Zara: A Company For The 21st Century
A company profile in a recent issue of The New Yorker suggests what you have to do to be competitive in the 21st century. The company is Zara, a Spanish clothing retailer based in Galicia. It is the third largest business of its kind and the fastest growing, with profits…
READ MOREManaging Employee Turnover
“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at something worth doing.” – Theodore Roosevelt Most businesspeople recognize that high employee turnover is costly. But we sometimes fail to appreciate how insidious the costs are. Besides the actual costs of processing a changeover…
READ MOREHow To Get Rich Making Mardi Gras Floats
”Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.” – Pearl S. Buck On a weekend trip to visit NOS (number one son) LF in New Orleans, we took the ferry to Algiers, the poor cousin neighborhood that is located just across the Charles, to see something called Blaine Kerns Mardi Gras…
READ MOREHow to Make Your Business Conference Schedule a Million-Dollar Bonanza
“People only see what they are prepared to see.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Business conventions, conferences, and seminars — you can use them to further your goals or kill time. I have done both and as you might imagine I have an idea about how they should be handled. Earlier…
READ MOREThe 3 Most Important Elements Of A Direct-Marketing Campaign
“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.” – George Orwell The rule in direct marketing is this: Media first. Offer second. Creative third. This means that: 1. The selection of media what newspapers you advertise in/what mailing lists you rent/what time slots you run your…
READ MOREProfiting From What You Love
“Work is much more fun than fun.” -Noel Coward I had a conversation the other day with OP who converted his love of flying airplanes into a business. OP used to be in the wallpaper business. It made money, but left him uninspired. There must be something better and more…
READ MOREAndrew Carnegie: How He Got Wealthy Using ETR Secrets
“The place to improve the world is first in ones own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.” – Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Like most people, whenever the name Andrew Carnegie was mentioned, I used to think industrialist or philanthropist…
READ MOREImprove Your Mailing Results By Testing Less But Smarter
“Obviously, computers have made differences. They have fostered the development of spaceships as well as a great increase in junk mail.” – Tracy Kidder When it comes to testing, one of the biggest mistakes direct marketers make is that they test insignificant choices. In an effort to perfect or…
READ MOREHow To Avoid “Senior Executive Syndrome”
“If your income doesn’t exceed your outgo, you go!” – Chuck Otterson Are you a senior executive? Do you employ one? If so, watch out. You/he may be dangerous to your company’s bottom line.The problem is Senior Executive Syndrome (SES): the tendency for a senior executive someone who has…
READ MOREDouble-Check Your Sales Letter
“Cheat me in price, but not in the goods I purchase.” – Spanish Proverb Your sales letter is probably the most effective means you have to grow your business. (If you are in the direct-mail business, I dont have to tell you this.) Its so important, in fact, that you…
READ MORE10 Things You Should Know About Email Marketing
If you have something special to sell and you can locate a group of people who have bought that kind of thing before, you have a sales opportunity made in Marketing Heaven.
READ MOREHow To Turn Your Product/Service Into A Franchise
“No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go beyond.” – Andre Gide Yesterday, we talked about Beach Blanker Babylon what it teaches us about capitalizing on trends. Today, I want to talk about another lesson we can take from it how to turn…
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