The Competitive Advantage

October 31, 2014

For Beginners: Should I Tweet Daily? Yes… and here’s how.

In the world of B2B marketing, Twitter ranks as the #2 social media network, behind only LinkedIn. As such, it should be an important part of your marketing initiative.

But read any article on how to best employ Twitter and one of the guidelines you’ll see from many pundits is to Tweet daily, if not several times a day!

Seriously?! Who’s got that kind of time?

Well, we might have an answer for you.  Following is an easy, 5-step process that will help you to establish and maintain a daily Twitter presence to support your marketing strategies.

October 28, 2014

Best networker ever?

I had coffee this past week with an old friend. John is a very successful management & sales consultant and trainer who works with clients around the world. We get together once a year or so to get caught up on each other’s families, businesses and so on.

And with John, it’s always the same thing… somehow, we end up talking about how he can help me – with connections, ideas, recommendations. I leave my meetings with him better informed and even a little inspired. He’s incredible.

October 22, 2014

When selling… put people first.

I have a client on the west coast who is very fond of saying, “Good things happen when I’m out of the office.” While we giggle when he says it, the fact is, when Ken (the founder) is out calling on clients, attending conferences or networking… good things really do happen. He generally comes back to the office with some sort of agreement or RFP.

Ken is a little old school… he likes and uses face-to-face more than any other tactic (and more than any other principal I know). He’s not much for email or social media… or even phone calls. He believes that for someone to want to do business with you (repeatedly), they have to get to know you… like you… and trust you. And the only way to do that is face-to-face.

October 14, 2014

Find the right ‘partner’ to accelerate growth.

I connected with an old industry acquaintance last week… he’s with a mid-sized research firm based in the U.K. After a little social “chit chat,” I asked if there was anything I could do to help his business. To my surprise, he didn’t tell me he was looking for new clients, but instead replied that he was looking to ‘partner’ with firms in the U.S. that were looking to expand into Europe.

That is, if a U.S. firm was looking to expand its footprint across the pond… his firm has the experience and contacts to help. They come together on projects and both firms benefit. What a concept!

It got me to thinking… couldn’t we all use a project-based ‘partner’ like that every now and again? To take on projects we couldn’t or wouldn’t get otherwise… to take advantage of each other’s strengths and minimize our weaknesses… to temporarily merge resources to go after ‘big’ opportunities… to share contacts so that both parties grow?

October 8, 2014

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish… well, you get the picture.

I was having a conversation with my good friend and colleague, Brian, who founded a marketing services company in the financial industry. In addition to running the company, he also manages the sales team that makes sales calls on behalf of his clients.

All of his sales reps have years of experience and are evidently hitting it out of the park for his clients. Chatting with him on the phone this morning, he mentioned he was heading to the office for a sales meeting. I asked about his agenda… and he mentioned he was doing a lesson on ‘how to leave an effective voice mail.’ What?! He’s managing a team of experienced, proven sales reps and he’s presenting a ‘Sales 101’ lesson on voice mails?!

September 30, 2014

Nurturing isn’t just for sales leads anymore.

If you work in this industry (or any industry, for that matter) for any length of time, you make all kinds of contacts… clients, vendors, people you meet at conferences, ‘friends’ on social media and so on. And for the most part, the people you meet are nestled in your CRM database or in your LinkedIn connections. You might also run into them in the fall during conference season and maybe they receive your e-newsletter every once in a while. And that’s about it.

But I received a reminder last week of the power of staying in touch – in a personalized way – to maintain and enhance relationships.

September 25, 2014

Got your Marketing Plan for 2015? No?! Now’s a good time to start…

Yeah, it’s that time of year… time to start planning for NEXT year. (Already?!) There are strategic plans, business plans, operational plans, hiring plans – and our favorite – marketing plans.

In the work we do for our clients – and what we do for ourselves – we follow a framework for constructing plans we’ve named the Marketing & Sales Pyramid™. The Pyramid is a step-by-step, logical approach to business development. Here’s how it works…

September 24, 2014

Stop cold calling… follow-up on warm sales leads instead.

I met with a client a few weeks ago that had one sales rep… an experienced and, by all accounts, pretty good rep. Over coffee, I talked with this rep about his day-to-day activities. I expected to hear about his calling on existing clients, responding to inquiries, following up on leads from conferences, etc. And while he did do some of that, he spent the majority of his time (the vast majority) digging through directories for new names, sending out letters of introduction (along with sales collateral) and then following-up by phone. Yup… he was cold-calling.

For a sales rep, nothing is more difficult, induces more fear or is less productive than cold-calling. If you are having your sales rep cold call more than 5-10% of his/her time… STOP IT! It is not the responsibility of sales reps to find leads… their job is to follow-up on leads and close deals. It is the responsibility of your marketing to generate those leads.