Mean People Suck Blog

In the various speaking engagements and articles I've written in the past few years, I make no secret of the fact I have held 53 jobs. I did not love many of my roles. When I started to dig into the research about employee happiness, I discovered I am not alone....

The annual performance review has become something employees and, as it turns out, managers dread. Stories abound on the Internet of people complaining about the dreaded annual performance review A recent study found that only 8% of companies believe their performance...

A recent survey shows that in the midst of the pandemic, when way too many people are out of work, 1 in 4 employed Americans want to quit their job. Admit it: we're tired, stressed and just looking for some relief. No matter our employment situation. But maybe there's...

According to Harvard Business Review (HBR), 99% of surveyed working adults in the US report having worked with at least one person who lacks social and self-awareness. While 73% of respondents indicate it was a coworker, 32% report it was their boss. A lack of...

When you master the concept of the service profit chain, you can unlock the secret to higher profits. This groundbreaking idea shows the irrefutable link between employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, and ultimately, profits. If you haven’t read the book of the same...

Digital technology has changed everything: how we interact with the world, how we learn, how we buy stuff, even how we date. For marketers, it has dramatically interrupted our marketing mix and the expectations from senior executives. This disruption has forced...

No department understands the need for change like marketing does. We've been forced to adopt new technology, upskill like crazy, reshuffle positions and create new roles to manage content marketing, social media marketing, and marketing analytics. Marketing has...

Data has revolutionized marketing and become a valuable asset in improving targeting and personalization. It’s a key tool in decision making for any company, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to connections. Understanding your customer does. That’s why it’s critical to...

As someone who does content marketing for a living, AdAge is practically required reading. As I sat down to leaf through the articles one August afternoon in 2016, something unusual caught my eye. An article – in the marketing industry’s bible – that questioned the...

We all know that companies advertise their products or services to let potential customers know about their brand and what they have for sale. But, there is such a thing as too much advertising. Call it information overload, the nearsightedness on the part of...

Putting the customer at the center of everything your business does and cultivating an empathetic work culture are two powerful ways empathy can be used to drive business success. But, if we dig a little deeper into why empathy is so important, we can uncover one of...

A modern CMO needs a lot more than just marketing skills. In Chapter 4 of Mean People Suck, “Our Customers Know We Suck,” I explore the problem that many brands are facing these days: Consumers are becoming increasingly turned off by traditional marketing and are...

If you’re reading this, then I think you probably get the value of marketing storytelling. It’s a powerful thing and is often a catalyst for redefining what marketing means to a company. Storytelling has been a pillar of content marketing for some time, but stories...

When I wrote Mean People Suck, I wanted to get across the point that empathy is more powerful than most of us realize. I wanted people to see it as more than a tool to use or a great asset to have. Empathy can change the way we relate to others, giving us more...

I've discussed quite a bit in this blog, and in the book Mean People Suck, about where empathy comes from. Are we born with it? Is it learned? It's certainly an acquired skill, but there's plenty of proof that empathy has been part of the human condition for some...