Welcome to Our Heart of Business Blog
Here you’ll find essays with insights on business practices that put relationship first.
Building relationships with your prospects and customers generates higher profit margins, more repeat business, more sustainable business growth, and loyalty-generated referrals.
Get To Know Your Customers
"Life is beautiful not because of the things we see or do. Life is beautiful because of the people we meet." —Simon Sinek "Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." —Bill Nye All of the successful refinement of your product/service offering, all of your marketing effectiveness – copywriting, offers, website, SEO, everything –
Customers, Respect, and Business
“Respect is how to treat everyone.” —Richard Branson “Men are respectable only as they respect.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Of course, you respect your customers. That’s a hallmark of business success. I’d like to suggest an additional way to think about respect in building relationships with your customers. Giving respect requires having respect for oneself. And
Trust Builds Relationships AND Business
"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." —Albert Einstein "Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust." —Zig Ziglar All relationships are built on trust. The level of trust depends on what’s at risk in the relationship: a cup
The Wrong Way to Do Everything … And One of the Most Popular
Sometimes we forget to map out our journey or project plan or strategy. Maybe that works most of the time. And then there are those times when we find ourselves mired in the weeds, off the beaten path, or climbing the wrong peak. Here’s my story of how easily that can happen – and did
Stand Out from the Crowd
"Whatever you do, be different. If you're different, you will stand out." —Anita Roddick "No one remembers you for standing in the crowd. But they do remember you for standing out of it." —Eddie Harris How are you going to keep standing out from the crowd? You have competition – either similar products or services
Telling Stories Makes Your Business Memorable
"Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." —Robert McAfee Brown Small businesses spend a lot of time and attention trying to get customers into their location or onto their website. That’s money spent on advertising, search marketing, signs, and everything that goes into generating leads. And then all of
Choose Your Customers
"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them." —Khalil Gibran Sometimes serving our customers feels more like a drain than the satisfaction we’d rather have. We might be able to turn that around… read on for some ideas on that. We all fall into the trap of taking customers as they come.
The Advantage of Small Business to Focus and Customize
“A small business can do things a large one can’t with marketing – relationships, customized, local. Large businesses are selling predictability, not community.” —Adam Davidson This continues a discussion from my last post on the Underestimated Small Business Advantage of building relationships with community. While building relationships really, truly is within reach of small business
The Underestimated Small Business Advantage
"Small businesses provide the feeling that a real person is behind it all, someone who cares more about giving us a quality product or service, over just taking our hard-earned dollars." —Annie Bukhman Most small businesses miss out on the biggest advantage they have over chains and big companies: community relationships. Before big companies began
Build Your Customer Relationships in the Right Order – No Skipping Steps!
"Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor." —Hesiod Sales and marketing efforts are more effective if they follow a particular sequence to build trust and relationships that lead to purchases. Why? Humans form relationships in a well-defined sequence of behaviors, as studied and documented by Desmond Morris. One
Aha Moments Can Transform Your Business
Here’s how AHA moments create and reinforce relationships with customers. Aha moments take you from looking at something one way to looking at it in a new way. Here are some official definitions of aha moment: a moment of sudden insight or discovery (Oxford Dictionary); a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension
Profit & Transcendence: Friends (Not Enemies)
States Coffee in Martinez, California: not afraid to charge $8.75 for a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin ($9.75 with tip). They’ve carved out a strong reputation in a relatively short time. Quality, quality, quality. Servers are happy and present. It’s very simple, when you think about it: the world is full of mediocre experiences. We