It would be odd to hear a medical pacemaker company say their device can “Take a licking and keep on ticking,” (an old Timex tagline) Or maybe not. It’s something I would want if I had a pacemaker. Alternatively we could say that the device has a mean time between failure of .63 trillion seconds. Which will you remember?
Read MoreIf you’ve looked at many marketing blogs recently, you will notice post titles that have numbers in them. While they entice us, I wonder at the subliminal message they send. The “numbers” title is focused on generating “numbers” of hits or eyeballs. Isn’t the issue really getting sustained and satisfied readers or prospects? Numbers are fine, but would you rather have 100 prospects and 1 sale, or 10 really good prospects and 5 sales?
Read MoreI was interviewing a sales candidate the other day, and I asked him to give me an example of how he’d used sales automation to achieve his sales goals. He replied, “Oh I’m too busy to use it; and my manager doesn’t care, so long as I’m on forecast.” I followed with, “How are doing against this year’s forecast?” “A little behind, but I’m optimistic,” was the reply. Then he added, “I just wish I didn’t have to do all the sales reports, it’s a real time sink.” I was transported back to the early ‘90s.
Read MoreA friend sent me his resume and asked me to take a look at it. This is a slightly sensitive situation since it is the equivalent of asking the question above. He’d also had a “Resume Doctor” jazz it up a little. The resume summary was terrible. I fell asleep during the first paragraph. Here’s an excerpt.
Read MoreSuddenly, the wooly mammoth turned with a snort… its tusks swinging violently back and forth, its trunk searching for our scent. My mouth was dry. My palms sweaty. My heart thumped like the great beast itself. I watched with terror as Grog attacked from the flank and was swept away by the beast’s long tusks. Gnerk then bravely charged, but the beast reared on two legs and came down on top of him, stomping his small body into the ground. I cringed as I head Gnerk’s bones crunching, but seized the moment, the beast distracted, and ran my spear between the mammoth’s ribs and into its heart. What do Carly Simon, blogging and wooly mammoths have to do with Sales and Marketing?
Read MoreA study recently published in the Journal of Consumer Research (Porath, MacInnis, and Folkes, 2010) on incivility between employees and its effect on customers reports that 40% of consumers witness acts of incivility between employees at least once a month. The authors found that witnessing employees behaving badly toward each other has a severe impact on consumers and is very detrimental to companies. “It induces consumer anger and causes consumers to make broad and negative conclusions (generalizations) about the firm as a whole, other employees who work there, and expectations about future encounters with the firm; conclusions that go well beyond the uncivil incident.”
Read MoreFinding the 10 to 15% percent of the marekt that is looking for your product or service is a waste of time and effort, especially by sales people. Constructing a nurturing campaign makes more sense. A recent campaign using a nurturing approach yielded a 20% market penetration and resulted in 30% growth.
Read MoreI help manage marketing vendors for one of my clients. Using external resources is often a way to get things done quickly without having to develop the skills internally. Some of these resources are significant with expenditures of over $100K. An interesting thing happened when I elected to postpone or suspend these services for a period of time.
Read MoreAsking how many sales people it takes to add sales revenue to a forecast is the wrong question. Looking at what resources are required is a much better question. See how several surveys bear this out.
Read MoreOur secret is that each of us maintains a set of priorities which we know are important and we would get to if it weren’t for all this “really insignificant stuff” that occupies our time.
While I could rant about what is important and what is a waste of time, I’m not sure it would change behavior. However, here’s another option that might help you get done some of those things you know you could be doing. Hire a college intern.