When writing about a product, service or idea, most people, including professional junior writers, start with the features and benefits. That’s great if the copy is for an online product catalog, web listing or sales brochure. If you are trying to engage an audience to get them to buy the product, service or idea, however, […]
A very astute colleague recently asked me, “What is the most frequent communication council Carroll & Company provides?” After thinking about it for a moment, I said, “Communication is an investment. To determine the return on your investment, decisions about whether to produce a YouTube video, email campaign or other tactic need to be grounded […]
One of the fastest, easiest ways for growing a small business, is to deliver consistent, quality service to anyone with whom your company interacts. Shouldn’t this be a no-brainer? Doesn’t everyone know that customer engagement and loyalty are tied directly to the quality and consistency of service they receive? There have been reams of reports written […]
As a communications executive, I’ve dealt with the healthy (and sometimes unhealthy) tension between creative staff and creative project managers for years. Tools like project schedules and reports are essential for managing any business. Without them it’s next to impossible to manage resources, costs and to make sure all projects hit their deadlines. Creatives are […]
A new year brings a renewed commitment for personal and professional growth. The calendar turns over and we have a clean slate. We promise ourselves that this is the year we will lose those extra 10 pounds, get more organized or move our business to the next level. Now that we’re three weeks into the […]
On a weekend when numerous protests about the killing of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer were scheduled, hundreds of St. Louisans of all races, ages and abilities came together to participate in the Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes. Twenty-nine million people in the United States have diabetes. Its prevalence is nearly twice as high among African Americans […]
As leaders, the weight and volume of our daily responsibilities make it so easy to slip into a routine of doing what we know has worked in the past. But as this Harvard Business Review post reminds us, the status quo makes us stale, bored and irrelevant leaders that are keeping our organizations and our […]
