Lynn Serafinn's Blog: Trentino Genealogy, page 9

Your Website: To Be or Not to Be – That Is the Question!

Sue Ellam shares some crucial guidelines for business owners that can save you money and frustration when working with a web designer for your website.

When we start our businesses, we’re full of great ideas and enthusiasm. But while ideas and enthusiasm are great, most successful businesses these days also require a website. Unfortunately, many of us know little about websites when we first start out, and we are prepared to spend whatever money it takes to create the website of our dreams.

Fo...

The Great DropBox Hacker Scandal: Keep Calm and Carry On!

Lynn Serafinn tells how to keep your DropBox account secure, and suggests ethical, responsible ways to respond to hackers and other blips in cyberspace.

Yesterday, there was a big buzz on social media suggesting that DropBox, the preferred cloud storage service for so many of us, had been hacked.

Before I say anything more, let me assure you:

Nobody hacked into DropBox.

Some unscrupulous person(s) stole a few hundred expired DropBox user names and passwords from someone else (not DropBox, appare...

How ‘Inviting’ Are Your Terms and Conditions?

7 Graces community member and lawyer Lubna Gem Arielle tells how defining your company policies can become a positive and value-based asset to your business.

Here’s a quick test. I’d like you to take a deep breath and answer one simple question without thinking.

Ready? Breathe in. Breathe out. And go:

When I say the word ‘law’, what’s the first thought that springs to your mind?

Now, I’m guessing that many of you have the taste of metal in your mouth; or maybe your stomach has knotted. Maybe you...

Disconnection – What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from the Shadow

7 Graces co-director Nancy Goodyear explores the dark side of the 7 Graces and explains how the Deadly Sin of Disconnection can affect all our relationships.

In the 7 Graces model, Disconnection – the first of the 7 Deadly Sins of marketing – is the foundation from which all the other ‘sins’ emerge. By definition, if we are disconnected, we are living and working in isolation with no connection to anyone or anything. When we feel no connection to anyone or anything, all our decisions and actio...

Empowering Your Customers by Getting Rid of the Hard Sell

Marketing consultant Lynn Serafinn shows how sales made from ‘hard sell’ marketing are not all they’re cracked up to be and offers a more ethical alternative.

Earlier this week, my colleagues at the 7 Graces Project and I hosted an information call about our upcoming Foundations of Ethical Marketing course. At the top of the call, I assured our listeners that I wasn’t going to do a ‘hard sell’ about the course or try to push them into signing up for the course with manipulative marketing tact...

Snog, Marry, Avoid? How Do You REALLY Feel About Marketing?

Lynn Serafinn shows how our consumer attitudes shape who are as marketers and invites you to take a quiz to explore your own relationship with marketing.

These days, most marketers will tell you that marketing is ‘all about relationships’. In most cases, they are talking about your relationship with your audience. Who are your audience? How well do you know them? How do you communicate with them? What do they really think of you?

When I work with clients, we spend a lot of time exploring their...

Injecting Your Passion, Values and Purpose into Your Business

7 Graces co-director Nancy Goodyear explains how aligning your business with what you care most about can make work more enjoyable, satisfying and fulfilling.

Running a business takes a lot of time and energy. If you work full time, we are talking about the bulk of your waking hours. And that’s a hard thing to ask of ourselves if we feel no connection to our work – if we feel uninspired, tired and bored by what we do. What a lot of wasted time!

Of course, it’s a lot easier if you really and tru...

How Our Relationship with Source Shapes Us as Business Owners

Lynn Serafinn shares her definition of the word ‘Source’ and explains how our worldviews influence our choices to run ethical or not-so-ethical businesses.

Here at the 7 Graces Project, we utilise a number of different paradigms that help to guide us in all that we do. One of the most important of those paradigms is something called the 7 Key Relationships. I first identified these in my book The 7 Graces of Marketing. Since then, they have been a major focus in our courses, as well as in our...

How the RIGHT Kind of Research Can Help Your Business

Consultant and value proposition specialist Cindy Barnes tells why some research methods fail and how to conduct a deeper, more insightful kind of research.

Whether you are a major corporation or an independent business owner, research is an integral part of your business success. The right kind of research can give you a better understanding of what’s happening in your business, and what to do about it.

In my consultancy, I work primarily with corporates and larger organisations. Many of them...

Images, Ethics and Marketing – Is Seeing REALLY Believing?

Sue Ellam explores the impact of images in business, marketing and social media and how some images manipulate emotions rather than reflect the truth.

”A picture paints a thousand words.” – Frederick R. Barnard, 1921

These days, I get bombarded by all sorts of images. Whether they are cute or horrific, each makes an emotional impact in its own way. For instance, I often feel manipulated when I discover that the ‘today’s earthquake disaster’ photo going viral on social media was actually taken f...