Clients
what is that thing in the CRM punchbowl?
Not too long ago, a prospect asked us to review their sales and lead generation programs because lead flow had dropped significantly. This concerned them because they had just finished a significant new product launch with a well- known interactive marketing agency. We agreed to sniff around.
Every reptilian instinct in my body wanted to find [...]
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 crisis is a terrible thing to waste*
NOTE: *I believe the title of this article can be attributed to economist Paul Romer.
As the economy liquefies in front of your eyes, it is hard to find anything positive in the gooey mess stuck to your shoes.
Cost structures have changed. Some of your customers simply disappeared overnight. The customers that are left now have [...]
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 [...]
What creates client loyalty?
A good friend and former partner at Andersen, Ed Wertzberger, and his firm RevNew Group are conducting a survey to understand the drivers that create client loyalty for professional services firms. I took the survey and can’t wait to get the results. All survey participants receive a copy of the results. If you have any interest [...]
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 [...]
Using Social Media to Enhance Your Sales Effort
The great minds at the CMO Council published a nice piece on the role of social media in the sales effort.
It is a worthwhile read. This article quotes the Aberdeen Group – one of their latest research reports, called Sales 2.0 — Social Media for Knowledge Management and Sales Collaboration, discusses how social media solutions [...]
Thinking about the agency model
What companies want most from their marketing agencies is more sales.
Yet agencies are not set up to do this. In fact, clients aren’t set up for this either. Agencies earn their fees by trading time for dollars and some earn commissions on media spend or printing. Marketing departments manage their vendors as cost centers. [...]
Mentoring change agents
Change is inevitable. It is part of the evolutionary process that every company must endure. Yet change can be disruptive, difficult and dearly-won.
Change agents are those natural individuals who thrive on making change happen. Selected from within various levels of the organization, based on their individual skills and capabilities, the onus of guiding the [...]
