And he wasn't selling. He was teaching. He told stories, and listened, and showed tools, and told more marketing stories. The energy was high. You could just tell how much he loves what he does. He used simple words and told the potential clients marketing tricks he learned from others. A lot of that knowledge was not related to his product. But it was part of the conversation.They didn't even notice the Nikes he wore. They were in love. 

My wish for you in 2012 is to go out there, be you, teach, and make them love you! 

 

 

Gasp! I said it! And it's a simple story of how my dependency on online shopping turned into more work for me.

Last weekend I ordered an office item from Amazon. I have Amazon Prime, so I went with 2-days free shipping to get it by Wed. I needed it urgently by Thursday so I figured if it's delayed I will get it Thursday at the latest. After all, Amazon always delivers and the UPS guy is my friend, so I will surely get the package on time.

I was wrong. For this particular shipment Amazon used Ensenda, not UPS. And Ensenda came by after 6 PM when no-one was there. So I called them to ask for an earlier delivery or delivery at home. And they said that they deliver when they deliver (more or les... ).

Thursday I called again and they said they weren't sure when they'd deliver. So I took a quick trip to Staples, bought the damn thing and dragged it back to the office.

That was easy! (Yes, in celebration, I did walk away with a bunch of "easy" buttons)

The item was delivered on Friday (although Ensenda claims they delivered it Thur. at 9:30 AM).

Lesson learned. Some things should just be bought in a store. I don't mean to say I will never use Amazon again. I love Amazon, and I wish they stopped using Ensenda (this is my second failed customer-service story with Ensenda).

So here’s what I learned:

• Self-service is not always the best service.
•  "Free shipping" doesn't mean hassle-free. 
•  The experience should be considered as part of the cost or benefit of doing business with someone.
• UPS knows that a business address means delivery during business hours. Ensenda doesn't. 
• Our office needs an assistant... 

Do you have a failed “online-shopping” experience where you wished you shopped in a store? Please do share!

 

Every week I talk to people who are looking for work, or people who are looking to restart their careers. Yesterday I looked through about 10 resumes in helping a friend recruit for a position. These were just 10 of many, many others.

It's heartbreaking and encouraging at the same time. Why? It never ceases to amaze me how unwavering Americans are when it comes to work and their future.

I am not an optimist by nature, although I feel that living in America has taught me to be more hopeful of the future. So here I find myself having so much hope that we will get out of these tough economic times if not next year the year after. We will have much to sacrifice but we will make it. 

Resilience. Resilience is the word that comes to mind when I think of Americans. Most of the people I've talked to have figured out small ways to make an income, while searching for a full time job. Many have started their own companies. Others have turned to their passions, photography, painting, arts. And many are asking for help and finding that support in unexpected places.

Ultimatelly I hope this will bring us all together as a closer community. In fact I see it happening already. 

I want to encourage anyone who is looking for work to do a few things:

1. Tell everybody what you would love to do to make a living.

2. Ask for help. 

3. Give help. 

4. Be humble. I've seen people turn down good jobs because it was a "lateral move." A lateral move from being unemployed is being unemployed! Titles are insignificant. 

4. Do this over and over again and never give up. You are not alone in this. 

 

Since the rise of Google+ many have wondered what other social network to sacrifice to make time for Google+. Thanks to the creativity of the tech community and the flexibility of the Google platform, Chrome and Firefox users can bring Twitter inside Google+ and manage both networks from the same location. 

All you need to do is install Google+Tweet on your Chrome or Firefox browser, go to Google+ and you will see the Twitter icon to the left of your Home icon. Click the Twitter icon and you will be prompted to log into your Twitter account. 

The functionality works nicely however it's been very slow to load, which is not unexpected given the meteoric rise of Google+. But once you have it installed you can manage your Twitter account from inside Google+.

Have fun!

Back in my corporate days we ran a web ad/banner test and found that text-style ads (similar to google search results) got 400% higher click-through rates than image ads. These ads disguise themselves as regular content. Since then I've been wondering why Facebook advertisers don't apply this approach. Google figured it out a long time ago, yet on Facebook text-only ads, or smartly disguised ads are a rare breed. Well, this morning I saw this ad disguised as a poll. 

What do you think, would you be more prone to click on ads if they looked more like regular content?