I'm curious. I've noticed some web sites, stores, etc. try to gain or retain customers by providing bad service. They hide their prices so you have to start the purchase process to discover pricing (just try finding out how much it costs to make 10 color copies at...
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Growing companies: Moments of Truth
High-growth entrepreneurial companies reach points where they must fundamentally change what they do. Here are several of the events that quietly herald a need for major change in a rapidly growing company.
Venture Moments of Truth
As ventures grow and develop, the challenges they present change. Often change is sudden rather than gradual. These sudden changes require a shift in the way the company and/or the top managers do business. These are times when coaching can be most valuable. The...
The Truth Can Be a Good Thing, Even in Marketing
I recently finished reading "The Honest Truth About Dishonesty" by Dan Ariely. It's a fascinating peek into how pervasive dishonesty is in our culture. Dan was looking largely at cheating, but I'm far more concerned about dishonesty in business. Economies only work...
Use your Smartphone to be More Productive
How to use your web-enabled smartphone to be productive. Or not. I'm quoted today in this
Want to Change a Habit? Enlist People!
As much as you can adopt systems to help point your life and job in the direction you want, systems fail if you don't use them. And if you're like me, that promise to work out 3 days a week has a way of taking back seat to dinner invitations, long hours at work, and...
In Business and Life, Understand *Their* Needs
I ordered a book from Amazon, gift wrapped for a friend's birthday. It arrived complete with the little card that had my special message in it. And … Amazon's logo on the outside. Really? Amazon feels the need to piggyback their branding on my gift? If they offer the...
How do you find real community in a wired world?
I really enjoyed Marina Keegan's article "The Opposite of Loneliness." The word I'd use as the opposite of loneliness is "community." Community has been shown to be an important part of a happy, fulfilling life. Of course, there's no economic model attached to...
Are You Forgetting The Big Picture?
The Big Picture A client asked me to facilitate her senior team’s big picture, strategic planning retreat. It was a $200 million company. They listed important issues on the whiteboard. Item #1? Replace the refrigerated water fountain with a ‘green’ ground-cooled...
Use Emotion in Marketing? Only With Care.
Pretty much every class in marketing I've ever taken is all about how to trigger knee-jerk emotional responses in people so they act NOW to buy your product, even if it's not right for them, or if there are better competitors on the market, or if they actually don't...