A good strategy is the only foundation. We work with you to understand what you are trying to do and then develop programs to get you there.
Success is crafted by design. Check out some of our websites, marketing programs, public relations, logos and other successes.
Hundred Rubys is a boutique marketing agency that creates beautiful things for small businesses. Steeped in strategy and marketing with purpose, we rely on our talented freelance badasses, strategists, marketers, designers, and developers to inspire and engage audiences.
Sophistication meets excellence with Wordpress. A gorgeous website to showcase a photographer's work in New York.
Hundred Rubys is a boutique marketing agency that creates beautiful things for small businesses. Steeped in strategy and marketing with purpose, we rely on our talented freelance badasses, strategists, marketers, designers, and developers to inspire and engage audiences. And with a large bag of tricks including designs waiting for a new home, we have the tools and experience to help you reach even greater success.
Perhaps the most important piece in your business is defining your strategy on the way to world domination. We work to understand your business, the industry, the competition, and who your customers are. We look at your business efforts and objectively pinpoint what has worked and why, what has failed and why. From here we then identify unique value you have above all alternatives and craft a new brand that you will own.
You have a website and now you want to spread the word. From email programs and press releases to surveys and events, please let us know more about your need and we can work to find the best solution. And maybe introduce a few new concepts to you along the way. Like we say, we have at least one fantastically “bad” idea every day that inspires a really good idea.
Your website is the first touch point a client has with you…even before a phone call or email. Get ready for a sophisticated, feature-rich design that inspires ooh’s and aww’s. Based on WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or another easy to update Content Management System (CMS), your site will command attention, build confidence in what you do, and encourage customers to reach out.
So you are new to social networking? Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and YouTube are great tools to help build relationships and earn loyalty. Work with us to set up your branded profile, unique look, and content plan to know what to say, how to say it, and when to say it.
Mad Skills // Delivering timely and relevant content at the exact moment your audience needs it. That's what we are about. Strategy is always first around which we execute programs to achieve goals. See some of the results based on our solid strategy plans.
Photo Website
Portrait Photography
Construction Website
Construction Blog
Travel Agency Postcard
FLEXIBLE BLOG
Twitter Background
Creative blog
Construction Facebook
eCommerce Website
Pet Photography
Bookstore Cards
Portrait Photography
Architect’s Cards
FLOWERSHOP BROCHURE
NYC Officiant Website
Surf Shop Logo
Dog Business Cards
Cleaning Brochure
Salon Brochure
Bakery Logo
Cafe Menu
Twitter Background
Winery Brochure
Linked In Pages
Time Magazine Article
Chef’s Logo
Electrician Postcard
NYC Photographer Website
Makeup Artist Website
Hundred Rubys Website
Wedding Website
TATTOO SHOP LOGO
Interior Design Website
About this Blog // What do we love? Sharing ideas, learning, collaborating, and getting better. Check out some of our latest blog posts covering strategy, marketing, social media, small business development, and terrible bosses.
I was sitting at brunch a few weeks ago trying to convince a colleague why it’s so important for today’s CEO to be involved and active in social media. I was trying to sway him on the benefits, the rewards and all the new opportunities that await the socially savvy-CEO. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until my friend took a bite into his bagel, looked me in the eye and quipped, “…but that’s only if he’s smart enough to ‘get it’. Otherwise, he’s a liability.”
He was right.
Though nearly every business, regardless of niche, could find value engaging in social media, that doesn’t mean it’s meant for everyone. Should YOUR company get involved in social media? Maybe…but maybe not.
Here are 10 signs your company isn’t suited for social media.
This social media thing is about people. That means if you can’t DEAL with people and didn’t have friends as a child, then perhaps its best you stay away from it. Because, really, the only thing worse than not having a social media presence is when your presence is used as a case study for why companies shouldn’t have one. If talking to people gives you hives, hire someone to handle your social media services for you. Those little people you hate (read: customers) will thank you.
This is the Internet. If you can’t laugh at yourself or others, then you don’t belong on it. So many times success in social media means being able to embrace and leverage what is weird and quirky about you and run with it. It’s about being able to hop in and laugh with the people laughing AT you, get them on your side and move it to something good. If you don’t possess a sense of humor and can’t deal with criticism, then you may not want to swim in these waters. Companies that take themselves too seriously are written off as the dweebs of the Internet and will be virtually stuffed in lockers. It’s also a long way down when you fall off that high horse. Continue reading
Much of what happens at a startup happens out of sight of journalists and their readers.
It’s not the stuff of compelling reading, either. Running a business involves a vast amount of logistical work, stuff that has to be learned step by step if you don’t already know how to do it.
You don’t find this out in business school. The only way to learn it is by doing it. That’s why, if you’ve got a killer business idea, you should go out and do it.
You don’t find this out by being a journalist, either. Back in the dot-com era, another writer and I got together, decided we had a pretty good grasp on this digital publishing thing, and started a company.
We probably did have a good idea. Our plan was to write and syndicate how-to content like tips and tricks, starting with tech products and then expanding into other categories. We figured we’d sell advertising, and syndicate our content to sites that needed to make themselves stickier, like e-commerce sites. A better-funded competitor, eHow, went on to dominate the how-to category before getting acquired. It’s still around. Meanwhile, syndication turned out to be a decent model for making money from content. We were just 10 years too early.
At least, that’s what I like to tell people. In reality, we had a great idea but no clue how to execute it. Despite great advice from more experienced business people and investors, we were good at the writing and editing business but not so hot at the generating-revenue and organizing-a-team business. Continue reading
Depending upon the location of your lookout perch on the nation’s workforce tree, you may or may not be aware of a rapidly growing trend in workspace design—the trend toward open office spaces. Popularized by an explosion in the European market, open offices are now catching on in the States, even though the precise definition of “open” is itself still very much open to interpretation. In some settings, the traditional “four walls and a door” office is being replaced by various forms of less compartmentalized partitioning where employees are still somewhat separate while working more closely together.
In the more extreme cases, every kind of wall is undergoing the same fate as the Berlin Wall—tumbling down completely—and the result is an environment where employees sit together with no barriers between them in a large central workspace. The common denominator here is the evolution from an isolated and insulated atmosphere to a more unlocked, uncovered, and unplugged one. But is this trend a good thing? This is the subject of a very spirited and ongoing debate.
Interestingly, both the proponents and detractors of open space offices tend to relate their arguments to a very similar, and nearly identical, set of metrics. Supporters often cite the positive effect of open space on employee morale, workforce productivity, environmental concerns, and individual worker performance. But detractors will point out how openness impacts these same criteria—only in a negative way. Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons and maybe we can learn something:
Why open space is good: Even animals in the zoo don’t like being cooped up in cages, right? This is why you see many of them roaming around modern zoos in open-looking areas that somewhat resemble their natural habitats. Well, common sense tells us that if it works for animals it should work just as well for people. Open offices afford the ideal conditions for humans to roam around and in the process make friends, collaborate with co-workers, communicate more, and achieve a true sense of community within the office space. All these things are bound to add up to higher employee morale.
Why open space is bad: Morale is great when you are sitting face to face on a daily basis with someone you like. But what if that person happens to be someone you dislike? And communication can be great—but some kinds are much better than others. Unfortunately open spacing gives us the bad along with the good. Being forced to listen to every co-worker’s phone calls and conversations, not to mention bad-mouthing and gossip, can kill morale instead of enhancing it. And another side effect of openness can be a higher risk of personal property theft. What could be more demoralizing than that? Continue reading
Strategy expert and author of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt says that bad strategy “grows out of specific misconceptions and leadership dysfunctions.” In short it is goals and not action. “It assumes that goals are all you need. It puts forward strategic objectives that are incoherent and, sometimes, totally impracticable. It uses high-sounding words and phrases to hide these failings.”
To detect a bad strategy, Rumelt suggest looking for one or more of its major hallmarks:
Fluff.
Fluff is a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments. It uses “Sunday” words (words that are inflated and unnecessarily abstruse) and apparently esoteric concepts to create the illusion of high-level thinking. Make it simple. Continue reading
As entrepreneurs and founders of businesses we have a great many balls in the air at any given time. The average day finds many of us actively managing a team, communicating with investors, raising funding, performing HR chores, recruiting, keeping the books, executing marketing plans, performing customer service, and taking out the trash. To accomplish all of this, we struggle mightily to stay efficient and to increase our own productivity, all the while struggling to find the personal capacity to do it all and to do it all well.
Keeping focus is the critical component in our days and our ability to do so can impact not just on how much work we can get done on a given day, but can also seriously effect the ultimate success or failure of our business.
One of the ways that I have learned to manage my own capacity, and maintain my own focus in the face of mighty of all manner of interruption, disturbance, interference, and hindrance is with a simple tool: the checklist. It is as low tech as low-tech gets: a piece of paper (in my case a Moleskin notebook) and a pen is all it takes to manage your own time, improve your efficiency, and increase your capacity. Here are 5 thoughts on why a checklist works and some tips for their use.
Face it: some days you are just better than others. We all have days when we are rocketing along, firing all cylinders and hitting one home run after the next. These are the great days when we can accomplish just about any task we have set for ourselves and these are the days that matter. Of course there will be the less-than-great days and these are the ones that require you to focus all the harder to maintain your productivity. On bad days I am even more dependent on the simple unadorned checklist I use to keep me focused, force me to be task-oriented, and drive me through in spite of that low-tide of efficiency. Continue reading
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