Successful Blog

Don’t Read Your PR, Read Your Marketing Copy

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Diverse Portfolio

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A high-power company in educational publishing, bought three smaller companies and put them together. They think they offer a diverse portfolio. I think they offer a menu of bacon, ice-cream, tofu, and cognac. They are quite equipped to make the district-wide, state-wide sale. But rare is the sales rep who has the time or experience to speak to the details and nuances of the four individual product lines that they offer.

The Emperor has clothes bought by the bean counters. The bean counters think in BIG NUMBERS. The PR says that’s wonderful. The enterprise doesn’t see the world becoming niches and moving online. [Read more…]

Friday Productivity: The Monkey Rule

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Not Just for Fridays

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Problems don’t only happen on Fridays. It only seems like more of them do. That’s probably because what we’re looking for is a clean desk and a walk out to the weekend.

Instead what often happens is that folks stop by to hand us an issue that “just can’t wait,” and suddenly a Friday seems like it is piling higher and higher in front of that door that says ESCAPE.

Here ‘s a rule I use to keep control of my Fridays, Thursdays, Wednesdays — actually every day — come to think of it. [Read more…]

Find My . . . um . . . Passion — What?!!

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What’s Your Passion?

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What’s your passion? These days that seems a too-popular question. If you ask what to write, the answer is Write your passion.

Maybe I’m aN uptight, out-dated, and downright uncreative about that word, but I don’t think of passion in that broader context. My passion involves, um . . . er . . . other activities. When I went looking to write my passion, I found that it didn’t want to be written about. [Read more…]

Customer Solve Your Own Problem

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That’s Customer Centered

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I still keep my personal blog at two click exchanges. I do that for lots of reasons. I feel a little sentimental. My little blog found it’s first friends in such places and I still like exploring them. I also like to watch how such things work. The business models interest me. I want to watch as they introduce new features. I want to see how each community reacts to them.

Brand You and Me

Over the last year, I got to be good friends with a tech at one click exchange. Rachel was like me, a nice one. They had a problem for a few weeks with a spell of trojans. It seems everyone tried to crawl onto my computer I caught four or five in three weeks. [Read more…]

Trendspotting: How to Crawl into People’s Heads

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Your job — should you decide to keep working here — is to figure out what our customers want NEXT.

Trendspotters

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I belong to a networking group which requires endorsements. As I was editing my profile last night, I came across this endorsement from a client.

” . . . Liz can spot an emerging trend before it is even on the horizon. — Blake Education, Australiaâ€?

It’s true I often can. My friend, Chartreuse BETA, is phenomenal at trendspotting, as is our friend, Copyblogger. Scot Karp is excellent at seeing what trends are about to happen. Sometimes it depresses him. Don’t leave out Tom Peters. . . . How exactly do we do that?

What does it take to spot a trend before it takes root and actually happens? What does a person need to watch for? Seeing trends seems to be a factor of intelligence, learning style, and world view. Allowing that you have the prerequisite intelligence — we’re talking business acumen, common sense, and people smarts, not rocket science — the rest is a matter of doing the work and being open to what’s happening. This is lesson 1 on being a trendspotter. [Read more…]

Critical Skill 5B: Sparking Spectacular Ideas

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Spectacular Ideas

Future Skills

Do you recognize where we are? We’ve been here before. This is the place where I tell you that ideas are already in your head, that it’s a matter of letting yourself have them — not shutting them out. It’s when I remind you that you can be an idea magnet again. I tell you that ideas are waiting for you. I ask you if you’ve started seeing and hearing them.

Whew! Now that the déjà vu is over. We can get on with sparking spectacular ideas.

Caution: Now Entering Liz Think Zone

[Read more…]