Sometimes, professional people want to buy stuff, ask a question, get help or, heaven help us, have a conversation with another professional person at a company, like, say, yours. So let’s suppose I would like to buy a thing from your company, and let’s suppose I make my way to your website to ask about it. Will I click on “Contact Sales” and get a lead form that requires (yes, requires) that I spit out my company’s revenue, employee count and IT budget before anyone will call me back? Perhaps it was nice enough that other companies came over to gaze upon it with wonder. MORE >>

When they smiled and asked what your company does, would you wordlessly hand them a brochure without making eye contact? The Fuc*ing Popcorn: How many times a year does your company throw popcorn on the floor of the Real Office lobby and invite customers in to drop more? Just back from my first two trade shows of the season, and I am sad. It would seem, dear friends, that despite our resolve to not suck at these things, we just can’t seem to get it right. So why is there so little selling? think we need to apply a new, simpler standard. Reading: I once worked in a bookstore. MORE >>

If your company has a large fleet of trucks, are you sure your CEO needs to take an auto repair course? I hope it wasn’t recently because that’s not what senior executives (at least in larger companies) do. They  need 2B txtng our customers and building relationships and putting that human face on our company that it so badly needs.  The C-suite is not a nice place in many companies and the alpha dogs in that yard are sometimes not all that nice either. And then began the Ritual Disemboweling of myopic Palm-toting dinosaur executives who just “don’t get it”.  enough.  MORE >>

Now there are dozens of reasons a company might not show up to an event they’ve paid to attend, and most of them are awful. Take away all evidence that your company should be in this space. Ask them to remove all evidence that your company should be in this space. An Last week we talked about how to rock your trade shows. This week let’s follow that up with a glimpse into trade show stupidity with some stuff that just shouldn’t happen, but sadly does (and I have proof). Let’s look at this booth. It’s a 20 by 20. That’s a lot of real estate for this poor guy to cover. MORE >>

Do you recall how many people ran out and claimed to own the BP brand last year while said company was lubricating the Gulf of Mexico? The sad part is a lot of companies are buying into this nonsense that the critical mass of all social media somehow confers ownership on its participants. Who owns your brand? Hint: The same person who owns your dog. Stop looking around. It’s you. If you don’t have a dog, just play along. If your dog eats the neighbour’s lawn furniture, it’s your problem. So it’s arguably a bigger problem. If Not so many. But plenty mocked. Which brings me to GAP. MORE >>