While I’d love to see some kind of open-source, distributed social network start up, nothing is on the immediate horizon. However, we already have the tools in place to mostly do it ourselves. Here’s some thoughts about how we could make a better social network by starting our own blogs. If you need help getting […]
Business
Monologue vs Dialogue
Is your marketing more monologue or an actual dialogue? There’s nothing wrong with a bit of monologue — buy a TV or radio ad, spread the message, and see what happens. Increasingly, though, customers are wanting more of a dialogue with the companies they do business with, and it’s important not to confuse the two. […]
If your product is great, price is only a tie-breaker
I’m a big fan of the 2Bobs podcast, and an episode of theirs from a few years ago (“Truths and Myths About Money“) crept back into my mind recently. In that episode, Blair Enns said two very important things about pricing your product or service. Price is ideally only a tie-breaker When you find the […]
Good salespeople have good return policies behind them
My wife just picked up a new pair of running shoes from Big Peach Running Co recently, and she commented how the salespeople there are always so helpful and never put pressure to buy. Without really thinking, I said “Yep, it’s because they have such a good return policy.“ After taking a few minutes to […]
Learn to answer the same questions
I refer to Seth Godin a good bit on this blog, as he’s someone that puts out excellent content — and has done so consistently for the last 20 years. I mentioned a few weeks ago that along with Seth, Chris Lema is someone how has made great use of a daily blogging habit. From […]
Don’t hustle those you wish to serve
As the pace of the world seems to always be increasing, it’s tempting to try to find shortcuts to reach your intended audience, but those shortcuts are likely to backfire. As Seth Godin as said, “The people you most want to engage with don’t want to be hustled.“ You can earn attention through giving of […]
Hitting invisible targets
On September 7, 1979, Bill Rasmussen launched ESPN and did two things not seen before: It was all sports, all the time. It was on 24/7, which was largely unheard of at the time. They weren’t “the best” at either of those things — they were the first and only! It reminds me of a […]
Reputation vs Character
Your reputation is important. At GreenMellen, we help companies with reputation management to make sure their best side is showing to the world. However, we don’t do that for just any company; we need to know that their character is solid first and that’s a very different thing. The late, great basketball coach John Wooden […]
You can’t get urgency without value
At GreenMellen we work with a lot of different clients, and our process for building a website is pretty solid, but we still have challenges at times. One of the biggest is when a client gets “too busy” to keep up with what we need, and things stall out for a bit. As I’ve talked […]
Make More Pots
One of the core ideas in Seth Godin’s book The Practice is the idea of continually working hard to refine your craft. Case in point, he said that “if you want to complain that you don’t have any good ideas, please show me all of your bad ideas first.” People that have worked through a […]