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Spam blockers and do-not-call lists are a challenge for marketers who want to contact customers, while consumer backlash against commercially buzzed or intrusively marketed offerings makes it difficult to gain customers' trust once you do reach them. In Truth (Amazon.com, $24.95), marketing consultant Lynn Upshaw shows how integrity-based marketing can overcome these obstacles and win new customers.
If you're the sort of entrepreneur who considers a marketing claim or strategy acceptable once it passes your attorney's critique, you'll need to ramp up your standards to satisfy Upshaw. Stretching the truth legally doesn't pass muster. He doesn't even like so-called "weasel words"--like saying a food is "virtually fat-free"--that some marketers use to exaggerate claims or minimize weaknesses of products and services.
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