Tag Archives: marketing

First Hire

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Your initial employees can make or break the place.  Choose wisely.

The first few employees at your startup are crucial. They set the tone for your company and determine whether you fade out or make it to the next level.

“Hiring the right people is absolutely critical in the beginning, because each person you add will have a significant impact on shaping what will – and won’t – be valued, and how people will behave,” says Chris Cancialosi, founder and managing partner of gothamCulture, a New York-based organizational consultancy. Cancialosi was interviewed for Entrepreneur magazine about attracting and selecting employees to create the right corporate culture from the start. Continue reading →

Can You Dominate a Niche with Your Business?

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The overall theme of the Peter Thiel book, Zero to One is a study of what successful innovation looks like, primarily in tech start-ups. One of the main concepts in the book is that most of the really successful businesses have started by dominating a very specific and limited niche market.

Examples: Continue reading →

20th Century Leadership & Motivation

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If you have employees, at the heart of your business is knowing what motivates people to do great work. It turns out that over the last 50 years a group of Social Scientists all over the world have taken a very systematic look at this question. Continue reading →

Before You Spend One More Dollar on Marketing

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I attended a webinar yesterday where the presenter spoke my language! It was with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.   Here are three questions that we should all be asking before we spend money on marketing. Once you are clear on your responses to these questions, your marketing strategy will be much more effective.

1. Why do we do what we do? Continue reading →

What is The Grommet?

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Grommet

As we continue to work on developing the CBI Maker Space, I discovered The Grommet www.thegrommet.com . It will be a great resource for some of our makers. From the website:

“A Grommet is an innovative, unique product that is created by a Maker with a story to tell. Often a Grommet is new to market or has not yet been broadly discovered. When we choose Grommets, they are ready to find a wider audience and our product launch platform gives them the amplification and attention they deserve. Continue reading →

CBI 2014 Annual Report

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  • Who have you told about the CBI?
  • Who have you sent to the CBI?

Biz Life Cycle

The Cumberland Business Incubator (CBI) serves all types and sizes of businesses including for profit and non-profit; small, medium and large; start-up, mature and those transitioning to new ownership. Continue reading →

Not Just Another Year

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The Way Forward sign in the sky

It’s January 13th – yes, almost half of January is gone. What have you decided to do differently this year so that 2015 is not just a repeat of 2014? Hint: Some people have been in business for 10 years, but they have repeated their first year in business 9 more times because they didn’t decide to do anything differently. Don’t let this happen to you! Continue reading →

5 Behaviors That Make You a Co-Working Space Pro

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The CBI recently developed Co-Working spaces. I found an article by Cassidy North-Reist that helps define some of the behaviors that will help you succeed in a Co-Working space.

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The nature of the American workforce is rapidly changing, with more of us telecommuting or starting businesses out of our homes than ever before. It’s no surprise then that there’s been a recent surge in people taking up residency in Co-Working spaces. Continue reading →

Guerrilla Marketing – 5 Unorthodox Ways to Market Your Brand

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Before a million pails of cold water brought amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) global attention, many people had never heard of the disease. After a summer of ice bucket challenges, the devastating motor neuron disorder has an astonishing level of awareness. Although the campaign didn’t originate as a deliberate marketing strategy, it’s a great case of the power of guerrilla marketing in the social-media age.

Inexpensive, small scale and non-traditional marketing tactics can be extremely effective ways to promoting your brand if the idea catches the public imagination and goes viral. Guerrilla marketing covers a huge variety of activities. Continue reading →

So You Want to Start a Business or Buy an Existing One?

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start business

We have a number of people who come to the CBI for help in buying a business or to start their own business. Sometimes it’s a short conversation when they come looking for the grant money they believe we have. We don’t have grant funds or grant applications to buy a business or start a business. We don’t have access to a pool of investors who loan money without a sound business plan, or know of any that will loan 100% of the cost of a business even with a great plan. Continue reading →