When it comes to buying gifts for my wife, Linda, I have a history of missing “perfect” by quite a large margin. Jewelry’s no good because what do I know? Same for clothes. And, since as my mother used to say, you spend the first 50 years of life acquiring stuff and the next 50 getting rid of it, all those little knickknacky gift store items that used to be my “go to” are no longer welcome in the house. […] Click to read more…
Posted in Relationship Marketing
(Listen to this post, here.) I don’t mean to brag, but my town’s fire department has an exceptional logo: Two axes, a ladder, and what appears to be a snake climbing a stripper pole (see photo below). It’s so wonderful in fact, that I have decided to give all my fire safety-related business to them. That’s correct. In the unfortunate event of a fire in my home – any time of day, any day of the year – I will seek […] Click to read more…
Posted in Growing Your Business, Selling
(Listen to this post, here.) When it comes to life experiences, there is a near endless supply of things you have lived that your children will never know: They will never load film into a camera. They will never call the local movie theater to find out what’s playing and when. They will never put the milk back in the fridge despite the fact that I have told them a thousand times that I’m not made out of money over […] Click to read more…
Posted in Pricing & Money
(Listen to this post, here.) If there’s an Irony Hall of Fame somewhere (located in a burned down fire station, I can only hope), the following story deserves a display… My youngest son, Jonathan, turned 21 in Denver last week. On that same day, and not coincidentally, both his passport and driver’s license expired. So we decided to FedEx him his new passport which had just arrived here in Boston. We didn’t want to send it without a signature on […] Click to read more…
Posted in Growing Your Business
(Listen to this post, here.) Unlike many of my married, male friends, I do a fair amount of the household grocery shopping. Not because I’m so wonderful, mind you (although I am distractingly good looking). Rather, it’s because years ago, as a first-time father, I realized that a trip to the grocery store came packaged with 60 minutes of diaper-free peace and quiet. And so, all these years later, it’s still an activity I share with my wife, Linda. But, […] Click to read more…
Posted in Authenticity & Brand Consistency, Selling, Voice/Tone/Trust Building