All Posts Tagged With: "Marketing"

Thinking Out Loud

Everybody does it. When you’re in the middle of something, whatever it may be, words describing the success or failure of your actions emerge almost uncontrollably from your mouth and, at least if you’re like me, the entire thing transpires without even mildly attracting your attention.

Earlier today, I watched someone give a presentation (that’s the not-so-interesting part). What was interesting, however, is that every time that the presenter mispronounced a word or made a mistake, that mistake was followed with a very short monologue on what the presenter had done wrong.

As far as presenters go, this isn’t something that’s limited to anyone in particular. I’ve seen distinguished speakers pull the same routine time-and-time again (albeit with less frequency). Continued

Following Directions

Following directions isn’t always a “bad thing.” In fact, sometimes it’s almost a necessity. Take the fine print on the back of your prescription, for example. It’s probably not a good idea to decide that this is your best opportunity to defy the status quo and do something different. You should probably just play along.

In the world of business however, “playing along” is a sure fire way to end up at the bottom of the food chain. Innovation doesn’t happen by following a set of guidelines and directions; it happens because someone, somewhere was willing to stand up and ignore the directions on how to do something in search of doing it in an entirely different way. Continued

Once Is a Powerful Thing

In a split second, someone’s experience with your company can easily shape the entire relationship between the two of you for years to come. It sounds cliché, but it’s not exactly a common practice to translate what everybody “knows” into actual experiences that make people smile. Sure, in business school, you probably learned (or, hopefully, already knew) that if you make lots of mistakes with your customers, you’re not going to have many customers for very long. Still, at least in my experience, the managers, owners, and employees of the world rarely jump at the chance to not only fix or avoid mistakes, but to turn them into opportunities to create those memorably outstanding experiences that make people put you at the top of their list. Continued