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Tag Archives: sales

ThoughtWorks kills sales commissions

December 4, 2014

This is a post from The Pursuit of Happiness, a blog on happy workplaces and work culture at my company, GasPedal. Check it out for more posts like this every week. In 2012, Chicago-based software company ThoughtWorks ended sales commissions and paid their entire sales team on straight salary. The result? More collaboration, more integration […]

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Stop subscribing prospective customers to your email updates without asking permission.

April 1, 2014

It’s rude. They will probably think you’re an asshole. You’re definitely going to lose the sale. Why? Because everyone knows that it’s common courtesy to only email after asking permission. Because nobody wants to buy from someone too stupid to use common courtesy or common sense.

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3 ways to let your fans rave about you

March 15, 2014

This is a post from our WordofMouth.org project. Check it out for more great word of mouth marketing tips like this every day. Honest praise from happy customers will always be more effective than any sales copy you could write. As a word of mouth marketer, your job is to help these great talkers get […]

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3 ways to turn one-time customers into big talkers

February 15, 2014

This is a post from our WordofMouth.org project. Check it out for more great word of mouth marketing tips like this every day. All those customers that come in and out of your store or visit your website every day represent a huge word of mouth opportunity. It’s all about turning these passing shoppers into […]

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This tech support fight could have been avoided

January 20, 2014

You know the story. You ask for tech support, and they tell you to pay first. OK, that’s fair. You can’t always expect lifetime free service. (You wouldn’t expect Ford to fix your car for free, forever. We have weird expectations about computer products.) Recently, I tried to get help on a disk drive product, […]

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So many sales lost…because of one important action

December 17, 2013

I am a big fan of Woot’s email promotions. More here. But they stopped coming months ago — and I didn’t notice. Because nobody cares about missing a sales email, however good it might be.  The only reason I noticed that they were missing is that they suddenly started showing up again. Most likely, they had an […]

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Do you trust this guy?

October 30, 2013

A salesman from a Fortune 500 financial services company sent me this email. Does it inspire trust? Would you let them handle your money? Subject: We want you back at ____, we can give you $300 or $500 CASH BACK!!!   Hi there,   It’s been awhile and I wanted to reach out to you to […]

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Urgency and Exclusivity

March 11, 2013

Too many marketers have “urgent” sales and false deadlines. Too many “exclusive” offers are offered to everyone. Sooner or later, your customers figure out that you’ve been jerking them around. Peet’s Coffee really did it right with this offer for their Anniversary Blend. It was exclusive to readers of the email newsletter. And it was […]

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Lead Capture Failure Strategy #1

March 1, 2013

Calling it “Lead Capture” is a clue that you don’t get it. You can’t “capture” a person who isn’t ready to do business with you. They can’t be tricked, trapped, or forced. Doesn’t work. Instead, you can earn their interest and attention. You can entice them to talk with you. Leads are given, voluntarily and […]

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