In lean startup, corporate enterprise, and nonprofit settings, these four things have rung true in every setting. As I build my plan for the new year, I’m keeping them top of mind.

If you want to pull in marketing help that actually helps you get where you want to go, you start with strategy. Strategy is the secret veggies snuck into your muffin. Without it, you’ve just got a bunch of buttery sugary floury goodness. Yes, it’s yummy and smells divine. But it definitely will not power you through a productive day.

You’ve hit that moment. You know it’s time to do something about your marketing. So what should you do?

You tried to run Facebook ads for a couple of weeks last year and they didn’t work. Why’s it so hard to get anything out of Facebook ads? Do you really even need to try?

Whether your business thrives can start and end with perception. Here's how, told through two stories: the challenges of charter school marketing and the pitfalls of political debate...

What's always worked for you will some day fail. This is true in life and in business, and definitely in marketing. It’s akin to the idea that what got you here won’t get you there. 

Making your ideas stick requires simple messages that get to the core and leave the rest behind. If only creating simple messages were in fact simple. But that's where the book, Made to Stick, comes in.

As any happiness expert or habit-changing coach will tell you, if you just focus on the thing to be done, you'll get nowhere. And this got me thinking...Are you doing this same thing to your marketing?