General Business Advice Archives ⋆ Trina Waller Strategic

The Solo-CEO of Everything: Prioritizing When Survival Counts

The Solo CEO of Everything? Yes, Everything. No team. No partner. Just a business to run and family to feed. From keynotes to scrubbing toilets - how I prioritize when survival is the only metric that counts. When people talk about planning and prioritizing, they’re not talking to me. They’re talking to someone who probably ...

What Happens After the “Buy Canadian” Surge? (Marketing Strategy)

by Trina Waller

Borrowed playbooks, buy-local surges, and building something that survives past the moment. PIVOT! Do you remember the great COVID pivot(s)? I do—I was there. Hands-on, inside a variety of businesses. For three years straight, I was helping Canadian businesses reach new markets, build new sales systems and strategies, and manage big changes. For a lot ...

I Am NOT Your Target Client: Why Ideal Client Avatars Fail

by Trina Waller

Why "know your client" means nothing if you're still working off a worksheet of demographics. If you knew your ideal client, you'd know why I'm not it. I am not your target client. And I will never buy from you — not now, not ever — unless you understand why. I am not your target ...

A Marketer Goes Looking for a Marketer: Tactics vs Strategy

by Trina Waller

A Marketer Goes Looking for a Marketer. It Goes About as Well as You Expect. I am a marketer who is currently vetting other marketers for a project. This isn’t a request for proposals; this is an outline of everything that is wrong with our industry. (And if you pitch me after reading this, I’m ...

Why Marketing Advice Sounds Right and Still Fails

by Trina Waller

We all have one — that person we go to when we need advice. It might be about a relationship, a career move, or money. It’s human nature to want input from someone we respect, especially when we think they have more experience than we do. These people become sounding boards. They listen, reflect things ...

You Might be the Reason your Marketing Doesn’t get Results

by Trina Waller

Other Reasons Marketing Might Fail There are Many Reasons Why Marketing Fails... In the previous 2-part article, I covered 6 of the most common reasons marketing fails. But those aren't the only reasons why your marketing might not be getting results. The previous list was all about incorrectly applied marketing strategies, but as humans, we ...

Top 6 Reasons Why Marketing Fails – Part 2

by Trina Waller

This post is part of the Masterful Marketing for Small Business Series, where I aim to teach everything you need to know to start building a marketing strategy that works for your business. WARNING: The information contained in this series will cause you to question what you think you know about successful marketing. That's the point. You can ...

Top 6 Reasons Why Marketing Fails – Part 1

by Trina Waller

What is Marketing REALLY?

by Trina Waller

What is Marketing REALLY? This post is part of the Masterful Marketing for Small Business Series, where I aim to teach everything you need to fix your broken marketing and start building a marketing strategy that works for your business. WARNING: The information contained in this series will cause you to question what you think you ...

How to Choose the Best Email Marketing Platform for Your Business

by Trina Waller

I am asked ALL THE FREAKING time what the BEST email marketing & automation platform is. While most marketers have a favorite platform as the one the recommend the most, I actually don’t. Email marketing and automation has been my bread and butter service for almost my entire time in business and I’ve had the ...