EchelonOne Consulting

Your hand is made up of four fingers and a thumb. Did you know that these five digits are 40 times stronger when they work together? This got me thinking…can the same principal apply to businesses?

Small BusinessConnect: This past September, four other business owners and I started a community-based business netwo...

Recently, I heard someone say, “Stop yourself when you start placing limits on the future…because it hasn’t happened yet, everything is possible.”

That’s one of the beauties of a new year. It is new. And because the year hasn’t happened yet, everything is possible.

But I’ve also been in business long enough to know that those possibilities don’t just happen. You have to go out...

“Five days to change your world.” That’s the motto of the Twixtmas campaign, the brainchild of the Flexible Thinking Forum. I came across it recently and plan to add it to my ‘twixt and ‘tween time to make a positive difference over the holidays.

What is Twixtmas? It’s the five day period between Christmas and New Years.

How Does it Work? Do...

December is one of those pivotal months. It heralds the end of one year and the dawn of another. For many of us, it’s a month when business slows down. If you live a hectic business life like I do, this is a great time to find some breathing space and think time. I like to spend this time reviewing my year so far against my goals.

I’m a big fan of tracking my marketing and sales activities throughout the year. What worked? What didn’t? Once I’ve done...

When you write to a client about your business, do you approach it like King Kong or Rin Tin Tin?

We’ve all seen the King Kong approach to writing. “Me big. Me the best. Me the cheapest. Me the smartest. Me. Me. ME!” Businesses thump their literary chests and shout about their achievements from every rooftop.

While all that noise might catch a person’s attention, it certainly doesn’t engage them. Or make them want to buy...

Does the idea of writing a business proposal send cold chills down your spine? Here are three simple ingredients for making the secret sauce that greatly improves your chance of hearing “yes.”

Ingredient #1: It’s all about your reader

Leave your ego at the doorstep. A great business proposal isn’t about who you are and what you have to offer. It’s about what your potential client wants and needs...

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m all about words. How we communicate and the words we choose to do so speak volumes about who we are and how we do business. Nothing contradicts a strong message more than sloppy writing, poor grammar and typos.

It’s difficult to visit a website, blog or online post today without finding at least one mistake, front and centre, for all to see. It’s not uncommon to find many.

You don’t need to be a p...

For many of us, the months of December and January are pivotal times. Ends and beginnings. Reunions and separations. Remembering and moving on. They are rich in the rituals of family: reunion, storytelling, reaffirmation, returning to your roots. They are times of crossing over:

• sorting through the tangled strings of our lives
• making choices
• discarding the unwanted bits
• beginning again

A Time for Reunion:...

Is a country a brand?

First, let me say that I’m a proud Canadian. I’ll complain along with the rest about taxes, the price of gas and our frigid winters. But when it comes down to the crunch, our freedoms, diversity and beautiful geography make living in Canada a privilege.

But Canada—a brand?      

I have a problem.

Mistakes seek me out. They jump out from a page, grab me by the throat and demand my attention. I don’t go looking for the mistakes. They find me. Perhaps it’s my training as a writer. Perhaps it’s the result of all the editing of marketing pieces I performed in the corporate world.

Over the past week, I’ve been helping two clients with online research . Every website I visited had typos, grammatical erro...