William Lever, who started the notable soap company Lever Brothers, famously said, “I know half of my advertising isn’t working, I just don’t know which half.” Thankfully, we no longer live in a time where we have to guess what’s working and what isn’t. In fact, in some ways, the bigger problem today is wading [...]
Tags: email marketing
Posted in business consulting, email marketing, marketing | No Comments »
I received a disturbing email from a client this morning. He had received an official-looking email that appeared to have come from an address at Rare Bird. The message said: Subj: Please update your information at [clientdomain].com Dear [clientdomain].com, Rare Bird Inc is hereby announcing a new upgrade for Content management system. We’ve upgraded our [...]
Tags: phishing scheme
Posted in business consulting, internet | No Comments »
As someone who makes a living helping people sell things, I get asked a lot of questions about strategy and implementation. As someone who has been dealing with emerging Internet trends for 18 years (18?!? I’m stunned, too…), I get asked a lot of questions about the latest shiny object. Sometimes these questions collide. An [...]
Posted in business consulting, email marketing, strategy | No Comments »
Happy New Year! Now that 2012 has arrived, business owners and key managers should be looking ahead with an eye toward weathering what looks to be another tough one. Along with the general consensus that the economy will continue to be sluggish, you have the added responsibility to protect the enterprise in the face of [...]
Tags: Business, Business continuity planning
Posted in business consulting, business forecasts, coaching, strategy | 1 Comment »
The announcement from Apple CEO Steve Jobs that he’ll be stepping down from his post is not altogether unexpected, but it does mark the end of an era. Jobs returned to the company he started in the late 1990s when it was in big trouble. The strategic direction was wayward, the products were suffering from [...]
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Steve Jobs
Posted in business consulting, design, entrepreneurship, marketing | 2 Comments »
When we sit down and talk with clients and prospects, many of whom come to us with statements like “I need a new website,” we always start by asking lots of questions. In my Vistage Group, we refer to this as “brilliant inquiry.” The idea is not to generate solutions but to more clearly define the [...]
Tags: Google, Indiana, Lead generation, Search engine optimization, Web Design and Development, Website
Posted in big picture, business consulting, entrepreneurship, Google, SEO | No Comments »
I just read a very interesting post over at Campaign Monitor’s blog about the science of email and what we can learn from the current research regarding reader behavior. In the article, the author (Ros Hodgekiss) discusses the merits of keeping your email messages short and to the point. She cites Jakob Nielsen’s research showing [...]
Tags: design, email, marketing
Posted in business consulting, consumers, design, email marketing | No Comments »
Here’s a great idea about how you should present your business data to investors, prospects, or even just Mom: forget the billions. In a recent article, author and business plan expert Tim Berry explains that these numbers and this top-down approach just don’t mean anything to anyone. “As an investor, as a business plan contest [...]
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I often say that true authenticity– being exactly who you really are and nothing else– is one of the most important things you can do to help be successful in whatever you’re doing. When I saw this article from Business in Blue Jeans CEO Susan Baroncini-Moe talking about some of the issues people struggle with [...]
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Harvey Mackay, owner of Mackay Envelope, is widely known for his books and speaking engagements on sales. In his weekly column, he recalls the Broadway musical “My Fair Lady” to make a point: In the Broadway musical “My Fair Lady,” Professor Higgins has driven his prodigy Eliza Doolittle to exhaustion teaching her how to speak [...]
Posted in business consulting, marketing, sales | No Comments »
