Note: If you didn’t watch Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, this post won’t make much sense . . . Reality TV is usually quite removed from actual reality, but there are occasional glimmers of relevance. Such is the case with the most recent season of Survivor, Heroes vs. Villains. I came away with two distinct business lessons, which I impart to you now . . . 1. You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Russell, the ultimate Survivor villain, made it to the finals of … Continue reading →

I was in a client-pitch meeting yesterday and the potential client brought up the dreaded “performance pricing” question. For those of you who aren’t in the PPC agency space, the conversation goes something like this: Client: How do you charge for your services? Me: We charge on a percentage of spend, pretty typical of agencies. Client: Would you consider a performance pricing plan, where we pay you based on your ability to incrementally grow our [revenue/traffic/profit]? I’ve got a standard retort for this – one which is not … Continue reading →

Last week I spent two days at Conversion Conference, the first trade show dedicated to landing page optimization and Web usability (it’s about time!). I learned a lot at the show and it was a real treat to attend the closing keynote from Jakob Nielsen, who was introduced by Tim Ash as “The Godfather of web usability.” Indeed, my first exposure to usability came way back in 2002 when I read Nielsen’s then-groundbreaking tome, Homepage Usability. Nielsen’s speech was pretty good, especially in that he reminded the audience … Continue reading →