History has shown that businesses often reduce – or completely eliminate – spending on marketing and advertising during an economic slowdown. That places a premium on customer relationship building and creating a vast referral network. [Read More]

Reaching the female consumer is an art form that brands such as Starbucks, Neiman Marcus, and Target have mastered. And because of it, they’ve reaped category leadership, sales, and even a cultish customer loyalty.

Unfortunately, a [Read More]

For serious customer relationship–building marketers, unlocking the key to the buying decision would be something like finding the goose that lays the golden egg. Trouble is, the goose of consumer behavior is an elusive and [Read More]

Every day, customers fire employees by taking their money elsewhere. It is that money, after all, that pays for employee salaries, vacations, 401(k)s, rental cars, and everything else, says best–selling author Jeffrey Fox, founder of [Read More]

Who is your customer? Perhaps the better question is, who isn’t? As a longtime marketer, strategic communications expert, and brand identity specialist, Mary Lou Quinlan has noticed that most people think a customer is only [Read More]

Even the smartest, hardest-working entrepreneurs depend on other people — be they employees, vendors, customers, or someone else — for their success. The trouble, asserts Ty Freyvogel, founder of MakingSenseOfYourBusiness.com, is that entrepreneurs [Read More]

It has long been suggested that to become a more dynamic presenter, one should picture the audience in their underwear. In many cases, however, it’s the presenter who gets dressed down for an uninspiring performance.

For [Read More]

For many companies, responding to requests for proposals (RFPs) plays a major role in a business development plan. But it’s also a task that can hone a company’s performance and strategic communications skills and improve [Read More]

When Howard Behar first joined Starbucks as an executive in 1989, the company had just 28 stores, but its employee handbook spoke volumes. “Up until page 4 or 5, it never mentioned a word about [Read More]

When Fortune 500 companies need help developing a strategic communication plan, many turn to marketing and communications guru Harry Beckwith. As founder and director of Beckwith Partners based in Minneapolis, he has helped clients like [Read More]