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To become an expert in your field, you are going to have to do some research.

I’ve spent thousands of dollars on coaches, trainings, and university classes, all to discover that my biggest problem was getting real with ME!  Here’s what I mean.

There is a way to serve your clients better and to have that cash windfall that you are looking for.

One of the biggest assets you have is your personality.  Yes, you have to learn how to market, but your marketing needs to represent YOU as the business owner.

For example:  If you are an MLM salesperson and your product is vitamins,  the worst thing in the world for you to do is to market your product constantly.  People DO NOT WANT TO BE SOLD!  They want to be loved.

Think about it.  When you meet someone who shoves their products or services down your throat, it feels disgusting.  Even if you want the product they are selling, often you’ll just walk away.

I had this situation recently with buying a car.  The salesman was so pushy, so over the top bull-kaka, that I was seconds from walking away.  In fact, his hype was so far from the truth that when it came time to sign the paperwork, there was a straight-out lie in it.

The funny thing is that the car salesman actually came up to me and said, “You hate me, don’t you?”

Remember this!  You don’t have to PUSH to get people to buy.  We are in an online culture where buyers are savvy, and they want to feel taken care of.  They want to know that you’ve heard them and that what you are giving is something that they need.

Selling isn’t a bad word, but SERVING will build you a loyal tribe of buyers!

Four Ways to Serve Your Clients Better:

#1 Ask them what they want! Too many people creat

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Hawaii boutique owner Tanna Dang was named the winner of the National Retail Federation’s    National Retail Federation Latest from The Business Journals Retail sales cool in April Mixed signals for mall owners Falls Road Running owner Jim Adams featured in national retail ad Follow this company “This is Retail” video contest on Wednesday.

Dang, co-owner of the Eden in Love boutique at Ward Warehouse in Honolulu, was awarded the top prize of $25,000 by Terry Lundren, chairman, CEO and president of Macy’s (NYSE: M) and chairman of the NRF’s board of directors, and NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay at the organization’s Washington Leadership Conference.

Second place when to Kim Williams of The Polka Dot Press in Florida, and third place when to Susan Kaufman of Illinois. Jim Adams of Falls Road Running Store in Baltimore was given the Judges’ Choice Award.

“These entrepreneurs have an incredible passion for retail and their communities, which came through in their videos and was evident during the voting process,” Shay said in a statement. “We

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When Amazon started making their infrastructure and IT processes available outside the company firewall in 2006 it was a tipping point of sorts for business consumerization of the cloud.  Companies of all sizes leveraged a variety of Amazon Web Services to store data, stream video, run online stores and a ton of other things.

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View photo gallery (50 photos) Tina Yuen PBN

The 2012 Mercedes-Benz GLK350, a new crossover sport utility vehicle has a retail price of $43,715 and gets 16 miles per gallon in the city and 22 miles per gallon for highway driving, on display at the First Hawaiian Auto Show at the Hawaii Convention Center in Honolulu.

The First Hawaiian Auto Show at the Hawaii Convention Center    Hawaii Convention Center Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company features exotic sports cars, classics, economy and other vehicles in 200,000 square feet of space.

The show, sponsored by First Hawaiian Bank    First Hawaiian Bank Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company and the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association    Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association Latest from The Business Journals Follow this company , started Friday and ends Sunday.

About 350 vehicles are on display, but one of the focuses of the show this year is vehicles that get 40 miles per gallon of gas. And t

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  Sean Crafts at Mavenlink posted an interesting, infographic-style decision chart on his blog that he titled “Should You Hire or Contract Your Marketing Department?”

 While many of the questions in the decision tree may not apply to small business marketing decisions (small business owners rarely start with budget) it does point out some good questions that you may not have thought of (how comfortable are you really with sharing proprietary information with people outside of your company?).

Here is a copy of Sean’s chart – what do you think? What questions would you ask that he didn’t?

Today has been a common theme of acknowledging that ‘I guess I should have listened better’.  I missed the event details for my daughter’s science competition, missed some bathroom renovation details, and didn’t notice that my client hadn’t signed the check until at the bank even though it was mentioned earlier. As I came to this conclusion I wondered if as bosses we do the same thing with our staff. We have so many demands on our attention; it’s not unreasonable that we resort to auto pilot every now and then. So to break the cycle and make sure that we are really hearing what our staff is telling us, here are a few tips.

Identify the main point

Sometimes people don’t get to the point and then there are the times where we just can’t grasp it. To make sure that we communicate effectively, we need to summarize the conversation and ensure that we have identified things that need action.

Stop multi-tasking

As women we are infamous for our ability to do a million things at once, but this habit makes it hard for us to one thing really well. So when your sta

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