Great Links

Welcome to this week's edition of the Blog Log! Here are our favorite links of the week. We hope you enjoy them!

1. Dana Blankenhorn: What Starbucks Can Learn from Barack Obama. This post resonated with me because for years, I could travel nowhere without knowing where the closest Starbucks was. Actually, that is still true. I am a true addict. As Dana points out, Starbucks has lost their customer focus, and I think it's because they have grown to be such a giant. Dana thinks that it's because they don't really focus on the customer relationship. And, he actually provides them pointers on how they could do a better job. In addition, he feels that they could learn a lot about CRM from watching Barack Obama and his flawless campaign of bringing people into the campaign and creating loyalists. This is a great and humorous read -- we think you'll enjoy it, too!

2. Bob Sullivan: Does it take a Recession to Shape Up Marketing Efforts? Hear, hear . . . is this recession a self-fulfilling prophecy? That's what I want to know. I was talking to a colleague this week and we were wondering this very thing. Everyone's talking about a slow down in marketing efforts and spend -- are we actually causing it to happen??? Let's all take a pledge to just stop it now -- just in case it's true! Bob makes a great point . . . he's seen some great tips out there on how to effectively plan your marketing strategy in case of an economic-slowdown. And they are all great tips. However, he asks a great question: "Shouldn’t marketers be performing all of these activities regardless of economics? Isn’t that just good marketing?" Once again, you're right, Bob!

3. Ted Grigg: How Do Consultants Establish their Daily or Hourly Rate? As usual, Ted figures out the equation for us. As consultants, we've been in the pickle of charging by the day/hour or by the project. I'm not sure about the rest of you but our clients normally want a per project charge simply because they don't want any surprises. Ted brings up so many good points in this article that I wanted to feature it today. It's great education for both consultants and their clients. Ted's approach to the equation is eye-opening for all parties. This is a great post.

We hope you enjoy all of our great links for this week. TGIF!