Last week Jim talked about the unglamorous but important topic of distribution channels. It’s one of the “4 Ps” (“placement”), but many marketers and smaller companies don’t think about it as often as they should. It’s potentially the most important strategy in your arsenal. When you sell a physical product, it’s easy to keep distribution strategy…Read More
If you’re a marketing manager, you’re probably swamped with this year’s planning and budgeting process. Hopefully you find it exciting to create a marketing plan filled with new programs and campaigns to build your business in the year ahead. (If not, it may be time for a new job!) And as you know, it can…Read More
Have you ever considered firing your star salesperson?? I thought not. Yet that’s just what the CEO of Anthropologie did. It’s one of the great stories in “Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win” by William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre. We’ve talked about hiring sales reps that live &…Read More
Distribution channels have become the least glamorous strategy in the B2B marketing portfolio. Who writes about building channels, nurturing partners and how to improve distribution channel performance? I feel grizzled just tackling this subject. Social media, search marketing and new media are the topics with heat even in the B2B crowd (a small group compared to…Read More
It’s always challenging to recruit top talent for your marketing team. If you’re an early stage company, it’s even tougher. You need extremely talented people who share your passion and vision, are willing to work longer hours, carry more responsibility, in a less defined position, and for less cash than your established competitors. Even if…Read More
Carol Hymnowitz’s recent Wall Street Journal article “CEOs Are Spending More Quality Time With Their Customers” highlights a trend that can directly impact your company’s competitive strategy. CEOs of Nike, Intel and Sun are becoming more involved in the selling process, focusing on tailoring products and services to meet the demands of their top customers. And it’s…Read More
Today we’re finishing up our series on Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind. In our first post we introduced Dan’s premise that we’re in a new Conceptual Age where companies will succeed or fail thanks to right-brained, “R-Directed” thinking. Last week Nancy introduced his six critical right-brained skills: design, storytelling, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. …Read More
Our last post talked about Dan Pink’s groundbreaking book “A Whole New Mind.” His premise is that we’ve moved into a new era — the Conceptual Age — where people and companies will succeed or fail thanks to right-brained skills like inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness and big-picture thinking. Dan isn’t suggesting that left-brained analytical skills aren’t important…Read More
A friend recently introduced me to Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. It’s a profound and exciting book and I couldn’t recommend it more. So I’m writing a series of blog posts to share his ideas and apply them to the world we live in – that of the CEO and marketer in a small-to-midsize company….Read More
How does your company determine the price of your products and services? Do you try to maximize revenue with prices based on value, or do you use a formula where you add a desired profit margin to your cost? Consumer product marketers generally try to set prices based on what the market will bear. …Read More
Suzanne Vranica’s article “On Madison Avenue, A Digital Wake-Up Call” in today’s Wall Street Journal (page B4) highlights how critical it is for today’s ad agencies to understand and embrace digital media. Nike has worked with the brilliant creative agency Wieden + Kennedy since 1982. Their founders have a longstanding close relationship. Yet Nike needs…Read More
Here’s the fourth and final post in our “shorten your sales cycle” series. In the first article we provided a general intro to the problem of growing sales cycles and identified three things you can do to solve the problem. Step one is to improve your lead quality. Step two is to improve your sales…Read More
Here’s the third post of four in this “Shorten Your Sales Cycle” series. In my last post I talked about the first step in shortening your sales cycle: Improve your lead qualification. Today I’ll focus on the second area of improvement: Executing your sales process. (New to the concept of “sales process?” These posts address…Read More
Yesterday I wrote about a common business problem — growing sales cycles. Today I’m continuing with the second post of four in this series, “Shorten your sales cycle.” So your sales cycle is getting longer and you’ve met with your sales and marketing teams. You escaped in one piece but heard a resounding “too many…Read More
Does it seem like it takes forever to close new business deals? You’re running strong campaigns, generating plenty of leads, seeing a flurry of sales activity. But even though your sales reps are consistently following up, prospects just aren’t ready to buy. Your sales cycle used to be 4 weeks, but now it’s 6, 8…Read More
Yesterday I spent 75+ min. on the phone with a rep selling a very cool product for our business. And I absolutely bombarded him with questions about how his product could solve a challenge I face right now. There was a trainee on the call as well. “Shadowing,” I was told, and true enough, he…Read More
New website project on the horizon? Looking for a new printer or designer? A PR firm? Copywriter? CRM consultant? Whether you have a rolodex full of contacts or you’re beginning a totally new project in the dark, finding the right vendor for the job is a project in itself. You need to find the best…Read More
Yesterday, Jim wrote about how a documented sales process can help you grow your revenue. Today I’m going to help with the next step – 8 steps to document your sales process. 1. List your channels. For example, if you sell directly to end-users and through a group of resellers, you have two channels, each…Read More
How do your prospects buy your product or service? Does a single decision maker buy on the spot, or does s/he go through many steps and approvals first? Or perhaps there are multiple departments involved over a very long period of time? A sales process is a defined series of steps you follow as you…Read More