Reading Time: < 1 minThere are certain people in your life that are indispensable. They can be indispensable in various ways, but I loved this description from Dinah Maria Craik (from her book “A Life for a Life“, as shared in Kevin Paul Scott’s “Inspired Every Day“). Dinah said: “Oh the comfort of feeling safe with a person, having […]
Trust
Productivity versus activity
Reading Time: 2 minAn interesting article recently came out about Wells Fargo firing more than a dozen employees who were faking their work. From the article: “The staffers, all in the firm’s wealth- and investment-management unit, were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work,” according to disclosures filed with the […]
Personalized advice coming from noreply
Reading Time: < 1 minI’ve shared my distain for emails coming from “noreply” many times on this blog. My general feeling is that if a company wants to reach out to send me information, they should be willing to accept an email response back from me to dig in deeper. If the content they sent to me isn’t important […]
Bugging 24,990 people to make 10 sales
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve shared my disdain for cold email many times on here, and a recent video that I watched help to prove my point. Similar to how I follow both sides of political contests online, I also keep an eye on cold emailers spammers to see what their latest techniques are. I was watching a video […]
Treat customer data with respect
Reading Time: < 1 minOne of the biggest assets that many companies have is data on their customers. By collecting, storing, and using piles of data on their customers, they can often turn that into additional profit. In fact, at this point, it’s almost easier to collect too much data and so those companies that work hard to limit […]
Learning conversations
Reading Time: < 1 minThere are many types of conversations that we can have with others, but one of my favorites is a “learning conversation”, as explained by Charles Duhigg in “Supercommunicators“: Our goal, for the most meaningful discussions, should be to have a “learning conversation.” Specifically, we want to learn how the people around us see the world […]
Loss leaders are aimed at dumb customers
Reading Time: 2 minMany stores offer special deals on “loss leaders” — products that are sold very cheap, often at a loss, in order to entice customers into the store to buy other things that are substantially marked up in price. One store that doesn’t do this is Costco. Generally speaking, they try to simply keep low margins […]
“What is spam?”, 10 years later
Reading Time: 2 minI share a lot from Seth Godin on this blog and in emails to various people, but there is one of his posts that I share far more than others called “What is spam?“ He published it 10 years ago today, and I fear that things have gotten far worse over this last decade. The […]
If you purchase from cold outreach, you’re condoning their behavior
Reading Time: 2 minAs with most of you, I get hit with cold outreach all the time. Cold emails, phone calls, LinkedIn connections, people at our door, etc. While they may occasionally have decent offers, my rule on cold outreach has become very simple — no. Last week I had someone stop by our house to sell us […]
It’s time to confirm your held time
Reading Time: < 1 minThis was a new one for me, coming from a company that I trust(ed). I received the email below, and I was kind of surprised. I didn’t remember setting another appointment with them, but perhaps I had forgotten about it. I hadn’t forgotten, but their goal seems to be tricking people into thinking they had. […]