Inspiring Commerce

How to pick a great name for your startup

by Carl Natale on October 18, 2010

I got some great tips for picking a name for your new business. These tips are worth reading for one simple reason: Entrepreneurs regret. One more reason why spending calories on picking a great name is important: It’s a one-time cost to get a great name — but the benefit is forever. Conversely, if you […]

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How to make sure you’re getting the right projects

by Carl Natale on October 15, 2010

Good steps for establishing a process that will help you win worthwhile projects: Take Control. Determine the Problem to Be Solved. Learn More About the Prospective Client. Learn More About the Work. Check for Budget. Avoid Jumping Through Hoops. Ask for the Work. via 7 Secrets to Winning Better Projects — Faster | FreelanceFolder.

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Track and listen to your loyal customers

by Carl Natale on October 15, 2010

Apparently there’s a lot more to customer loyalty programs than offering 10 percent off. According to a study conducted by Bain & Co., although 80 percent of companies believe they offer a superior customer experience, only 8 percent of their customers agree. Based on a recent study of 200 companies worldwide, we’ve identified six steps […]

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How to start a digital business

by Carl Natale on October 15, 2010

Good insights from Pandora founder Tim Westergren on starting a digital business. The second tip on being able to adapting to trends: The company’s mobile app strategy shift began with the release of its iPhone application in 2008. With that single decision, the company discovered that, in fact, it is more a mobile company than […]

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How bloggers can be part of the solution

by Carl Natale on October 14, 2010

Those damn bloggers. Mucking up the Internet so the rest of us can’t find anything useful. Oh, wait. I’m one of those bloggers. Probably part of the problem I am. The problem as defined by former Portland Press Herald reporter Paul Carrier: Here’s an example. After it was announced this week that novelist Howard Jacobson […]

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Two copyright lawyers walk into a bar…

by Carl Natale on October 11, 2010

Stop me if you heard this. No not because I can get sued. You see it’s possible to re-tell a joke that someone else wrote. There is no copyright on jokes. But the delivery is another matter. So a comedian’s performance of a joke can be protected. It takes more than words to be funny. […]

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Personal branding is a tricky issue because if you do it too well, you can hurt yourself. This is why. Your personal brand depends on what you have done. And the only way to turn that into money is to keep working because customers want you to solve their problems. If you build value for […]

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Why timing matters for Twitter campaigns

by Carl Natale on October 7, 2010

There’s some research out that suggests that tweets only have a lifespan of an hour. After that, people are unlikely to act upon it. If you are looking to get retweeted and nobody picks your tweet up within the first hour, chances are that nobody ever will. Only 1.63% of all retweets happen in the […]

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Having a cool domain name is so 1995. These days you can’t have a cool Internet startup unless the domain name ends in “.ly” and has less than six characters. So something like vb.ly is so cool that can’t be legal. At least not in Libya – the country that is assigned the “.ly” domains. […]

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Should your business depend on your personal branding?

by Carl Natale on October 5, 2010

An entrepreneur’s biggest asset just might be his or her brand – especially when they are small businesses. But that brand can help them become titans of industry: Now that I’m a small-business consultant, I work with aspiring entrepreneurs who are attempting to market everything from bottled water and snack foods to toys, clothes, jewelry […]

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