I got an email this morning that even floored me, the most cynical person in the world. It came from a PR person who was pitching me a new product – A shirt. Yes, a shirt. Nothing special about the shirt, it was simply a new style from a new designer. But here’s what gets me: The subject line of the email was: “Hi! Can I borrow your audience?” (Insert blogging-car-skidding-to-a-halt sound here…) Can you borrow my… Hold up… WHAT? Can you “BORROW MY AUDIENCE?” Are you serious? OK. Not even taking into account the fact that my audience… IS AN AUDIENCE, and not, say, A SPATULA, no, you can’t “borrow my audience.” Let’s understand something – My audience is [...]

This morning, as I was getting my ass kicked by my trainer, he casually dropped a bomb on me that I didn’t expect. “So… You’ve been the mayor of 99 Cent Pizza for quite a while, huh? Ever think about giving that mayorship up?” As I was removing the weight that I dropped on my foot in surprise, I was shocked to find out that my trainer was following me on FourSquare. He knew I was not only the mayor of 99 Cent Pizza, but of Claudio’s Pizza, as well. I could have SWORN I’d blocked him. Whoops. The rest of my workout was spent lifting in shame. I had no idea that he knew I was on FourSquare, or [...]

It’s SO the little things. In a future blog post, I’ll be talking about the wonderful experience that is GroundLink. But as I was taking a GrounLink car to JFK this morning, it got me thinking about why I loved them so much – And I realized that yet again, it’s the little things. Here’s a list of eight things you can do RIGHT NOW, for little or no cost, that will improve your customer service, get your customers happier than they’ve ever been, and get them talking about you to all of their friends! 8) Know your audience. This is one of the easiest, yet most forgotten things in customer service. Imagine being able to talk to your audience [...]

Your Questions Answered on a Plane – Volume Four! Welcome to Volume Four of Your Questions Answered on a Plane! This time, I’m flying from Hong Kong to NYC, (and continued two days later on a flight from EWR to LAX, because the power system on the HKG-EWR flight died during the flight, and my battery ran out. Until I mention it, we’re still on the HKG flight.) I’m in seat 3E,, with an aisle to my right, and a product manager from Reebok on my left. With that said, here are the latest answers to the questions you asked me via Twitter and Facebook. It’s my pleasure to answer them, so let’s go. And don’t forget – I’m on [...]

About to board a flight for 15 hours home to NYC – So I’ll leave you with a contest: Watch the video, and leave your answer in the comments. The best one wins some SWAG.