It should be an obvious tactic, but for most people it’s just an afterthought that occurs too late. I’ve recently started asking each of my clients for a letter of reference that I can use in my portfolio. All are willing and most are even eager to provide one, which is for me a sure sign that the client is happy. If ever one weren’t this would be a good way to uncover and address an issue… another reminder that a wrap-up meeting is a good idea at the end of a project. This is the natural time to review what’s been done, do any training necessary, and plan future steps. My favorite email response though, was this one:

Ten years ago I was educating people about what they might expect from their websites. For many medium and small businesses, it was their first website, and they wanted to know how it was going to make them money. Nowadays, a web presence has become a part of almost every business’ “price of admission”. Ten years ago, you weren’t credible without a business card and a Yellow Pages listing, and people were already seeing that before long a website would become a part of the minimum credibility standard.

Last summer, one of the wine stores^[1] that I frequent most announced that it would be moving later that fall. Since the name of the shop included the street name where it was located, they would be changing their name — and they were holding a contest for customers to suggest a new one. The winner got a $250 store credit, so I was keen on winning… but my suggestion, La Dolce Vino, didn’t win (maybe someone else can use that). When the relocated store opened earlier this year, I was quite surprised to see what did win. Personally I found the new name uninteresting (maybe that’s sour grapes!), but the bigger surprise — and mistake — was the unintentional brand association.

Several years ago while I was in business with my brother, we were working through a list of our business distinctives. Asking a few trusted friends and advisors to provide their perspective on our business, we were encouraged by one of them to list integrity as a business distinctive. It was clearly one of our core values, and she felt we should market it as such. We declined, and for good reason. I am aware that a number of businesses use integrity as a marketing tool, and some have included the word in their business name. Although most of us want our brand to symbolize integrity in the minds of our clients and prospective clients, I believe marketing integrity is an unwise practice, for several reasons.

Ori Brafman has previously co-written The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations along with Rod Beckstrom. I’ve previously mentioned the book a couple of times, and was looking forward to delving into Ori’s new book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, written with his brother, Rom Brafman.  I was pleased when it arrived by FedEx, and I devoured it pretty quickly.

Comparing well with Blink and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, Sway, like Starfish, is well-written and entertaining as the Brafmans explain how people’s judgment is swayed in various contexts.  Recognizing the types of context in which one’s judgment is likely to be swayed can help avert poor decision-making.  As the old saying goes, “forewarned is forearmed.”

42 Awesome Business Card Designs:  when you’re handed a lightweight business card with perforation marks around the edges, you’ve already formed an opinion, right?  On the other hand, a stand-out card says something else altogether.

Seths Blog: The stupid diet. One of my cronies is fond of saying about most people’s marketing “strategy”, “Come on now, take your vitamins.”  Yes, the parallel is clear:  better to keep it up than wait to try the prevention until you’re already sick.

I freelance, and I work from home. A lot of people work from home these days, and many try to hide that fact, putting on an image that’s bigger than they are by using a variety of techniques, such as continually referring to your company as “we” when there’s really only an “I”. Now, there’s image-building, and then there’s lying to your customers.

Guy Kawasaki gives an overview of The Nine Best Story Lines for Marketing from Lois Kelly’s book, Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing. There’s nothing that makes for better marketing than a well-told story.

WestJet’s website greets you with the slogan, “Because owners care.” They’re carefully building an advertising strategy around the fact that 85% of their employees are shareholders in the company and contribute an average of 13% of their salaries into share purchases. They make a big deal about their staff, boasting, “We have 31 Karens, 39 Lisas, 67 Jens, 67 Davids, 46 Michelles, 86 Michaels and 1 Yoga at WestJet.” And all of this is what’s supposed to motivate the staff to provide the best customer service in the industry.