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.

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.

If You Don’t Have a Web Site…

If you don’t have a web site yet, you probably fall into one of the following categories:

1) You firmly believe your product or service would not be benefited by a web site.

2) You’d like to have a web site of some kind, but you’re worried it’ll cost too much or simply not be a good return on your marketing dollars.

3) You’re a bit intimidated by the technical issues involved with getting a web site going.

I have to admit, there was a time I didn’t think a local retailer would be well served to invest in a web site. And then I started looking up some of my local stores, restaurants, etc. and I was much more inclined to do business with the stores that had some kind of web presence. So, for the purposes of this post, let’s talk about the local retailer with a storefront. Read more »

Do You “Doodle” At Work?

This is a very interesting video showing how “doodling” can be a valuable exercise.

Hidden Inflation?

I was shopping the other day and I was caught off guard by a container of Breyers Ice Cream. The price seemed similar to what I had remembered, but the SIZE of the container was strangely different.

The overall size was smaller but not in a way that was immediately obvious. The sides were angled inward.

Okay, fair enough, Breyers has done a good job of making their containers “optically” appear similar to the size we’re accustomed to.  Read more »

Searching Google…
What Does Google Actually Do?

You might be surprised what Google does behind the scenes when you perform a “Google search.”

This short video explains what Google is up to and how it makes a difference in the results you get.

Saving a Life in the Workplace

This is not your ordinary business advice, but watching this video could easily save a life in your workplace. Ideally you should get all of your staff to watch this.

Are You Marketing to Teens?

If teenagers are an important part of your customer base and you are using email to reach them, this graphic will give you some good insights into this market.

Data and infographic by AWeber Email Marketing
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