Small Business Marketing: Ideal Domain Names

Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is a master marketer, and our small business marketing guru, Andrew Lock, says small business owners can learn a lot from watching both The Apprentice or Celebrity apprentice.

And as always, Andrew answers more small business marketing questions, offers up a free Web tool and shares how you can adopt a big company strategy to improve your small business. Click on the Help My Business Sucks logo below to watch the full episode.

I love The Apprentice TV show with Donald Trump, and the spin-off series “Celebrity Apprentice,” too. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s chock full of useful business (and marketing) lessons for small business owners, including you. In this episode, I talk about the finale of Celebrity Apprentice where Brett Michaels and Holly Robinson Pete are tasked with creating a new flavor of drink for Snapple ice tea.

What should you do if your ideal domain name is already taken by someone, especially if they’re just sitting on it, and haven’t used it for any specific purpose? That’s the question raised in this week’s “Ask Andrew” segment. I hope you benefit from the reply I share with you.

I’m often asked to recommend a good online video converter that doesn’t require a lot of fiddling and tweaking of settings. I have exactly that to share with you, it works on both Mac and PC, and it’s free. Don’t say I don’t have your best interests at heart!

This week’s big marketing lesson is from Toyota. As you know, they’ve been in a spot of bother recently when they discovered that some of their models thought that braking meant accelerating. Well, we all make mistakes. Toyota had a major mess on its hands and they’re now in their final stages of clearing it up and fixing the negative perception of the company that has been implanted by the media.

I’ll show you how to adapt what Toyota did to your small business. As usual, let me know your opinion about the topics covered in the show this week -- leave your comment below, it’s really easy to do.

Andrew Lock is a self-described maverick marketer and the creator and host of Help! My Business Sucks, a free, weekly Web TV show full of practical marketing tips, advice and resources to help small businesses "get more done and have more fun."