You’re hurting your business. Every time you ask your customer’s opinion, you’re imperiling your business. And science proves it. You’ve probably heard that Steve Jobs hated focus groups. It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” – Steve […]

Hundreds of birds clung to the wires. Shoulder-to-shoulder they stand. A few of you know what that means. Nature whispers “a cold front is coming.” The birds hear those whispers and they survive. In fact, they thrive. But I’m not talking about birds. Here are the loud voices that can derail your business goals: A […]

What’s the best way to catch a dog that doesn’t want to be caught? Get the dog’s attention and run away as fast as you can. The dog will catch you. Then you simply grab the collar. What’s the best way to deal with negative news or negative emotions? Address them at the beginning. Run […]

Few things make investors more twitchy than an election year. This should make you happy and I’ll tell you why. A recent poll shows the most important 2018 voting issues are[1]: Trump (30%) The economy (22%) Illegal immigration (15%) Obamacare (14%) It’s the economy, stupid.” – James Carville, Campaign Manager, Clinton 1992 You know this. […]

Sometimes we don’t say what we mean.  I can shoot with my left hand, I can shoot with my right hand, I’m amphibious.” – Charles Shackleford, former NC State University basketball player Sometimes we don’t know what to ask. If your customers know the right questions to ask, then they probably don’t need you.” – […]

Your website traffic doesn’t matter. It’s only a vanity metric. What?? Yes, you read that right. Your website traffic shouldn’t be a core metric or key performance indicator (KPI). You should be fired if you’re an executive asking for traffic reports. Are you generating traffic reports because your management team demands it? Update your resume […]

Are you holding out? Do you own a website that hasn’t added an SSL certificate? Are you still on HTTP as opposed to HTTPS? It’s time to change and we’ll tell you why. SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer and it is the technology that encrypts data when it is sent across the internet from […]

You should reduce your SPAM complaints for at least these three reasons: Your email sending platform (MailChimp, Constant Contact, HubSpot, etc.) will suspend you if you have continued and excessive SPAM complaints. You are assigned a sender score by the internet service providers (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Comcast, etc.). When your sender score is low, […]

You have an opportunity for growth – but you probably won’t do it. We just purged 21% of our mailing list – and the purpose is growth. Seem strange? There is a valuable prize awaiting you if you have the guts to do the same. But you probably won’t purge your list because it feels […]

Domain Keys and Sender Policy Framework Records Must be Set   Your Highness. I’ve received your correspondence and am honored to respond. Oh!? How did I know it was you? Because the letter was sealed in melted wax embossed with your official seal. That’s how it worked in the year 1818. How does it work […]