Like most blog sites, this is a continual work in progress.
As such, it can be a challenge to find what you are looking for here. This page will explain my simple organization system to help you out.
POSTS
All the blog posts are organized by Topics and Tags. Pages, such as this one, are found via links and searches (see SEARCH below).
TOPICS
Think of the blog as a book with chapters. The main chapters of the book, i.e., what this blog is about, are the Topics. You will find the topics under the Blog link in the main menu (see image)
The contents of the menu will likely change over time, so it might be a good idea to check this page occasionally to see what we might have done to make things easier to find. Also, note that the fluidity of this kind of organization means that a post might show up in more than one topic. This is neither a paradox nor carelessness; rather, it is the recognition that life is messy and that even the best systems need some slack in them.
The current topics are:
Selling
We distinguish between selling and marketing.
Selling is first and foremost a transaction between the seller and the prospective buyer or buyers (the target market) where money (or something considered to have monetary value) is exchanged for goods or services.
Marketing
I like some language from an article on Hubspot on marketing.
Marketing is the process of getting people interested in your company’s product or service. This happens through market research, analysis, and understanding your ideal customer’s interests. Marketing pertains to all aspects of a business, including product development, distribution methods, sales, and advertising (emphasis added).
To a large extent, marketing is about the relationship a person (prospect/customer) has with the product or service.
It overlaps heavily with advertising and sales and is “present in all stages of the business, beginning to end.”
Serving Customers
This is an important area that impacts both sales and marketing and is something that always has fascinated me. I may blend it into other topics in the future, but for now I want to keep it as a separate topic to see how things evolve.
Leading
Although leadership per se was not originally a special focus of mine, it is presenting itself more and more in my writings on other subjects. I don’t find this surprising as people who strive to excel in any area tend to be leaders. Thus, I felt it deserved its own section of the shelf. We will see how this evolves.
Newsletters
These are archives of Relationship Marketing Weekly Newsletters and of other newsletters that I have emailed to a specific list of subscribers. You will frequently find that there are short, bullet-like lists and abstracts of longer posts that you will find in one of the other topics.
Each newsletter that I post here will have a link to subscribe to the appropriate list if you want to receive them in your email inbox. (This is distinct from the Blog Updates list, which is solely for getting updates to this blog.)
Musings
This is just Michael writing about whatever. I generally stay away from politics and such, but there is likely to be an occasional rant. I may be addressing something that does not fit into any of the other topics – I really detest the category “miscellaneous” – or I may simply be coming to a topic with a curious (musing) mind. Sometimes a post will be in another topic as well, but the tone also places the post in the Musings category.
TAGS
On many pages underneath the Blog Updates Request form (more on that in a moment), you will find a Tag Cloud.
Think of the tags as the index to the book.
The larger the size of the tag in the cloud, the more frequently that idea is tagged in the blog.
SEARCH
You can also use the Search form in the black bar at the top of each page to search for words and phrases throughout the site.
For example, if you type the phrase “how to use” into the search bar and press “enter,” it will bring up this page at the top of a list of other pages that have the word “use” in them.
HOW TO GET BLOG UPDATES
If you would like to receive an update when the blog has been changed, we will send you a short email with updates. We send updates no more frequently than once a week.
