Earlier this year, an issue of Fast Company magazine featured an interesting article by Chip and Dan Heath talking about the art of brand names. They focused on Lexicon, one marketing agency with a track record for creating iconic brand names like Blackberry and the Colgate Wisp. The process they uncovered is part science, part

Of all the small business marketing issues that I have spoken with colleagues or clients with, there is one that seems to come up with regularity. This so-called million dollar question is around the tricky topic of whether to specialize or talk about your services or products more broadly. On the plus side, if you

About two months before I turned in the final manuscript on my first marketing book, it was available for pre-order on Amazon. You could see the cover and the writeup about the book, and unknown to anyone who might have visited that page – the book wasn’t even finished yet. I admit, I did pre-order

Late last year a crippled Carnival Cruise ship was brought into port with thousands of disgruntled customers. Their vacations were ruined, they were stuck at sea and the media was having a field day covered their plight and the potential downside of the entire category of cruising. If you were Carnival, what would you do?

Colonel Sanders has a trade secret. His special blend of herbs and spices is supposedly the secret formula that makes his chicken taste the way it does. When Pfizer releases a new drug, they spend considerable effort to protect their manufacturing process and are even more secretive about particular formulations that they are testing in

In the book The End Of Overeating, former FDA Commissioner Dr. David A. Kessler delves deep into the food industry and talks extensively about how the industry has developed, marketed and promoted products to the American people. One of the stories he describes is the one of Roger Smith who was at one time the

One of the most dynamic speakers you will ever hear at a live event is legendary business thinker and author Jim Collins. Through is best selling books and many talks at some of the world's largest business events, he often shares wisdom that is driven by his vast experience, but also easily understood and implementable

Most students of any business course are taught constantly about the importance of having a good Return on Investment. Whether that "investment" is measure in dollars or in time that you or your employees spend trying to do something, we are taught that the benefit must be tangible when it comes back to your business.

This is a story about whether social media actually works to sell your business to new customers. As a “digitally-savvy” customer, I was confronted recently with the personal challenge of finding a service provider to work with in two entirely different industries. The first was an accountant, and the second was a builder for a

Is everyone telling you that your small business should have more "friends" online? Of course you already know that your customers have virtual friends as part of their social networks and they can "friend" someone on Facebook. On Twitter, they choose to "follow" another user and the old Facebook Page model used to allow you