Pathik Bhatt

Category: Business & Marketing

  • The People of Taco Bell Versus the People of the DMV in Aurora IL

    Several times over the last couple years I have experienced something so rare that each of these experiences have nestled themselves into my memory. What are these experiences you ask? Excellent customer service at fast food restaurants and the DMV. No not just any fast food restaurants – specifically the Taco Bell in Aurora, IL near me (1000 N Farnsworth Ave Aurora, IL 60506) and the McDonald’s in Oak Brook, IL by my workplace.

    So where does the DMV come in? We’ll get to that later [shudder]. (more…)

  • Kelley Direct Ranked Top 3 Online Business Graduate Program – Infographic

    UPDATE April 2014: Kelley Direct was ranked #1 this year by U.S. News.

    Kelley Direct claimed a spot in the top 3 in the US News Best Online Graduate Business Programs list released earlier this month behind Washington State University and Arizona State University. It’s great to see your MBA school getting recognized by others. The more positive visibility the better, and that has been the case since I joined the Kelley Direct Program in 2012. In addition to getting bumped up to the top 15 ranked business schools by Bloomberg Businessweek, Kelley was also recognized for having the best MBA teachers and career services in the US. It’s no wonder why Kelley MBA students are the most satisfied B-school students in the country.

    Even though number 3 isn’t bad, I was curious as to why Kelley Direct didn’t rank higher on this list. So I decided to take a look at other rankings that prospective students and employers typically look at and my suspicions were confirmed. One of the main ways a B-school gets its reputation is by its full-time ranking and its ability to place its students into jobs. This is not to take anything away from the other schools on this list, but Kelley takes these things very seriously (and I love it because of that). Here’s a quote from faculty chair of the Kelley Direct MBA Program, Phil Powell after seeing the US News rankings: “Our goal is to be number one,” Powell said. “Number three is good, but our goal is to become number one.”

    Here are the results of my Online MBA Program Rankings study: (more…)

  • Desi Wear Provides Great Service To Customers Who Don’t Pay

    Desi Wear showed they care by following up their free Desi United t-shirt giveaway on Facebook with great customer service – even though I wasn’t a paying customer. While the “ROI of social media” can be difficult to measure, the “ROI of caring” will always matter and payoff when you think big picture. Social media is just a tool that Desi Wear and others use to show their clients how they care. I wouldn’t have bothered writing this post if it wasn’t for their creative use of social media paired with customer service.

    Every so often Desi Wear gives away their cool desi t-shirts to people who like and share their posts on their Facebook. I happened to be the lucky winner chosen out of the 73 others who liked their post last month.

    desi wear facebook giveaway

    (more…)

  • Ravioli Oli Cares – Best Ravioli Restaurant in Oak Brook IL

    My boss had a Groupon for Ravioli Oli about a month ago and suggested we use it for a team lunch because the restaurant is near our Oakbrook Terrace office. As a vegetarian, ravioli is a popular item for me whenever I go out to Italian restaurants so I thought it was a great idea after seeing their online menu. You get six ravioli pieces (plenty for lunch), choose your filling and add a sauce. If you can’t decide on just one combination, you can go with their “Oli Duet” and try two different ravioli combos, 3 pieces in each.

    Ravioli Oli Plate

    (more…)

  • Link Building Strategies for 2013 from SES Chicago

    I was fortunate enough to attend the 2012 Search Engine Strategies Conference last week in Chicago (Twitter: #seschi) and saw several great presentations about link building strategies for 2013. Link building is an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO), and the techniques required to acquire more links from other websites are becoming more and more time consuming. For years SEO’s have tried to find ways to automate and speed up link building by submitting to every Web directory that will give them a link. Google’s Penguin update earlier this year was launched to devalue links from those types of sites and to discourage site owners from pursuing more “black-hat” link building. (more…)

  • Kelley Direct – Top Ranked Online MBA Program in Bloomington IN

    I am a student in the Kelley Direct MBA program at Indiana University – Bloomington, and I chose to go there over Booth because it made more sense for me. I am writing this post because I want to help you make an educated decision about your future, especially if you’re considering Kelley Direct. Yes, this post is for you taking the GMAT next month (hope you’ve discovered www.beatthegmat.com), and you applying to the top ranked part-time MBA programs near you, and definitely you who didn’t even know what Kelley Direct was until a few days ago.

    Kelley School of Business Building in Bloomington, IN

    First of all, congratulations on your decision to pursue an MBA while working and good luck on your GMAT and applications. Depending on where you are in the process (more…)

  • 10 Takeaways from the 2012 Dex Small Business Summit in Chicago

    I was pleasantly surprised by the size and quality of the (free) Small Business Summit in Chicago last week. They had a panel of quality speakers who all added value to the discussion. The panel members in no particular order: Carol Roth, Hedy Ratner, Mary McFarlin, Sara Glassford, and Troy Henikoff. The host, Barry Moltz, was entertaining, informative and generous enough to provide all the attendees with this book Small Town Rules.

    Without further adieu, here are the 10 takeaways for small business owners (and marketers) from the panel:

    1. All failures don’t have a valuable lesson to teach you.

    We are taught to hold onto our failures to try and glean some wisdom out of them, but often times there is nothing you could have done to change the outcome. Lesson: stop trying to figure out what you could have done better in the past and move on. (more…)

  • Conversion Rate Optimization Using AdWords Search Term Report

    Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is becoming part of every online marketer’s vocabulary and soon will disseminate into the general working public’s vocab too (just as SEO and PPC have). For those of you who don’t deal with websites much, SEO is search engine optimization (trying to get your site to rank on the first page of Google, Bing & Yahoo), and PPC is pay-per-click advertising (all those great banner ads all over the web and text ads you see when you search on Google). SEO and PPC are used to drive traffic to a website or blog, while CRO is focused on what happens when those visitors get to the site.

    Getting people to visit your site can be expensive, so you want the people coming to your website to be happy with the content they find. A conversion is a transaction that you want your site visitors to perform: placing and order, submitting a form and commenting on a post are all common examples. After you decide what you want your visitors to do, you should optimize (the “o” in CRO) your site to convince people to convert. The more you pay for your visitors, the more important CRO becomes to your business. This is why companies using PPC are also starting to invest in CRO.

    Interested in learning more? I recently wrote a blog post about this topic, check it out: How you can use the AdWords Search Term Report and custom web forms to optimize your conversion rate 

  • Advertising Doesn’t Negatively Affect American Culture

    Since I explored how advertising negatively affects us in an earlier blog post, it’s only fair that I explore the other side. We can blame a lot of things on advertising and mass-marketing, but some of those critiques should be self-directed. Ultimately, each individual is responsible for how their environment & situation affects them. The way our advertising looks today may also be another chicken and egg case where some may argue that advertising shaped American culture into what it is today, while others will say (more…)

  • Things to do in Chicago this August

    For all the 21st Annual NetIP Conference attendees who are coming in early and those of you who live in the Chicago area. Here is your guide for free (or cheap) things to do in Chicago in late August leading up to the conference.

    The Navy Pier fireworks are a personal favorite, I make sure I go see them at least once every summer if not more. The Windy City puts on a 10 – 15 minute fireworks production set to popular music every Wednesday at 9:30PM and Saturday at 10:15PM. If you get there early enough, you can get a comfy couch just past where the Kanan boat (docks on the pier. There’s a nice hangout area right before the beer garden, where the pier narrows a bit. It doesn’t look that big on the map, but it’s quite a walk.

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    We’re going to be on one of these Navy Pier boats Labor Day weekend for NetIP’s 21st Annual Think Change Conference! Register for the conference and save $70 by using my promo code, NETIPPATHIK, before midnight on July 15th! http://chicago2012.netipconference.org/Registration

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    Another great event that Chicago has coming up is the Air and Water Show August 18th and 19th (Sat/Sun). Head on over to North Avenue Beach with your chairs, towels and a cooler before 10AM to get a good spot and then sit back and enjoy the show! One of best the highlights of the show is when the US Navy Blue Angels come screaming out in their F/A-18 Hornet jets (below).

    If you don’t want to sit around and spectate, get to Millenium park Sunday, August 26th for the Chicago SummerDance by 4PM. They have dance lessons lead by professional instructors for the first hour, and then live music and dancing until 7PM. I went for the salsa night with the wife and it was a blast!

    MORE TO COME… but remember, You have to register by midnight Sunday, July 15th to get the discount! Enter NETIPPATHIK when you register for the conference here: http://chicago2012.netipconference.org/Registration

    Check back soon for more great things to do in Chicago!