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Press releases are a great way to get your story told.      Here are 3 tips for writing better news releases for entrepreneurs and small business people:     1)  Write short, to-the-point news releases and put the important information up front.  Editors are busy. They typically have 7 to 12 seconds to read your [...]

Join In! For members and non-members alike! We are delighted to report that the entrepreneurial coffees last month were not only a hit, but a smash! Of those who attended 95% would like to return. What we discovered is that while our companies are different and our professional experience varies, our  journeys are indeed very [...]

Our companies are different but the Phases of our journeys are remarkably the same.  Our time and head-space fluctuates between grappling with challenges, actual work, success, insight and agony. We are constantly inventing and reinventing ourselves (beyond Phase I and back to Phase I) – searching for best practices and fine tuning messages, methods and [...]

If one of your clients asks you for a professional referral – you’re not going to say, “I know someone who sucks! Take their number.”  You’re going to say, “I know the absolute best person to call.” The more skilled your network, the better your reputation.  If you hang with great people, great people will [...]

Build and Evolve Your Company If you are building a start-up or updating your current company – and you need quality professionals – call the Big Ooga – we’ve got great people. Build Your Skills If you want to learn social media, SEO, how to set-up a blog, start a Twitter page, streamline your process, [...]

I competed in Toastmaster’s Smack Down this week and came in last behind the mental patient.  To make it worse, it was the easiest topic in the easiest division AND I did my best.   In cream on cream wool with matching stilettos, my first 30 seconds were a breeze.  But for the next 60 seconds, [...]

There are 27,000 current members in Linked n Chicago, thousands of members & friends of Big Ooga, Local First, BNC, Evanston Chamber, West Suburban Chamber, the Naperville LinkedIn Business Group and the Evanston / North Shore Business Group. Among them, the owners, founders, leaders, volunteers and members share a common vision, to create a working, [...]

You don’t pick your family but you do pick your business community – and they are a second family of choice.  Surround yourself with good people and they will up your game, watch your back and genuinely help you succeed.  Good people will talk about what is tough and noodle how to get through it.  [...]

Until recently I was a hardcore how-to reader, spending time inhaling nonfiction.  Why waste time on made-up stories when how-to do everything is indexed neatly in the library?  How-to books make you smarter. They break things into steps even a monkey can do! They strip away narrative and serve up facts gathered from lifetimes of [...]

Did you ever notice how incredibly hard it is to express your company in words? To say exactly what you do without sounding like everyone else? The trickiest thing in this business environment is the ability to evolve quickly and then capture this in consistent messages – Now if that isn’t an an oxymoron, I [...]