THANK YOU - SOLICIT WORKERS COMP THANK YOU! Dear (Customer Name), We don't often take the time to say thank you to our customers, but we wanted to let you know we apprecia...

lsquo;IT AIN'T EASY BEING A CUSTOMER ANYMORE!' by Mike Manes The good news about being a poor old Cajun boy (I've been criticized for using this term to describe my...

How to earn the confidence and commitment of your employees, customers, and stakeholders in today’s changing world.

We’ve all heard this joke: A local “hayseed” tries giving directions to a tourist, becomes frustrated, and ends the inquiry by saying simply, “You can’t get there from here.” The humor of this scene lies in its absurdity.

10 STEPS TO OVERCOME COMPETITION by Jack Burke Remember the first time you experienced a Chinese box set? As each box opened to reveal a smaller box, you wondered with childlike curiosi...

10 WAYS TO AVOID LOSING THE SALE Many publications are in the business of telling you how to succeed at selling. Guidelines, strategies, and techniques exist in abundance. However, there isn't ...

There's nothing better for business than a booming economy. Unfortunately, it often encourages faulty thinking and spawns erroneous ideas. When sales are strong and profits meet projections, we're quick to take the credit. When things go sour, external forces get the blame.
A good economy tends to mask distorted thinking and inappropriate ideas. For example, personal computer sales have been drifting downward, even while prices have been dropping. Manufacturers are petrified. Out of near desperation, they jack up power to a sizzling 500 MHz to try to capture customer attention. Just as this happens, free PCs appear. In the midst of all this, one company rediscovers itself. To IBM's credit, it figured out what business it's in: solutions.

12 LOW-BUDGET MARKETING IDEAS TO BOOST YOUR BUSINESS by Emily Huling Its nearing years end, or weeks end for that matter, and your people are looking just ...

The goal in business is to outdistance the competition and make profitable sales by producing more customer-friendly products or services. To reach this goal, you need an advantage to improve your batting average-but it's getting more difficult and complicated to obtain this advantage, let alone keep it.

A CPA firm spends $11,200 on a Web site that attracts only a handful of visitors. An insurance agency invests $80,000 in an advertising campaign and no one sees the ads. An alternative health clinic sends out 8,000 direct mail fliers and gets 26 responses. A manufacturer spends $28,000 on an attractive brochure that no one uses.

Becoming accustomed to a growing economy is easy and dangerous. Although there are always pockets of problems, we forget that success is often more the result of a good economy than our business acumen. If everyone else is doing well, our major challenge becomes how to pull ahead of the pack. Unfortunately, many business people tend to get a bit lazy-and that's when we can get caught.
There are ways to become more successful, keep business booming, and give companies the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage. Here are 15 ways to develop an extra edge: