Bloopers

• Read more
• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• 
• Share on Facebook

Here's a video that demonstrates the perfectly orchestrated sales pitch, shot and delivered professionally. Take a look:

Several things come to mind, watching this carefully constructed spoof:

• Read more
• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• 
• Share on Facebook

Email has become the message medium of our age. Just as we learned how to address and stamp an envelope, just as we learned how to fill out a FedEx form, we are now - still - learning how to use email effectively to run our businesses, and to buy and sell products and services.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time this week talking about how frustrating it is when someone doesn't do what I'm about to recommend. Suffice it to say that stream-of-consciousness, flaky subject lines don't help you manage your business or increase your revenues.

• Read more
• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• 
• Share on Facebook

Here are some of the most common barriers to revenue that we encounter as we help our clients. Are you making one of these mistakes?

Your company name doesn't tell them what you sell. We call our company Zhivago Marketing Partners for this very reason. It would have been just as easy to call it Zhivago & Company or something similar - but that would not have answered the first, most basic question: "What does this company sell?"

If you're just starting out, make sure your name clearly indicates the type of product you sell.

• Read more
• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• 
• Share on Facebook

I've mentioned before that I buy a lot of software online. Recently I undertook an extensive search for software I could use to efficiently build outlines for books and other large, complex documents, because the outlining function in Word is pitiful and slows...the...creative...flow...to...a...crawl, and has a klutzy expand/contract outline function.

I must have looked at 25 programs, and trialed at least 10. For all of you out there selling software online, I have some very specific advice for you, from a buyer's point of view.

• Read more
• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• 
• Share on Facebook

I get a lot of calls from PR folks. Each call is a sales call, which is why I'm talking about it here. Anyone who sells for a living - and that includes CEOs and entrepreneurs - can learn from the mistakes that PR houses make. This article will also help you manage your PR folks, who are probably making these same mistakes.

PR people call me because they have a story they want me to "buy" and write about. Their methods, for the most part, are pitiful. It's sad, because just about every person who calls is a decent human being who wants to do a good job.