I was talking to a good friend today looking to redesign his company's web site. He got proposals from three agencies. His director of marketing evaluated them and their proposals. What I didn't see in the evaluation were the GOALS they are trying to reach and OBSTACLES most important to overcome. Matty (my co-founder at Spinach) and I think in terms of Goals, Obstacles and Hypothesis (GOH). An agency is a hypothesis to overcome an obstacle(s)... to reach a goal. This is beca

Here are some of my favorite snippets from this book: Definition of WOM: Giving people a reason to talk about your stuff and making it easier for that conversation to take place. +++ Earn the respect and recommendation of your customers, and they will do the rest. Treat people well; they will do your marketing for you, for free. Be interesting, or be invisible. +++ Rule #1: Be Interesting Rule #2: Make People Happy Rule #3: Earn Trust and Respect Rule #4: Make It Easy +++ Whe

THIS WAS A RECENT ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY WOMMA… "Customers are exposed to anywhere from 247 to 3000 commercial messages each day," says Sam Decker, vice president of marketing and products for Bazaarvoice. "The growing attention on word of mouth, authenticity, transparency, and social networking is in reaction to customer cynicism, distrust, sensory overload and lack of time." To market with — rather than to — consumers, Sam shares these five tips: Tip #1. Do the waggle dance

Here is Harvey Mackay's formula for a good speech. 1) Start with humorous story or joke. Engage the crowd 2) Present idea / principle 3) Share quips, anecdotes, stories and jokes related to that idea 4) Repeat #2 & #3 several times. 5) Close with great story and thank you. That was it.

There's a revenue crisis. You need to do a business recovery. There are three choices: 1. Do nothing…i.e. keep on trucking, status quo. Keep the vision, things will get better, right? 2. Do something…i.e. pick something, likely without analysis, to do about it. Or put a plan together and and warm yourself with that blanket of paper. 3. Do everything….focus the entire business on the problem, analyze all potential root causes of the miss, choose a number of impactful activ

What’s wrong with this road sign in Las Vegas? When I saw this from dribbleglass.com it suggested several marketing principles: #1 Less is More It’s possible a driver could attempt to read this eye chart and miss the most important message on this sign…watch out for this giant curb! In marketing, it’s as important to decide what not to say as it is what to say. As a professional speaker, my father always suggested to me that the audience does not know what you didn’t tell the