About Eric

Eric Rudolf HeadshotMy name is Eric Rudolf, and I run THEsmallCOMPANYBLOG in my spare time. My real job, which I happen to love, is as the Director of Marketing for one of the fastest-growing professional development and training companies in the world. I write about marketing and Internet marketing, management, social networking, ecommerce, blogging, search engine optimization (SEO), corporate culture, and small company mistakes. Or whatever small company issue I happen to be dealing with at the time.

Truth be told, I haven’t read a business-related book since 1993, mostly because I don’t put much credibility in stuff that works ‘in theory.’ I never write about things I haven’t tried, haven’t experienced, or haven’t seen first-hand with my own two eyes. I do my best to tell it like it is, and don’t write articles for the sole purpose of making people like me, or convincing people I’m smarter than I really am. If you appreciate my point of view in an article, share it with other people. If you don’t, fill out the ‘Comment’ field and tell me why. I’ll thank you either way.

I’ve been a full-time marketer for over 19 years in a number of industries—professional development and training, publishing, IT and professional services, supply chain technology, software development, and online retailing. During my career I have been directly involved in multiple small company hyper-growth situations; two of which resulted in acquisition by a member of the Fortune 500. I have watched the companies I work for grow from $2 million in annual revenue to $12 million, from $3 million to $10 million, and from $18 million to $40 million-each in less than four years’ time.

Over the last three years my stuff has been republished and Retweeted by BusinessWeek.com, The Social Media GuideThe American Management AssociationMicrosoft Small BusinessReuters Small BusinessVerizon Small Business, Hewlett Packard Small Business, Pitney Bowes Small Business, Harvard Business Services, and hundreds of others.  I am also a featured small business writer for LegalZoom.com, and a regular contributor to RainToday.com—one of the largest online marketing and sales portals in the world.

If every job in the world paid the same, I would restore old houses or shoot pool for a living. The two favorite pieces of marketing-related advice I like to give are “You will never catch an industry leader by doing what they do” and “Marketing success is as much about avoiding stupid ideas as it is about coming up with great ones.”

I can be reached via email at eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com, or followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Bart_Mann.

Use of TSCB Content and Templates

Subject to certain criteria, republication or reprinting of articles and templates from this blog in either hard copy or electronic format is free—but only with written permission from the blog owner.  Written permission can be obtained by emailing eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com with your republication request.

Linking directly to articles or information from this blog does NOT require written permission, as long as proper attribution is given for the referring link (i.e. readers are told they are being redirected to the TSCB site).