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A Small Business Lesson from J.D. Salinger

One of my favorite authors on the planet
died yesterday. He was the author of the
1950’s classic “Catcher in the Rye.”

J.D. Salinger was a complete hermit,
never going in public, never doing a live
interview, and never publishing after
the 1960’s.

He led such a life of seclusion that his
grocery delivery boy had to go up the
winding dirt road in [...]

When Good Web Sites Go Bad…

By now I’m hoping that you have some kind
of web site for your business, or that you
are in the process of creating one.

If you don’t, you are leaving a big bad of
money on the table.

It doesn’t matter if you own a nation-wide
business, or a local service business, people
aren’t using the phone book any more.

That being [...]

The Dwight Schrute Skool of Sales

I’m a huge fan of the U.S. version of the
TV show “The Office.” It’s waaay too close
to office reality to ignore.

On that show is an amazing gentleman
named Dwight Schrute, who looks more like a
serial killer than a salesperson.

One day, Dwight and his coworker Jim were
on a sales call, trying to get a customer
to buy their [...]

Death in the Middle

When you are working on the positioning
of a product you should try and work
for one of the two extremes: premium
or (what I like to call) bottom-feeder.

The middle is a danger zone, a black
hole of doom for your product.

The middle is where the commodity
products and services live.

For example, you could pay a lot of
money for Kraft [...]

Man Eats Cheese Puffs So He Could Buy Latest TV

Hope you had a great weekend.

In continuation with our talks about pricing,
Here is a little tidbit that you might find
interesting.

Unless your financial situation is so dire
that you cannot afford the bare necessities,
almost everyone has something that they
like to buy that they are emotionally
attached to.

Usually we get so worked up about these items
that we are always [...]