Derek Jeter on Leadership...

I recently had the opportunity to ask Derek Jeter about leadership. After 13 years with the New York Yankees, and one of the greatest baseball players of all time, you’ll hear Derek Jeter quotes on winning and leadership. His number one piece of advice during the interview, “practice what you...

Are you selling Green Eggs and Ham?...

I’m sitting on the subway today tired of carrying around a book and a dozen printed out white papers and realized I need a Kindle or an iPad.   Then it hit me. I would pay for eBooks Sam I Am.  But why is that? Why would I pay for an eBook, but not so much for music or movies?  Why is my perceived value of a book so much greater than that of music or a movie? As long as I can remember, price is driven by 2 things.  The cost plus profit margin along with supply and demand. Because supply is essentially unlimited online, you set price based on demand.  The...

The Marketing Sandpile...

In reading The Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo, one of the central themes of this book is Per Bak’s Sandpile effect. In an overly simplified explanation, the sandpile effect draws an analogy between the unmappable and invisible interconnections between global events and the complex relationship between individual grains of sand as they are piled on top of each other.  Each time a grain is added to the pile, the relationship between each grain is altered.  The experiment tries to determine how many grains will it take before the sandpile collapses. ...

When your customers are wrong...

Credit: Beverly & Pack's Flickr Photostream Now we’ve all heard your customers are always right. Well, sometimes, your customers are just plain old wrong.  Sometimes, your customers just don’t know what they want.  Don’t try to use this as an excuse to force your product, service, or event down your customers’ throats, but as an opportunity to give your customers what they really want. Sometimes, your customer just doesn’t know what’s out there and what’s good for them.  They don’t know what possibilities exist to...

Is social media worth measuring?...

Credit to Orange_Beard on Flickr. A great marketer I used to work with, Tabor Ames, VP of Marketing at PQ Media, once told me that any marketing initiative is not worth doing unless you can measure it.  Now that presents me with a problem.  Much of what I do [and I'd imagine you too] is measured on traffic, membership, registrations, and many other kinds of conversions. But how do you measure online community engagement? The impact these conversations are having on an email you send a month from now? A year? Is anyone listening? This topic is at the center of one of my...

What does your Brand stand for?...

What do your customers think about when deciding on engaging with you. How does your brand answer that question? What I find most interesting is the disparity between what companies think their brand means and how their customers define their brand. What does this say about a company? - Our commitment to innovation and design has allowed Company X to strengthen our presence in the XXX space and develop high quality products at a competitive price, across three specific categories. Well, that’s great, but what? But what if I have a problem and call your...

The Top Ten Rules of E-Mail Etiquette...

Human Resources IQ, one of our sites, posted an article on email etiquette.  You can read the full article on email etiquette here.  I thought I would summarize the points and share with you. Read before sending and fix your mistakes. Credit: stuartpilbrow's Flickr Ignore the mistakes of others. Do not e-mail when angry or upset. Expect your message to go public. Send request in time. Respond immediately or make a note to respond soon. Be Brief. If the message must be long, start with requests and guide lines. Write a good subject line. Type like you would a letter...

Listen, Listen, then Listen some more...

There are key fundamentals you need to address when adopting a social media program. Understand your customer: In reality, understanding your customer is step 1 in any marketing program, not just social media. But, in this case, you’ll need to add a new dynamic when figuring out your customers buying patterns. Once you’ve determined if social media fits, you’ll need to determine how and why. Are they looking for product knowledge and reviews or simply looking to network. Furthermore, industries within B2B are at various stages of social...