Hello and Welcome!

Stan Dubin here.

What can you look forward to here?

Simple, useable advice to make your business life easier, more productive and more enjoyable.

You’ll find the tone here very conversational. My first business book, The Small Business Success Manual, was written in this way: light-hearted, practical, easy to understand. 9,500 copies later, I’m told I’ve helped many companies improve their scene.

So you’ll see a variety of things here, but they’ll all have one theme: helping you achieve business success…one idea at a time.

Last but not least, we’re getting great feedback on our free business analysis. Check that out here.

A Little Inspiration Can Go A Long Way…

This YouTube video was made known to me by a newsletter from a friend of mine over at Coachability.

I figured it might just hit the spot for some of you.

Creating Offers Folks Can’t Refuse

I mentioned in an earlier post how much I like the writing resource over at Copyblogger.

A new Copyblogger post is a great example of why.

It’s about crafting offers that people can’t refuse. Give it a read and let me know what you think.

The Magic of Surveying Your Customers

If you take a little time and ask your customers what they really think, implementing what you discover can produce magical effects.

Every business owner should certainly know what their unique qualities are and how their service or product is different, better than the next guy’s.

But have you ever directly asked your clients? They may have a slightly different view of this. Or they may have a very different idea of what makes you special to them.

It’s as simple as asking.

When you’re talking with a handful of your clients over the next few weeks, find a good spot to ask them “why they’re doing business with you.” Consider even asking them what they find special about you or your company.

Take some notes and after you’ve talked to enough of your clients to get some decent feedback, step back and review the feedback. You may discover some new ways of presenting yourself and your company from that point forward.

One should also consider finding out how their service can be improved.
Read more »

Free Internet Marketing Course

For me, some of the best information available on the subject of internet marketing and writing good content (whether for use online or offline) comes from the folks at Copyblogger.

They put together a free course that draws from their best content over the last 6-7 years. This is seriously intelligent stuff. I highly recommend you head over to Copyblogger, scroll down the page a little and you’ll see the section on their free Internet Marketing Course. Over 70,000 people have signed up for it, including yours truly. I also listen to their podcast, which I find extremely insightful.

There you go. Nothing to sell here. Step away from this blog and head to Copyblogger.

How Can a “Visual Hammer” Help You?


If you’re familiar with the “positioning” principle that Laura’s father Al and Jack Trout put on the map some 20 plus years ago, you’ll also want to read her article that found the “flaw” in the positioning concept. She goes over in further detail what a “visual hammer” is and its importance.

Related articles

New Credit Card Risks

This looks pretty serious. Of course, consider this on a personal basis, but also consider letting your customers know about this.

Social Media “Cheat Sheet”

Here’s a breakdown of how the main social media sites work and some advice on how to use them:

The Small Business Social Media Cheat Sheet
Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

Tim Tebow – Sports Illustrated Article

I just read this and I’m sure Sports Illustrated won’t mind publishing it here. It was written by Rick Reilly:

LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL - JUNE 13: In this hando...

Images via @daylife

I’ve come to believe in Tim Tebow, but not for what he does on a football field, which is still three parts Dr. Jekyll and two parts Mr. Hyde.

No, I’ve come to believe in Tim Tebow for what he does off a football field, which is represent the best parts of us, the parts I want to be and so rarely am.

Who among us is this selfless?

Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured. He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave & Buster’s), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard-line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts.

Home or road, win or lose, hero or goat.

Remember last week, when the world was pulling its hair out in the hour after Tebow had stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers with an 80-yard OT touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas in the playoffs? And Twitter was exploding with 9,420 tweets about Tebow per second? When an ESPN poll was naming him the most popular athlete in America? Read more »

Are You REALLY Listening?

There are a number of times during the workday that I find myself not really listening to someone. Even once is too many. Each time I do not fully listen to someone, I believe the effectiveness of the workplace suffers.

Yes, of course, there are times when staff come to you with information that you can quickly acknowledge and send them on their way. You don’t need to be doing a “mind meld” every minute of the day. But there are times when I’m speaking with someone—a customer, staff member, supplier—and I know I’m just not fully there. My justifications for this are ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind’ or ‘I should be able to juggle a number of things at once’ or the one that is always available: ‘nobody’s perfect.’

And of course each and every one of those is just that, a justification. Do I have the ability to simply pay full attention to people? Of course. We all do. We just make decisions to allow ourselves to be distracted. And I believe the more we do that, the more it affects our bottom line. And it may also adversely affect our well-being!

Make a conscious decision for the next few days to simply PAY FULL ATTENTION when speaking with…well, everyone! Just focus on really listening to what’s being said. I think you’ll find you’re more in command of your business and I think you’ll feel better emotionally.