agile
You are beautiful and unique just like everyone else
Differentiating your IT Services Menu
(This article was a collaboration between Robert Hamilton and myself)
It seems every week we talk to just another IT services shop trying to kick-start their marketing and sales process. We sit down with the founder and ask the same question: “so how are you different from all the other firms out [...]
A recent sour experience with a car rental company
A recent sour experience with a car rental company put my reptile brain into over-drive.
The dispute is over a small amount – about $220.
The reptile brain doesn’t have complex emotions. It thinks in simple terms: fight or flight.
My reptile brain wants to fight. Maybe post a video of their shoddy customer service practices to YouTube, [...]
JigSaw or ZoomInfo? Which data service do you like best?
What we do at MaconRaine is help companies find customers. We function as a “rep” and conduct selling activities on behalf of our clients. But before we can do any selling, we generally populate clients’ CRM with accurate and up to date contact information. After all, it is hard to market to someone if you [...]
Thinking about a marketing execution maturity model
Similar to a CMM (Capabilities Maturity Model), I’d like to explore the idea of a Marketing Execution Maturity Model (MEMM). MEMM is a defined path of improvement that helps organizations increase their ability to execute marketing effectively. MEMM I’m not sure I like the acronym MEMM but it will suffice as a working title for [...]
Survey results so far
The sales, marketing and lead generation survey is moving along nicely. Here are preliminary results:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=3SNCjZbQy8NGvpqUFEIGUvmpE_2fHV_2fJb_2bSiX3skCF4R0_3d
If you haven’t taken the survey, please do so.
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Emergent strategies
You’ve probably heard this statement a hundred times: “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” Likewise, no marketing and sales plan ever survives first contact with the market.
We’re all guilty. We write marketing plans. The plan doesn’t survive contact with the customer. But somehow we get busy with billable work. The plan stalls but [...]
The agency model is broken (post #2)
In one of my past posts, I wrote about the broken advertising agency model. In my previous rant I wrote about clients that hire agencies for more sales but manage the agency as a cost center instead of a revenue center. As a result, agencies default to what they know. The Tribble Agency compares agencies to diapers and recommends [...]
SharePoint for Project Management
I met Dux Raymond Sy a year or two ago while doing some work for Bamboo Solutions. Dux is an expert in leveraging technology to enhance project management. He is the author of SharePoint for Project Management.
What is SharePoint? For those of you living in a cave, SharePoint allows individuals within an organization to [...]
A “no stupid deals” policy will strengthen your brand
One of my clients taught me a great lesson about selling, branding and marketing. Sometimes, in our quest to find revenue, we forget something more important and more lasting – trust.
Your goal as an organization is to deliver on your commitments reliably and predictably. By doing so, you build the trust needed to sustain a healthy relationship [...]
Stealing liberally from 6 sigma, scrum and xtreme
Way back when we started working with a Six Sigma ninja to understand our own processes. How can we apply lessons from Six Sigma as a formalized process for engaging with customers on multiple levels. Can we look at the client engagement process under the lense of Six Sigma?
The first question…when and why do client [...]
