http://www.rswarren.com/stapler Technology, Marketing and the Small Business Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:32:13 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The advent of the Internet has ushered in nothing less than a golden age for the small business. At what other time could a sole proprietor enjoy a global customer reach from the comfort of his laptop or convenience of his kitchen table? Thanks to virtualization - both ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2008/01/22/virtually-virtual/ We all spend a great deal of time telling stories about ourselves. Every one of us - king or janitor, socialite or wallflower - walks around each day with an ongoing narrative in our heads, an intricate drama that casts ourselves as the hero. Everyone is important in ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2008/01/14/reframing-the-art-of-negotiation/ Sometimes you just can't tell people what you really think, and that hurts. So what do you do when you can't lash out? Simple: you go passive-aggressive, with the time-honored and useful communication wisdom of Ze Frank. Enjoy! http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2008/01/09/communication-skills/ A toughest part of selling your products and services to other businesses is reaching the decision maker. This is the quasi-mythical someone who has the ultimate power to open the company purse strings - and to give your contract the final go-ahead. In my line of work as a B2B ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2008/01/07/fishing-for-decisions/ It's funny: you mention you're a writer in civilian company, and immediately folks think you spend all day sitting on a beach somewhere, licking a pencil tip and courting muses. The reality is usually more tedious, more frustrating, and more bizarre - as illustrated by this hilarious YouTube video. [youtube]Zo1XFz0kac0[/youtube] As ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2008/01/05/a-glimpse-at-the-real-writing-life/ Some time back, a marketing friend of mine told me that any business engaging in self-promotion should sit down, first day, and figure out for themselves what "marketing" meant.. especially contrasted with "public relations", "sales", etc. They get lumped together a lot, but they're all entirely different disciplines, and sometimes ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2008/01/03/insanity-explained-marketing-101/ Fresh and rested, now is the best time of the year to look ahead and make plans to improve your business. The phone calls and deadlines are right around the corner, and pretty soon the day-to-day events of life are going to start driving themselves. So while you ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2007/12/31/looking-back-forging-ahead/ Businesses hire freelancers mainly to save money. But the savings only happen when the project is being properly managed, a task that often falls on the guy not present when the topic is being discussed. The trick to making money as a freelancer - and saving money, as ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2007/12/24/whos-running-this-project-anyway/ When I first started in my business, the hardest skill to wrap my head around wasn't writing. That I could do. No - the problem was marketing; I didn't have the slightest idea how to get new work through the door, a serious skill failure for a guy selling himself ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2007/12/18/the-value-of-a-good-rumor/ Over the last couple of years, I've slowly become more and more obsessed with the dream of doing everything digitally. Not really the "paperless environment", per se - I still use a manual typewriter for some projects - but with so many electronic toys available these days, it's criminal not ... http://www.rswarren.com/stapler/2007/12/11/doing-business-digitally/