"Dumpster for one, please!"
"I'm a friend of Alice. She's expecting me."
"Venison is fine, but I prefer slow food."

I could go on...after the unfortunate demise of a hungry mountain lion that wandered too close to humans in the Berkeley area of the famed, Chez Panise restaurant aka "Gourmet Ghetto" locally. It was the tragic loss of a wild creature, but easy to explain.

The 4th bore of the Caldecott tunnel is a 24 hour a day project with bright lights and multi-million dollar machines drilling through bedrock. Projects like this help humans grow, commute yet disturb the balance of nature. We may not be affected by the construction, but sensitive animals are...

At least the mountain lion went out in style. I hope it had the tartare...or the snooty, slow waiter we had last time.

At least a half-dozen times each week I receive an email or social media message about some service some company is offering that I should be recommending to my clients. Some come from people I do business with currently and others I wouldn't recognize if they came up and bit me. Seems to me that the unwritten rules of solicitation need to be written down for those who didn't get the memo.

We've all been to websites that offend our senses. It might be the copy, the color, too much flashing or that "something" you just can't put your mouse on that sends you packing. In working with businesses in all industries and sizes the one common denominator is they all have a website. Unfortunately, not all of them are good and some are flat out annoying. Here are a few easy thought processes you can work through to help provide your visitors with a positive visit to your online office.

After returning from a week in the heat and rain of Florida theme park hopping, I wanted to share my marketing take-aways from my consumer experience. Some are pretty obvious, but since we can all learn from other businesses I wanted to share something fun at the end of the summer. Here's my 2cents from my Disney, Universal and Cape Kennedy visits.

I had the pleasure of hearing from an ongoing prospect today. He and I have talked, proposed and talked before. He brought a potential project to me that I had to deny because it was in the "sales" bucket, something Pollock Marketing Group doesn't do. I gave him my best advice for meeting this need and we bid each other farewell in hopes of working together soon. The light bulb went off that it's pretty uncommon for the rest of the business world to know where the line-in-the-sand is between sales and marketing when it comes to hiring the right person or firm. Allow me to shed some light on this topic.

Last week was hell for SME - small, medium enterprise in Washington D.C. While bailing out big banks is no problem, trying to pass a $30 billion loan package to help small businesses (that come from small business banks) is being used as political collateral by the GOP and has become a taboo to lobby for by the groups many of us pay regular dues to.

Business surprises are hard to manage and always costly. Like having a flight canceled that gets you're entire trip thrown off, everyone goes into disaster recovery mode. Some surprises - like this - are out of your control. But when you get surprised by a client, "Did I forget to mention we're taking next week off and you'll need to get us that research by Friday?" it is a shame-on-you moment. That's where questions, questions and more questions become your best friends. The $300/hour corporate term is discovery. Here are some suggestions to better qualify your potential clients and even current clients as they grow with you.

While having dinner with my family the phone rang. When we checked the message after and it was a gal my husband used to work with who has a habit of only calling for favors. She is surprised and down-right angered that other women in town aren't friendly to her. She continues to ignore the unwritten niceties and general rule "don't call me only when you need something" and is shocked that people don't welcome her around town. It occurred to me that this same scenario happens in business constantly. Are you breaking the rules of your target market and don't even know it?

About three months ago following a client session, I was completely depressed. It was disheartening. I was always so energized with helping and the excitement my clients had, but this guy was different. So that I wouldn’t carry this feeling around all day I

Coming from the corporate partnership side of sales and marketing, I am very cautious about my partnerships on every level. With every individual and business having a website or blog these days we are constantly bombarded with ads. Before it was only a banner ad or pop ups. Now, sites are using ads to monetize their sites. But, I need to ask – at what cost?