Archive for November, 2007

Are modern B2B operations becoming too difficult for B2B companies?

Posted on November 20th, 2007 in Brand awareness, Business, Marketing | No Comments »

Good marketing and branding challenges, pushes, and cajoles companies into action and growth. And this is why companies buy work in marketing and branding in the first place: they want to achieve growth. What most companies don’t realize is that operating at this level is much harder than they thought.
Read the rest of this entry »

Does lead grading lead to grade inflation?

Posted on November 15th, 2007 in Lead generation, Lead nurturing, Marketing | No Comments »

With the talk lately on grading leads and/or prospects, the academic in me wonders something. Does lead grading lead to grade inflation? That is, do grades tend to creep upwards in response to outside pressures?
Read the rest of this entry »

Does b2b branding matter anymore?

Posted on November 14th, 2007 in Brand awareness | 2 Comments »

Over on his blog, Todd Miechiels wrote an
interesting post questioning whether b2b branding is relevant anymore. He says that micro-brands and one-to-one communication make brands unimportant.
Read the rest of this entry »

Generating leads without paying any money?

Posted on November 13th, 2007 in Marketing, Sales | No Comments »

I just talked to a prospective client. He’s in a B2C services market and his only marketing or advertising right now is direct mail based on purchased lists. This used to work fine, with decent ROI, but it doesn’t anymore. So, he’s naturally looking around for other options. How to respond?
Read the rest of this entry »

Is Selling Logical?

Posted on November 9th, 2007 in Sales | No Comments »

Many salespeople take a “logical” approach to sales. They think of themselves as engaged in an argument (not in the sense of “argumentative”). The prospect doesn’t think that their solution is required. The salesperson does. The salesperson sets out to convince and persuade the prospect to adopt his/her position. The backbone of this approach is logical argumentation. But, the question is “does logical argumentation work in sales?”
Read the rest of this entry »

Why do salespeople make their own sales tools?

Posted on November 1st, 2007 in Marketing, Sales | No Comments »

It’s a common occurance. Sales people in the field spend a good deal of time creating their own sales tools. This can range from editing the corporate “deck” to writing and designing entire ads or brochures. Why does this happen? Probably not for the reason you think.
Read the rest of this entry »