by Jeff Slater | May 11, 2015 | Interesting Brands, Marketing Advice, Personal Stories
“Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed, a poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed, and then one day he was shooting at a squirrel, and up from the ground came a bubbling oil.” I remember my family sitting around the TV in the 1960’s watching The...
by Jeff Slater | May 8, 2015 | Interesting Brands, Marketing Advice
I’m surprised at how hard people struggle to market their products. My observation is that they are trying to make people want something they don’t need. That is so difficult. Think of me trying to sell you stuff you hate or have no interest in – I can annoy the...
by Jeff Slater | May 6, 2015 | Marketing Advice, Marketing People
Are you clear what business you are in? For the brothers Lyman, Wilbert, Monroe and Hurlburt Smith, they knew they were in the typewriter business. In 1886, they found the Smith Premier Typewriter Company who later became Smith Corona. Their device had both upper and...
by Jeff Slater | May 1, 2015 | Marketing Advice, Personal Stories
I buy my mother chocolates for Mother’s Day because as Forest Gump said, “life is like a box of chocolates AND there is nothing like sweet navigation to make the shopping experience easy.” At least I think he said that. Mom loves chocolate and is the keeper of the...
by Jeff Slater | Apr 29, 2015 | Interesting Brands, Marketing Advice
Does your product market itself? Does it carry within something that a customer wants to share with her friends? Do you understand how you got your first sale and what story someone believed about your product? If not, you may to to rethink what story you want your...
by Jeff Slater | Apr 27, 2015 | Marketing Advice, Marketing People
Imagine another movie star creating a product. Your first thought is that this is a celebrity play – she’ll get on The Today Show and get tons of PR for her effort about some dopey perfume called A Breath of Wilderness. But in today’s story, there are eight...
