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A few years ago, when we started working with marketing companies, we talked to them about tactics and what the best items to do were when it came to helping businesses grow and be found online without spending tons of money on paid ads. Most of these companies worked with medium-sized businesses while we focus on small business. This brought in a ton of different ideas and topics that helped all of our businesses grow. One highly talked about topic was review and reputation management for companies. The marketing companies we talked to were going “old school” (e.g. postcards, flyers, or letters) as they had specific business reasons and we were moving to the electronic frontier for our small business customers. Both methods are valid and I can say the marketing companies we work with in Illinois and here in Indiana are now all digital for several reasons but it did take them, and their customers, to realize the old school method was making them look like dinosaurs. I am going to look at three ways old-school marketing companies are (or were) doing review management and why it is hurting your business model if you are doing so.

I grew up in the small historic town of Chesterton Indiana. I have been fortunate to see great communities all around the world. Every move I have ever made has shown me a vast array of great communities. Some are struggling and some are vibrant and growing. What I find is the communities that are truly growing all have one thing in common. They have a strong community and even with the big box stores, they buy from local businesses that support their community. I now live in Valparaiso Indiana with my wife and family but get to Chesterton often as it’s just a short drive. I know deep down it’s this support of choosing a local small business before a big box store that makes these communities great and I truly feel good about it.

Although I am calling this small business growth hurdles it actually applies to any business small or large. It is about keeping to your core strengths and not letting them go. This is something every business needs to stay aware of. Being I have never run a large business my knowledge there doesn’t apply beyond working at some of the best large companies in the world. My focus here is on common mistakes business owners make and that can cripple, if not kill, your business. I am going to cover six of the items that I have not only come across but done myself in the past five years. I have overcome each of these and each has taught me several valuable lessons and made us stronger.

We are hearing this more and more from companies talking with us. They ranked high once and now they are dropping and their competitors are ranking higher. These can be local or national companies organically (e.g. free) ranking higher than they and they think it’s because these corporations are outranking them because they are spending money. The answer is yes but not in the way they are thinking. They are ranking not because they are paying the search engines to rank to get those organic listings. They could be paying for ads but that doesn’t measure into the organic listings. They are paying their employees or a digital marketing company to make them rank that way. Let’s take a look and see what a business owner can do to fix this problem.

Our company is going through the biggest change of any growing business. I know there are many ways of phrasing it but I am calling it the “Business Owner Role Transition” and to me, it is the pivotal point for any small business owner that is growing. Many will feel caught in a trap right before or during this part. Many will sell their business when the end reward is just in front of them. They aren’t quitters but quit anyway as they don’t feel they can do it and they really can with that extra needed “push”. Many will not talk to others in the same spot and lock themselves into silos rather than reaching out and talking with those people – not friends, other businesses that you may consider competitors. I also see it as the hardest point in my 30 years of working.

Adobe Muse was created on May 7, 2012, with more than fifteen releases since then. Adobe Muse is a website builder that allows designers to create fixed, fluid, and adaptive websites without having to write any code. The keyword here is “designers”. Adobe Muse was created obviously by Adobe to solve and simplify the web for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices prior to most people even thinking of tablet and mobile devices. Adobe was beyond ahead of the curve with their proprietary solution. It was fast and still is. Muse utilized custom widgets from an online store to make it simple for graphic designers to create websites (e.g. no nerd required).

eCommerce is all about sales. There’s no other way to say it other than “Show me the money”. With that being said when you are doing eCommerce in Northwest Indiana, Chicago, or a small and growing town like Chesterton you need to focus on the conversion of your visitors to buy from you. In this article, we will look at several techniques used when creating descriptions for your products to draw people into purchasing your products.

It’s a new month and the month that kicks off for many business owners the holiday marketing season. Marketing is never-ending. Marketing does routinely pick up at certain times. It is also time we started to think about the end of the year which means shopping, snow, colder weather, and people talking nice and pushing us out of the way for that most valuable holiday find. We don’t like the thought of the cold, but we are all in the service business.

I truly love how in tune the JM2 team is when it comes to marketing and helping companies grow on social media. Yesterday afternoon when I got back into the office late Kyle was wanted to talk about some concerns he has not only with our clients but with social media/digital marketing. At first, it was related to all things in Northwest Indiana but turned to nationally and then internationally. This is what you call a progressive team player that is thinking not only how to help and assist others in being successful. His concern was about how people are completely screwing up their social media which goes well beyond social media. This is social media, digital marketing, and websites altogether. With what he talked about I know he will be writing several articles on it, but I started thinking of several items that can help your brand achieve success when doing social media.

For those that don’t hustle seven days a week, I truly commend you. I wish my life was like that but my mind is not wired no matter how much I try. For the longest time I tried but all it did was put me into a depression working the Monday to Friday life. I hated Monday’s and was living for Friday’s. This didn’t make for a positive work/life balance nor did it make me happy. I thought it did but looking back I was truly miserable.

eCommerce is slowing becoming a major component of what we offer and businesses are starting to realize there are ways to monetize the internet. As an example, we used to do an eCommerce site every four to six months. Today we are averaging two to three full-featured eCommerce sites every month. Businesses want to invest money and grow their business while spending as little as possible. eCommerce is a great way of doing that with the integration in social media, search engines, and working for you 24x7. Today we are going to talk about some of the core items you need to look into before you setup your successful eCommerce solution and drive online sales for your business.

One of the biggest aspects of our company lately is converting Adobe Muse sites to a full-fledged content management system (CMS). But why would we be switching new clients from Adobe Muse to another system even when they had their website built in the last six months? The reasoning is shocking in some aspects yet not so much in other aspects. Let's look at the top 10 reasons you should be dumping Adobe Muse if your business is running it today.