Category Archives: Portland

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Direct Mail By The Pound

Ben McConnell of Church of the Customer has made a yearly tradition of keeping all of the direct mail he receives during the holiday season — and putting it on a scale.  This year: 21.5 pounds. Up over two pounds from last year, and a more-than-50 percent increase from 2005. His post gives some examples […]

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A Missed Opportunity

Over the holiday break, this ad ran in the Oregonian at least twice. My guess is that it ran all over the country, and the people who designed it didn’t feel like customizing the ad for specific markets.   Which means they blew it.    Brooks Brothers wants their prospects to respond in one of […]

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How to Find Me on Google

A while back, I did a post on great headlines, which I titled after my favorite example: “Headless Body in Topless Bar”. WordPress, the company that manages this blog, lists the search engine terms that people have used to get to it — and yesterday, someone found me by typing the term “Topless Bars, Portland […]

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Cute Elevator Speeches

One of the mainstays of sales training is the “Elevator Pitch” — a 30-second summation of what we do that we’d give a prospect if we had the prospect trapped in an elevator. The idea is that when someone at a cocktail party asks what you do, you can respond with a succinct value proposition […]

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What Other Problems Do Your Customers Have?

In the wine department of the Hollywood West Fred Meyer store is a device that looks kind of like a clothes hamper full of slowly circulating ice water. A sign on the device says, “Free Chilling Service — 25 Times Faster Than a Refrigerator” You just put the bottle in the water and come back […]