Making Awesome Marketing: My Advice to Business Owners

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It’s funny.  I sat down to explain simple steps business owners could follow to apply world-class marketing principles to their company...and was stumped. What do you say to a guy who’s already working his butt off and might not even get enough time with his family? How do you give him something else on top of his already-swamped schedule? Sorry, not going to happen. Yet at the same time, so often I see small business owners trying to do marketing as an afterthought. They’re Continue Reading

Happy 250th Birthday, St. Louis

St. Louis--Small

250 years ago today, a fourteen-year-old boy commanding a party of 30 men began construction on a small handful of rough timber cabins clinging to the western bank of the Mississippi River. Crossing the ice-cold water by boat the previous day in late winter of 1764, he had arrived on behalf of his stepfather to found a fur trading post at the edge of the known world. Thus began St. Louis, Missouri. As the thud of their axe strokes echoed across the lonely wilderness, a bitter wind would have Continue Reading

The Auckland Invasion: Lorde Reigns at the 2014 Grammys

Lorde--Small

The youngest person in 25 years to hit the number one spot on the Billboard charts is a seventeen-year-old girl from New Zealand. Until last year she was a total unknown living in Aukland. Now she's a superstar who just won the Grammys. Her name is Lorde. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Lorde (real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor) is a singer and songwriter with a style that’s sort of an unpretentious mix of electronica, pop and art. Her song “Royals” held the top spot on the Billboard charts for Continue Reading

Thank You, Dr. King

Martin Luther King--Small

I sometimes think that it can be difficult for this white Midwestern boy to truly comprehend racism and discrimination, both because I haven’t experienced it personally and because it is so foreign to how I was raised. It is almost otherworldly to me that a person would be persecuted simply because of who they…are. Though I grew up in racially-divided St. Louis, I always thought my birth city made me far more racially accepting. I was a jazz musician and hung around smoky clubs, clinging to Continue Reading

From Worst To First: How The Red Sox Won The World Series

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Several months ago a friend wrote to me and requested an article about stat management, Japan's legendary post-war economic recovery and the 2013 World Series--quite an assignment, eh? I think I managed to pull it off. The result was this article, which appeared in Prosperity On-Line several months ago.  You can read the original here. From Worst To First: How the Red Sox Won The 2013 World Series By Matt Hanses Full disclosure: I am a Cardinals fan. When you’re born and raised in the Continue Reading