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People of Ptex: Shlomo Grossman

Meet Shlomo.

Shlomo is a Senior Copywriter at Ptex Group, but his humble title belies his crucial role in many of Ptex’s large-scale branding projects. Many of those projects, in fact, begin at Shlomo’s desk—where he conducts exhaustive research to understand the business, unearth what makes it unique, and discern where it falls in the larger marketplace.

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Selling on Amazon? 6 Reasons You Can’t Ignore Building Your Brand.

Maybe you’ve just started selling on Amazon. Maybe you’re already an established seller with great sales. Either way, one thing is certain: If you want enduring success in the ever-changing world of Amazon, you can’t ignore the importance of having a strong brand.

Ask the sellers who have seen the most consistent, reliable growth on Amazon how they achieved so much success long term. They’ll likely tell you that optimizing their listings, using the right keywords, and hiring a listing expert got them to the top, but it was their brand that helped them stay there.

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Best Buy vs. Radio Shack: Why One Failed, and the Other’s Making a Comeback

A few years ago, investors and analysts had put brick-and-mortar companies like RadioShack and Best Buy on a death watch. There seemed to be no way they could compete against the giant Amazon—with its famously low prices, virtually limitless selection, and two-day delivery options—and come out alive.

Living up to expectations, RadioShack filed bankruptcy in 2015—and again in 2017, after a futile attempt at reviving itself.

Meanwhile, Best Buy managed to pull off one of the strongest corporate comebacks in recent history.

The question on everyone’s mind is, Why?

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Instagram Wisdom

1. You’re not posting for you, you’re posting for them.

Let’s say you’re a butcher. You post beautiful cuts of meats, maybe even some recipes. Then one day you see a beautiful sunrise so you decide to share it on your account. DON’T! Your followers are following you because they are interested in meat. They DO NOT like you. Neither are they interested in your life. They liked and followed you because you posted something they were interested in: meat & recipes. Simple as that. Therefore, please DO NOT post your super cool organic dinners, your cat, or even a crushed soda can that looks just like you. THEY WILL UNFOLLOW YOU. Pick one category (meat & recipes)  and don’t post anything else. Try it and you’ll thank me.

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Got Passion? Feed Their Desire.

You’ve got product. They want purpose.
You’ve got a commodity. They want camaraderie.

Turns out, what people want most today, is uncannily similar to what they’ve always wanted. Only for thousands of years, those needs used to be supplied by community, culture and organized religion. In today’s scattered and individualistic society, those moorings have been severed, leaving a profound, gaping hollow.

Savvy brands are stepping in to fill that void, building causes and cultures around themselves. Read more

The Donald Trump Effect

Along with millions of Americans, I’ve been avidly following the 2016 election process. It’s been a wild, turbulent spectacle, and has commanded everyone’s attention.

We’ve seen how one man took the entire political system and threw it into a complete frenzy. I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.

Now, don’t worry – I’m going to steer clear of the political arena, and in no way is this an endorsement. However, I feel there are always valuable business lessons to be learned from current events.

Agree with him or not, there is no denying that Trump has positioned himself as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP nomination. To many, this has been nothing short of an astonishment. Astute businesspeople will notice, however, that he has simply applied a couple of basic, winning business concepts to his campaign:

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Click It & Ticket: Here’s What Makes Ezra Firestone Tick (And Me Click)

I just love buying stuff on Amazon. That new 400,000 BTU Red Dragon flamethrower. A bulky 10LB Flame King propane tank. The optional flame control valve kit. Did I forget to buy extra gauze pads and sterile burn cream? Click, click, click, click. Hey, life seems great.

That is, until I get the whopping credit card bill.

Paranoia issues aside, I know there’s a sinister plot waiting to be uncovered here. The sales geeks over at Amazon wirelessly injected my keyboard with a clandestine concoction that forces me to buy more than I need. And don’t even get me started about what happens when the wife gets into the act. No Tory Burch flats or Jimmy Choo pumps can hide from the long arm of a woman equipped with a FiOS 25MBPS internet connection and a hungry American Express credit card.

So it was with a sigh of relief – and a tinge of debt – that I was pleased to hear how the man responsible for creating this economically perplexing phenomena, Ezra Firestone, will be speaking at LTB 2015 about a topic that is oh-so-relevant: selling stuff on Amazon and beyond.

Boy, have I got a boatload of questions for him.

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