By now we’re well into the quarantine period and pretty deep into the business disruption that’s been the byproduct of the spread of CoVid-19/Corona Virus. At this point many of us are (at least relatively) beginning to adjust to the new normal and catch our breath in terms of what this means to our various businesses. Hopefully you’ve been able to strategize on potential pivots, are making the necessary adjustments, and are getting closer to finding a new groove for the path

The LDR BRD Mission: We help your business understand and connect with your customers by providing actionable intelligence on consumer behavior. We want you to really know your customers and your market. We give you the power to increase revenue, brand exposure, and increase market penetration by deepening your relationships with your customers. Whether you’re in the early stages of the concept, have been around for a while, or are currently experiencing a wave of growth, we

The WIMS Guide Video Edition is Back! I’m in Cali for the next two weeks. We came out here to close out my wife’s maternity leave with a little business and a little pleasure spending time with family and friends. Today’s video I mainly focus on where I’m at her in Cali with a call to action for any potential meetups, introductions, connections, etc. I’ll be in Southern California until Sunday, February 23rd so please feel free to reach out! The other topic is the Charlotte e

Whelp I broke the streak! After literally 14 hours straight with a client firm there was a moment when I got back to the apartment around 10pm where I could’ve made the right decision and be Superman…but didn’t. Ugh! Nothing like that bitter taste of blowing it to motivate you get back on track. Often it can derail someone and they spiral but I’m just going to shrug it off and get back at it. Especially considering that overall, yesterday was overwhelmingly positive and a maj

It’s Miami Monday!! Just arrived in the Magic City and I have an action packed week on deck. Meetings with investors, clients, prospects, referral sources, friends, etc. Planning to hit a few networking events as well with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce and Miami Finance Forum among others as well. Not too mention have to keep up this routine and the gym streak. It’s going to be absolute chaos in the best way. Industries I’m working with and targeting: Legal, Commercia

Getting this in a little last minute today but keeping the streak alive nonetheless! Still in the mountains of Banner Elk, NC and wrapping up Day 14 of the fitness streak (only 90 more to go yet to meet my goal). Again taking a bit of a detour with something that I make more of a thing going forward: Call to Action Friday. Wanted to shout out that I’ll be back down in Miami all next week. The schedule is already packed with client meetings, prospect meetings, networking event

Today we’ve gone mobile, shooting from the mountains of Banner Elk, NC! It’s appropriate for today’s theme (we’re still drilling deeper into CRMs) about the mobile side of CRM. Ideally, whatever platform you decide (or chose) will have a great mobile application as well. It can truly make a major difference with not only efficiency, but also with maximizing the program’s value. My go-to’s have great mobile apps of course (Zoho, Salesforce.com, HubSpot) but plenty of others do

If you’re following along (if not that’s ok too) today we’re talking about what you do as the next step in launching or redeploying your CRM. You’re going to focus solely on the A players for now. The main thing that is going to create momentum and keep you using the system is achieving ROI as quickly as possible. That’s the main benefit you want out of this and thus its the primary goal. The quickest way to get there is prioritizing the A players first, aka your best clients

Wow! You’d be surprised how fast you can get a solid streak going. Seems like just yesterday I started on this (ok so it wasn’t THAT long ago but still) and already we’re on the 5th video. I also completed day 11 of my fitness streak today too. There’s definitely something to be said for just starting where you are, and taking massive action. Before you know it you’ll have some serious momentum to continue building off of. Today we talk about the CRM ABC’s. This is the next s

Today we’re going to cover a brief intro to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for those who don’t know what it is, and for those that do, I just go into some quick initial steps to consider taking if you’ve been apprehensive thus far. I know it can be tedious to set up and maintain but the ROI is incredible if deployed correctly. It’s really mind blowing to me how much resistance there still is out there. Frankly, it’s like turning down a superpower. If you want a little

It’s Friday! Already got day 7 of my gym streak knocked out, got it in early today as opposed to the 10pm sessions I’ve been pulling off lately. Today’s client work was mostly related to government/military contracting as well as the legal industry. Fascinating stuff. I try to bunch project work together by themes/industries as much as I can in order to maintain a consistent and appropriate mindset. It doesn’t always work out that way, but when it does I find it helps create

First of all, thank you for the feedback from Day 1, it means a lot and I appreciate it! There were a lot of you savages still grinding long into the night of January 1st checking LinkedIn/YouTube and I love to see it. Secondly, my wife has agreed to give me that media training refresher after all. So, when that happens, I’ll record it for you all as she’s a legit pro – and talk about META AF content am I right?! For today’s message I went in a bit of a different direction as

If you live or do business in Greater Charlotte then you already know there’s a whole lot to be excited about in 2020 and beyond. The opportunities here are incredible, the city and state of NC in general are growing at a crazy fast pace and receiving all sorts of recognition nationally in “Best Places to Do Business” type articles. You can see for yourself (here, here, and here). Figuring out where to get plugged in or get more involved can be overwhelming, so I wanted to gi

Happy New Year and welcome to the new decade! After about 50 takes I figured what the heck, let’s just launch this thing. It’s raw and vulnerable, warts and all. Clearly I need a media training refresher from my wife who is a former TV reporter. But that’s ok, the polish will come later with practice and reps. Without further ado, coming to you from the WIMS, Inc. War Room it’s The WIMS Guide video edition! I’ve procrastinated for years now on doing video content as surprisin

What are those letters? We’ll get to that later, I promise it’s worth the wait. In my previous post, I went on and on about how Loyalty systems don’t work.  At the end of that piece, I explained that loyalty does work, it just seems the retail application was broken. They’re rewarding existing loyalty (which reduces the Lifetime Value, or LTV, of a customer that wasn’t going anywhere) but failing to convert new customers to loyal ones. If there’s something we’ve learned from

There’s something about Q4 that is always exhilarating to me. Knowing that “the game” is coming to an end, each and every play is more significant, there’s less margin for error. Perform well during this time and you can make up for a lot of previous mistakes and setbacks along the way. Let up or fumble the ball, and you can destroy all the momentum you made thus far. No pressure, right? All of this is going on while simultaneously a new game is going to begin soon thereafter

I’ve been harping on the importance of CRM programs for about a decade now (here’s the last time), yet it still hasn’t caught on the way it should. This is the year that changes. Like with most technology, competition, economies of scale, and innovation have driven costs down significantly. Not only are they cheaper, but the functionality and value has simultaneously increased dramatically. Now, you can even get basic versions of a CRM program for free. It’s why acquiring and

By Jack Tompkins Avoid poor performance with some pour analytics! In the brewery/cidery/wine world, analytics can increase sales, improve customer insights, and most importantly, support and refine your gut instincts! Whether you sell through a taproom or you have the full restaurant feel with the best beverages in town, analytics can help improve your day to day and leave you time to enjoy some of your very own hard work. For brewers, if you get creative and dedicated enough

As Marketers, one of the key metrics we follow is brand engagement, also known as Loyalty.  We often talk about the size of a market, or how much market penetration a particular business or campaign has achieved.  Loyalty is the measurement of how much of our captured market repeats business with us. It’s said keeping a customer is cheaper than gaining a new one.  Considering the retail industry as a whole spent over $1.9 Billion in 2016 running Loyalty programs, I’d say it’s

If you could carve out an hour a month for analysis in order to save a dozen hours of work, the one-hour investment would be worth it, right? How about if that same hour led to crucial details about your sales trends and customers insights? On top of all that, what if that same one-hour investment came at no additional cost to you? Seems like a pretty great deal. Welcome to the benefits of an Excel-based analytical dashboard. Benefits of an Analytical Dashboard You’ve most li