5 Ways to Take the Wind Out of Your Future Leaders' Sails...

I travel around the country every week facilitating leadership development programs. I find that companies of all sizes make significant mistakes when it comes to developing their leaders. If you want to make more money, increase morale and drive productivity, focus on your leadership team. After all, you can’t do it all yourself.

Here are five mistakes companies make that lead to less effective leaders and the solutions for each. 

7 Strategies This Loud Digital Marketer Used to Reach More Than 300,000 Subscribers...

If you follow digital marketing, Derek Halpern needs no introduction. The insightful, intelligent posts he publishes to his Social Triggers website are so widely recognized that he’s able to boast of more than 300,000 subscribers who anxiously await his updates.

But I wanted to know more about him than just the stats of his success, so I brought him in for an interview. Here are seven of the best lessons that came out of our conversation:

6 Crucial Characteristics of an Effective Tech CEO...

Every day, there seems to be a new article breaking down what makes a great CEO. Whether it’s a general piece or something related to Steve Jobs, the articles often focus on what makes these executives unique, not the winning characteristics they all share.

It’s no secret that being a CEO requires setting the overall vision of the company, hiring great talent and ensuring there’s money in the bank -- but without certain complementary traits, it would be difficult to run businesses that succeed. If you’re an aspiring leader in tech,

Here are the six characteristics I’ve noticed among the most effective CEOs in the industry:

4 Ways To Boost Your Social Media Presence...

You've taken the time to set up social-media accounts for your business on all the major sites. You're posting regularly, taking the time to interact with your customers and using your social-media platforms as an opportunity to share information about your products or services. Social media marketing, however, isn't just about regular posts; it's also about providing your customers with opportunities to interact with your business. Through that interaction, you'll be able to build relationships with your customers and increase their opinion of your business substantially. 

Here are four ways to boost your presence: 

Essential Information to Collect on Every Prospect and Customer...

Entrepreneurs running small businesses worry that if they don’t do this kind of expensive market research, they won’t know how to reach their prospects and will fail miserably. But for many small companies, the cost of even one study from one of the big market research companies would wipe out their entire marketing budget for the year.

Fortunately, there’s a low-cost alternative to focus groups and other formal market research studies: the BDF formula. BDF stands for Beliefs,Desires, and Feelings. The BDF formula says that you can understand your prospect by asking yourself three simple questions: