Improve Holiday Sales
PMA
Just as building a gingerbread house takes careful planning and creativity, so does marketing your business for the busy holiday season. Join the webinar, "Marketing for the Holidays," where Dr. Glenn S. Omura, Associate Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University, will share a sleigh-load of ideas to get you started on your holiday marketing. The webinar, which takes place at 2:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, October 27 is $29 for PMA members and $39 for non-members. Log-in is required for members to receive preferred pricing. More

Create Measurable Impact
Entrepreneur
Call him a nerd, but David Rivers readily admits that each week, he waits with anticipation for a web analytics report to arrive from his marketing department. And as president of KegWorks, a beer equipment company that relies heavily on the web to generate customers, Rivers knows better than to take those reports lightly. For he has learned that analytics often prove revelatory - and beneficial to the bottom line.More

Dealing with Demanding Customers
Business Know-How
No matter how big or how small your organization is – you're always going to run into the very demanding customer who wants to make you pull your hair out. And just like with risks you analyze, there are some worth dealing with and some that are just too much of a bother for too little gain. Sometimes you have to pick and choose and decide which ones to cut loose. More

Negate Competition by "Owning" Your Space
Business Week
Why try to one-up the competition, thus starting a zero-sum race? Or sleep with the enemy, thereby risking the growth of a core business? What if you could simply negate the competition by creating your own market and owning the space? More

How to Track Customers With CRM Tools
Inc.
Keeping tabs on your customers can make the difference between a good year and a great one. Who's ready to buy? Who needs more coaxing? And what sort of cajoling has worked in the past? Customer relationship management, or CRM, software can answer these questions by tracking interactions with customers and plotting future tasks. Here are two of the best free CRM software programs on the market.More

Does it Matter if You Like Your Staff? How to Build an Effective Corporate Culture
Fortune Small Business via CNN
All companies have a corporate culture. Some cultures are good; others are bad. Some are productive, some destructive. And employees sometimes bring with them old habits that don't work in a new environment.More

Three Best Ways to Improve Your Online Reputation
The Wall Street Journal via Smart Money's Small Biz
A great danger lurks just a few clicks away: the online review. Protecting your company's reputation is now a 24-hour vigil. Negative - whether they're merited or not - can turn away potential customers and vendors, and reflect badly on your company's brand. The good news is that small-business owners can be proactive in securing positive reviews by asking satisifed customers to share their experiences. But what if it's already too late? More