Everybody likes testimonials. But what are they really for? A testimonial’s number one job is to help you help you sell. A good testimonial shows that your product made somebody else happy: by generating money, saving money, or taking care of some other need that they thought was important. A […]
Yearly Archives: 2008
84 posts
I’ll confess. I don’t have a system for backing up my files. Sure, I do make backups (offsite and onsite) at least every few months. And when I’m working on a critical document, I make constant backups by sending copies of my files-in-progress to an offsite mailhost. But I could […]
Winning companies make a habit of doing things that are good for their health. That means choosing work (whether they be projects and clients, or products and market sectors) that adds to the company’s bottom line, assets, and general happiness. What do you need for a track record of smart […]
Demarketing requires discipline: the discipline to decide what you’re not going to do, and then the discipline to stick with the decision. Some people have this kind of discipline in spades: Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River […]
More on demarketing: In the mid-1990s, I read a book (title long forgotten) in which the author quoted an interview with the CEO of a large and venerable Japanese company. When asked, “what is the difference between Japanese and American businesses?” the CEO replied — after a long pause — […]
Elisabeth Sullivan at the American Marketing Association recently interviewed me for an article on Demarketing. I’ll be writing more on this topic throughout this month. Here’s a first brief entry: What is demarketing? As I think of it, demarketing is (1) about making a conscious decision about the things you […]
American businesses do all sorts of crazy things to prevent people from giving them money: they refuse cash, they refuse credit cards, they say “no” when people offer to pay up front, etc. And online — arghhh — how many times do eStores ask us to provide a ton of […]