THE BLOG

Good customer service is an essential ingredient in the success of your business. In order to keep our customers coming back, we have to provide them with a fulfilling experience – one that makes them feel they are better off when they leave than when they came in.

And good customer service might not be such an elusive concept. It might be as easy as being nice to people – offering them a smile and your full attention instead of just a passing hello. But sometimes...

What’s a Value Proposition?

When I was at the MarketingSherpa 2015 Email Summit this past February, I sat down for an interview with their Director of Editorial Content and my friend, Daniel Burstein, where I told him what a value proposition is, and why it is crucial for your business. If you as a business owner are ignoring a core problem with your value proposition, then it’s like a toothache–it’s not going away, it’s only getting...

As an entrepreneur, product manager, or CEO, you have to be vigilant of what is going on in the marketplace. Are you taking a holistic view of both competitors and even more importantly, trends? Ask yourself: are you really offering something that has a truly distinct Value Proposition? If not, someone else will.

The following are practical suggestions for keeping up with Competitors, Alternatives, and Disruptors in the Marketplace:

1. Talk to your customers and...

I’ve been asked at times to describe the I3 Principles (innovation, indispensability, and inspiration) for the value propositions for companies that have been in the lead for a long time. That is to say, how can they still be innovative after all these years? How are companies like Southwest or Nordstroms still innovative today? How are some of these other companies innovative in the context of – or in consideration of – the fact that their value proposition has...