When I think of the word Marketing it often reminds me of the sea. The three most important letters of the word are unassumingly tacked onto the end: ING. When many people speak (and I would assume, think) about marketing, they speak like it happens at a moment in time. It is viewed as something […]
This post isn’t for companies trying to survive maybe one more year—it’s for innovators looking to shake up markets and dominate industries. As we head into 2015, you’re likely hearing about the importance of content marketing, social listening, marketing automation, etc. Those status-quo tactics are all great and should be done, but they won’t put […]
First there were private offices, then cubicles, then the open concept. Turning the modern office space into an environment conducive to creating good advertising has been a minor preoccupation since the first creative dragged his briefcase to work. In any case, I recently read two articles about office renovation experiments: one was about the Barbarian Group’s […]
Here’s a loaded question: who do you trust more, someone unintelligent or someone who has a well-researched answer to every question? Sales are won by the reps that customers know, like and trust. In our personal lives, all of us can name plenty of acquaintances that we know and like, but we’d be slow to […]
There’s a subtle distinction between stubbornness and persistence. It’s easy to mistake one for the other, both as a first-person doer and a second-person observer. I remember watching a documentary on a real estate billionaire, David Siegel, who was building the largest and most expensive house in America, called Versailles; during construction, the financial meltdown of […]
“The worst sin in sales is not to lose a deal, but to lose a deal slowly.” – John Barrows. There is a lot of wisdom in these words, both from a sales and marketing perspective. It is obvious in sales that time is literally money, and more time spent chasing bad deals means less time for […]
There are a hundred problems you could solve for your sales team, but some are certainly more pressing than others. The last thing you want is to spend a pile of cash on technology nobody uses. To ensure you create an app your sales reps actually use, you need to figure out what problems they’re […]
Stop Killing Time StumbleUpon came and went. Time-wasting websites and apps are on par with logo-emblazoned pens. There may have been a period in the early 2000s where people wanted to use the internet just for the sake of using it, but that’s over. People are super busy now, so give them something that makes […]
I was writing the resignation email for an executive networking group that drives about 10% of our annual revenue when the phone rang. It was a new lead referred by the group. The lead sounded promising, so I took down the info and thanked my contact. The conflict that I thought I had settled suddenly […]
There’s a new trend in the tech world called the “Full-Stack Startup,” coined by Chris Dixon. Here’s his take: Suppose you develop a new technology that is valuable to some industry. The old approach was to sell or license your technology to the existing companies in that industry. The new approach is to build a complete, […]
In recent years, the much-maligned cubical farm has morphed into the supposedly superior open-space environment. It was promoted as a way to encourage collaboration and provide people with a sense of freedom. At best, the move was a lateral one—from “factory farm” to “free range”—because regardless of the specific environmental configuration, upper management typically still […]
Market research firm Frost & Sullivan reported that the LED lighting market earned about $3.57 billion in 2011. The firm forecasts the market to grow to an estimated $23.24 billion by 2018. 100 years ago, it was unthinkable that a luxury item such as the electric light would be in danger of becoming a commodity, but that […]
Despite the fact that almost every business relies, at least in part, on the global supply chain and 24/7 access to their partners, some businesses are still hesitant to work remotely with marketing agencies. The reasons for the misgivings vary. Some businesses point to “time-zone concerns” while others mention “comfort level.” Regardless of the specific […]
Line up 10 real estate agents and ask them to give you their elevator pitches. Which one is the best? If you’re not in real estate I bet you couldn’t tell. Real estate experts will pick up on subtle details, nuanced definitions and client examples to easily assess who’s the real deal. But a real […]
I recently got engaged. In many cultures the man buys the woman an engagement ring to show a level of commitment. When you are preparing to hand over multiple paychecks for something that fits in your pocket, you want to make the right decision— and I mean life decisions aside—you have to answer the question, […]
We have worked with a number of tech-service hybrids recently, and a trend that’s emerging within the category is visibility. It’s a high-impact and seemingly obvious way for a service company to differentiate itself. The main hesitation when purchasing a service is often, “how am I supposed to know whether this person/company is doing a good […]
CRM is a fantastic tool. However, in many instances, companies find that sales reps view any CRM system as a burden. Why? Over the past few years, CRM’s primary use has evolved from helping sales reps improve their relationships with customers to helping senior management visualize and forecast revenue. This evolution has been unfortunate because […]
When coming up with ideas for a new web or mobile technology, it’s important to ask, “Why hasn’t someone else built a successful business out of this already?” With 7 billion people and counting, it is highly unlikely that no one had the vision or imagination to conceive the same idea. There are really only […]
I’ve talked with a number of marketing-focused tech startups about whether or not they feel ad agencies are a useful path to customers. In these conversations there’s strong consensus among freshly-funded companies that they can go it alone, and strong consensus from companies that have burned through their funding that they need help. I have […]
Here are 4 simple, powerful guidelines to spark disruptive ideas for your tech-service hybrid: increase speed, reduce price, increase access, and dumb it down. It’s easy to forget Disruptive Innovation isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a practice rooted in science. Harvard Business professor Dr. Clayton Christensen spent 15 years uncovering the patterns that led to […]
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