Have sales/marketing fundamentals changed? Watch this video, decide and let me know

This is a brilliant video example of how B2B (and consumer) marketing fundamentals and selling has NOT changed over time. Kudos! Enjoy “the man in the chair”, and let me your thoughts?

You lost me there (part one, website issues that lose you business)

Part of that presentation dealt with improving Web marketing. Many e-commerce Web sites are good at taking orders, but not so good at capturing prospects.

Thus the goal of this series, which I’m calling “You Lost Me There,” is to help you get more of the people who visit your Web site to raise their hands and request to continue the dialogue with you. You want these people in your database, as they’ve expressed some level of interest in your products.

That said, here are three tips to optimize online sales:

When Disaster Strikes: Jim’s 5th Annual Preparedness Guide to Surviving a Disaster

Much like a four-letter word, disasters happen in all forms just about anywhere — without warning, at any time. So prepare your company and yourself. Here’s a disaster-readiness checklist I suggest you look over carefully. If you think you’re on top of this, I recommend you compare your list to this one to ensure you have all bases covered. 1. Have a business…

A Case Study in Brand Differentiation (in multichannel direct marketing)

Two of these happen to be Rochester Big and Tall and Casual Male XL. While owned by the same company, both have positioned themselves to different segments of the big and tall market. This week I received e-mails from both companies, and to my amazement — and a bit of horror — they were essentially the same message and offer. So doesn’t this work directly against their branding? Am I hypersensitive to this because I’m in the business? Does this matter to the average consumer? Take a look at the e-mails for yourself (click on the images below), and let me know your thoughts.

4 Tips Any CEO or C-Level Exec Can Take to the Bank

Being a C-level executive these days has to be the ultimate challenge. These execs face a ton of pressure to keep their companies above water during these turbulent times. Truly, I feel for them.

But, in many cases, my empathy for them goes only so far. Especially when C-levels exemplify what I call “ivory tower thinking.” With this in mind, I’d like to offer four pointers for any and every CEO and C-level exec:

Want to know what’s

Update: the FL “do not mail” House vote scheduled for Tuesday is NOT happening

The Do Not Call bill in front of the FL House is off the schedule for now. Thanks. Please keep the pressure up on FL lawmakers. Furthermore, Do Not Mail proposals would not save trees. Nearly all paper used for advertising mail is generated from sustainably managed forests where trees are planted, harvested and re-planted solely for the use of paper and wood products. More info…

The most basic direct and catalog marketing fundamentals (to learn and re-learn)

I recently had a conversation with another catalog consultant about a client proposal we’re jointly working on. The conversation worked its way to a discussion on the basic fundamentals of direct marketing. In essence, what’s the most basic fundamental of direct marketing that we need to present and our clients need to follow?

It came down to this:

Perchance to Dream (of New Customers and Untapped Riches)

Last night I had a dream… I had a vision of many customers. Not just any customers, but the most coveted buyers of them all…mail order buyers!

And behold, they bought often and recently, and liked to purchase many products at a time. They loved these products so much that they would never consider returning them. They liked to purchase in a specific category – they were niche buyers. A plentiful niche that was easily identifiable, a specific targeted market – the lowest hanging fruit from the tree!

Why you must always be networking – and Linkedin is the key (part 3)

o you want to be a power networker? In this economy, you need to cultivate as many positive connections as you can.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve discussed the networking site LinkedIn and how it can be an enormous benefit in helping you expand your sphere of influence.

This week, in the last of this series (for part 1, click here, and for part 2, click here), I detail how you can use your LinkedIn homepage to its fullest advantage; think of it as a résumé on steroids.

Why you must always be networking – and Linkedin is the key (part 2)

These days, I’m always networking. I’m on MySpace and Facebook, and have just started to play around with Twitter and other less known networking sites. Even Plaxo has gotten into the social and business networking game.

But I find LinkedIn to be the best networking tool to use by far. Most LinkedIn users already know how to link to other people in and out of their networks. I wrote about the beginner stuff about a year ago.

That said, there are LinkedIn users and then there are LinkedIn players.