From a recent Kiplinger editorial survey, “On Valentine’s Day, one in five die-hard sports fans turns down romance to watch a game. A good chunk of men, 31%, want their lovers to be bigger fans; 18% would take a pay cut to change their partners’ interest level. and both sexes would gain weight or add to their commutes to alter their lovers’ interest level in sports. A full 41% of men say rooting for the same team is a bigger deal than sharing religion. There’s also financial friction: 27% of couples argue over money spent on sports. A majority of respondents,…
Monthly Archives:August 2022
The Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off coupon is so ubiquitous that one of the mailers was even found by FBI agents in the junk drawer of notorious gangster, Whitey Bulger. Comedians and television shows make fun of the coupon and I’ve done a fair amount of my own ribbing of the brand. At peak circulation, over a billion coupons were mailed per year. Nearly everyone has seen one of these or has one in their stack of mail at home. Many consumers keep them in their cars and purses, waiting to use them. But did you know? The brand started…
Google dominates online advertising. The company reported revenue of $183 billion in 2020. More than $147 billion, or 80.3% of total revenue, came from Google’s ads business. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is on pace to grow 36.9% in 2021 to $250.6 billion in revenue. While regulators in Washington D.C. and Europe attempt to wrangle the digital advertising behemoth, smart marketers have noticed an interesting trend: brands are wasting a lot of money on television and Google search and not spending enough to target consumers where it matters most – when and where they are actually shopping for products…
There are too many examples to count in which a struggling writer, faced with writer’s block or a tight deadline, experiences an epiphany, resulting in prolific prose only after he or she starts writing about what they know. In an interview on CBS Sunday Morning, Maggie Gyllenhaal talked about directing “The Lost Daughter,” her first production as screenwriter and director. Based on a novel by Elena Ferrante, one of the book’s big truths now brought to the screen by Gyllenhaal is that “motherhood – even when it’s a choice, and a joy – is not always a pleasure.” Gyllenhaal is raising two daughters…
As of November, Nike no longer sells directly on Amazon. Nike is not alone. Birkenstock, Louis Vuitton, North Face, Patagonia, Asics, Ralph Lauren, Rolex and Vans do not sell directly on Amazon either. Nestlé Nespresso dominates a huge direct-to-consumer channel and paid Starbucks $7 billion to take over the sale of coffee and capsules for Nespresso machines. The new Disney+ streaming service cut out the middleman and kicked Netflix in the shins on the way out the door. These smart firms want to own the data and chart their own course into higher lifetime customer value, margin and sustainability in…
I’ve been presenting on the power of patient gifting and marketing automation for many years. The most common question from audiences revolves around cost. I’m asked, “How much should I spend on a new patient welcome gift, shock ‘n awe package or new start ‘wow’ box?” My answer has always been the same: whatever it takes. Clearly, one of the top five reasons why patients don’t refer, which I review extensively in my book, The Truth About Referrals, is that they aren’t welcomed to the practice in a BIG way. I learned this principle from The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Development Center, The Disney Institute…
Paco Underhill, author of several books on why consumers buy and consultant to large retailers, knows as much as any author I’ve read about where to place items on shelves, how consumers make buying decisions and specifically what drives female consumer choices. His work warrants your study and this weekly fax does not offer enough real estate to properly review the body of evidence his research has unearthed. I will, however, point you to one interesting aspect of Underhill’s research: When Underhill observes consumers during a shopping trip to Target or Wal-Mart, and then follows them to their car to ask them…
Born on a Missouri farm in 1875, James Cash Penney started in the retail business in 1898 as a store clerk in Colorado. He quickly moved up the ranks and in 1902, he was offered a partnership in the Golden Rule store. He soon bought the entire operation and by 1914 he moved the company headquarters to New York City and had built the largest department-store chain in the United States by 1917. At the age of 41, a life-insurance company said his overwork made him an at-risk client. So, he stepped down as president of his company and traveled the country,…
Each month, we have really great coaching calls for Look Over My Shoulder members and received two excellent questions from members, Dr. Michael McCarthy and Dr. Kim Mai. The principles and strategies reviewed during the call teed me up nicely for a small handful of new client calls and progress reports. Both members in the group call had their eyes on the horizon, a willingness to learn and share and therefore the ability to solve problems. This is what Dr. Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset,” where intelligence can be developed and not a “fixed mindset,” where intelligence is static. I’ve recommended Dr. Dweck’s book,…
If you’ve been hanging around me for very long, you know that I like to read. A lot. As a rule of thumb, even though I read nearly every new business book that comes out, I read them quickly and scan for common principles that I might be able to apply to my businesses or to help my employees, business partners or coaching clients. I much prefer to read classic books that have stood the test of time. So, it was with great pleasure that I recently picked up Horst Schulze’s new book and best-seller, Excellence Wins. Schulze took the hotel…
