“What makes a successful customer-based initiative tick? Over the last decade, our consultants have spent countless hours helping companies in a wide range of industries in their efforts to implement customer-based strategies. One of the most frequent questions we hear is: ‘What do successful customer-driven companies have in common?’ In our experience, when a firm launches a successful customer-focused initiative, it’s likely to be characterized by the following traits…”

“This report — available as a PDF download — describes a simple method that will allow any user to cope with increasing amounts of incoming e-mail. Some of the ideas come from author Mark Hurst’s free Good Experience newsletter, which reaches 50,000 subscribers worldwide… Anyone who uses e-mail should read this report. Anyone who manages e-mail users, or works in I.T., should read it twice.”

“You know what it’s like. You leave your office for a day or two and when you come back, there are 200 e-mail messages. If you are being swamped, can you imagine what the freelance client has to deal with? At least with offline mail (a.k.a. ‘terrestrial mail’ or T-mail) it took some amount of effort. Now, anyone and everyone can almost effortlessly market to your clients with e-mail. It’s too easy!”

“What are the elements of a successful viral marketing pitch, and what does the hotel experience [the ‘Yours Is A Very Bad Hotel’ PPT] teach us about customer service? eMarketer found out from Zaaz Director of Internet Strategy Tom Farmer and CEO/Founder Shane Atchison.”

“‘I was a passionate, driven and nonempathetic leader, inclined to make hasty decisions and to get to the finish line dragging people with me,’ [John Bearden] said. He remembered that a consultant at SEC Realty had once told him: ‘John, you have so much potential, but you’re running over everybody. People want to follow you, but you turn people off.’”

“You know what it’s like. You leave your office for a day or two and when you come back, there are 200 e-mail messages. If you are being swamped, can you imagine what the freelance client has to deal with? At least with offline mail (a.k.a. ‘terrestrial mail’ or T-mail) it took some amount of effort. Now, anyone and everyone can almost effortlessly market to your clients with e-mail. It’s too easy!”

“Where are you on the percentage scale of sales? How many out of 10 can you close? Well, Mr. Sales Bigshot, forget your percentage. It ain’t all that good anyway. If you want to raise it by 50 percent — yes, 50 percent — just change the type of sale you’re making.”

“Three years ago I had a meeting with an advertising executive in charge of promoting some Big Corporation Product. The first thing I did was to go to the web to show him websites created by people who used this Big Corporation Product, people whose amateurish websites had more information about the Big Corporation Product than the Big Corporation was willing to share. I even showed him websites created by Employees of Big Corporation who worked on creating The Product and who in their spare time created websites to promote the Big Corporation Product because they really liked to work there and do all kinds of nifty things with The Product and they criticized it a lot too, but mostly they loved it.”

“Bottom line? Results, results, results. We’re long past the days of pie-in-the-sky speculation and wild ideas. Today’s clients want to get people to their site, convert them to customers and keep them coming back. They want efficiency, measurability and ROI. They want more value from lower budgets. They’re done building. Now, they want to reap the promise of the Internet. We’d better be ready to help them get there.”

“Giants like AOL, Palm, and Sony have tried and flailed. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Some little guys are actually sticking it to Microsoft now — and what they’ve learned can mean as much to your business as it does to theirs.”

“Good references are made, not born. You can’t transform customers into good references without focus and attention. If you want to turn references into apostles it takes a plan. This article, extracted from Dave Stein’s book, How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition and Win the Big Sale, will tell you how.”

“Among the many lessons learned from the demise of so many tech companies is that relationships still matter. No matter how many new processes, techniques, applications, devices, or killer apps there is still no substitute for building strong relationships with customers.”

“It occured to me why my eyes glaze over when getting technical about stuff (yes, stuff). Doc Searls enlightened me. Scary, yes? Here is why. I equate jargon with noise. I realize that, often, jargon is the language of the subject. However, usually jargon takes place of the subject. The ’stuff’ takes back seat to the medium.”

“Just who, exactly, is Dr. Direct, and why is Tim Scott, vice-president of business development for Brooks Instrument, a Pennsylvania-based manufacturing company, his biggest booster? The unlikely pairing of Scott, a real-life engineer, and Dr. Direct, a whimsical comic-strip superhero, is at the heart of a grassroots marketing campaign that’s garnering a lot of attention in a traditionally low-profile industry.” Here’s the comic itself, The Adventures of Dr. Direct!

“Good references are made, not born. You can’t transform customers into good references without focus and attention. If you want to turn references into apostles it takes a plan. This article, extracted from Dave Stein’s book, How Winners Sell: 21 Proven Strategies to Outsell Your Competition and Win the Big Sale, will tell you how.”