I’ve been doing my own advertising creative and design work for close to 15 years. For my own businesses and for clients. And, one of the things I consistently say is:

Don’t use humor in headlines or make images the focus.

And, I give the same advice for blogs. The reason isn’t that they don’t work, it’s that humor is often (a) hugely subjective or (b) used as a crutch when you’ve got nothing else to offer. And, when it comes to images, all too often, they may be pretty or funny or edgy, but they add nothing to the emotion or “social triggers” beyond a dash of color.

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Box of Crayons founder, Michael Bungay Stanier, has a pretty awesome job…

He goes into companies and teaches people how to do great work. Not good work, but great, butterfly in the stomach, soaring with delight, serving the world in a powerful way work. In this interview, we spend time exploring how to make this happen in your career and life.

And, we get into some of the exercises from Michael’s new book, Do More Great Work

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I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent – Thomas Edison

Last week, in Part 1 of this series on business strategies, we saw how locking people into monthly memberships has the potential to smooth cash flow, BUT it can also very easily lead down the road to complacency, laziness, lack of innovation and business stagnation.

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It seems to be all the rage lately…

The power of personal brands. Become the wizard in your space. Establish yourself as the go-to person, the thought leader, the one with all the answers and the smartest strategies. Leverage the astonishing power and reach of the internet, the blogosphere, the twittersphere, the Facebooksphere, the Google Buzz-o-sphere, The LinkedIn-o-sphere.

Your quest is simple. Become…lé guru in your niche!

We’re told, online personal brands:

Click here to read the full post (478 words, 1 image 1:55 mins)

• Lead to fame and and adoration.
• Drive the world to you for answers.
• Get you jobs, gigs and opportunities,

So many individuals and businesses see innovation not as an opportunity, but a burden.

People are always asking me about business strategy and business models…

“What’s the best one?” they ask. And, because I was a brick and mortar entrepreneur in the membership-driven fitness world and now operate largely online, membership websites, continuity and recurring income strategies tend to come up a lot.

Folks just love the idea of set it and forget it monthly income.

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Tools & resources mentioned in video:

• DezignWithAZ.com
• IdeaPaint.com
• Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder (aff link)
• Canon GL2 3CCD Digital Video Camera
• Theracane.com
• Guitar Wall hook (aff link)
• Washburn Guitars

Back in November 2009, I launched a book marketing venture that rapidly spawned a sold-out live event in NYC—Tribal Author Camp.

I did it because I love teaching, especially when I get to combine my jones for writing and experience as an author with marketing and social media. A big chunk of the event was focused on leveraging social media to build an author platform, then create a 3-stage launch campaign.

Which is why I got some raised eyebrows when my new book marketing mini-tribe turned to the first page of the manual to discover the following policy

Click here to read the full post (607 words, 1 image 2:26 mins)

It’s become vogue to declare traditional marketing dead…

We hear, “People don’t want to be interrupted by messages they didn’t ask to see. Now, they’re pushing back.”

And, you know what, with thousands of advertising messages bombarding our eyeballs and brains every day, we ARE tuning out most of what we see and hear. It IS considered an intrusion. And, In 10 or 20 years, traditional display ads, banner ads, direct mail, TV commercials, radio ads may all be dead.

Conversations may well be the future of marketing.

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Wondering how you would answer this question…

It was asked by Howard Behar, former president of Starbucks International in his book, It’s Not About the Coffee…

“If there was no criticism or praise, who would you be?”

I’m thinking on it myself. I’d very likely be more candid in some of what I write, post and speak about. But, I’d essentially keep being exactly who I am and doing what I do. That’s an interesting realization for me. But, I still need to contemplate the question a bit more.

How about you…

[Expanded & updated from the original post that appeared on this day 2 years ago today]

Driving home with my organic, soy chai latte in hand, today, I began to wonder what the critical lessons I should be teaching my daughter were.

She’s only 8, but I wanted to make sure I got my most treasured thoughts down, to capture my deepest wisdom.

So, not wanting to be late, lose my thoughts or spill my chai, I whipped out my iPhone, began to type in one hand, while steering with my knees and balancing my chai in the other (Joking, people…I actually steered with my navel, not my knees. Anyways, pretty sure my wife will be teaching my daughter how to drive).

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