Last Friday, we went to the U2 concert at Qualcomm Stadium. And as my wife said, “We are the demographic.” Most of of the concert goers were in their 40s or 50s, and some of them had children in tow like we did. We even ran into some old friends in the next section. The show was impressive. As we told our boys, you are unlikely to see a better live band than U2. It was quite a performance. However, I had one serious problem with the show: it was too loud. My wife even planned

Last week, I was talking with a prospective client about their marketing efforts. They offer a service targeted at business executives. And they assured me that they had LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter covered. My question was why were they putting effort into social media when their target market are not high users of social media? Most business executives are not very active on social media. They see it as a distraction. If you want to find your prospects with the least amou

When you think of BMW, what do you think of as their slogan? While we have only owned one BMW about 10 years ago (and my wife mostly drove it), I immediately think of “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” They used that slogan for 34 years. In 2013, they changed it. Do you know what it is? Me either... until I looked it up. It is “Designed for Driving Pleasure.” So, why did they change it? Their stated reason was that they wanted to reinforce that BMWs are performance vehicles that

While getting marketing projects started is important, it is equally important to know when to quit. And that is a place where many business people have a challenge. They get emotionally involved with their marketing efforts and are reluctant to stop them, even if they are not producing results. One small law firm I spoke with had spent $30k dollars on Google AdWords over 12 months and had only one lead to show for it. However, it took them a whole year to make the decision t

These past 12 days in Germany, we experienced a lot: castles, museums, towns that had not changed much since the 1500s, and visiting with friends. It was a great trip. However, one of the fun things we found were the translations. In some restaurants, their menus included English translations. One of our favorites was “Snacks Against Small Hunger.” Of course, what they meant were smaller plates if you just wanted a snack, but it made us smile. Other translations were a little