Not long ago, a salesperson sent a follow-up e-mail with this subject line: “Am I wasting my time?” While that’s information you certainly want — and are even entitled to know — it’s a terrible way to ask for it. First of all, it strongly suggests that the salesperson values their own time above yours.…

Do an exercise right, and you gain strength. Do it wrong, and you don’t — or at least not as much. And you run the risk of injury. Same with marketing. Take a drive and count the number of billboards that use all caps or too many words or type that’s too small. The logos…

As media options multiply, it’s easy to lose sight of how important repeated impressions are. Life has turned into Short Attention Span Theater for all of us. But even the most magnetic message requires repetition to make it stick. The challenge is finding the best way to hit your reps in an increasingly noisy world.…

All of the above would be pretty meaningless if it weren’t for one thing: Prince delivered. He combined prodigious talent with a relentless work ethic. His music, especially when he first began recording, was ground-breaking. He insisted that his manager get him the chance to do a movie with a major studio — then created…

Prince knew the importance of staying in the spotlight, and of finding new ways to surprise people. Few artists have used the platform of a Superbowl performance to better advantage, especially when it actually began to rain during “Purple Rain.” (A concerned staffer rushed to see what Prince wanted to do as the rain began…

We say “purple.” You say “Prince.” If an artist can own a color, he did. (At the time of his passing, he had ordered a custom-made, clear acrylic piano for his next tour with keys that would turn purple when pressed.) So all of the above notwithstanding, color counts when it comes to your brand.…

Few artists understood the power of a brand the way Prince did. For example, he wrote, sang, played every instrument, arranged every song, and oversaw every detail from packaging to the set design for his tours and the way his band looked onstage. Your brand is much more than your logo or the look of…

More than ever, the key to a successful brand is finding your voice — knowing your audience and speaking their language.  Katy Hearn Fit does exactly that on her website.  Her target audience is young women.  So one of her most popular fitness packages is simply called, “Build a Booty.”  It requires no explanation.  It’s…

When you want to remember an anniversary, a child’s ballgame, or a doctor’s appointment, you put it on the calendar.  But when it comes to marketing, we often talk about the big picture things we need to plan for or revisit, but we seldom set a date.  The simple act of putting something on the…

Too often, when we’re making decisions about the marketing messages we’re going to send out into the world, we get lost in the weeds and start to overthink it.  Don’t.  It isn’t that you shouldn’t be thoughtful.  Strategy deserves careful scrutiny.  But when it comes to execution, our job is to think like our customers. …