by Steve Miller | Jul 31, 2017 | bad marketing, marketing
In the 1991 movie, City Slickers, cowboy Curly (Jack Palance) shares his philosophy of life with Mitch (Billy Crystal). “One thing,” Curly says. “Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean sh—.” “That’s great,” Mitch says, “But what’s the one...
by Steve Miller | May 6, 2017 | bad marketing, Email, Email marketing
I’m on hundreds of businesses email lists, so I’m pretty clear on how the majority of companies in B2B typically use email marketing. It’s terrible. Average email opens for B2B and B2C are 20-24%. B2C click-throughs are 3.5% and B2b are 5.3% according to Marketing...
by Steve Miller | Apr 9, 2017 | bad customer service, bad marketing, customer service, Sears, Uncategorized
Two weeks ago I posted a video about the decline and fall of Sears. My weekly video is normally watched by a few hundred small business people, but the Sears video has well over 3000 views (as of 4/9/17). And mine isn’t the only YouTube video about Sears....
by Steve Miller | Mar 26, 2017 | bad customer service, bad marketing
Apparently, Sears has failed. The big news in the business world this week was the announcement from Sears that they were probably not going to survive. Once the largest retailer in the US with over 500,000 employees, Sears appears to be on its final death spiral....
by Steve Miller | Feb 19, 2017 | bad marketing, Innovation, marketing, uncopyable, Whole Foods
Last week I shared the fallen-from-financial-markets-grace story of Whole Foods Markets. Once the organic juggernaut of supermarkets Whole Foods allowed the competition to catch up without much of a fight. Now they’re closing stores. They’re also making what I think...
by Steve Miller | Dec 20, 2016 | bad marketing, customer service
I received an email holiday card yesterday. I hate impersonal email holiday cards. But that’s not my biggest gripe. The message in the card included a product pitch. I REALLY hate pitches in holiday wishes, and I’ll bet your customers do, too. Thanks for...
