The title says it all! Sooner or later you will have a catastrophic failure of everything electronic. Your computer, your web server, your website, your smart phone, whatever. Trust me on this one! The only thing you can do is keep recent backups so you have some recourse when disaster happens.

Today, I want to focus on your website. First, don’t count on your web hosting company to keep backups for you. They may, or they may not, but it is really YOUR responsibility to have a recent backup of your site. And best yet, have one that you keep off site, say, on your computer.

One of our clients is a staunch supporter of marketing automation. They manage all their lead acquisition, followup, and client nurture using email automation. And they are consistent and successful with it. That’s all they need, right?

Wrong.

Do you wish you could leverage the great content you write for your blog and get more traffic and engagement? Statistics show that the majority of people need to hear or read something multiple times before they engage.

We found this new-ish tool that increases social engagement and blog traffic by posting automated campaigns on your social platforms over an entire year.

Aah, the beach. It conjures images of the sun, a gentle sea breeze in your hair and the whoosh of the waves as they wash in over sparkling sand. You’ll want to relax under the palm trees like they do in the Corona commercials or hang ten like in those Beach Boys’ songs.

If the beach is your destination this year, here are 7 great ones scattered across the U.S. Some of them you’ve no doubt heard of, others are a little off the beaten track.

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Balancing our priorities between personal life and professional life can be a huge headache. But still, we continue to ride the seesaw.

Here’s the issue in a nutshell:

With the lack of any other frame of reference, your prospects will default to a price comparison. An apples to apples comparison. Once they say something like, “The XYZ company will do the same thing for $Y dollars less,” you have virtually lost the sale, because the talk is all about price. When you tell them all the reasons (and they may be good ones) why your pricing is as good if not a better deal, you sound to them like you are making excuses to try to recover the sale. It’s over!

Most entrepreneurs are autodidacts. That puts the responsibility for our education about our skills, expertise, and industry squarely on our own shoulders.

Going to business school could be interesting although, truth be told, I think I have a business school’s worth of business books on my office shelf right now. No, I haven’t read them all yet but I have a new plan.

“Everyone is not YOUR customer.”      ~  Seth Godin

That little nugget of wisdom is worth writing down and then pinning up where you'll see it. It makes things so much easier when you discover who your ideal customers and clients are, because then you only have to market to them. Your marketing will become less generic and more personal when you know who it is you're “speaking to.”

You have to admit it—autumn is a great season. The weather's nice, the changing colors of the leaves are mesmerizing, and your inner child is nudging you to look at back-to-school supplies and Halloween costumes because there might be something “cool.”

Try to muster up that childlike enthusiasm for your fall marketing plan! Take advantage of all that the season has to offer, and it should be a breeze:

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Congratulations, you sold another product! Now you just have to confirm the order with the buyer, find a box, pull the product off the shelf and add it to the box with the correct paperwork and packing material, print the address label and get it to the post office for shipping.

All done? Hmm, what about their access to the membership site and the online part of the product or bonuses? Then what about support followup or education on how to use your product?

Summer marketing slump. These are words no marketer wants to hear, but during the summer months it’s an unfortunate reality many marketers face. The weather is warm, and those who aren’t on vacation are thinking about it. There are a hundred and one different activities your potential customers can be doing— hiking, biking, swimming, picnicking— pretty much anything other than concentrating on what you’re trying to sell them.

Summer may have its own challenges for marketers, but a slump doesn’t have to be inevitable. Here are some ways you can avoid it:

Independence Day has a lot going for it. There’s red, white and blue, Old Glory, fireworks… maybe a barbeque with family and friends or a concert under the stars. It’s also the only major holiday in the U.S. between the end of May and Labor Day at the start of September, so why not make it the centerpiece of your summer marketing? After all, your customers have shed their winter blues and everyone wants to get out and have fun. Show some patriotic spirit, put the focus on fun consumer experiences and it’s hard to go wrong.

In a previous article, we talked about business-oriented podcasts and recommended several that may be worth your time. If you found the content worthwhile, why not take the next step? That’s right, start doing your own.

There are several great reasons for doing so. It’s a chance to give back to the business community by sharing your knowledge and expertise. In addition, it helps gets your name out there and can lead to networking opportunities and a chance to bring in new clients.