This is your hub for everything I write—whether you’re growing a brand with The Creative Brief or navigating the business-of-one life with Solo(ish). Explore by topic or follow the content stream that fits where you are now. Both are here to help you work smarter, show up stronger, and stay aligned with what matters most.
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I’m excited to have been featured in the GoSolo interview series by Subkit in their Entrepreneur Stories series. I’m honored to be included among the other small business owners who have also shared their stories.
Brenits Creative has been recognized as one of Arizona’s top 30 brand strategy agencies by DesignRush, a B2B digital marketplace that connects brands with leading agencies.
During the week, people all over the world attend BNI meetings to get and give referrals. But as it turns out, few members tap into the full potential of their BNI chapter. There is a system for generating business referrals, and you have to be willing to do the hard work it takes to get them. Here are six step-by-step instructions for helping people to help you.
Going to a BNI meeting having not done any work behind the scenes is like an athlete going to the Olympics without training – neither is likely to win any medals.
One of the most valuable and often ignored assets any business professional has is their network of personal contacts. If you keep an organized list of contacts, you’ll be able to effectively and efficiently build and deepen your relationships, ask for referrals, or simply keep in touch.
Most of us are familiar with the BNI expression 'people do business with people they...
If anyone in the room owns a business with staff, you have likely experienced “leaky bucket” syndrome where we train our team only to find a few weeks later they’ve forgotten the training. We have to keep topping off the bucket!
BNI is notorious for acronyms, and one of my favorites is the CEU, or “continuing...
A timely follow-up can mean the difference between closing a sale and hearing that they hired someone else before you got around to it. Use this hack to never forget to follow-up ever again.
As you know, visitors are the lifeblood of BNI. Natural attrition means 20% of members...
A steady stream of visitors is necessary to keep a chapter healthy and growing. But we...
When we look at the overall levels of member engagement in terms of attendance, one to...
During business networking meetings, such as BNI or Chambers of Commerce, you will have...
Are you stressed out about your upcoming featured presentation? Are you worried about...
Here are some secrets for planning and preparing for your 10-minute featured...
Business professionals who want to do business by referral are often far too general in...
So often, BNI members are frustrated about not getting more business referred to them....
Think about marketing as planting trees. The trees of brand marketing you plant today will guarantee business growth tomorrow. What you are communicating today is to help potential customers make the buy decision in the future when they need what you are offering.
If you’re like me, you have changed your approach to networking over the last seven months. As we have learned in our chapter, we can all find new clients by watching out for each other on Facebook. But Social networks are multifaceted tools being used to create awareness, promote, and build relationships!
It’s been eight+ months since we started doing our weekly referral networking meetings over Zoom. For some, it’s comfortable and natural. For others, we’re either still finding our way or getting pretty tired of doing this virtually.
With social distancing becoming the norm, networking has moved to online platforms, but it is still an essential tool for building relationships. To be successful, you must have the right mindset, where you focus on how you can help others, not how they can help you. This approach builds mutually beneficial relationships, which is the goal of networking. You can start by nurturing existing relationships, checking in on close friends, family, and colleagues. To meet new people, you can target specific groups or be open to random connections. Allocating just 30 minutes a day to LinkedIn can be an effective way to network online by skimming your feed, commenting on relevant articles, and sending personalized messages to your connections.
Even after 40 years (or 60 in the case of the original P’s), the Marketing Mix is still very much applicable to a marketer’s day to day work. A good marketer will learn to adapt the theory to fit modern times and their own business model.
Like any specialty, marketing has a language of its own. Recognizing some important terms and dropping them into conversations when talking to your marketing consultant would help us solve your business challenges.
Mission, vision, values, and positioning statements are the most widely recognized strategic tools used to define a company’s business, strategic objectives, and overall approach to reach those objectives. Another less frequently recognized strategic statement that many companies neglect to employ is the Purpose statement.
A follow up email or call isn’t about trying to sell additional products or services. The best follow-up is one that adds value to the recipient.
Your website is a reflection of your business, the value you offer your prospects, and what it’s going to be like working with you.
Branding is long-term focused, rather than special promotions or a discounts. The tactics for staying top-of-mind 6 or 12 months from now are different than getting them to notice you right now.
It took just ten minutes to update my DNS settings, and almost two weeks to fix the problem I created. This article is a cautionary tale of letting better get in the way of good enough.
Rather than stopping all of your marketing, consider instead changing your strategy. Instead of selling, inform. Instead of daily email blasts, send emails weekly (or monthly). Instead of doing the same thing you’ve always done, pivot to something different. Here are some specific ideas for this difficult time.
Since so many people are working from now, and Brenits Creative is a 100% remote-work team, I wanted to share the four things that I have been doing consistently for 20 years.
To remind us that names have only as much power as we give them, Juliet in Shakespeare's...
Last year I wrote about some lessons learned while working in-house that makes me a...
Your website isn’t converting. The social media advertising doesn’t bring in as many leads as you hoped. The direct mail campaign was a waste of paper. Your emails don’t get opened. And none of it is bringing in any new business. Sounds familiar right?
Like many non-marketers, you might think that marketing is "one" thing: getting the word...
Our organization, the Early Childhood Educators of Reformed Judaism (ECE-RJ), has been...
My experience with Brenits Creative has been fantastic. I wish I would have contacted...