“If I build it, they will come” is a dangerous sales and marketing strategy that all too many entrepreneurs try to rely on to build a new business. What should an entrepreneur do to build a sales pipeline for their new venture?

As my year-end consumption of ‘top ten lists‘ continues, I came across one on Chicago Now called “The Top 10 Small Business Trends of the Decade” by Barry Moltz.  In the list he mentions several things that have all dovetailed together to define the changing nature of work — most centered around the pros and [...]

CNN recently reported that researchers from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs, and say they have identified five skills that drive innovation: Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields. Questioning: Innovators [...]

Entrepreneur-turned-VC, Mark Suster, recently posted an article on his blog, Both Sides of the Table, highlighting what he considers to be the essential qualities of entrepreneurship.  At the heart of his post is a very, very simple philosophy: entrepreneurs just do it. For some people, this is easy.  Moving ahead, pulling the trigger, motivating people [...]

CNNMoney.com published an article on this week’s government report that states, over the past six months, the “22 banks that got the most help from the Treasury’s bailout programs cut their small business loan balances by a collective $10.5 billion.” The report goes on to highlight that over the past six months that TARP recipients [...]

In the American Express OPEN Forum article, Effective Word-of-Mouth is Made Not Born by Yvonne DiVita of Windsor Media Enterprises, the author discusses some tips to cultivating what is called “word of mouth marketing.” Aside from just being a reasonably trendy buzzphrase, word-of-mouth marketing is a marketing tactic designed to maximize the marketing leverage possible [...]

I often find myself frustrated dealing with people who sell themselves as “high level strategists.” I am not talking about consultants who are hired to help hone and build out a strategic vision for an organization; nor am I talking about internal specialists who are dedicated to researching and advising on strategic direction. What I [...]

I’ve had an interesting few weeks. My husband and I have been dealing with a lot of things at home, hence my absence from blogging for much of the past month, and I have started a new project with the New Media (a.k.a. “web”) team at KXAN-TV here in Austin. Between getting settled into the [...]

The second annual Interactive Austin Conference has wrapped up, and in true social media fashion, there is no shortage of online accounts of the day’s activities (with more to be coming over the next few days, no doubt). Online already are keynote coverage posts by Ricci Neer, for each Dion Hinchcliffe, Sam Lawrence and whurley. [...]

Ask anyone who got into an internet-based business prior to 2000, and you’ll hear nostalgic “good old days” stories, the way my grandparents talk about ‘when Kennedy was President.’ It’s hysterical to hear, and it saddens me endlessly to think about how long ago that was, but it really was an exciting time — and [...]