The Competitive Advantage

May 27, 2015

How to Manage Long Sales Cycles

I was talking with a client last week about the long sales cycles in our industry. I was “bragging” that I have one client that took nearly two years to convert from prospect to client. Unimpressed, the client then mentioned that he had one that took eight years!

OK, eight years is a little ridiculous, but a 6-12-18 month sales cycle is an all-too-common scenario in B2B professional services industries… one that we all have to learn to mange. From my perspective, there are two key strategies for “sticking with it” through the long sales cycle.

April 28, 2015

‘Thanks, but no thanks’ is an OK answer.

This past week… after a number of emails, a proposal and a couple of phone conversations, a sales prospect (a.k.a. a potential new client) got back with me and said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” And guess what? While it wasn’t the answer I wanted, I was actually OK with it.

April 22, 2015

The top 15 webinar tips for your next presentation

I’m a lucky and grateful guy… I’ve been asked by two industry organizations (CASRO and Greenbook) to deliver four webinars over the next several months. I’m a huge proponent of webinars for several reasons…

• They deliver valuable information to attendees, in a non-threatening, non-salesy way
• They are a reasonable way to gather contact data from potential clients (when they register)
• They build awareness for the presenter and help position them as subject matter experts

If webinars are part of your marketing efforts – or if you’d like them to be – here are the top 15 webinar tips to consider as you get started…

April 7, 2015

Is bad marketing better than no marketing?

I received an unsolicited email the other day from a company using the holidays (Easter and Passover) as a reason to communicate… not unlike so many companies do at Christmas/Hanukkah time. Now, I appreciate when somebody tries something different as a way to “break through the clutter”… and I admit, I’m not sure I have ever received an Easter/Passover promotional message before.

But the real problem was the message itself… It was simply one short sentence. That’s it!

Now, I’m as big a fan of brevity as the next guy… but there was no real thought behind it. No real value. Not even a nice story in the message. It’s as if the sender tried to do the absolute least amount of work possible, just to get out an email for Easter so they could say they were doing something.

All-in-all… an OK strategy – but lousy execution.

Here’s my point… I see a lot of bad marketing in our industry. Poorly thought-out, haphazard, hastily-executed tactics – just to do something. Anything. And the worst offenders are these…

January 6, 2015

Stop it already with the bad marketing! Part 4: LinkedIn

In the first three parts of this series, we’ve delved into…

• Bad websites
• Bad advertising
• Bad email marketing

This week, our focus is on the bad use of LINKEDIN. Note: while this post focuses on LinkedIn, most of the comments below also apply to other social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, etc.

For professionals in B2B firms, LinkedIn should be your #1 choice for social media marketing. I’ve seen some recent stats stating that LinkedIn has more than 330 million users worldwide, with over 107 million of them in the U.S.

December 29, 2014

Stop it already with the bad marketing! Part 3: Email

So far, in this series about the bad marketing taking place in our industry, we’ve discussed websites and advertising and made numerous suggestions on some things you can do to enhance the effectiveness of those marketing tactics for your firm.

This week, we’ll take a look at EMAIL MARKETING.

By all accounts, email is still the #1 marketing tactic used by B2B businesses today. Done right, it can help you achieve four very important goals:

• Nurture sales leads
• Maintain top-of-mind awareness among your existing clients
• Position your firm in the markets your serve
• Inform and educate your readers

Sadly, far too many firms are doing their email marketing badly, which keeps them from achieving those goals…

December 9, 2014

Stop it already with the bad marketing! Part 1: Websites

This is the first in a multi-part series where we’ll discuss much of the bad marketing & sales we see throughout our industry (sadly, it’s in many other industries, too) – and what you can do about it.

Don’t believe me? Just look around. And while I’ve been involved in marketing & sales for most of my 30+ year career, it doesn’t take an expert to see all of the lousy marketing happening around us…

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.