Everything that leaves your business should be beautiful in some way. The definition of beautiful is roughly this: possessing qualities that give great sensory pleasure. Going a step further, beauty is resonant—meaning it speaks to something beyond the senses. People seek beauty because it has a connecting quality. For example, a beautiful work of art transcends the canvas and paint, connecting the creative consciousness of the artist with the creative consciousness of the

Much of the following is from an excellent Trust Radius article. TrustRadius, a research and review platform dedicated to technology buyers, recently released their 2022 B2B Buying Disconnect report—a survey of 2,185 respondents that shows year-over-year trends in business technology buying and selling. Here are a few highlights of the 2022 report: · Virtually 100% of buyers want to self-serve part or all of the buying journey—up 13% from 2021. · Since 2021, v

OK—so last week’s post included some out-of-the-box tips for prepping for a speech. This week, I’ll wrap up the topic with some tips on what to do before, during and after the speech. Here goes: Wear something that will focus attention on your face. This means no loud colors, no busy prints, no big designer logos, no (please) cleavage. Don’t wear anything with metal buttons that will clank on the lectern or podium while you’re speaking. The same goes for long metal necklac

Multiple studies have shown that the subject line is the most important factor in driving digital marketing results. You can spend hours composing a truly informative email for clients and prospects, but it’s a waste of time if no one reads it. The good news is that you have many more characters in the subject line than you’re using—about 85. The average email subject is only 45 characters. What a waste! The thinking used to be that you want the subject line to be as short

gIf you’ve ever given a speech (and I’m including junior high English class here) you already know the standard advice. What you’re going to read in the following pages are tips and tricks that you probably didn’t know. Wouldn’t it be nice if people in the audience didn’t yawn, roll their eyes, or check for messages on their PDAs while you’re speaking? Wouldn’t it be nice if nearly everyone was hanging on your every word and you actually saw dozens of people jotting down no

While this is true for low-ticket items, it’s surprisingly true for high ticket items as well---especially if those items are complex. Badgered on all sides to make a purchase decision on complicated technology and having few resources to verify claims, risk-averse decisions makers will go with the well branded products and services every time. The lesson for businesses with unbranded or poorly branded products and services is that when you make claims, provide hard proof of

To develop a successful organization---there’s nothing more important than creating a foundation of excellence. This means knowing what you do better than anyone else and then bringing relevant products and services to a market that appreciates those unique capabilities. Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi wrote the seminal work on this topic; a book called, The Essential Advantage. Although I don’t follow and/or agree with everything, it is an excellent book. And actually the

It’s axiomatic that if you want to get ahead—no matter what field you’re in---you have to do more than everyone else is willing or able to do. You don’t need to work 12-hour days—you only need to do a little more than everyone else. Right now, with the emphasis on impersonal mass marketing strategies, doing a little more has never paid bigger dividends. If you’re not proud of what you’re selling, rework it until you are. Doing a little more requires a lot more strategy and

A trend is the distillation of a novelty---a novelty plus time. You can predict a trend by anticipating what will remain of a novelty in a year. In short, a novelty is the tidal wave and a trend is what’s left on the beach after the tidal wave recedes. Anyone can recognize a trend once the tidal wave has receded; the trick is to predict what will be left on the beach while the tidal wave is still on the horizon. Those who can do this have a significant business advantage. Bu

The following is from an excellent article, along with infographics by Avaz Nanji. GetResponse examined nearly 7 billion emails sent by its customers in 2021. Only messages sent by active senders with more than 1,000 contacts were included in the analysis. Surprisingly, rsearchers found emails that include personalized elements in their subject lines actually underperform non-personalized emails, on average. That holds true across multiple metrics, including open rate, click