I recently saw an ad in which a company sold some equipment and got the buyer to endorse the equipment. Fair enough if the buyer is happy with the purchase, but the problem was the wording the buyer used – she said the new equipment “will” increase their efficiency and “will” allow their workers to [...]
Archive for March, 2007
Problem solved ?
Many people who have worked in medium and large companies know the feeling of a detached top level management that believes it can solve serious problems by sending out a memo or casually dumping the responsibility of fixing a company or dept wide problem on some middle manager with limited resources and authority. Six [...]
Bling bling
Lately, we’ve been talking about website features that deter business, especially sites that require you to register, fill out forms, and divulge personal information. Well today, I did an interesting search. I searched “website pet peeves,” and browsed quickly through the results. Do you know what came up over and over again? Flashy, swirly, singing, [...]
Brevity
“I’m sorry to have wearied you with so long a letter, but I did not have time to write a short one”
Over the years I have seen that quote attributed to many writers from George Bernard Shaw, to Blaise Pascal, to Jean Jacques Rousseau. Regardless of its origins, it is definitely true: writing that is [...]
Google drives business away
Another good example of deterring business by putting unnecessary barriers in front of an interested customer: Google asks you to register before you can access standard marketing information about their search appliances. It gets even better: after you’ve registered once you can download a white paper pdf. Then you click on the next info link, [...]
