While being very successful reaching the top of your heap, it can be a very deceptive trap to “relax and enjoy” that status. No matter where you are in your market position, it is never guaranteed.
Bloomberg Businessweek points out, “Popularity is not a state of grace. In business, it is treasure hard-won on the battlefields of product development [...]

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Your List is . . . Everything?

Your mailing list (or e-mail list) is everything! 
 I know this sounds like an overstatement, but consider this.
Your list is your customer database.  The names on this list are the record, so to speak, of your business.  They are certainly the most valuable asset of your business.  “But,” you may argue, [...]

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As a business owner you likely think of all the features your product/s or services offer.  Too often businesses will focus on the features of their product or service.  Perhaps they even extol them in great detail … only to have the listener’s eyes glaze over.  The business person may KNOW that the potential customer [...]

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Here is a classic example of a large corporation’s failure to effectively take the customer’s psychology into account.

While I’m certain Macy’s spent a lot of money on marketing before they made all the changes described in the New York Times article, they only concentrated on the proper things with the proper scientific testing after they had lost billions of dollars and run off some valuable customers forever! And this doesn’t even count a dramatic drop in Macy’s stock price!

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Customer psychology continued –
The sooner and more effectively you answer these two questions, the
sooner your listener will “hear” anything else you have to say.  Of
course there is a reason for this.  When your customer has an
overriding question in his or her mind, that person is
subconsciously “filtering” everything you have to say looking to
see if you [...]

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Yes, words do have consequences.  When it comes to business, the most obvious consequences are that your reader, listener, viewer, or customer standing in front of you either believes and buys or doesn’t. However, the psychology of the words is more subtle and sophisticated than simply buying or not buying.
Words set the “psychological stage,” so [...]

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Often, we as marketers or business people with the responsibility of sales and marketing are very puzzled by the apparent irrational behavior of customers.  We are amazed by the way customers can ignore compelling logic, irrefutable facts and figures and take a completely illogical action.
Of course, it appears illogical to those of us driven by [...]

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As with many things in life, it’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s how you deal with it.  We can whine and complain that things aren’t going as we might hope or had expected.  Perhaps we have struggled over and over again without the desired results.  Of course, we can stop and give [...]

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