There are lots of ways to define what a brand is.  The best may be this: a brand makes a prospect pick one provider over another.  It’s the deciding factor.  The strongest brand wins.  But here’s where businesses often get confused: it’s not what you do, but the way you do it differently.  We devote…

Are you looking for a way to connect with clients on a deeper level and offer them extra value they can’t get anywhere else?  Consider starting a roundtable of sorts, where a select group of clients or customers with common interests and issues can connect over breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee or cocktails — a place…

If you work at getting referrals from existing customers or clients, consider this: people tend to refer people who are like them.  Now think about that one customer — you know the one.  Always trying to push the price lower.  Always demanding more, but never willing to pay for it.  Always requiring more time and…

Whether you ask at the end of a transaction or some other time, as you ask about the customer’s level of satisfaction, ask this: what can we do better?  Is there any part of what we do that we could improve?  If you could change one thing about how we do things, what would it…

How often do you ask your customers or clients how well you’re serving them?  If your company is like most, the answer is seldom, if at all.  It’s easy to confuse the absence of complaints for customer happiness, but they’re not necessarily the same thing.  And it matters, because even slightly unhappy customers are much…

Want to waste some of your marketing budget?  Make sure your billboard is set in all caps.  It’s just that easy!  It guarantees that your message will be much harder to read, especially at 65 miles per hour in busy traffic on a rainy day.  We’ve known for years that all caps are harder to…

You can have the most effective marketing in the known universe and still not land the customers you need.  How?  By ignoring what happens once they’re ready to buy.  When prospects decide to do business with you, what happens next?  When they call, is the person who answers friendly and trained to bring new customers…

A recent article on linguistics observed a generational difference in how we respond to being thanked.  When someone says “thanks” to a baby boomer, they’re likely to hear “you’re welcome” in response.  Millennials, on the other hand, often reply with “no problem.”  Boomers may be mildly irritated by this latter response, with its subtle suggestion…

If you’re wondering whether your company has a true brand, or if you’re just one of many “me too” choices, here’s a good indicator: are you excited?  A primary ingredient of any real brand is passion — people who are excited by what they do and energized when they do it.  So look around.  Are…

Small design decisions have a big impact on the way prospects respond.  Using the right typeface does more than make your message more readable; it helps the reader instinctively know something about you.  Sans serif typefaces like Helvetica are better suited for less personal or more technical services.  Serif typefaces like Times Roman are more…