Category: Simplifying Your Marketing

Too Small to Fail

A few years ago, my son Evan and a friend started a board game company. It’s grown quite nicely, allowing them both to quit their jobs and do this full time. At some point over the past year, they started outsourcing customer service to a wonderful, perpetually cheerful woman named Sarah. She works virtually and part-time, as needed. Most of her customer service role – all done over email – involves responding to customers whose games were either damaged in transit or never arrived at all. Everything is shipped through third parties (Amazon, […] Click to read more…

Reverse Healing

Alert readers may recall that I had shoulder surgery recently. In fact, as I write this, it has been exactly six weeks to the day since I went under the knife (not that you bothered to call). How has the recovery been? Well, as the old saying goes, there’s not a lot about it that reminds you of opening presents on Christmas morning. It’s a slow and painful process. And yet, despite all that, I have to say that the human body’s ability to heal is pretty remarkable. Think about it. Somebody […] Click to read more…

Lessons From King Henry

You know me, I don’t like to brag, but… I just conquered one of the most difficult challenges known to mankind. Peace in the Middle East? Harder. Cure for cancer? Please, you are not thinking big enough. No, my friend, what I did was successfully transition my family of five from one cell phone carrier to another. (Insert loud cheering noise here.) Not only that, but despite the fact that we live in four different states across the country, by the time the dust had settled, we each had new phones in our […] Click to read more…

Coffee Shop Marketing 

Tell me if this sounds familiar… You’re sitting in a coffee shop with a friend or colleague who utters the following phrase: Can you recommend …  From there, it could be anything. … a tutor for my son? … a financial planner? … a facilitator for our offsite meeting? You close your eyes, give it some thought, and try to come up with the name of someone who might be a match. Congratulations, you have just lived an example of word of mouth. One person with a problem asks another person […] Click to read more…

Get Off the Marketing Couch

(Listen to this post, here.) I got a big surprise when I went to my son Jonathan’s college graduation last month: I had to wear pants. Now don’t get me wrong; I wear pants as much as the next guy. But what I have not done in a long time is wear dress pants. That’s because thanks to the pandemic, I have not been invited to speak at a conference or company offsite in more than two years (at least I hope that’s the reason). Plus, even though I am again attending in-person networking […] Click to read more…