Are Business Gifts Business Bribes?
Gift-giving in business can be touchy. Some companies have strict rules against employees receiving gifts from suppliers. Other companies encourage it and exploit every opportunity to cash in on “freebies”, the bigger the better.
Either extreme has a downside. Overdoing freebies carries obvious and serious risk for the purchaser. But, companies […]
The Proverbial Slam Dunk–Always Say Never
One more comment on bromides, or trite expressions.
Awhile back when I was managing a national accounts sales team, whenever we thought we had a new account in the bag (bromide), we’d say, “It’s a slam dunk!” Not just to each other, but to every Tom, Dick and Harry (bromide) that came along, including our […]
Spreading the Words, 1/19/2007
Liz Strauss on vendor expections. You get what you pay for.
Liz Strauss on client expectations. The client is not always right.
Bill Wren on the virtues of having a point. The eternal struggle between noise and news.
Blog Republic invokes Winston Churchill to pump up bloggers!
Marshall Goldsmith’s list of 20 leadership errors–reprinted in Brand Autopsy–rings […]
Get Organized with a Business Blog
Companies have mixed feelings about launching a blog. Blogs are new, powerful, appealing to customers, easy and inexpensive to set up, but … they’re new.
If a business wants to test the blogging waters before diving into the blogosphere, internal blogs are the way to go. In fact, a November 2006 article in BtoB […]
"Google Docs & Spreadsheets" Saves Time and Sanity
MicroSoft Word is a magnificent product. The recently released Google Docs & Spreadsheets might just be a better one.
Google has been developing all sorts of handy Web-based products to compete against MicroSoft client-based products. I’ve had a chance to work with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and for me, it’s just what […]
The Pros and Cons of On Hold Phone Messages
No company wants to strand customers on hold for an extended period of time. But when it happens, you want to make the experience pleasant–or at least tolerable. Music CD’s or radio make convenient and inexpensive options for on hold background. In some cases, however, a custom on hold phone message is […]
How to Leave a Voice Mail Message
In Friday’s post, we talked about how to compose a voice mail greeting. But how about leaving a voice mail message? Here are some ideas to make your corporate communicaton more effective.
1. Be brief. Assume the person listening to your message is up to his eyeballs in work, or going through […]
