In the world of promotional products, many make the mistake of trying to be like Jim Beam, thinking that simply because “everyone” buys branded merchandise, everyone is a potential client. But trying to be everything to everyone is a precarious position that undermines your brand...
Bill Petrie
By carefully studying how your audience engages (or doesn’t) during a campaign, you can proactively make the efforts to brighten, enhance and, to stick with the analogy, repaint your marketing grass. This is the only way to keep your field of play looking fresh for your prospects and clients...
The word “relationship” is an article whose definition is both simple and beguiling at the same time. Unfortunately, when it comes to building business relationships, there seem to be two schools of thought with very little room for compromise. Is there a hybrid approach that works better?...
If your clients describe you as being “good enough,” you can rest assured they will find a partner who consistently strives for greatness. Simply stated, good enough is mediocre, and mediocrity is the enemy of excellence. Here are three things that you can do immediately to move away from good enough...
While I’m not sure I’m any more or less qualified than anyone else to write on the topic of leadership, I felt compelled to after seeing a post on social media last week. In short, the post shared an experience someone had with an ineffective leader, and in all of the comments, there wasn’t a single one supporting leadership of any kind...
Because we are forced to, these days working from home feels more like living at work—and that’s not conducive to mental, social or even physical health. It’s important to intentionally create actions that get around this feeling. Below are six strategies I've employed to maintain a semblance of balance and sanity...
Reliance on a trend may yield some results in the short term, but the long-term damage of blending in with the crowd will be difficult to repair. In any creative industry, when organizations rapidly move in the same direction as their competition, it tells me that a new approach is a far better, perhaps only, approach...
Creating and delivering “work that matters” consistently is like solving a Rubik’s Cube. When it comes to solving marketing challenges for your clients, you must solve each side of the client’s cube to create work that matters. Here's what that means...
Showing up means pushing forward, arriving early and leaving late, pushing away the lure of laziness to pursue growth, and being willing to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of failure. Life will hurl all manner of curveballs at you—that’s just the way it is. The real test is how you react when those disappointments happen: You can either give up or show up...
When I think of promotional products distributors, many of them are trying to convince their audience they are creative by telling them that they are. For example, if you have a “creative” idea to use a specific phone charger for Prospect X’s internal sales contest, how creative are you when your competition showed them the same product last week?...
Anthony Bourdain was complex, prolific, entertaining and unapologetic. It's been a little over a year since he left this world, but he left behind a legacy of fabulous entrepreneurial, leadership and business lessons that I do my best to apply daily. Here are a few of them, and how you can apply them to your own business...
Just because we have the technology to pop into everyone’s home workspace via Zoom doesn’t mean that privilege needs to be abused. So, as your friendly guide, here are a few tips and thoughts as you think about asking your coworkers or clients to have a video meeting instead of using the phone (or an email)...
The single biggest challenge for distributors is differentiation. In a climate where budgets are slashed and marketing without pandering to your audience is a struggle, how can your brand and message stand out? The fact remains that over 25,000 distributors are selling the same merchandise, from the same supply chain, to the same target audience...
In the remote workplace, organizations have struggled to maintain connectivity with their employees. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced a "moment of truth" for corporate culture as leaders correctly ask themselves: Are the actions we take and choices we make right now reflecting our culture and the values that define who we are?...
