Last week I spoke about holidays, and the importance of taking the time to enjoy them as your 9-5 brothers and sisters do. This week, both Canada and the United States celebrate the birth of our respective countries. And to quote a popular television series, "what better way to celebrate the birth of your country than by blowing up a small part of it." This of course means fireworks, which...
You want to talk about modern advertising, and lots of buzzwords will come up. "Social." "Integrated." "Consumer-focused." You name it. And hey, why not? They're all good ideas. But let's talk about good old fashioned guts. Now, there's a lot of different kinds of advertising. If you're making a sales pitch, you've got one set of goals, but building brand awareness is something else entirely. With brand awareness advertising, you're...
This should really go without saying, but first impressions are tremendously important. In life and business, the first impression you make can go a long way towards establishing how your future dealings, be they personal or professional, with a person (or company) will go. A good first impression can lead to a long-standing, beneficial relationship. A bad first impression can lead to no relationship at all. Obviously, the former is...
Stop for a minute and think about a hamburger, made just the way you like it. Maybe it's covered in mayo and ketchup; maybe it's got no sauces but a bunch of tomatoes. Maybe it's a veggie burger, or maybe you don't like burgers at all and you just order macaroni and cheese. But at the end of the ordering process, you're happiest if you get exactly what you want,...
I know I tend to start a lot of posts like this, but there's an old saying. Unfortunately this one I can't repeat verbatim as this is a PG blog, so I will paraphrase it a little. "Stuff happens." Stuff, of course, refers to all sorts of negative things that can pop up in your day to day life. And if stuff can happen in your daily life, stuff will...
There is a line from the original Star Wars film Episode IV: A New Hope, spoken by Harrison Ford’s character Han Solo to Mark Hamil’s Luke Skywalker during a pitched battle in space. While not one of the most memorable or quoted lines in the film, it is a solid piece of life advice that has applications in many different ways, including business. The line is “Don’t get cocky, kid.” Cockiness is...
It's as inevitable as death and taxes: everyone reading this has, at one point or another, had to call in to a company's customer service line. You know the drill - get bounced around an automated system, push 1 for English, and eventually you wind up with a bored, disinterested representative on the line who doesn’t answer your questions, ignores some of your issues, and isn't paid enough to care...
The business world offers a virtually limitless array of opportunities and, consequently, challenges. There is always something more you could know about how to achieve your business goals - even the masters (especially the masters) are still always learning more about how they can achieve ever greater success. There's an important takeaway from that knowledge - there isn't anybody in business who is already perfect. Everybody has screwed up a couple...
Positive word of mouth remains the most effective marketing tool available. Somebody purchases a product or service that they absolutely love; goes on to tell friends, family, and co-workers; then word spreads, sales increase, and everybody's happy. That one person acting as the starting point doesn't even necessarily need to buy the product or service. They could have read an interesting article or blog post online or in a magazine, seen...
It is no exaggeration to say that the Internet is one of the most disruptive inventions in human history, and is completely indispensable in modern life. Through the advent of the Internet, the world has become connected like never before, and with that connection comes endless business opportunities ripe for the picking. Countless companies have risen from the from the online world to revolutionize entire industries. For example: Amazon took online shopping, already a growing...