Introduction

YOU CAN DO THIS

After a successful decade as a corporate sales and marketing executive I was increasingly anxious to operate a business of my own. Months of research and study produced nothing more than anxiety. Then one day I just made a decision to indulge my love for plants and nature by starting a landscape business. What followed were two successful decades and thousands of practical lessons.

That business became a laboratory for testing ideas, and every time I made a breakthrough it seemed so obvious that I often wondered why there wasn’t a manual of some kind where it was written down. Now there is. It turns out many of those lessons are just as relevant today, with the primary difference being how technology has introduced better methods and practices for getting results.

You don’t need a marketing degree or to be technologically savvy to be successful with social marketing, although both are useful. More important is a basic understanding of business, the desire to help your customers, and a reliable process to effectively engage them with your business in a meaningful way. Built-In Social gives you that process.

LESSONS FROM THE TRENCHES

There is a big difference between saying you are an entrepreneur and being one. When I was busy planning my landscape business I read a story about Jim Koch, the founder of The Boston Beer Company and brewer of Samuel Adams beer. He too was stuck in the planning stages of his entrepreneurial venture until his father pointed ...

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