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Yes, any customer is a good customer. But some will spend more, buy more profitable products, be less of a hassle. If all your customers were those kind of customers, your business would be in a healthier, happier place, right? Customer targeting simply means moving from  ‘who likes my stuff?’ to ‘who do I like selling my stuff to the best?’

Knowing the answer to that question can help you design products and packages that appeal to your target customer, thereby attracting the customers that make your business most successful. Continue reading “Solopreneurs: Who Is Your Ideal Customer?” →

If President Trump is good for anything, it’s controlling the news cycle. Every day brings a new disaster to mull and worry about, and that’s how he likes it. The White House news cycle has largely replaced television in my life. Press banned from the briefing room, military on the border to meet asylum seekers, Ivanka’s emails. Real life is worse than some of the most farfetched plot lines a Hollywood writer could think up.

It’s strange that the economy is booming. I look at the stock market, the trade war with China, the threats to our European allies and the continued march of climate change impacts. What’s the economic impact of the Bay Area’s workers clearing out for over a week at a time to avoid noxious air? Something has got to give. Perhaps the recent lowered trading of tech stocks  is the harbinger of more to come. Continue reading “How do you build a just economy?” →

The sacred wall between non-profit entities, which exist to do good, and businesses, which exist to make money, continues to erode. Companies realize the bottom line business benefits of cause marketing, and non-profits realize the bottom line benefits of strategic sales and marketing to bolster their coffers.

So I found myself at The Cause Conference last week in San Diego, at a breakout session titled Eight Steps to Successful Cause Selling, hosted by Katie Adams Farrell, whose firm KAF Catalyst provides grant writing services and other financial support for not profits. Quite simply, she slayed. Her tips for non-profit fundraising are plenty useful for development professionals, but they are also perfectly transferrable to anyone who is looking to close deals — no matter the organizational structure. Here we go: Continue reading “Successful Cause Selling” →

President Trump has been bragging about the economy lately:

The Economy is soooo good, perhaps the best in our country’s history (remember, it’s the economy stupid!), that the Democrats are flailing & lying like CRAZY! Phony books, articles and T.V. “hits” like no other pol has had to endure-and they are losing big. Very dishonest people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 10, 2018

And yet. Wages are flat and the income gap is widening. According to Bloomberg:

Median household income, adjusted for inflation, rose 1.8 percent last year to $61,372, from $60,309 in 2016, according to annual data on income and poverty from the Census Bureau on Wednesday. The level roughly matches highs in 1999 and 2007 when accounting for changes to the survey, according to the bureau, though it’s the smallest gain in three years.

Continue reading “Building an Inclusive Economy” →

Ten years ago social media was a panacea for small businesses. Any home crafter or independent baker could set up shop on Facebook or Twitter (or Instagram, once it was founded in 2010), accrue followers, engage them and convert them to paying customers. For free. All it took was a smart phone and a knack for writing in 140 characters or less.

Times have changed. Twitter is full of bots, Russians used Facebook to tip the election, and you can’t even post a link to your products on Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, these services are still great tools if you have a knack for them and find them fun. For the average small business owner, however, they can be a massive time suck and at the end of the day, they are better for branding and brand recognition than actual sales conversions. The market is just saturated.

That’s why we at B Targeted recommend a more personalized approach. Continue reading “Anti-Social Media?” →