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Know your customer Of course. That’s the first rule of marketing. But isn’t just as important to ask, “Do your customers know you?” After all, people will do business with you for three reasons: they’ve heard you, they’ve heard OF you, or someone they trust has heard of you. If you build it, they will come Boy, that’d be nice, wouldn’t it? But it doesn’t work that way. You…

I stopped by the annual St. Louis Book Fair yesterday. It was pretty impressive: thousands and thousands of used books for less than two bucks a piece! I picked up about a dozen rare titles, including an awesome book called A Brief History of the Smile! The entire parking lot reeked of that old book smell. Ahhhhh! I love it. And everything was going great until I found myself…

Last week was my first time in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It’s known as “The City of Churches,” which became apparent to me when I looked out of my hotel window only to see steeple after steeple after steeple! Cool. (Thanks to the Ft. Wayne CVB for the great t-shirt.) My speech was for the Indiana Chapter of Meeting Planners International. Before the program I went out to dinner with…

Out of all the 101 Life Lessons Learned from Wearing a Nametag 24-7 for 2000 Days, I thought I’d pick a few memorable ones and tell their back stories. And I know it’s been quite a while since my last podcast, so I promise that this episode is really, really good. Oh, and my flash player hates me today. So if you want to hear this episode, just listen…

In the Water Cooler section of the latest issue of FastCompany, I was interviewed for an article on online networking; or as I like to call it, internetworking. FastCompany and I discussed the hottest online networking phenoms like MySpace and Seth Godin’s latest gig, Squidoo, as tools to spread WOM and MAGNETIZE more business. Scroll down to see the clip from page 94. You can also click the image…

I took most of yesterday off to celebrate and reflect on the past 2000 days of wearing a nametag 24-7. I challenged myself to come up with a list of 101 Life Lessons Learned. It wasn’t easy, but I finally finished the list this morning. I was always told, “Don’t tell ‘em what you did, tell ‘em what you learned.” Therefore, here are 101 life lessons I’ve learned from…

It seems like a lifetime ago that I left that on-campus seminar at Miami University and decided to leave on my nametag for one day, just to see what happened. I say “lifetime” because in the past six years, I’ve undergone more changes and more experiences than I could ever dream of. And after 2000 days straight of wearing a nametag 24-7, 37,000+ encounters, 3 books, 100+ speeches, 80+…

Right before we were about to start the BNI Conference, someone came in yelling, “There’s a fire! Everybody out!” Whoa. We ran outside and saw smoke coming from the roof. Sure enough, it was a real fire. This was not a drill. Everyone starting filing out of the building when the alarm went on. “Scott, you better pack up your table and get your stuff out NOW,” Andy said….

I give props to anyone who canvasses. That’s a tough racket! And I’d say it’s as difficult – if not more so – than door to door sales. Not to mention it takes some understanding of approachability to do it. Or so I thought… Today I was filling up the tank (for no less than $2.77 a gallon, mind you), when I saw a guy standing by the door…

Just got back from The Motor City. Cool town. Never been to Detroit before. Home of the RedWings (grrr…they stole Brett Hull from the Blues) and birthplace of Motown. I stayed at the Inn on Ferry Street (pictured). Very historic. Each property was a real-life mansion! And much like the entire city of Detroit, the architecture was amazing. I checked out yesterday morning before speaking to the students and…