Archive for Internet marketing
Continuous Improvement Book Special
Posted by: | CommentsThis offer may be rescinded at any time. I may decline non-domestic shipments if I cannot find an effective shipment method.
Offer automatically expires on 6/1/2011
How Small Business Survives!
Posted by: | CommentsDan Pink posted a blog the other day titled The 44-cent Solution. The blog solicited quite a few comments and I have to say really made me stop what I was going to write today. I had woke this morning and was contemplating the Demise of Small Business (and solving World Hunger). You either had to be a Wal-Mart or make your living on the Internet. The cost of selling low-volume merchandise is just to difficult. The only real advantage you have is that people can See it, Try it and Buy it(and probably not from you, they find it cheaper on the Internet somewhere)!
I read a Mark Graban (Lean Blog) Tweet about Dan Pink’s Blog and followed the link. The post was outstanding and most of all gave me all the reasons for the success of Small Business. It must of have been that Law of Attraction thing.
This is Mark’s comment from the post:
Great story. It goes to show, for one thing, that “standardization” (of which Marriott is a big proponent of) doesn’t mean shut your brain off. I’m sure they just have a very general policy of doing what it takes to make guest happy – and being a JW, is it a different policy than a Courtyard?
After reading your post, I was walking home and realized that my neighborhood cleaners in Boston exhibits a similar behavior – with just smiles (they are still free, right?). It sounds so cheesy, but every time I’m in the cleaners (2x a week?), the owner or his wife, they smile and make you feel so welcome to be there, like you’re the only customer of the day, which clearly isn’t true.
After 11 months in Boston, I noticed just about two weeks ago that if I’m walking home at the end of the day and the guy isn’t busy, he sees you walk by… I noticed him and he just grinned and waved, as if seeing an old friend for the first time in a decade.
So now I noticed he does this every time. I actually. I now make a point of looking for him and we exchange waves and smiles. Again, cheesy, but it feels good.
Yes, he’s the closest cleaners, but would I think about looking for someone cheaper? Not at all (Well, unless they ruined a bunch of clothes). He’s a perfect example of attitude mattering – whatever your job, you can choose to be a grump or choose to be happy.
Way cheaper than 44 cents.
So if you are looking for a life preserver, think about making someone feel special. Is that tough?
Interview with Author of the Lean Blog, Mark Graban
Posted by: | CommentsA few months ago, I did a Podcast with Mark Graban, Senior Fellow at the Lean Enterprise Institute. I enjoyed talking to Mark and at the end of the Podcast; we went off the subject matter and started a discussion on social media. The tape was running and we recorded some additional thoughts on social media. I respect Mark’s work a great deal. He has created a very loyal following, not only on his blog but also on Twitter. I encourage others to follow and watch how he engages his audience. If you would like to follow Mark, he can be found at http://LeanBlog.org or on Twitter: @leanblog.
I have to admit that I must be a great judge of talent or maybe this podcast pushed Mark over the edge of the other competitors. Ha! Mark won the prestigious iSixSigma 2009 MVP Awards for Best Continuous Process Improvement Tweeter at the iSixSigma Live Conference this year. This podcast was taped in July, 2009 but the information is still solid and even more relevant today. Listen to Mark’s thoughts on Blogging and Tweeting as he surpasses 2,000 “Engaged” followers, this month.
An Interactive Video Event from Healthcare Value Leaders
February 24, 2010 11:00 AM EST
View the 3-minute preview
Mark is also the author of Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction
Using Agile Marketing in real life
Posted by: | CommentsGood description of the Agile Marketing Process versus the typical waterfall method. I am really starting to love this stuff!
Jason Cohen describes how a free book transformed marketing at Smart Bear Software: objectively measuring the effect of marketing efforts, getting accurate lead information, and giving people something genuinely useful. This Pecha Kucha talk was delivered at Joel Spolsky’s Business of Software 2008 conference in Boston.
Jason’s thought process on how to get quality leads from you e-mail subscriptions and whitepapers seems to be such a natural for industries transforming to online marketing. Remember, the old bingo cards and how your salespeople use to love chasing those three month old leads. How do they feel about internet leads? If you want quality, you may have to give up quality! What do you think?
By the way, doesn’t Pecha Kucha sound like a Pokeman Card? Actually it is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images.
