Sooner or later every retailer faces a dilemma: How to adapt to changing consumer behavior without alienating brand loyalists? Lately, that dilemma has become a Catch-22. Bet you didn’t know that Black Friday deals at Best Buy, Macy’s, Target and Walmart are mostly the same from year to year. Turns out[…] Read On
In the business world, trust is fragile thing. One screw-up can destroy a customer relationship that took years to build. And the fall guy is usually the sales guy. But here’s the thing. When sales screws up, it’s usually because they’ve been incentivized, motivated and budgeted to do the wrong[…] Read On
He wasn’t the first to say “Content is King,” but in a remarkably prophetic piece written in 1996, Bill Gates accurately foresaw the online content boom years before Google, WordPress, Facebook and YouTube even existed. And more than a decade before the smartphone revolution began. Gates’ essay may also have[…] Read On
If you haven’t heard that millennials value experiences over things, you haven’t been paying attention. That popular meme has appeared everywhere, including the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and just about every other business news publication. It’s also supposedly behind the demise of Aeropostale, Macy’s and other retail outlets. The only[…] Read On
Trying to lie still inside the torture chamber known as an MRI machine, I got to thinking about how much we whine, when things can be so much worse. Shouldn’t we be thankful just to have MRIs? Just kidding. In reality, I spent what felt like an eternity wondering how[…] Read On
When I ran marketing, public relations strategy was relatively straightforward. There weren’t that many influential analysts, pundits and media powerhouses, so the PR folks built relationships and didn’t bug them unless we had real news to pitch. And we followed the old axiom: If the WSJ covers it, the others[…] Read On
Some of the most powerful life and business lessons are apparent paradoxes. I say “apparent” because once you learn to question popular dogma and look at things objectively, the paradoxes ultimately resolve into truths. I’m not making this up. It’s fundamental to how things work. It’s a yin and yang thing.[…] Read On