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Hearing What You Want to Hear

Listening – really hearing what is being said – is both [...]

What This Baby Boomer Learned About GenZ

One of the great things about the COVID-19 is that you get [...]

No Pain, No Gain, Remain the Same

Following my own advice when I found out we had lost a [...]

A Plea to Ban Masks from Business Meetings

People were meant to see each other’s faces, not hide [...]

Should I Sell to a Group or an Individual?

Aiming at a Group for Business May Cause More Harm Than [...]

The Problem with Numbers in Buying Media

People like numbers. There’s a certainty around them. [...]

Asking for Response

I remember when the key to any marketing campaign was [...]

Social Distancing Doesn’t Mean Business Distancing

Everyone knows what’s happening to business with [...]

Yea for YEA! Young Entrepreneurs Ask Challenging Questions for Anyone in Business Today

I was part of a CEO Roundtable at the Palatine Young [...]

It’s Not About You. It’s About Them.

“How was the trade show?” I asked my former VP [...]

Powerlessness: Why Organizations Fail at Customer Service

Any service provider needs the power to fix problems. If [...]

What I Learned at the Vinyl360 Meeting

I was honored to be invited to speak at the Vinyl 360 [...]

The End of Advertising Research As We Know It

In the 2006 issue of Starch® Tested Copy, a stunning [...]

Are You Still Eating Too Much Data? Where’s the Beef?

In the Journal of Direct Marketing[1] almost 25 years ago, [...]

The Problem with Funnels

A client forwarded me an article by Bill Lee in Harvard [...]

The Times They Are a Changin’. And Will Keep on Changin’.

The Bob Dylan song The Times are a Changin, released in [...]

What to Do About the Inexperience of Recognizing Quality

Tristan Butterfield wrote a piece called “The Poetry of [...]

Leadership in Today’s World

One of the networking groups I’m involved with asks a [...]

B2B Never Sleeps

It’s Sunday. The day of rest. However, somewhere, [...]

Never Lower Your Price. Always Increase Your Value.

In 2005 I was sitting on an airplane next to a regional [...]

How Do You Implement SEO?

Interline’s view on SEO follows the major two rules of [...]

Why Doesn’t a Sales Force Follow Up on Leads?

This is an ongoing question with no single answer. [...]

Finding Movers and Motivators in 2019

Over 25 years ago, I wrote an article for Airline Executive [...]

What Does Ethics Really Have to Do with Business?

Ethics is an interesting subject – especially these days. [...]

7 THINGS TO ASK WHEN YOU LOSE A PITCH: The Post-Decision Interview

I hate to lose. But if you are in sales – and we are [...]

The Truth About Advertising Channels

Are you a channel surfer? Do you constantly click the [...]

The Human Side of the Spiff

There are always two sides to every story. Even if you [...]

The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Words

Meetings of professionals always interest me. It’s not [...]

Selling the Why and Why It Ain’t So

At the recent NARI® The Cutting Edge Remodeling Education [...]

ANOTHER CONVERSATION FROM HELL

Sometimes, conversations from hell start out as e-mail [...]

Have you spiffed lately?

Recently, one of our clients explained that despite [...]

Six lessons I learned flying to KBIS®

You’ve been on those trips where the people behind you [...]

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH A B2B BRAND?

Doug Zanger @zanger writes an excellent article on how Taco [...]

HOUZZ Research Gives You Something to Think About

The HOUZZ & HOME Overview of U.S. Renovation in 2016 [...]

The 25% Solution

I don’t golf. Some people pity me because I don’t golf. [...]

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO YOUR BUSINESS?

Most won’t remember Art Linkletter's House Party, which [...]

Heavyweight Marketing

Some people think Restoration Hardware’s catalog is [...]

SHOW ME TO THE SALES PREVENTION OFFICE

At the HighPoint MARKET where I was working our showroom [...]

MY E-MAIL BOUNCED BUT HIS DIDN’T. NOW WHAT?

I love referrals as a way to get in the door. They are the [...]

ARE YOU USING A LASER OR A FLASHLIGHT TO SOLVE THAT MARKETING PROBLEM?

You learn a lot reading and listening. Natalie Zmuda talked [...]

SISYPHUS IN LAS VEGAS

When you live in Chicago and go to Las Vegas to work a [...]

ARE YOU POKING THE BEAR WHEN YOU SHOULD BE?

The phone rang. It was a client who said, “Did you see [...]

The Mystery of the Editors Who Weren’t There

This can happen in your city. We get a lot of magazines [...]

Today in The Age of Disruption

In 2016, I was honored to present to a major publisher’s [...]

Mistakes

What do you do when you make a mistake? Do you fess up and [...]

Net-a-Porter: One Smart Marketer

In 2012, I tweeted this: Online fashion retailer [...]

Things could always be worse

I once asked a friend – a former Marine Artillery Captain [...]

Do QR codes work?

One of our clients recently asked about QR codes. The [...]

Cash Isn’t King…Yea, Right.

In “Cash Isn’t King,” which appeared in the [...]

BACK TO SCHOOL: Robert Rose Misses the Point of ROI being only for Content Marketing

In “Is ROI Really What You’re Looking For?” published [...]

Your Business is About to Change. Duh.

When I first read the title of the November 1, 2015 FORTUNE [...]

Alas, poor Yorick! Do you know him?

“That’s so wrong,” I said speaking up for the first [...]

Native advertising or … ?

The November 2 issue of FORBES® magazine a couple of years [...]

Marketing is still everything – well maybe

Back in 1991, Regis McKenna, the top guy at Regis McKenna [...]

The trade show floor

I'm always amazed how many people don’t know how to work [...]

What the IBM smarter content now 2015 taught me

I was invited and went for a half day to the IBM Smarter [...]

Don Draper is a Dick (Whitman)

Don Draper is a Dick (Whitman), and Leonard’s speech [...]

How well do you know your customers?

A snapshot of Mr. X, a showroom manager Mr. X views [...]

How Do You Pitch New Business?

Pitching business is part art, part science. Timing has a [...]

Rorschach Test: Who Is Robert Redford?

Rorschach inkblot tests are used in psychological [...]

Buying media with feelings or metrics: In Today’s World, Does It Matter?

A major publisher’s rep was sharing lunch with our [...]

Why media buying is dead

Traditionally, media buyers sought audiences where their [...]

The truth about native advertising

Is advertising content? The short answer is yes. It always [...]

Why Ban Bossy?

There was a lot talk about being “Bossy” in 2014. Anna [...]

Branding goes South (or How making silly decisions can hurt you)

Branding consultants can be dangerous – especially the [...]

Bye-bye WSJ print, but not for reasons you suspect

Why does the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) want me to cancel my [...]

8 Ideas to Think About for Your Marketing Programs

The Internet is one great big channel that’s always on. [...]

How Much Data Can You Eat?

Myths exist for reasons. Like fairy tales, or other [...]

“I Just Throw Them in a Box”

The meeting with the President of the company was arranged [...]

CONVERSATION FROM HELL

(This story is true; no names were changed to protect the [...]

Bank shots in business

I’ve often wondered why people don’t take more bank [...]

Lessons in how to lose a customer

Failing Grade Chapter One. Very early in my business I [...]

The Maslow Challenge

There are a lot of smart people in the world. James [...]

Just another number

I’ve always liked to ask, “Why?” I remember as a [...]

How to Get In the Door

Our company likes to surprise publishers and reps. When [...]

Why You Should Shoot Messengers

A very respected ex-CFO friend of mine forwards a lot of [...]

What are we talking about?

Acceleration in business, while necessary, causes extreme [...]

49 Tweets into the future

Predicting what will happen in business is hard. In the [...]

Solve the Working Problem in a Virus-Infected World with Hustle

When I was in college, I worked every summer to put myself [...]

Where’s the Fire (Crisis)?

One of the legends about Nero was that he was fiddling [...]

The problem with dots

You probably hear this once a day: “Just connect the [...]

Comfort food

Believe it or not, I like shopping. Not per se, but because [...]

The Age of Content

When designers told us in a recent piece of research we [...]

The Genie is Out of the Bottle

The IOC (INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE) governs the [...]

Brands in crisis

In Issue 9, 2011 of Deloitte Review, Jonathan Coppulsky, [...]

What I Overheard at the Airport

On a recent business trip, as I prepared to work on an [...]

Pick a Word, Any Word

I read recently about a CEO who wanted to change his [...]

The problem with big projects… well, kinda…

Deloitte is one of the great consulting companies. They [...]

Who’s on first when it’s about strategy?

There was a great routine by Abbott and Costello called [...]

Janet and Joslyn: A Customer Service Tale

The WSJ writer Stephen Moore wrote a piece recently called, [...]

KBIS® Report

Trade shows are interesting. Some say they are on the [...]

Getting People to Pull the Trigger

At a recent AIA presentation of our CEU Staying in Front of [...]

The Truth About Inquiries

A 31-page white paper on inquiry behavior in trade [...]

Bloggers as celebrities

In the old days, advertisers paid big bucks for a celebrity [...]

Talk to people how they want to be talked to

Interline’s sister company, Accountability Information [...]

It’s all about information

In January, 2011, a McKinsey Quarterly report entitled, [...]

An Uppercut from ’38

The W.E. Long Company (now just the LONG COMPANY [...]

Hanging around the virtual street corner

IBM Institute for Business Value's 40-page white paper is [...]

Magazines in flux – and under attack

Magazines are still in flux – and under attack since we [...]

Social Corner

Blogs see all
  • Hearing What You Want to Hear

    Hearing What You Want to Hear

  • What This Baby Boomer Learned About GenZ

    What This Baby Boomer Learned About GenZ

  • No Pain, No Gain, Remain the Same

    No Pain, No Gain, Remain the Same

  • A Plea to Ban Masks from Business Meetings

    A Plea to Ban Masks from Business Meetings

  • Should I Sell to a Group or an Individual?

    Should I Sell to a Group or an Individual?

  • The Problem with Numbers in Buying Media

    The Problem with Numbers in Buying Media

  • Asking for Response

    Asking for Response

  • Social Distancing Doesn’t Mean Business Distancing

    Social Distancing Doesn’t Mean Business Distancing

  • Yea for YEA! Young Entrepreneurs Ask Challenging Questions for Anyone in Business Today

    Yea for YEA! Young Entrepreneurs Ask Challenging Questions for Anyone in Business Today

  • It’s Not About You. It’s About Them.

    It’s Not About You. It’s About Them.

Tweets by @interlinejim

Our Companies

Member of

Clients

Aerovent
AISC: American Institute of Steel Construction
AMCA: Air Movement and Control Association International, Inc.
Architectural Products
BCA Technologies
Bill Track 50
BPA
Buildings
Cheviot
Chicago Faucets
Clarage
Crescent
ECO Smart
Eemax
Elkay
Fellowes
First Choice
Flushmate
GEBERIT
GP Enterprises
Honeywell
Ice Air
Innovative Insulation
International Gas Heating
Jennair
Jensen Hughes
JUNO
KB Resource
KCMA
Leonard
Longleaf Collection
Mr. Steam
OS&B
Parker
Repco Associates
Resideo
Steamist
System Sensor
TOTO
Twin City Fans
Warm Rain
WILO

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