Susan Solovic's Blog

Be careful to balance design trends with your established image

There is little doubt that Millennials are driving markets today and this is especially true online. One place where their impact is literally seen is in design. Online design trends move quickly today and this is because the tastes of younger Internet users drive the changes. And, the tastes within younger consumers always change more […]

Are you slipping at your #1 responsibility? Many are.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. I’ve heard that advice in a number of different settings over the years, but it’s especially important for small business owners. So, in a small business, what’s the main thing? Put as simply and succinctly as I can the main thing in small […]

For ongoing success, hire for these soft skills

Every business owner with job openings today is feeling the pinch when it comes to finding candidates who have the right technical skills. But don’t let that fact push you into offering a job to the first person who seems to have the right skill set – you could end up in a worse position. […]

How to prepare your business for 2030

Could tomorrow’s high technology replace the branch lopper in your garage that you use once every two years to trim the trees in your front and back yards? I’m not talking about some fancy robotic laser that would automatically trim all the trees and shrubs around your home, I’m talking about the ability of network […]

4 Most Important Content Marketing Metrics

A musician friend told me a horror story about a gig he once played. Someone in a fairly large company loved his band and hired them to provide dance music at a yearly dinner-dance party the company throws for employees. The crowd gave them a tepid response during their first set. As they were leaving […]

What the Henry Ford – Enzo Ferrari feud teaches us about branding

When Ferrari was the perennial winner at the 24-hour race at Le Mans, it caught the attention of Henry Ford II and Ford decided to buy Ferrari in order to get his hands on the company’s racing expertise. However, Enzo Ferrari slammed on the brakes and rebuffed Ford. So, what did Ford do? He decided […]

Revealed: Women entrepreneurs’ crowdfunding advantage

Note to women entrepreneurs: Make society’s gender stereotypes work in your favor! Personal experience and years of observation have taught me that women have a more difficult time winning investor backing for their startups than men. In fact, only about 1.3 percent of startup funding goes to women-owned projects. Since the most in the venture […]

Why the future ‘ain’t what it used to be’ by the time we get there and what that means for your business

Futurists are always wrong. That’s a rock-solid truth I’ve learned over the years. This is particularly important at our current point in human history because many of our highest profile business leaders have become futurists. This is because many of our highest profile business leaders are also technology leaders, and technological developments prompt envisioning the […]

How to mold managers that propel your business success

Here’s a shocking fact of U.S. businesses: Leadership training doesn’t typically happen until managers have been on the job for some 10 years. I think it’s easy to understand why this is so. Very often individuals sort of “morph” or evolve into management positions. It can happen several different ways: The organization grows and a […]

Small business survey affirms positive U.S. economic outlook

I think Wells Fargo and Gallup could have used a Magic Eight Ball to summarize the findings of their most recent Small Business Index Scores: Outlook good. The 2018 Q1 index came in at 106, down merely one point from its decade-high level of 107 notched in the final quarter of 2017. Some highlights of […]