“When opportunity knocks, answer the door.” Sure, it’s good advice. I think it means keep your eyes open and don’t be afraid to take risks to capitalize on possible opportunities. However, there is something about this phrase that I take issue with; it subtly suggests that if we just go through life and, as long as we pay attention, opportunities will fall in our lap. We have all heard stories…
So I have to admit: I love Chick-Fil-A Sauce. Something about that tangy, sweet secrecy just speaks to me. And maybe some of that is the fact I don’t know exactly what goes into the recipe, so it tastes like a delicious and unattainable mystery. Yet, when you search “how to make Chick-Fil-A sauce,” you’re faced with 2.6 million search results. Not so much of a secret, I guess. And…
After a week-long trial, a prosecutor makes a point to ask jurors for a guilty verdict during her closing argument. At the end of a speech in the closing days of a campaign, a well-known politician formally asks for your vote, even though he’s been in office for a decade. When a university foundation executive wraps up lunch with a wealthy alumni couple, she boldly makes her request for the…
How to Use Customer Research to Innovate “If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Henry Ford’s famous quote is one of our greatest lessons in innovation. (Although there is much doubt he ever said this, let’s not let that spoil our fun.) This famous quote surmises that we cannot “customer research” our way into innovation. Generally, I agree – if you approach…
Most people think it’s all rainbows and butterflies working with a marketing agency; you simply just pass off your marketing to-do list to a team of experts whose job it is to just “get the work done.” But if your marketing agency is simply doing the work you tell them to do, then they’re doing you a disservice. At the same time, if they’re leaning heavily on your team to…
