Failure does not equal incompetence

I was just having a conversation with a colleague this morning about her feeling like a failure in her career. I reminded her that failure is fun. Failure means that we get to try again and not make the same mistakes but instead to learn, grow and become better. Then, I saw this nifty article about Jagermeister and how they believe that the key to success in its e-commerce business is fostering a culture that encourages failure. Check it out and see if you can take some of their best practices and use them in your business today!

The time is now

Recently I saw a new television show on HBO called “The Shop,” which is about a barber shop in the African American community that Lebron James hosts, and has interesting conversations with other African American celebrities. In African American communities, the barber shop is where people go to have discussions about politics, the economy, family dynamics, who makes the best macaroni and cheese and more. It’s a little known fact in that community that when you walk into “The Shop,” you are likely to be

Transforming Downtown St Louis

As shown originally in MyStlCity.com – read full story here: https://mystlcity.com/urban-core/

A few months ago, president and CEO, Syl Wilson was a panel member on the #MyStl discussions about all of the new development happening in the city of St. Louis.

Syl Wilson represents several developers including Alterra Worldwide (developing the Jefferson Arms Building currently), Tim Person & Associates, JWAJ Properties and Kwame Building Group. Because of her vast experience and assistance with these reputable businesses, she was able to offer a wide range of feedback for the panel and audience. Read the full story and watch the video below:

Downtown Now: Transforming St. Louis’ Urban Core

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As shown originally in MyStlCity.com – read full story here: https://mystlcity.com/urban-core/

A few months ago, president and CEO, Syl Wilson was a panel member on the #MyStl discussions about all of the new development happening in the city of St. Louis.

Syl Wilson represents several developers including Alterra Worldwide (developing the Jefferson Arms Building currently), Tim Person & Associates, JWAJ Properties and Kwame Building Group. Because of her vast experience and assistance with these reputable businesses, she was able to offer a wide range of feedback for the panel and audience. Read the full story and watch the video below:

To celebrate its launch, #mySTL, powered by Downtown STL, Inc., hosted a day of livestream conversations with St. Louis experts, influencers and policy makers.
After a successful morning discussion between local historian NiNi Harris and Downtown STL, Inc. President and CEO Missy Kelley, a lunchtime panel discussion was held on the topic “Downtown Now: Transforming St. Louis’ Urban Core.”  The conversation, which took place at the Downtown STL, Inc. office, included insight regarding exciting development projects such as the final stages of the Gateway Arch grounds project, the much-anticipated redevelopment of the Jefferson Arms building and the Downtown street grid to support the area’s transportation needs.
The panel was moderated by Mobin Khan (COO & VP of Economic Development, Downtown STL, Inc.) and included the following engaging panelists:
* Sylva Wilson (President, Syl Wilson Marketing; Associate, Kwame Building Group)
* Sarah Melinger (Director of Development, Gateway Arch Park Foundation)
* Jamie Wilson (Director of Streets, City of St. Louis)
* Jack Coatar (Attorney, Spencer Fane LLP; 7th Ward Alderman, City of St. Louis)
#mySTL helps the St. Louis region rediscover Downtown St. Louis and the people, projects and
stories that make up our city. Follow along on social media using @mySTLcity and #mySTL.

Leveraging Smart Phones for Business

How many of you are in business and want to know how you can reach more of your prospects using technology that already is out there? In the past as marketers, we’d buy a list, mail to that list, and possibly follow up with a closing item to those who were

When it comes to copywriting….The creative process starts in marketing.

Start by answering the question, “What am I selling?”

You need to first:

• Learn everything you can about your product and/or service.
  • What does it do
  • How does it function
  • What problem does it solve
• Use it (read back issues, take a demo, see how easy it really is, check out the competition).
• Talk to current or past buyers, subscribers, donors and/or members
• Talk with telesales, service, tech-support reps
• Analyze: why and how is this going to help me? What problem is it going to solve?

 

Project into the mind of the user what the experience will be like with your product!

The importance of Benefits….

The more you talk about how your company, product or service will improve the life of your customer (“you” copy), the higher the response.

….vs. Features

The more you talk about the company, the product, the service (“we” copy), the lower the response.

How Branding Your Company Can Make You or Break You

You may have heard that it’s important to keep your brand in tact when referring to your business. Well, that is true.  You may have also heard that in this economy one wrong move…and your done.

While all of this is very true (and a little scary), there is help! You have to think about your brand and how to keep it consistent over many different forms of media without causing alarm on any of those forums. Make a decision early on as to who you want to be known for and how you can

Can B2B Marketers learn something from Hip Hop Musicians? YES!

Can marketers learn from the techniques that hip hop artists use? I say the answer is emphatically, YES! No, I am not saying that you should start using the technique of using cuss words, don’t be that closed minded, keep reading and see what I am talking about. Take the rapper Drake as my example. He’s got a catchy song called “Over,” which has been on the airwaves for several months and has crossed over to mainstream radio. Why has it done so? Well check out what he’s done. Some of his techniques are similar to what we tell businesses to do on their website everyday! In the second verse, he makes mention of not one, but three

Young kid needs marketing help from you!

I had a call the other day asking me to help out a friend’s son to promote their blog. It’s actually a beautiful site. I was super impressed. Sure I said. You need me to help with your keywords? Your meta tags? What’cha need buddy? But, nope, he didn’t want that. He wanted to know how I could help get him advertisers on his site. Hmmm…interesting. So, I asked him what his site was about. He said it was a site about

The joy of web analytics

The joys of website analytics

How do you measure your progress on your website? Do you even measure it at all? When I began my website career I thought wow, I am a genius at this. I have a great design, people are constantly telling me how beautiful it is, and I am positive customers are visiting the site…Or are they?

If you aren’t

Recession meets angry marketers

Have you ever had one of those days as a corporate marketer when you just wanted to ask, “When is enough enough?” And yes, I ask you this even in a recession. Is it enough when everyone tells you (or yells at you) that you’re not getting enough of your projects done? Is it enough when you can’t hire more help because the budgets have all been cut? How about when your counterpart