If you pay attention to social media, specifically Facebook, you've probably noticed that it's been going through a few changes when it comes to pages.

Yesterday we talked at the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce AM Valpo event. We announced two items and couldn't fully get out the third within our 30-seconds we were allocated. That's okay as that is one of the great benefit of being able to write articles. Starting in 2018 we are giving away as part of our own marketing a free story about your growing business. Not only will this be for businesses in and around Valparaiso Indiana where we are located but anywhere within the United States. Below is the announcement of what is coming in 2018.

You hear it all the time about companies, marketing, and the company "brand". But WHAT IS a company brand and why is it important to the success (or failure) of your business? Branding has many meanings and definitions. A brand has been known as your company name, a slogan your company uses, a logo, the products you sell, the services you offer, a symbol you use to define your company, or a combination of these items. A "brand" has evolved over time to be these terms and more. A company brand is more than these mere objects.

I was going to write an article about a client I met with last night but instead went through my list of old articles I had written back in 2014 and never published. Not that I couldn't write anything better today but this was just as good and rang so well when I read it that I think it speaks perfectly to the situation of many people following instead of being the leader they want to be. All too often we see small businesses following, focusing on the wrong items, and not working on their core strengths.

We've all done it, we hate we are not perfect, and it sucks to have dropped the ball. What you do with that drop is what truly defines you and your company. It's not something any of us is ever proud of. It shows we're human, our systems we've put into place aren't perfect, and that we have a lot to learn. That statement resonates with me each and every day. I do weekly reflections on Sunday thinking of everything that happened in the past week. I also look at my previous day each day from 4-6am when I write these articles. Some days I nail out only one while other days I can nail out four articles in that two-hour span as my fingers become a machine (or I have that much running through my mind). I use this time as my personal reflection and insight to keep things fresh in my mind. Recently you'll notice that I start posting a lot of these. There are two reasons for this and I am going to explain as you read on.

When you look at the success of any business and marketing plan (you have one right?) there are four things that we constantly see to achieve success. These are consistency, posting times, strategy, and of being authenticate. This doesn't mean there are only four items. These are four items that appear in every successful marketing campaign. Each together will help you grow your business and your brand to achieve success. During the past several months during our weekly team meetings the talk of "reach" and "engagement" has been at the forefront of the conversation. A lot of this is due to bringing on content writers that have a desire and passion for writing and have the love of small business that we do. It also is happening because we want to make we are providing more value each month. Let's dig into each of these and see why they are important to growing your business brand online.

This past week I have had four emails for my latest articles that have been shared on LinkedIn. This is actually good news as on Twitter we get an email every blue moon (less than monthly). They saw I also posted on our company page the same article. Each person inquired why I wasn't including some "sales pitch" for our companies' services? This question took me back that it was from four different people who don't directly know each other according to LinkedIn. One of the people we had some emails back and forth and then an hour-long phone call about the subject of not having a sales pitch. In the end we both realized that not having a sales pitch of "buy my stuff" or "use our services" at the end was actually more of a sales pitch then just stating so and the person said by not doing so actually made me sound like more of an industry insider and expert. Yeah! That is what we have been shooting for with all of our 200+ articles over the past three years.

With the company growing I have spent a lot of my time focused on improving business processes, fixing areas that can be improved based on our teams input, and stepping away from what I would call "normal blog writing" to a more focused on our overall business and marketing processes. This shift is letting our expertise shine even more and allows our search engine optimization team, social media experts, graphic designers, and software developers focus on the free advice I had done for the past three years.

Normally my blogs are written from 4-6am to be sent out later in the day but being it is a relaxing day I did reading and research during that time instead. Last night I was out at 10pm to see what was up in the community. I drove through Chesterton Indiana and then Valparaiso Indiana. I had a secret agenda to see if small business really believes in the support of their community. What I saw truly shows the heart of what small business is and how much they depend on the local community to help them grow.

When you take control of your destiny you risk not only success but failure. It's that fear of failure that deters many of us to not push ourselves beyond our comfort zone. We all have in ourselves to be better than what we are today. Tomorrow we have the option to be better than we were the day before. It is this constant option of freewill that we have to improve ourselves.