GPS

Along the lines of my last post, a great service truly does alleviate a discomfort/stress/anxiety for an individual or company.
A GPS device is sort of a hybrid of a service and a product, but the service is really what sells it. Keep that in mind as I describe a recent example that caught me off [...]

Ask them what they hate

Today I was doing some research on customer satisfaction surveys. After looking through a number of examples it was clear that for the most part all the surveys I looked at were pretty much the same. They went something like this:
 Please rate the following on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being best.
1. Overall, how [...]

Skate to where the puck is going to be

Keeping with my ice hockey them, Wayne Gretzky was once asked why he is such a good player. His reply?
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”
Make sure your company is not simply chasing where other companies in your industry have been. The true ability of a successful [...]

Awareness of the play

I play ice hockey on the weekends as a way to stay in shape and indulge my delusions that I could have been a professional athlete had I chosen that path. One thing I’ve noticed is that certain people on my team seem to have a better sense of the ice and the development of [...]

Am I allowed to blog?

A colleague of mine wondered out loud recently “Am I allowed to blog?” She was worried that her Career Blog had too much personnel information in it and certain members of management might not approve of blogging as a work related activity. My comment to her was that business is not always about business. When [...]

One Single Solitary Person

Service companies rely heavily on their employees, much more so than companies that sell a product. Customers are buying something that is intangible, they are buying a promise.
Think about it, when’s the last time you bought a car from someone that you liked. Doesn’t happen too often. The salesman is simply a necessary evil [...]

“The” or “A”

Paul Williams over at Marketing Profs makes a very simple but powerful post on how the use of the word “The” over the word “A” can make all the difference.
Do you want your plastic surgery done by “A” plastic surgeon or “The” plastic surgeon? Do you want to go to “A” steak house or “The” [...]

Fantasy Football

I have a buddy that is nothing less than a fantasy football addict. He plays in dozens of leagues and absolutely loves to talk fantasy football strategies. So much so that during football season I do my best to avoid bringing up any subject that might somehow lead to a discussion on fantasy football. Not [...]

AT&T Sucks

…and neither is this.