By Winmark Business Solutions

Every business owner should develop a written guideline that sets forth the business’s marketing strategy. This document is used to judge the appropriateness of each action that the business takes. If a company has to take an action that is off-strategy, it may indicate a temporary emergency action prompted by competition or other factors beyond normal management control. Or it may indicate the need to change or revise the company’s marketing strategy. continue »

By Meredith Liepelt

According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while. continue »

By Winmark Business Solutions

If you’re starting a business for the first time, you’re facing a challenge because you don’t have an established track record on which to rely. You do not have a history of operations, profitable or otherwise, and searching for help can be exhausting. However, there are several resources and organizations dedicated to helping women-owned businesses get started and grow successfully. continue »

By Angela Hribar

Virtually every company has a Web site — that’s a given. But with the volume of professionals going online for work-related purposes, you need more than a Web site to command maximum visibility and generate attention for your products and services. continue »

By Winmark Business Solutions

For many small companies, the secret of continued business success in competing against larger companies is to do everything a little bit better than the competition. continue »

By Kelley Robertson

When you make contact with a new prospect—either by telephone or in a face-to-face meeting—you have an extremely short window of time to connect with them. If you fail to achieve this, they will quickly tune you out. Here are several things you can do to lose your prospect’s attention in the first five seconds of the conversation: continue »

By Winmark Business Solutions

If you have ever considered or even dreamed of going into business for yourself, you’ve already engaged in some degree of business planning. Most likely your planning was intertwined with your thoughts about the personal issues that accompany a decision to start your own business. continue »

By Ron Knight

Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign. continue »

By Winmark Business Solutions

New small businesses that need a loan to get started are in a classic catch-22: lenders will want to see a proven track record before they lend you any money, but you can’t establish the track record until you get the loan. As a result, a lot of new owners have to turn to alternate sources of financing, such as selling personal assets, borrowing from friends and relatives, or taking on partners or investors. continue »

By Jerry Bader

With today’s Web site tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your Web site. You can learn where they’re from, what kind of browser they’re using, how long they stayed on your site and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won’t tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers. continue »