The pandemic, wildfires, and Portland protests created unprecedented complexity for this CEO of an HR consultancy. Here’s how he engaged and empowered his stressed-out employees. Earlier this year, we held our semi-quarterly all-hands meeting. As I often do, I incorporated a live poll into my company overview, so I could gather and reflect back to the company employees’ thoughts on a key issue. For this meeting, the question was personal: what word would you use to describe how you are feeling right now? Read Full Story

If you ever plan on finding investors, partners, or employees for your e-commerce startup, you’ll need to know how to create a business plan. A lot of people make this process out to be more complicated than it needs to be. When you do it right, creating a business plan doesn’t have to be so difficult. In this guide, I’m breaking down step-by-step everything you need to know about creating a powerful e-commerce business plan. What is an E-Commerce Business Plan? Have you ever thought about something you wanted to accomplish in your business? You’d likely jot down a few lines discussing strategies, costs, and methods behind the steps you would take to achieve those goals. If you’ve ever done that, you’ve created a basic business plan, and there isn’t too much more to it than that. An e-commerce business plan is a strategy for how your business will work, …

As many companies around the world are forced into arrangements that don’t adhere to the usual nine-to-five, maybe CEOs will now be forced to realize that we can imagine a different model for how we work. As the coronavirus crisis forces more companies to participate in a massive experiment in remote working, it raises questions about how work might change when the health crisis passes, and if companies may be more open to alternative forms of working in the future—including not just letting employees work from home but allowing new variations in schedules, such as the four-day workweek. Read Full Story

Posted by rjonesx. As SEOs, we hold a surprising amount of influence over how the world gets its information. In times like these, when businesses of all stripes are facing uncertainty and we may be looking for ways to help, the skills you use in your day job can be your superpower. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Russ Jones outlines five ways SEOs can make a difference amid the chaos of COVID-19 — just by doing your job and doing it well. Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab! Video Transcription Hey, folks. This is Russ Jones here, Adjunct Search Scientist at Moz and Principal Search Scientist at System1. Today is my first day giving a Whiteboard Friday from my home here in Cary, North Carolina. Unfortunately, it's with a somber attitude as many of you are at home right now realizing what's …

Your analytics should tell you everything. Tools like Google Analytics are incredibly valuable for businesses. Once you’re setup, you’ll have everything you need to analyze your performance data properly. Instead, many companies have realized that their analytics tools have introduced a lot of unexpected problems. They’re not getting the kind of value they need. That’s the good news. Most companies think their data is clean; that they’re making good decisions with the data they have. Most of these companies are wrong; they just don’t know it yet. This is why companies need analytics consulting. They don’t know what they don’t know. Today, I’ll show you how to find the right analytics consultant for your business. 4 Ways an Analytics Consultant Can Help Grow Your Business Many companies make the wrong assumptions. Using a tool like Google Analytics, clients think all they have to do is drop the tracking code into …

By now you have heard about the Coronavirus . The sad reality is that it is spreading quickly and will continue to spread for a while. Did you know that we are getting roughly 15,000 new cases a day and it’s growing fast ? No one really knows how many people will be infected (or will pass away sadly), but it has caused the global stock markets to crash, which means as a business (or even a marketer), you will be affected. And because my ad agency works with hundreds of companies in all the major sectors and we have 7 offices around the world, we are already starting to see how it is impacting marketing (I’ll share the data below). So what does this mean for you? Well, before I go into that, let me be clear on what marketers should NOT do. Don’t exploit the situation The first …

The 4 Ps of marketing… You’ve probably heard about them from a friend, a textbook, or even at school. I know it sounds like a boring topic that’s common sense, but there is more to it than meets the eye. And no, it’s not just for large companies… the smaller you are, the more important for you it is to leverage the 4 Ps. So before we dive into it, let’s first break down what they are… What are the 4 Ps of marketing? The 4 Ps of marketing is a famous concept that summarizes the 4 basic pillars of any marketing strategy: product, price, place, and promotion. It sounds simple and it really is (the harder part is implementing it, which we will get into later). The idea behind the theory is that if you implement them, you will generate more sales. But sadly nothing is that easy. :/ …

Posted by timaj100 We are living in a fast-moving time with new technology, ever-evolving social and political landscapes, and a pandemic on top of that. Any predictions about what to expect in 2020 for marketers was no doubt lightyears off what we’re experiencing now . So what can we learn from this year as we move forward? You can bet things will continue to change and evolve in unpredictable ways. What worked last year might not work now. Heck, what worked last week might not work next week! How, then, can you be sure you’re getting the most out of your marketing efforts? Evolving and finding opportunities There are a few ways you can try to stay on top of things. No matter what, having a strategy for post-COVID is important. Learn from others For one, pay attention to those around you. Learn from your peers and competitors. Some may …

As an entrepreneur, I know a few things about coping with chronic uncertainty. During COVID-19, this type of thinking is especially useful. I think it’s fair to say that we’re living through a time of peak uncertainty. Several months into the COVID-19 crisis, we still don’t know how long we’ll have to socially distance, or what our new “normal” will look like . It’s unclear what kind of long-term impact this will have on our economy, and millions of people don’t know when, or if, they’ll be back to work. Read Full Story

In his new book, ‘Redefining HR,’ Fast Company contributor Lars Schmidt explains how modern people teams are transforming antiquated notions of what HR can be. When you go back to the origins of HR, the function was largely driven by compliance and risk mitigation. How do we keep the company out of the headlines? How do we ensure employees don’t get the company into trouble with bad behavior? There was a default lean toward designing policies and procedures with risk aversion as a primary driver. Read Full Story