A Best-ter Buy

Yesterday the Strib announced Best Buy’s new customer personas. According to the article, $50 million is dog-eared for reformatting 100 stores to improve the shopping experience of these 5 archetypes. It seems to me that Ray, Barry, and Buzz already love shopping at Best Buy. Jill on the other hand, can’t stand the place. Perhaps …

Customer in Training

While a number of supermarkets and discount stores offer “customer-in-training” shopping cart as their primary method of keeping children occupied while their parents shop, Wegmans – a Woodbridge, N.J. supermarket chain – goes one step further offering W Kids Childcare centers . The videos, toys, and playground equipment found at these centers is part of …

Legalizing Feng Shui

Last month Assemblyman Leland Yee introduced a bill in the California legislature to put Feng Shui principles on the books. State officials were speechless “We know earthquakes knock down buildings, we know fire burns down buildings. We don’t know what feng shui does to buildings.” As Assemblyman Yee responded, “A lot of the principles of …

Learning from Living

Over breakfast this Saturday, my wife and I discussed various home improvement projects for our new place. Very early into the conversation, we realized how little we knew about the house. What’s under the carpet? Can the toilet be moved easily? How long will it take to remove the wallpaper? Answers that can only be …

Veen’s Presentation Tips

I highly recommend Jeffrey Veen’s Seven Steps to Better Presentations My personal favorites: #3 Don’t Apologize. Apologizing for your own performance so directly and swiftly weakens. #4 Start Strong and #5 End Strong. I was in a sales presentation recently where the main presenter apologized 5 times in as many minutes. From the audience’s perspective …

Lunch is the Most Important Meal – Redux.

As a follow-up to my earlier post on lunches, I submit this announcement from Duluth, MN’s mayor Herb Bergson. Bergson plans to visit one classroom each Friday and take a tourist to lunch that day. He also wants to meet with different small-business owners each Friday to see how the city can help them grow. …