Questions About Affordable Care Act Open Enrollment? We Got You Covered.

Open enrollment for health care insurance, whether you’re getting benefits through an employer, a state program, or are self-funding, has never been an easy proposition—and adding the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare” or “ACA”) to the mix in recent years has not simplified things a bit. From what you read online or hear in the daily news, together with what you think you know from trying to keep up on all the changes, information, and misinformation, it’s enough to drive any reasonable person . . . well . . . bananas (monkey pun intended)!

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Your Evolving Brand: Can it Stand the Test of Time?

Sometimes it’s fun to look back and wonder, what was I doing on this day a year ago, two, three . . . you get the idea. Looking back is a good way to see how or if your thinking has changed or if you’ve made the progress you’d planned on (or not). Perusing the Monkeyz Blog archive, I found Does Your Brand Story Have Lasting Power? from September 2015. In this blog, I revisit how the BOM name came to be and how important it is for businesses to develop brands over time that can stand the test of time—that can evolve with you as your business/brand adapts to changes in the marketplace. I also comment on how work should be fun . . . or else why bother? It was all sage advice then, it remains sage advice a year later. Enjoy!

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Winners Stay True to Their Brands

My Oakland Raiders started off their 2016-17 NFL season with a victory, and my LA Dodgers are four games up on the Giants as I write this. All is good (for the moment) in the Paul June sports multi-verse. Yes, I know—they really aren’t “my” teams, but it’s hard to think of them otherwise when they’re sitting pretty in the standings.

Source: Winners Stay True to Their Brands

Do You Have A Story to Tell?

Labor Day weekend has come and gone. It’s the proverbial marker to end summer and begin fall, though by the calendar (and for those of us in warmer climes) summer has a few more weeks on the dance card.

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Stay Well, Be Well All Year Long

As summer winds down, all of our beach bodies and good eating habits run the risk of taking a back seat to back to school and back to work responsibilities. As we get busier, and as we return to our normal habits, work routines, and school schedules, it’s easy to lose sight of rest, relaxation, …

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Customer Service: Your Golden Opportunity to Exceed Expectations

When this King Monkey decides to part with his hard-earned dough, he expects to be treated well. I don’t think I have unrealistic expectations. I simply expect the product or service I buy to deliver on its promise—that’s first and foremost. If it’s supposed to slice and dice, then it darn well better slice and dice as advertised. But there’s more to customer service than simply being satisfied with the product. Delivering a quality product or service is a given. There’s the whole customer experience to consider from start to finish, ranging from how you greet customers at your store (whether it’s a virtual or bricks and mortar venue), to how you treat them, to how fluid and seamless the process of purchasing and receiving your product or service is. Every step along the way is a golden opportunity to shine—a chance for your brand to exceed expectations and to endear yourself to customers. It’s an opportunity to build loyalty, trust, and enduring relationships—but it’s also an opportunity to fail.

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How Does Your Brand Design Help You “Go for the Gold?”

In the minds of consumers when everything is equal about a particular product or service, what’s left? What distinguishes one brand from the rest of the chatter? Quite often, the decision to buy a product or service is based on emotion—on the ability of a brand story to strike a particular chord with target buyers …

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Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Olympic Athletes’ Pursuit of Greatness

The Opening Ceremonies for the Rio Olympics are this Friday. Are you excited? I am (beach volleyball kicks off bright and early Saturday morning), though also a little apprehensive. The obstacles facing the Rio Olympics are well documented. In case you’ve been up in the jungle canopy the last few months, here’s a quick rundown of some of the ongoing issues that have been reported:

Source: Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Olympic Athletes’ Pursuit of Greatness

Make “Get to Know Your Customers Day” an Every Day Occurrence

Did you observe “Get to Know Your Customers Day?” It was last Thursday, July 21. It’s a day designed to encourage businesses to reach out to their customers and get to know them better. Sounds like a good idea to me, and if you did miss it, there’s no need to fret. The next one is coming right up on October 20 and then again January 19. (If you’re sensing a pattern, that’s because there is one. Every third Thursday of the quarter is “Get to Know Your Customers Day!”)

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Digital Marketing: Look Before You Leap to Boost Effectiveness

Many digital marketers are more about selling tactics—aka “services”—rather than selling what most businesses want, which is to achieve desired outcomes, whether that’s boosting sales, driving revenue, raising awareness, generating web traffic, or any combination thereof. While it’s a given that most marketing strategies these days are likely to contain website-related activities and social media, by necessity, what’s not a given is what the right mix is for your specific goals. Digital marketing is not just posting content to a blog, sharing on social media, and/or making showy apps for smartphones and tablets. Yes, these things can be very important, but they are not the end-all, be-all. For this King Monkey, it all goes back to “Marketing 101.” You must first consider your target audience.

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