The Competitive Advantage

November 5, 2013

TMRE takeaway… are the bad things easier to remember?

I was at TMRE in Nashville two weeks ago… beautiful venue, terrific networking events, big exhibit hall, good educational sessions, world-class keynote speakers.

But that’s not what I remember most.

My two big takeaways from the event are both bad… and it’s not just me, I heard numerous people talking/ranting about these.

October 30, 2013

Get it right! You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

I’ve been delivering presentations on marketing and sales to business executives for a long time now. When I first started, I used to say that if you didn’t measure a particular business development tactic, don’t even bother doing it in the first place!

Over the years I’ve softened my stance a little – but not much. Why? Simple: If you’re not measuring your marketing and sales efforts, then how do you know if they’re working? Think about it. If something is not working, then stop doing it… you’re just throwing good money after bad. But if it is working, then you need to be doing more of it.

Makes sense, right?  Then why do so few firms bother to measure their marketing and sales? I think there’s a pretty simple answer here too… because it’s often boring, tedious work.

October 29, 2013

6 Reasons Why You Should Consider Video Marketing

Video, as a marketing tool, has largely gone unused in our industry… and I’m not sure why.

We are very much a TV/video society… it only make sense to communicate in a style that people are used to and that works for them.

October 23, 2013

Hey small business owner! Time to get serious about marketing.

An independent research consultant (in business for 15+ years) reached out to me recently to learn about what we do.  In preparing for our call, I did a little homework on her firm.  Here’s what I found:

• A YAHOO email address
• An old, unattractive, homemade website
• Website text that is all internally focused
• No resources (articles, blog, etc.) available for website visitors
• An incomplete LinkedIn profile… no image, generic LinkedIn address, etc.
• No LinkedIn company profile
• No listing/membership in key association – QRCA
• No Twitter account that I could find

October 15, 2013

Are you a memorable sales rep?

A true story… I was speaking to a friend of mine, Cary, last weekend and he was telling me that he was out visiting some long-standing clients (in the healthcare industry).  During these calls, several of them said to him that they “really missed John (his colleague) and his grapes.”  Grapes?!  Really?!

I had to know more.

October 8, 2013

Measure your marketing for a competitive advantage… a neat little trick (and it’s free)

Measuring your marketing effort is critical to your success.  When you measure, you learn what works and what doesn’t… and from that, can create a process for continual improvement.

Sometimes, the measurement requires some good ol’ nose-to-the-grindstone effort.  And other times, some really smart people create easy-to-use tools that make the job a whole lot easier.  Here’s one of them.

We’ve all used a service like bitly to create shortened versions of very long URLs.  It can be a very useful tool.

But did you know that bitly also provides a very easy way to help you track your marketing tactics?  Here’s an example of how it works…

October 1, 2013

Hey sales rep… do your homework!

Do you know who your customers are?  Sure you do.  You can probably describe them with some level of granularity.  And you know, in a broad way, what they do and how they use your services.  Good.

Well, I received a phone call (actually, they left a voice mail) yesterday that showed that not everyone is as smart as you.

September 27, 2013

It’s not that complicated! A common sense approach to the marketing & sales process.

Many (many) years ago, when I was an upstart corporate executive, one of my colleagues recommended a book to me on finance and accounting for non-financial managers. I liked it because it took fairly complicated concepts and processes and explained them in plain, simple English – perfect for a marketing and sales guy like me!

Coincidentally, since opening Harpeth Marketing, most of my client contacts have been non-marketing and sales professionals and I’ve looked for plain-English resources to help them better understand concepts and processes surrounding business development. And while there a lot of good resources available, I needed one that was specific to the B2B services industry.

So I looked at the MR marketing and sales activities and created a model that lays out a step-by-step process for growing revenue. We call it the Marketing & Sales Pyramid™…