The last time we talked about showrooming, I referred to a Harris Poll that exposed a conflicting behavior among shoppers. The behavior? “Most” people (70%) say they showroom because of price, yet they often buy locally even if it means having to pay a slightly higher price. That’s right, 70% didn’t choose solely on price. […]

Thanks to the kindness of a few people and a good mix of intent and luck, I’ve been fortunate to meet a number of people that I consider mentors or significant influencers. In several cases, I’ve managed to work with them in person, via email or phone calls. More often than not, this happens at […]

Last time, we talked about how showrooming is impacting the retailer, briefly discussed what causes it and covered how a home store’s effective website selling experience helped me save time by avoiding a trip to a store that couldn’t decide whether it could help me. All the retailers say it’s about price and the research […]

If you have a retail store, you’ve almost certainly had people showrooming in your store. If you haven’t heard the term,”showrooming” can be summarized as “shopping at local stores to check out an item before buying online.” – though it takes on different forms. Showrooming includes: Price checking items on the internet while walking through […]

When I see a business focused solely on a horizontal or vertical market, it’s hard not to wonder if that focus is what’s really best for them. What do I mean by “vertical” and “horizontal” markets? A vertical market serves a certain type of customer, even if the work performed for them is of broad […]

Have you heard that you should “segment” your customers before marketing to them? Ever wondered what that means, much less how you’d do that? Today, we’re going to talk about segmenting in simple terms, but you might be wondering… Why should I segment my customers? Good question. You want to segment your marketing is to […]

A couple of weeks ago, NASA celebrated the one year anniversary of Curiosity Rover landing on Mars. Print readers – see the video here: youtube.com/watch?v=JaFZmaXlTV0 As someone who has been taking pictures since the ’60s, I still find it amazing that we can tell a satellite orbiting Mars to take a picture of a Jeep-size […]

Doctor Obvious says “Hiring the right people is crucial for any small business.” While Dr. O has a point, what the good doctor won’t tell you is what’s most important about finding the right people. What’s more important to you when hiring? Experience? Cultural fit? Attitude? Experience matters Production experience matters, no matter what “production” […]

On average, 25% of US students drop out of high school. I have little tolerance for “being average”, mostly because little changes have a way of propelling you well above average. It isn’t that average is bad, but remember that average is like scoring 50th percentile on a test – half of the people are […]

During my recent trip to Tulsa, I stopped into a chain drug store (similar to Walgreens) next door to the hotel. When I got to the register, a mom with two young kids was trying to exchange an item she had purchased for a very similar item that had the same price and was made […]

Hotels often provide fuel for writing and a recent trip I took was no exception. I noticed there were some Goldfish crackers crushed on the floor as I got off the elevator at six this morning. At the time, I figured that the staff hadn’t seen the mess yet. Six hours later as we headed […]

Donald Trump has repeatedly been quoted as saying “It’s not personal, it’s just business.” It’s easy to read his comment as cold words from a billionaire bent on grinding through another interchangeable cog in his machine, but I think it means something different altogether. I think it means that his decisions aren’t driven by emotion. […]

When I’m on the road, I always take a look at tourism brochure racks. Take a look at this rack in the Havre Amtrak station. Click to view the entire image or see flatheadbeacon.com/images/uploads/tourismbrochurerack.jpg. It’s a typical floor-standing tourism brochure rack that you might see around your town or at the local chamber of commerce […]

What did you learn from – and change in your business – after Amazon launched Amazon Prime? If you aren’t aware, Amazon Prime is a membership-based service that provides access to Amazon video-on-demand and free Kindle books from the Kindle lending library – but more importantly, it upgrades all purchases to from regular ground shipping […]

Have you ever received a new-customers-only offer from someone that you already do business with? In particular – Have you received one and found that the “new customer deal” in the ad is better than what you’re paying? As an existing customer of that business, how does that make you feel? To me, it devalues […]