Feel the wind on your face this weekend
Yesterday, I stood for two minutes and felt the wind on my face. How often is it that any of us stop and do that? We’re so busy doing “stuff” that we forget the simple things in life; things that can give us the most pleasure. There’s a simple lesson here. Recently I read the…
Newsletter delivery like a dabbawala
Every day in the Indian city of Mumbai, 200,000 lunches are picked up from office workers’ homes and delivered to the workers’ desks precisely at lunchtime. Then in the afternoon, the whole thing is reversed, with the empty boxes (called tiffin boxes) returned to the workers’ homes in the afternoon. And here’s the amazing thing.…
It’s not “what you sell” that matters
It’s not “what you sell” that matters.It’s not you as a “real estate agent” that matters.Instead…it’s all the stuff that surrounds it. Let me explain. Here at Ready to Go Newsletters, we sell newsletters. But that’s not what matters. Yesterday Mayna, our long-suffering customer support manager (I say long-suffering because she works hard and has…
Not all deadlines cost you money
Today, as you know, is the mother of all deadlines. I’m sorry for reminding you so early in the morning, but today is tax day. Urgh. Deadlines – nothing like them to concentrate the mind, is there? If you were like many people, you were rushing to beat the deadline or ask for an extension.…
Your newsletters – and the duck in the swimming pool
Have you ever seen a duck trying to take off from a swimming pool? (Let’s not ask why the duck was there in the first place – I guess the 85 degree clear water was a better choice than a muddy pond.) The duck uses a lot of energy to get airborne. It’s first few…
A bunch of ideas, just by asking
I was emailing with a potential client, a real estate agent in California, this week. She had responded to one of these messages – the one I sent on Monday about the danger of talking AT your clients. She agreed with the main message in the email, but she asked: what kind of things should…
If you believe…
Sometimes, amid the day-to-day hassle of business, it’s easy to forget what really matters.Whole days go by while you are fighting fires and sweating the small stuff. You’re busy on listings presentations, showing homes and solving problems.And on days like that, you can forget WHY you are doing what you doing.So sometimes, it pays to…
Death spirals and marketing junk
A few years ago, when newspapers realized that Google News and Craig’s List were eating their lunch, the bean counters in charge started to cut costs. One of the ways they did that was to slash editorial budgets. Content is content, they said. We can share content between papers. So that’s why you started seeing…
When you think about it, it’s quite astonishing
Have you ever been in one of those conversations where the person just talks AT you? They launch into a 15-minute monologue about their lives…while your eyes glaze over. Nothing – and I mean nothing – you do will give them the hint that enough is enough. Deadly. Much marketing is like that. Companies create ads that are all…
Starving in a sterile world
It’s official. My computer has absolutely no charm whatsoever. Yesterday it told me that Quicktime had failed to initialize, that my backup was out of date, and that my printer was not recognized. Last week it informed me that Chrome had crashed and that Firefox was not was responding. And last month it told me that Word had an…
As unique as a bathroom tile
I was shopping for bathroom tiles the other day. Now…that’s a product that has been transformed since I was a kid. I remember at one time you could have tiles in two sizes: four inch and six inch. Forget about nice designs. Just choose a color. But now… …now there are: Tiles that look like hardwood floors. Tiles that look like marble. Tiles…
Magic beans
In a few weeks, the ground up here will be soft enough to plant my vegetable garden. So I will go down to the basement and find the little brown envelope in which I stored my single bean all winter. Then I will dig a hole, put the seed in, and cover it up with soil. And wait. Until…
So expensive and yet so cheap
Brrrng! There goes the phone again here at Ready to Go Towers. It’s a client inquiring about pricing. So I tell her what we charge. “Why is it so…expensive?” she asks. I tell her about our intelligent and entertaining content, our response-generating devices, our customer service, the fact that you can change everything, that fact that… etc, etc, etc. She…
The glue that holds communities together
I did my three hour stretch in front of the mic at our community radio station yesterday. I’m sure it’s quite a shock to the locals up here to hear my British tones coming out of their radios. After all, we’re not the BBC, just an enthusiastic group of people who make radio for our county every…
Building a roaring fire with newsletters
It was 48 degrees when I got home last night. That was the temperature inside the house, you understand. I should explain. I’ve been away getting some rays in Florida. After all, this winter has been….well, you know… And back up here in the Highlands, you don’t leave the heating on when you are away. Unless you want…
What you can learn from Taxi Mike
If you’re ever in Banff, in the Canadian Rockies, and you need a taxi, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself in the back seat of Mike’s cab. It’s not that he’s the only taxi in town. But he is the most helpful. And the most creative. Here’s what he does (a tip of the…
School custard and gourmet newsletters
When I was a little kid, I used to eat my lunches at the elementary school cafeteria. The food was terrible. Tasteless mashed potato. Boiled spinach. And lumpy custard with a thick skin on it. Of course, I didn’t expect gourmet cuisine. After all, it was England (ha!) – and it was school catering. But…
Butt-dialing your way to newsletter success
Mayna, our wonderful customer service manager, mistakenly butt-dialed me at 8.30 this morning. But it wasn’t any usual accidental call. It was on Skype. On her iPhone. With the video turned on. So there I was, treated to the sight of Mayna making coffee in her kitchen. I can tell you, she looks more put-together than I do first thing in…
The neighborhood chickens and the real you
Did you know that, across America, farms are springing up in the middle of towns and sub-divisions? Where once there would be a golf course or more houses, now there is a community farm with crops, fruit trees and organic chickens. It turns out that these businesses make money (and cost less to operate than a golf…
Forgetful husbands, wilted flowers and Compound Customers
I’d be willing to wager that most people buy a bunch of flowers at least once a year. Even if it’s a sorry, wilted red rose purchased at 5pm on February 14. I buy flowers online and get them sent – as if by magic – by a florist back in England to my mother. I’m a…