When business owners create products or services – and the marketing plans to sell them – they often base their decisions on what customers tell them. But which is more important: What customers say? Or what they actually do? more

Lisa Tener, founder of the Bring Your Book to Life program, was recently honored at the American Business Awards with a gold award in the marketing-media category and a bronze award in the executive of the year-media category. Her eight-week program was designed to help writers turn their ideas into published books. Tener holds an M.S. in management, with a concentration in marketing, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to being a published author, she is a faculty member at Harvard Medical School’s continuing education program and regularly presents at the Ocean State Writer’s Conference. more

Marketing a new small-business product or service in a highly fragmented media world has become trickier than ever. Relying only on slow-moving, old-school methods such as direct mail and print ads is a thing of the past. Today, success belongs to those who compile the most effective media mixture. more

I’m traveling to Warsaw, Poland, next month to deliver two public seminars. After a couple Skype interviews, I discovered that although the United States and Poland are 5,000 miles and many, many cultures apart, our sales needs are the same. more

Calls not getting returned? more

As a collector of sports memorabilia, I’m on a bunch of mailing lists. Most of the offers I get are for items I can buy almost anywhere – except for the offers from Steiner Sports. more

I get a ton of emails from people seeking insight or asking me to solve sales dilemmas. Here are a few that may relate to your job, your life and, most important, your sales thought process right now. more

No doubt about it. Business owners and startups are piling into social media marketing like never before. But the most successful businesses don’t go naked. They deploy a variety of digital tools to amplify and monitor their efforts. more

Don Saracen, president and founder of Saracen Sales & Communications, was recently named chapter member of the year by the New England chapter of the National Speakers Association. Saracen is president-elect of the association, and works as a sales and ctommunications expert, speaking, training and consulting with businesses and organizations looking to improve their sales, communication and business-development efforts. He is a Providence Rotarian and Paul Harris Fellow, and holds the Advanced Communicator Gold designation from Toastmasters International. Saracen majored in communication studies at Emerson College. more

If you run a business and still think of Google only for search and AdWords, you may be missing something that could help your business work smarter and cheaper. The search giant is really a softy when it comes to small business, and has been working to woo biz owners and startups into its Google Apps for Business bundle. more