The Doing-Not-Doing Matrix

I was recently invited to a talk by Phil Styrlund about adding value to B2B relationships, sponsored by Vistage. Almost as an aside, Phil mentioned this matrix, which I quickly scribbled on my napkin. I don’t remember what he called it, or if he had a name for it — so I’m calling it the [...]

Postcard Marketing: budget benchmark

A remodeler recently asked me the following question: “How much would it cost to send the same postcard to my list of 4000 contacts and prospects, four times?” The answer was about $2.00 per contact, or 50-60 cents per postcard. That would be enough to cover creative, printing, mailing, and postage. (But not photography or [...]

May there be peace within

This afternoon I participated in a roundtable discussion at NARI. For the most part the conversation was upbeat. (More about that later.) Still, I felt a just a hint of frustration and weariness in the room. It’s hard. A lot harder than it used to be to compete, to win business, to inspire customer loyalty, [...]