Unleash the Writer Within The Essential Writers’ Companion By Cecil Murphey (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) Unleash the Writer Within is an introspective exposé of what it takes to be an effective writer. This book is not about the technical side of writing but instead the psychological aspects behind being a writer. Penned by prolific and […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Although the precise multiple varies with who’s doing the telling, the truth is it’s many times more costly to obtain a new customer than keep an existing one. The sad reality is, no one at the giant mega-corporations gets this — or at least their actions belie that they do. […]
River Jordan’s book The Messenger on Magnolia Street (which I highly recommend) is not a book about writing, but one of the secondary characters does flirt with the idea. Regarding this person, River writes, “She had once thought about writing a book and naming it … To the Pacific and Back Again. But she didn’t. […]
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Customer Service Recovery
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Last week I experienced poor customer service and great customer service. Both happened the same day – from the same organization. By choice I bank locally. My bank has a main office and two branches. For twelve years, I’ve always used just one branch. When I make a deposit, I […]
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Why Do You Write?
In his book Unleash the Writer Within Cecil Murphey opens by asking the question, “Why do you write?” What he’s not looking for is the safe answer, the politically correct response, a blast of bravado, or an eloquent, but meaningless marketing statement. He desires the real answer, the truth—and as writers, we owe it to […]
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Learning from History
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD One of the assignments I enjoyed most in college was analyzing case studies. I was, and continue to be, fascinated with learning what founders and their companies have done—both right and wrong. While the success stories are the more exciting and inspirational, it is the failures and missteps that are the […]
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Measuring Marketing Effectiveness
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There’s an alarming trend among marketing folks, especially those focused on e-marketing. Their perspective is if marketing can’t be measured, then it’s not viable. This is incorrect; some marketing results simply cannot be tracked. Consider print marketing. You can’t count the number of impressions, clicks, or conversions. You have no […]
There are some who think you can either write well or write a lot, but you can’t do both at the same time. I disagree. Just as it takes practice to write well and practice to write fast, it likewise takes practice to turn out good work quickly. However, I wouldn’t recommend pursuing both at […]
In last week’s post, Check Your Writing, I mentioned the need to watch out for commonly confused words. Spell checkers point out some of the most typical—such as its versus it’s—but I suspect all writers have certain words that trip them up. Knowing what these words are is the first step to avoiding them when […]
I heard there are only two things we need to check in our writing. Can you believe that? Only two things. How exciting! I thought there would be an unlimited number of considerations, but I can handle two. Even a short checklist might overwhelm, but a pair of items seems doable. When I learned this, […]