if you currently have the unfortunate experience of collection accounts appearing on your credit reports, it’s a term you should definitely understand.

Re-Aging Defined

Credit problems are not allowed to haunt your credit reports forever. This is great news if you’ve made credit mistakes in your past. Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) there are very strict limitations regarding how long derogatory information is permitted to remain on your credit reports.

Be More Repulsive | marketingforhippies.com

November 9, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A simple, counter-intuitive idea for you today.

You’ve likely been told the importance of niche in marketing. Likely you’ve heard this from myself. You’ve likely heard about the importance of honing in on who you want to reach, to identify your ideal client, chosen audience or target market and maybe even to create a client avatar.

And those are all fine ideas.

But I want to suggest something you might not have considered doing before. And, until the other day, I hadn’t either.

One of the central roles of marketing is to not just get the attention of your ideal clients but also to make sure you filter out the clients for whom your work will not be a fit in the same way that a window screen allows fresh air in but keeps out the flies.

Ten Obnoxious Company Rules To Kill In 2017 | Forbes

November 7, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

I became an HR person in 1984, when many of my readers had not been born yet. I was happy to be able to set my company apart from the other employers in Chicago by killing off stupid, outdated rules and policies.

Getting rid of pointless and insulting HR practices made it easier for my company to hire and hang onto tremendous employees, many of whom are still my homies today.

That was over thirty years ago, but lots of organizations are still following the same archaic rules we abolished in 1984. They don’t realize that every policy they shove down their employees’ throats is another reason for a talented person to leave them and work for a more deserving organization.

Here are ten policies that every employer should get off its books before the champagne corks fly on January 1, 2017.

These policies should have disappeared long ago — so if your company is still following them, now is the perfect time to step into the modern age by killing them off!

8 Signs an Employee Should Be Fired (Which Never Appear on Performance Evaluations) | Inc.com

November 7, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

We can all spot terrible employees: they under-perform, they don’t work well with teams, they struggle to meet expectations… but oddly enough, it isn’t the obviously terrible employees who cause the real problems.

Whether clearly incompetent or unbelievably lazy, they’re easy to spot. So although it’s never fun to fire people, at least you know there’s a problem–and you can quickly let such employees go and move on.

The real problems are caused by employees who appear to be doing an OK job but meanwhile act like what a friend once called an “insidious cancer,” slowly destroying other employees’ performance, attitude, and morale — and with it, your business.

Here are not so obvious signs an employee is poisoning your company.

5 Features You Should Look for When Buying a Router | Life Hack

November 7, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Based on personal experience, you may find that the router provided by your ISP isn’t the greatest. Whether you are a habitual or pro gamer or whether you want to stream HD movies on Netflix, your router plays a key role in creating the whole experience.

There are some common features that every router must have. However, everyone uses the Internet differently. You may need to spend more time doing research in order to find a router that fits your needs and provides you with all the required features and functions. Here is the list of five important features you should look for before buying your next router.

Cancer-Causing List: 7 New Substances Added by US | Live Science

November 4, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Seven new substances have been added to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ list of cancer-causing agents.

Six of these substances are listed as “known” to cause cancer, while one is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen,” according to a statement today (Nov. 3) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

5 Questions to Ask Your Team After a Bad Sales Week | AllBusiness.com

November 4, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If your industry is seasonal or fluctuates based on demand, you will have occasional dips in sales. Although this is not ideal, it’s expected. How can you cope with this fluctuation? Round up the troops, and talk about why sales are struggling by asking the five following questions. Also, always be transparent, and during your conversation, look for immediate and actionable solutions.

1. How far were we from meeting our goals?

Were you short by just a few hundred dollars? Or are you thousands of dollars behind? First, let me start off by saying, no decrease in revenue is a good thing, but in business, it’s bound to happen. How you react moving forward will depend on the severity of the fluctuation.

9 Digital Marketing Stats You Need to See From This Week | Adweek

November 4, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a fine week of digital marketing stats, so check out the nine data points below that got our attention:

1. Instagram-Snapchat face off

Adweek commissioned a survey from Survata that asked 511 Instagram and Snapchat users ages 13 to 34 how they feel about the apps and their impressions of the ads. Two of the more fascinating findings: 26 percent of respondents remembered seeing specific Snapchat ads, while 37 percent remembered seeing specific Instagram ads.

Smart Recycling Bins : Eugene | Trend Hunter

November 3, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

French company Uzer’s ‘Eugene’ is a waste bin with a smart twist. One of the biggest barriers stopping people from recycling, tragically enough, is that many people simply don’t know what can be recycled and what should be thrown into the trash. Eugene is able to recognize the packaging for nearly any product, and it can tell its owner which receptacle it should go in.