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You may have bought a list of names, emails and addresses. Salivating at the opportunity to sell, it can be enticing to use direct mail or email to immediately pitch the massive number of people. After all, a few sales may justify the interruption. Big numbers can translate into some
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There was a time that we were only presented with options for the masses. The messages put on the airwaves, newspapers or magazines were about production. Outproduce the competition and you could get the attention needed for sales. Exactly who was looking at your message and when was secondary. We
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The world really is divided in business. There are those that see business as a winner-take-all and shed their humanity in the pursuit of cash. They look out for themselves. I know a lot of these people. Then there are the people who see and understand business is about people.
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When you are a customer, isn't it easy to pick up the gaps? You can read the mission statement behind the counter of a department store and see the mismatch with the lax service you are experiencing. You can hear how much a company values service in the
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Marketing is an arena filled with amateurs and professionals. It's hard to distinguish to the untrained eye. A person can whimsically put out a sign claiming they are an SEO expert or social media guru. It is hard to decipher between the salesman's claims and the
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The Olympics are over but there are plenty of stories that captured our imaginations and hearts. One of the closely scrutinized people by the media was Lolo Jones, a favorite in the Olympic 100 meter hurdles. She had a heartbreaking loss in the last Olympics in Beijing. She struggled through
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That first connection you make with those that might do business with you may not be up close. People check you out from afar. Something attracts them to you and pulls them closer if the value is high enough. The temptation to approach someone too soon is high when we
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There was a lot of hype and promise over CRM systems last decade, especially with the collaborative value of Salesforce.com in the cloud along with many other CRM systems. Essentially, CRM moved from independent sales people with their own desktop contact management to a team selling environment. Managers loved
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Inbound marketing is not just one thing. It's not one piece of software that is a silver bullet. It's not doing one social media venue better. Technology is continually changing. The rate of innovation is mind boggling. A lot of our challenge is keeping up with
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I was at a site and immediately presented with a pop-up advertisement. It felt like it was a slight rite of passage to getting to the good stuff - the content I cared about reading. Was that banner about me or about that company? Why couldn't the substance
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Shipping is hard. There's a lot that gets in the way. However, it is becoming a glaring differentiator for businesses that succeed versus those that drown in persistent mediocrity. I think pressure really gets in the way for organizations that have a problem shipping. When it comes time
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It's delicate. You can't annoy people and expect them to like you. Pushing ads in people's faces only creates a repelling effect. You will be ignored. Yet, out of desperation, businesses sell hard today. They see all the shiny new tools available for marketing