Archive for the Marketing Category

When you need new sales, there is usually a period of decision. You need to decide how you’re going to do it. The first impulse of most business leaders is to hire new salespeople. But, is this the best choice?

We’ve been discussing the effectiveness of marketing tools over the last few months. Perhaps the most powerful and least understood tool is positioning. But, like anything else, it will only get you to a certain point.

Sales managers and VPs have a tough nut to crack. They have to get a bunch of people to sell more. The focus of this effort is usually on getting the people to work harder. I would suggest that their focus should be on making the salespersons’s job easier.

We’ve all heard lots about the importance of return on marketing investment (ROMI) or marketing ROI (return on investment). To be sure, returns on investment are important. It’s how business even works. But, when applied to marketing, it’s a losing battle.

This time, we have articles on professional services marketing and strategic execution. And a couple of news items. Check it out.

Creating sales tools are one of the essential functions of marketing. Why, then, are they so bad?

There’s been a lot written and spoken about the relationship between marketing and sales. Too often, this relationship amounts to a battle for supremacy within a company with each side pursuing goals mostly unrelated to the other.

I was recently interviewed for a podcast on the always-good Salesopedia. You can check out the interview: “Sales vs Marketing”.

It’s easy enough to say. Before working on any strategy, you need to know about reality—the facts. Otherwise, you risk creating a bad strategy. It’s hard enough to do this. Yet, even this isn’t enough. You really need to measure twice before you strategize once.

At first, you probably will say “Yes!”. It’s sort of an eating-your-own-dogfood thing. I think the opposite is true. Chances are, you’re not good at your own marketing.