News & Views
Visitor FYI: Unless otherwise noted, all of the following take you to a web site.
My Published Columns
Profiles & Interviews
New Column! June 20, 2008, NM Biz Weekly: Good market share isn’t a bad thing, but domination can hold you back. “Market domination” is sooo last century.
I’m now guest blogging every Friday at www.lipsticking.com (Smart Marketing to Women Online).
August 22: So, THAT’S The Problem - Thinking!
August 15: Strong Enough For Man, But Made For A Woman!
August 8: Women Don’t Buy Spark Plugs (Yawn) In which I talk about women, spark plugs, and how my client, Enerpulse, is trying new things.
August 1: It Takes A Neighborhood To Sell A House
July 25: McCain’s Two Biggest Marketing Problems
July 11: That Pesky Demographics Problem In Marketing (I hate reality shows. Never liked Tori Spelling. Love Tori and Dean, Home Sweet Hollywood. But why?)
June 27: At The Risk of Repeating Myself & Boring You
June 20: Dear Person Who Used to Like Me (A example of great political marketing. Yes, that’s right. political marketing done right. Whoa.)
June 6: You Don’t Go To Association Lunches To Eat (or any business meal, for that matter. Tough to close the deal when you sucking up that noodle.)
May 30: As Customers, We Always Have A Choice!
May 23: Why Aren’t There More Big Women Businesses?
May 16: The “Indie Jones” Brand - I don’t care about reviews.
May 9: Marketing to Women: Fallacies & Follies
April 25: The Overlooked Marketing Opportunity: Your Business Card
April 18: Why Do We Accept Rudeness?
April 11: Want Sales? Stage Your Business.
April 4: “You Women Can’t Drive Stick”
March 28: Do Little Old Ladies Not Wear Tennis Shoes?
March 21:Will Women Buy Sex?
March 14: What’s Next? Thong Depends?
March 7: Marketing To Us Bag Ladies
February 28: Tech Companies? Keep it Simple. I’m Busy.
February 22: Your Customer: Emily Hartley or Lucy Ricardo?
February 25, 2008: I’ve been nominated (by a client) as one of the MSPmentor 250, The Top 250 people in Managed Services. (Clicking on the link takes you to a Google map that shows me standing all by meself in New Mexico.)
“MSPmentor is striving to identify the top 250 leaders, innovators and influencers shaping the global managed services market. We’ve received several dozen nominations since launching this project on February 21.”
(Managed services are IT support services - mostly what we called “professional services” back in the day when I was developing and packaging such services at Bell Atlantic, Memorex Telex and Unisys.)
Marketing: Sum Of Your Parts. (two-page PDF download), co-authored with George Kenefic, Director of Enterprise Empowerment, The Loan Fund. Published by Finance New Mexico onine, and via state-wide syndicate of over 30 New Mexico newspapers.
Make sure you’re ready for rigors of entrepreneurship (link to New Mexico Business Weekly)
Expert Advice: Creativity is great, but not a panacea. My column in NM Biz Weekly - in which I note talent isn’t everything, creativity isn’t always a good thing and give quick (and cheap) tips for creativity.
Research and Set Your Goals Before Selecting a Consultant I start out by saying, “I hate consultants” so you know I give you some inside scoop.
Look backward and think forward: Assessing Markets When doing market assessments, you can learn much by looking backward, including “Don’t take anything for granted.” “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist … ,” were Union General John Sedgewick’s dying words.
Don’t drown in paperwork just because you’re growing. Written with a collaborator, Deborah Weaver Parker. I hate paperwork, she loves it (most of time), but some of it is essential (as part of employee- and customer-friendly processes.)
Your Business Plan, “What If?” (PDF file, 2 pages) History is full of fascinating “what ifs.” What if Napoleon hadn’t been ill at Waterloo? What if Hitler hadn’t made the mistake of a two-front war? What if Hewlett and Packard had stopped with their first patent (most definitely not a printer)? What if Bill Gates had decided to stay in Albuquerque? Hmmm.
Strategic Planning: Good Intentions don’t equal good results. (PDF file, 3 pages). See if this sounds familiar: You went to a one-day strategic planning retreat. Everybody came back all fired up, with great ideas and piles of marked-up chart papers. Then, everybody got busy. The papers got buried. And, somehow that strategy never got implemented. In this article I give you some pointers so your plan can become a reality.
The Three Cs of Customer Loyalty. (PDF file, 2 pages) Little things can make all the difference (and it doesn’t have to expensive).
The Common Sense CEO (PDF file, 2 pages) The philosopher Voltaire once wrote, “Common sense isn’t all that common.” On the other hand, Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” So, here’s what I know - after nearly 25 years of “managing” people and working with CEOs and top executives in all sizes and types of companies - Voltaire was right.
The Top Three Marketing Mistakes (PDF file) The top three are: Vision, Mission and Strategy. Yes, you need all three but there are some “gotchas” which I discuss in this article.
How to make your web site more user friendly. Written with Roxanne Darling of Bare Feet Studios. Technology can be fun (really) and produce business results!
Profiles & Interviews:
The Blog Grows Up and Goes into Business (Albuquerque Journal article re blogging, in which I’m interviewed. You’ll have to view a short ad for free access.)
Expert Advice: Repeat customers are key to sustainability. In which I give New Mexico Business Weekly some perspective re building and keeping customer loyalty.
Blogging to gain visibility. “A few years ago, Mary Schmidt was earning a reputation as an innovative marketing mastermind, but her visibility on the Internet needed improvement.” A real-world, personal example of how blogging can help you out in the “real world.”
The Power of Four. All about the consultant collaborative, Strategic Reality Group, I founded with three colleagues specifically to work with non-profits in strategic planning and implementation.
Blog Dialogue. An Albuquerque Tribune article on the power of blogging.
Try to diversify client base. In which I give perspective for small companies doing business with the “big boys.”
Got an idea, “new news” or a reading recommendation to share? Drop me a line at: mary@maryschmidt.com
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