Frontline Perspectives

We’re in the process of hiring right now, which means I’m spending a fair amount of time reviewing resumes. I’m continually amazed that the majority of people don’t include a cover letter with their resume. And those who do include one have serious grammar, spelling and clarity issues. What this means is that the majority (and I mean more than 75%) of these people have either made very little, or a terrible, first impression. And because of that, they’re not going to get to the interview stage. Read more »

I think every marketing person needs this written on a T-shirt to remind them what their customers are really thinking. Read more »

When the current hot item of the month is launched, the first thing people will react to will be the photography. You may have a great product with amazing benefits and capabilities, but if you can’t capture the audience with the photo or imagery first, how can you get them to read or want to know more about the product? Read more »

Never stop asking "why?"

I think of this when I talk to marketing teams that are going to the same trade shows year after year and coming back with 40 leads, or placing print ads in the same publications that generate 0 leads, or using brochures that are five years old, or haven’t put new content on their Web sites in over a year….. Why? Why are you doing these things again and again when they obviously don’t produce tangible results? Read more »

Winning moves for 2010.

Based on everything I’ve read and the discussions I’ve had with our clients, it’s going to be another difficult year. Some of us will see sales decreases, some of us will drag along the bottom, and a few lucky ones will start to see our bottom lines change from red to black.

2009 was a year filled with frustration, and for many, fear. The companies that proactively analyzed where to make changes (and invariably cuts) are in a much better position than the ones that chose a wait-and-see approach.  None of those were easy decisions, but making them also provided clarity as to the true strengths and weaknesses of an organization.

Many marketing budgets were cut deeply  for 2009. For 2010 we are seeing a mix of holding to the 2009 budget, 5% decreases and 15-20% increases.  The question I am most asked now is…where do we spend the marketing dollars this year? What will make the biggest impact? Read more »

Tim Cook and I spoke at The Motivation Show in Chicago on September 30th. Our presentation was on taking the fear out of social media. It was part of the show’s conference track for meeting and event planners, and was aimed at helping them understand the Big Three of social media and how they could leverage social networking in their work.

We’ve posted the PowerPoint from this presentation on Slideshare.net. We’ll be adding the audio file in the next week. Read more »

So… my vacation’s over and I’m caught up on my reading.  Luckily June, July and August issues in the trade pubs are very light months- light on editorial content, and light on ads.  It only took me 4 1/2 hours to go through the 27 publications on my list.

Here are a few things I found that peaked my interest: Read more »