Naomi Dunford, Author at IttyBiz

Naomi Dunford

Naomi founded IttyBiz in 2006. You can find her IttyBiz business products in the Karma Store.

This Is Not The End Of Your Story

April 8, 2015
Personal
by Naomi Dunford

Had I gone to college, I would have studied history.

I like history.

The reason I like history is the same reason I like marketing and law.

The facts don’t matter as much as the stories surrounding the facts.

Most of the non-fiction books we read around here are history related.

(Unless you wrote a book, of course. If you wrote a book, I read it and I loved it. Sensational. Better than Gladwell!)

My beloved has a book called Lincoln and His Generals, originally published in 1952.

It’s about, well, Lincoln, I guess. And his generals.

I had a thought about Lincoln and I thought you might like to hear it…

Should You Really Join A Mastermind Group? (A Potentially Contrarian Opinion)

April 7, 2015
Small Business Marketing
by Naomi Dunford

Should You Really Join A Mastermind I had a chat about mastermind groups today. You know – mastermind groups, networking groups, meetings with alliteration in the name. (Women Who Work! The Wednesday Wowers! The Networking Nerds!) Basically, we’re talking formalized methods of getting together to support one another.

The person I was talking to is on the fence. She dreams of a mastermind group that truly supports her. She wishes for a group of business owners who are her “right people”. She is hoping to find her tribe.

Her conflict stems from two places. One, she doesn’t know if those people exist. Two, if they do exist, they might be hard to find.

The process of separating “right people” from “Oh my God, I hate these people” might be gruelling.

This is a common issue. The perks of a great mastermind group are, well, great. And bad mastermind groups are the ninth ring of hell. Sorting through an unknown number of bad ones to maybe find a good one is unpleasant.

So what should you do? Here’s my advice…

What If You Tried Really Hard?

March 24, 2015
Small Business Marketing
by Naomi Dunford

When I was in the process of quitting smoking, I was having a discussion with somebody and heard myself say this:

“God, I’m just trying SO HARD, you know?”

After making this (in hindsight quite self-pitying) statement, I had a thought.

“Am I trying hard?”

Like, I’m certainly thinking about it a lot. I’m guilting myself a considerable portion of the day. I’m embroiling myself in the drama a lot.

Sure, I’m putting a significant amount of effort into talking about how difficult it is, self-flagellation, whining, reading endless articles on the Internet, and sundried other ignoble pursuits, but am I putting a comparable amount of effort into not putting a cigarette into my mouth and setting fire to the end?

On observation, it would appear that I wasn’t. I wasn’t trying very hard at all.

So, what would trying really hard look like?

It would look like this…

Success Happens AFTER This Part

January 9, 2015
Small Business Marketing
by Naomi Dunford

Success Happens AFTER This Part
A few weeks ago a client brought me two domain names and asked which one he should choose.

Both names were perfectly fine – one was a little more geared towards SEO keywords, and the other leaned towards being better for personal branding.

Which one to choose? What choice would give better results?

How Not To Choose A Business, or 7 Reasons I Decided Not To Become a Prostitute

November 4, 2014
Small Business Marketing
by Naomi Dunford

ShareSharePinTweetEmail An oldie but a goodie by request from Sarah. Every now and again, we’ll hear from a customer or client a story that goes a little something like this. “I started doing it for friends and stuff and they said that I should start a business doing it. And I thought, wow! Yeah. […]