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.
Client Perspectives
News
Client Management
Mindset & Motivation
NETWORKING & REFERRALS
Operations & tools
Personal Brand
Productivity & Focus
SOLOPRENEUR LIFE
BRANDING & POSITIONING
MARKETING STRATEGY
VISUAL IDENTITY & DESIGN
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.
Effective brand naming isn’t emotional or political—it’s strategic. It should align with your positioning, resonate with your audience, and be memorable enough to stand on its own. More than a trivial detail, a name plays a critical role in shaping perception, signaling value, and reinforcing your brand’s promise. A weak or confusing name can dilute impact and force your brand to work harder to stay top of mind. Ultimately, naming is both a creative and disciplined process that deserves as much attention as any other aspect of branding.
Last year I wrote about some lessons learned while working in-house that makes me a better consultant and business owner. Today, I'm turning the tables and following up with some ideas for what I think helped shape my success when I was an in-house, corporate,...
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 out about your business and influencing the "buy" decision. There are several types of marketing that a business could use to get customers to make that decision. Marketing has...
Join us for a brown-bag lunch and interactive workshop on Thursday, January 24th that will help each you figure out just what your own “It” is that makes your businesses so special. Moreover, once you know your “It,” you’ll be able to attract the right customers to your business.
Our organization, the Early Childhood Educators of Reformed Judaism (ECE-RJ), has been around for 15 years. I’ve been its executive director for four years. I’ve seen the organization grow and, at times, struggle – but our mission of meeting the needs of our...
My experience with Brenits Creative has been fantastic. I wish I would have contacted Andy back when I first started Cyclone Shipping! But back then, I probably would have had some of the same doubts as when I first met Andy many years later: Do I really need to take...
Human beings have base fears such as the need for protection, for reassurance, for status, for achievement, recognition, and so on. Addressing these fears is the basis for many brands’ positioning and their marketing. But how successful is fear as an emotive driver...
Every business owner faces a series of challenges. We wear many hats and make a lot of different decisions each day, as you know. Depending on where you are in your business lifecycle – the start-up phase, a mature business or a relaunch – we might share similar...
I attend a fair amount of networking events every month. As an entrepreneur providing expertise, doing it (mostly) on my own, I get most of my new business leads through referrals. So going to 7 to 10 gatherings per month to meet other entrepreneurs - some of whom...
Sometimes it feels like there’s a lot on my plate. I run my own business, sit on two boards, serve as leadership for my referral networking group, and I teach. Most importantly, I’m a husband and father. I have a lot of stuff that needs to get done every day. But I’m never overwhelmed enough to say, “my plate is overfull.”
Most business owners have an idea of what they want their company to look like. However, their employees can’t necessarily see that same vision for what the future can be. If you are struggling with writing a clear mission statement and vision statement, then you should try to write a Vivid Vision first.
Meetings are a necessary evil in our business. Between staff meetings, project planning and review meetings, vendor meetings, and of course client meetings, its any wonder we get real work done at all. But one thing I have learned in almost 25 years in the creative...