I’m astounded by the number of business owners who don’t develop a formal list of questions when interviewing prospective employees. Rather, they conduct a general conversation to get a gut feel for an applicant.

This approach doesn’t allow you to compare applicants evenly and is a poor business practice. Rather than getting to know an applicant, your goal should be to evaluate her ability to do the specific job. To discover this, you need a fixed set of interview questions for all applicants. Here are five questions you should always include.

Five Critical Interview Questions

We all know the tried and true questions to ask job candidates, but if you’re looking to find out about the real person behind the resume, here are a few questions you should consider asking.

Five Great Questions for Job Candidates

Press releases are a great way to promote yourself and your business. Last week we discussed five reasons to develop a press release. Now that you understand different justifications for developing a press release, here are some great ways to utilize it.

Five Great Ways to Use a Press Release

Every business—no matter how small—needs a website. But a website is more than just an electronic brochure with clever text and images that brag to the world about how wonderful you are. Your website should serve as the one-stop location for all the questions a prospect might have about your organization. At a minimum, here are the five questions your website should answer.

Five Questions Your Website Should Answer

Tomorrow is one of the most significant of all US holidays. We think of July 4th as the birthday of our nation. Besides celebrating with friends and family, you can actually capitalize on holidays like this to grow your business. Here are a few ways to do that:

Five Ways to Capitalize on a Holiday

One way to attract media attention is to look at the calendar. Almost every day, week, month, has been set aside to “celebrate” something. Figure out a way to tie your business in with one of these “celebrations” and pitch that back out to the media. Here are a few current examples. For a complete list, check out “Chase’s Calendar of Events,” http://www.amazon.com/Chases-Calendar-Events-2012-Edition/dp/0071766723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335100720&sr=8-1

Five Calendar Celebrations You Can Convert to PR

People often ask how I’ve done it. How have I been featured in publications from the Wall Street Journal to Oprah’s “O” Magazine, as well as hundreds of radio and TV shows? The answer is promoting yourself as an expert using one of five standout-from-the-crowd approaches.

Five Ways to Get Media Interviews and Mentions

I’ve been in marketing for over 25 years now, and here are five things that I’ve found many business owners don’t know. I believe that these concepts can make all the difference in convincing people that there is value in finding out about you and your products and buying from you.

Here are five marketing tips to keep in mind.

5 Marketing Tips That Make the Difference

It’s not often you have the opportunity to promote yourself and your business at no cost. But The Woman’s Advantage Shared Wisdom Calendar gives you just that opportunity.  You simply go to our website at http://womansadvantage.biz/pages/calendar-quote and share a tip/quote/idea that has improved your business or your life. If your idea is one of the 365 selected, you’ll be featured in the seventh issue of The Woman’s Advantage Calendar.

Here are five reasons you’d want to do this:

5 Benefits of Being Featured in The Woman’s Advantage Calendar

You may be spending a significant portion of your marketing time and budget on email marketing, such as this newsletter. If so, you want to get the highest return on your investment. Here are five tips I’ve discovered as a result of writing and publishing this email newsletter over the past three years.  

5 Tips to Improve Your Email Newsletter Results