The Competitive Advantage

December 26, 2012

Solve a problem to grow your business.

A “strategy” is a broad statement that helps to define the direction of your firm’s marketing & sales efforts.  Setting strategy is the most difficult of the phases in developing a marketing & sales plan (because it requires real thinking) and also the most important (because if you go off in the wrong direction, you cannot be successful).

One of the best ways to develop a strategy for your firm is to be the first to solve a problem… whether it’s within your firm, one that is plaguing your clients or within the industries you serve.  Here’s a brief case study from my past that might help explain how this works…

December 11, 2012

It really is all about the customer ‘experience’: A 10-point checklist for providing memorable service.

Twice in the last two months, I have had really lousy experiences at retail specialty stores.  Yeah, I know you’re not a retailer… but bear with me – the same ideas (and ideals) apply.

I went into these stores with every intention of buying (one was a bike shop, the other a computer store – so they were pretty good-sized purchases).  In both instances, I literally stood in the aisle near the products that interested me for 15 minutes waiting for some help to be able to ask some questions and make my purchasing decisions.  In both cases, it was the middle of a weekday and there were store employees just walking or standing around, not busy and simply ignoring me.

I left both stores frustrated and took my business elsewhere.

But those experiences got me to thinking about our industry… are we being proactive and responsive to our clients so they don’t “walk way” frustrated? To help you review your client interaction processes, here’s a 10-point checklist that can help:

December 5, 2012

Get prepared… part 5 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

One of the key parts of crafting your plan (Phase 3) is building in the mechanisms for measuring each of your marketing & sales tactics (which you execute in Phase 4).  If you’ve been disciplined about measuring and testing your tactics, in Phase 5, you will go through the results and decide what worked / what didn’t / and what needs to be tweaked.

November 27, 2012

Get prepared… part 4 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

So, how’s your 2013 marketing & sales plan coming along?  Have you been following the steps in our process?

Have you done your homework and analysis (Phase 1)?  Did you establish the strategies to help drive your business (Phase 2)?  Have you crafted your plan with all the details (Phase 3)?  Great!

OK, now it’s time to execute and manage that plan (Phase 4).  And here are some guidelines for doing it…

November 20, 2012

Get prepared… part 3 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

In last two weeks, we discussed the first two phases of the marketing & sales plan process:  Phase 1 – Conducting your Background Review & Analysis; the results of which lead to Phase 2 – Developing your Marketing Strategies.

Phase 3 is about Creating the Marketing & Sales Plan.  It starts with determining which tactics are the best ones to support the strategies. This is where all of the details are spelled out for your action plan – the what, who, when, how many, how much, how often and so on.   Yes, there is a lot of detail to manage here… but without it, you’ll be flyin’ by the seat of your pants.

November 13, 2012

Get prepared… part 2 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

In last week’s post, we discussed Phase 1 of the marketing & sales plan process – Conducting your Background Review & Analysis.  This week, we’ll look at Phase 2 – Developing your Marketing Strategies.

‘Strategies’ are broad directional statements that define WHAT you will do to achieve your goals.  Don’t confuse these with ‘tactics’ – which are the HOW you’ll do it.  For example, a strategy might be to ‘position our CEO as an expert on the topic of mobile research.’  A tactic that might help you support that strategy could be ‘to have him write an ebook on mobile research.’

In this phase of the process, you will take what was learned during Phase 1 and use it as the basis for developing your strategies. This is the most critical step in developing your marketing & sales plan.  Here are several things to think about:

October 31, 2012

Your best prospects are right in front of you… just open your eyes!

Let me ask you a question… “How long have you been in business?”  Two years?  Five years?  Ten or more?

Now, my follow-up question… “In all those years in business, how many clients and prospective clients have you come in contact with… responded to their inquiries, met at conferences, submitted bids or done projects for?”  Hundreds?  Maybe thousands?

What that says to me is that somewhere in your organization – captured in a CRM, listed on a spreadsheet or collected on business cards wrapped in a rubber band – you’ve got the names, phone numbers and email address of hundreds (or thousands?) of potential clients.

So, what are you doing with those names?  How are you engaging them?  What’s your plan for staying on their radar so that when they need to send out an RFP – they think of you?

October 23, 2012

Get out from behind your computer!

Are you familiar with match.com, the dating website?  I’ve never really spent any time on the site, but it is evidently one of the most popular sites of its kind in the world.

You know how it works… men and women log in and pore over profiles to try and find someone whose background looks appealing… then they email or IM back-n-forth to learn about each other and maybe schedule a date.  And from all accounts, it’s been a pretty successful site.

But have you seen the latest offering from them (on TV ads)?  They now sponsor events around the country called, “The Stir.”  They’re live, in-person social gatherings – wine tastings, group bowling, and so on.  Not online… not virtual… but real people meeting and talking in an effort to get to know one another.  What a concept!