I believe that a good portion of your networking and connections can be from people you don’t expect to get anything from, or who may need something you. There’s an old expression that says you can’t tell what direction a gift will come from. The number of times I’ve received something back when I didn’t expect always surprises me. So whom have you mentored lately?
Read MoreI get a lot of requests on LinkedIn and other social media for connections. What’s interesting to me is that very often these requests come with no introduction other than the standard boilerplate request. This leaves me trying to guess why the person wants to connect. Without any information I have to guess and then decide if I want to connect. So what criteria should I use for deciding?
Read MoreShare One of the biggest challenges marketing has is to get customers and clients to tell your story on video. The customer is naturally reluctant, and sales, though they understand the benefit, is loath to ask a customer anything risky. They’d rather let someone else step forward. So how can you create a library of […]
Read MoreWatch this to find out if you make one of these five mistakes in your customer testimonial videos.
Read MoreSales people like to talk. The good ones listen. Marketers, on the other hand, tend to be verbal but more focused on reading and writing. They wind up working on the copy for websites, PR releases, direct mail, email, literature and whitepapers. The problem is… no one reads any more. So much of this activity is wasted. Too bad. What are you going to do about it?
Read MoreThere is a long cultural history in the US of women taking on the role of “helpmate.” George Lakoff calls the situation women face the “Women’s Lot” narrative. For a long time women could only be nurses, not doctors. However, they could help doctors. They can help in HR but not become CEO. They can help their families or their spouse. So what characteristics does a helpmate have, whether they are male or female? They work hard to serve others, often getting little credit for them selves. Any marketing narrative and message to this prospect constituency must contain these key elements.
Read MoreRegardless of your gender, if you’re a B2B marketer and not considering it, you are missing a key element in messaging. While 90% of marketers may acknowledge that gender is important, I find only 10 percent of 1:1 marketing campaigns or databases have any data on gender. Here’s a simple deep dive technique to add gender to your database.
Read MoreOver the last set of posts, I’ve discussed the subtleties of messaging in relation to how we think and how the brain works. I have a strong conviction that most B2B messaging is still stuck in the facts and figures mode, and most companies are trying to use reason and logic alone to persuade prospects to buy their products. As a result, they are missing huge marketing and sales opportunities, especially when positioning for market growth.
Read MoreRecent research (O’Keefe & Jensen, 2008) indicates that the negative frame will only take you so far in influencing behavior through messaging. Their research finds that there is a slight positive effect at persuasion for messages that were positively framed. It may be simply that we prefer thinking about the beautiful lady and not the leopard, pleasant thoughts compared to dark thoughts. However, I believe framing in a positive way helps activate the dopamine circuitry in the brain that is associated with positive emotions, happiness and satisfaction.
Read MoreWhat’s a two year-old’s favorite word? It’s “NO!” of course. And why do they use this word? Just to piss us off? How engaging! But that’s exactly why they learn and use the word… to be “engaging”. In a discussion of the way the brain works and metaphorical thinking, this is the single most powerful metaphor we learn to use. Here’s a quick way to improve your odds of engaging.
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