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My 100th Blog Post! Should You Blog?

Filed Under: B2B Lead Generation, Clients, Marketing, Personal Marketing Skills by Prairie Sky Group — 1 Comment
January 6, 2012

Marketing and Lead Generation Minneapolis MinnesotaA lot of marketers and companies ask themselves if they should start blogging in order to generate leads.  It’s the new conventional wisdom.  So there are millions of business blogs.  And there are thousands of marketing blogs, some great, but most very dusty.

I started the Prairie Sky blog as an experiment.  I had some grandiose ideas, a few ulterior and selfish motives.  I wanted to see if I could create 25 posts with a small investment of time.  I wanted to test the conventional wisdom that you need a blog to generate traffic and leads.  As goals, these turned out to be important, yet not as important as I thought they would, so I keep asking myself, why I blog?

I thought my blog would be about the technical aspects of how to create leads.  I have a few posts on these subjects such as how to create a name based gender-assigning algorithm, or 30 tips for running a webinar, or how to create an automated marketing campaign or great landing page criteria.  I will expand some of these because I’m involved in the technical details of tools and trade every day.

But rather, it is the soft subjects of sales and marketing management, messaging, motivation, understanding clients and culture that I have gravitated toward.

One reason is that I see such a poor understanding of the fundamentals amongst my clients, especially at the management level, that the tools and technical discussion seems wasted.  For example, it doesn’t matter if you have a competitive keyword analyzer or generator if you haven’t thought your story through and written for humans.  It doesn’t matter if you can run an automated campaign or create a landing page if you don’t understand your prospects.  So I have leaned toward the basics.

This doesn’t answer the question of whether you should blog.  But if you are thinking of starting a blog for your company because it will make you famous, create a jillion leads, sell more product, it is just one step.

In some ways, I am surprised at reaching the 100 mark.  This is small in comparison to many, though more than most.  I’m not sure what I expected… perhaps a band and fireworks.

I’ve learned a lot.  In the end, the reason I blog is because it’s simply the right thing to do.  It allows me to connect and help other people, dialogue (internally and externally), test ideas, and serve our marketing community.  I am compelled to do it.  I recommend it.

I’m excited to see where it will lead next.  Thanks for your support.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
Lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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Ten Topics for New Year’s Reflections

Filed Under: Management and Motivation, Marketing, Personal Marketing Skills, Sales Enablement by Prairie Sky Group — Leave a comment
December 30, 2011

Marketing and Lead Generation Minneapolis MinnesotaSo, if you don’t make New Year’s resolutions, here is a list of items from my posts during the year that might make good subjects for reflection.

1.     How can I support my sales team more?

2.     What is my real customer experience?

3.     What can I learn about my clients and customers?

4.     What core messages do I want to deliver internally and externally?

5.     What things about my business make me uncomfortable, why and what can I do about them?

6.     What three things will I spend less time doing?

7.     How can I keep my commitments?

8.     How can my team have more fun?

9.     Who will I mentor?

10.  What am I thankful for?

Thank you for your encouragement and comments throughout the year. Have a healthy and bountiful new year.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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New Year’s Resolutions?

Filed Under: Marketing, Personal Marketing Skills by Prairie Sky Group — Leave a comment
December 26, 2011

Marketing and Lead Generation Minneapolis MinnesotaI’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions.  The way I figure it, if you don’t have the discipline to decide to do something or not during the year, then a resolution is not going to help.  Resolutions are mostly about things that weren’t important enough to begin with or we would have done them.  Indeed, most of us abandon by February, what we resolved to do on January 1.

On the other hand, I do believe in spending time reflecting on your marketing, sales or personal plans.   Every year, I take a week off to do this.   Yes, really, a whole week. I do this in a one-room cabin in the north woods.  Removed from the distractions of emails, meetings, kids, or whatever other personal demons you may possess; the pace of life changes, and the mind calms.  I read, I hike, I sleep when I want, I listen to music, and eat simple meals.  I don’t use my cell phone or talk to others.  It’s a week of silence.   If I’m lucky, I may find out something about myself.  I may find out what I thought I wanted was not what I really wanted.  Or I may find myself, asking new a new question that leads me down another path.

It works for me.  It may not for you, but it’s worth trying to find our what allows you to gain perspective.  Otherwise, you can try making New Year’s resolutions.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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Prairie Sky Book Review – The Trust Edge

Filed Under: Marketing and Sales Relationship, Personal Marketing Skills, Sales Enablement by Prairie Sky Group — Leave a comment
December 9, 2011

Here’s a video book review of The Trust Edge

The Trust Edge

I recommend you put this book on your Christmas
list for any marketing or sales people you know.

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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Think Like a Client

Filed Under: Clients, Marketing, Sales by Prairie Sky Group — Leave a comment
December 7, 2011

In Norman Maclean’s, A River Runs Through It, he tells a story of two brothers growing up in rural Montana and fishing the Big Blackfoot River in Montana.  The book is a lyrical and beautiful story, and I highly recommend the book over the movie.  In one passage, the older brother, Norman, after watching his younger brother Paul catch an enormous fish while being swept into the rapids, remembers:

“However one closeup picture of him at the end of this day remains in my mind, as if fixed by some chemical bath.  Usually, just after he finished fishing he had little to say unless he saw he could have fished better.  Otherwise, he merely smiled.  Now flies danced around his hatband.  Large drops of water ran from under his has on to his face and then into his lips when he smiled.

At the end of this day, then, I remember him both as a distant abstraction in artistry and as a closeup in water and laughter.

My father always felt shy when compelled to praise one of his family, and his family always felt shy when he praised them.  My father said, “You are a fine fisherman.”

My brother said, “I’m a pretty good with a rod, but I need three more years before I can think like a fish.”

How does this relate to sales and marketing?  Simply, that if we want to be better marketers and sales people, we need to “think like a client.”  Too often, for example, marketers think; how can I send more emails, rather than how can I provide content that is valuable to my clients?  Or sales people think; how can I close this deal, rather than, is this the right product of service for my client?

How is your company** geared to think like a client?  From your call answering message, to your website navigation, to your ease of doing business, if you want to catch (develop) clients, you need to think like a client.  The first step is to look at your business and interactions as they would.

Do Great Things!

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

* Like fish portraints?  Shop this guy: http://www.fishartist.net/fish-artist-gallery.htm

** Footnote:  An old colleague, Dave Peterson, once told me he could tell the profitability of a set of manufacturing companies to +/- 1%  within ten seconds of walking onto the manufacturing floor.  He based his estimates on the neatness of the floor which gave him an estimate of the facilities process efficiency.  I can now apply Stocking’s corollary to the Peterson Rule:  The profitability of a company is directly proportional to the client experience.

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