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Recent Posts
When the Founder Is the Rainmaker: How to Scale Without Losing the Spark
In many founder-led businesses, the founder isn’t just the leader—they’re also the best (and often only) rainmaker. They land the big deals. They have the trusted relationships. They know the pitch inside and out because they are the pitch.
It works—until it doesn’t.
As the business grows, this model creates a bottleneck. Every new opportunity depends on one and only person. And it’s the same person every time. But there’s a downside. When that person is also responsible for running the business, mentoring the team, and shaping the vision, something eventually gives.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel: Seven Simple Steps to Delighting Your Customers
Tue, May 28, 2019 — People pleasing—for as long as there have been sellers and buyers, there have been efforts by sellers to get those buyers coming back for more. If we think all the way back to the dark ages of retailing, we can imagine that there was heavy competition for those stone-chiseled wheels—and certainly the stonemason with the best service (and ratings on Yelp) had the most robust business. Of course, most businesses will SAY that THEY have a keen focus on delighting their customers—that THEY are the best at building retention and ongoing loyalty. “Of course we do,” they say. “It’s a company virtue! We’ve been doing it for years!” Yet, when you examine the actual processes and procedures used in the interaction with their customers, you will often find the opposite. This is not necessarily willful—it likely is a function of a reliance on tried and true business processes in a selling environment when the business situation may have changed. (Pity the stonemason who was beat out by Goodyear to put rubber treads on those wheels!)
Avoiding the “Popcorn-Tin” Syndrome: Three Steps to Strategic Marketing Success
Thu, May 23, 2019 — This post was written in collaboration with Tom Niesen, Sales Made Easy. “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu I had an epiphany about marketing strategy recently – and I’d like to credit it to this quote from the great Sun Tzu, but instead, it happened thanks to a large tin of popcorn. Let me explain: I was working with a client that, shall we say, was not focused on strategy, and the head of marketing, shall we also say, was, instead, keenly focused on doing stuff to show their worth. In this “Marketing of Things” mindset, this marketing leader (who shall remain nameless) felt the best marketing ploy du jour was a large tin of popcorn. Across the country, clients received multiple varieties of popcorn, along with a note asking for more business. I’m sure plenty of people enjoyed sharing the kernels of this marketing leader’s labors – but few, if any, made the connection to the company’s services – and even fewer picked up the phone.
When the Economy Turns Down, Will Your Company Be Ready? A 10-Step Practical Guide to Preparing Your Go-to-Market Program
Thu, May 9, 2019 — John C. Maxwell, the American author, speaker, and pastor who has written many books on leadership has a wonderful quote about growth that says: “Change is inevitable, growth is optional.” There may be another version of this we should be paying attention to, and I think that version is: “Change is inevitable, so is an economic slowdown.” With the long economic growth we have been experiencing sometimes it’s challenging to remember that we will not always have the economic tailwinds that have been boosting us along. The most recent ITR Trends Report (April, 2019) continues to forecast a cyclical market slowdown. Their latest report states that “The U.S. economy has moved a little deeper on the backside of the business cycle….and the shift in momentum and outcome will feel more pronounced the further we go in 2019. Our analysis continues to point to a probable first-half-2020 bottom for this business cycle.”
The Net of Profitability: How to Use the Net Promoter Score Now to Grow Your Business
Tue, May 7, 2019 — Hollywood has long taught us that a crystal ball can be a mystical, wondrous – and completely fictional – way to gaze into the great unknown. For businesses looking to better understand the world in which they exist, it doesn’t take a magical orb or other divine intervention to do so. Enter the Net Promoter Score, or NPS – a simple gauge of consumers’ ongoing satisfaction that can, like the soothsayers of the silver screen, tell the future. The Net Promoter Score methodology is genius in its simplicity. By asking a singular question – usually along the lines of, “How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague” – a brand can actually foretell the future – more to the point, according to Survey Money, “the likelihood of both repurchase and referral.”
The Traditional Marketing and Sales Funnel is Dead. Welcome the Intelligent Sales Pipeline™!
Mon, May 6, 2019 — Improving Your Lead Generation and Qualification Processes Mark Coronna, Area Managing Partner & CMO, Chief Outsiders with Jeff Parris and Daniel Steyn, Fractional Sales Executives, Sales Xceleration Sometimes we take certain business models for granted. The model of a “funnel” to represent a sales pipeline is certainly one example. Dusting off its past, a gentleman named E. St. Elmo Lewis is generally given credit for initiating the idea of a funnel in 1898. The author is also credited for introducing the first formal theory of Marketing. It would be amazing that a model like a funnel would still find relevance 120 years later. There have been previous attempts at calling the funnel “dead.” In a 2016 article in Marketing Week, Mark Ritson declared that “If you think the funnel is dead, you have mistaken tactics for strategy.”
How to Build a Customer-Centric Organization and Avoid Technology Fails
Tue, Apr 23, 2019 — For everyone who tosses an iPhone in disgust or screams when Instagram is down, there are legions of people who praise technology—particularly for its ability to provide better customer service. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) advances; programs that analyze and target messages to the right consumers, in the right amounts; and just software that puts a customers information at the fingertips of a telephone support agent—all are helping to smooth the confluence between tech and service. So why is it that it sometimes, technology actually deprecates the customer experience? And what can be done about this?
Is Strategy Development a Losing Game? Three Ways CEOs can Boost Their Odds
Tue, Apr 9, 2019 — If the goal of strategy development is to achieve profit growth, statistically speaking, most companies fail at it. Books like Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick by McKinsey’s Bradley, Hirt, and Smit, as well as whitepapers from the Corporate Strategy Board, point to the exceedingly low odds – one in 10 -- of driving profitable growth, based on an in-depth analysis of thousands of companies. At the core of this conundrum is a coherent organizational culture, which still remains elusive decades after Peter Drucker famously said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Certainly, we all have been in executive strategy presentations when an intellectual, fact-based debate about strategic choices devolves into chaos – derailed at the hands of human biases and social dynamics.
Manufacturers, Would a Marketing First Responder Help You Resuscitate Growth?
Fri, Apr 5, 2019 — Manufacturing CEO, are you frustrated and concerned because your company is not growing? And what has gotten you here is no longer working and you’re not sure what to do? Until recently your growth has come via customer referrals, word of mouth and sales generated leads. But sales is no longer producing enough new leads or revenue and competition is threatening. Marketing is tactical at best and more random than integrated and aligned. What if you could call in an expert who could quickly assess the problem, identify and prioritize growth opportunities, develop and implement a plan to restore healthy growth and train the management team to carry on? Marketing triage-stop the bleeding, find the low hanging fruit and build ongoing insights, strategies and capabilities.
Better Living Through AI: How Computers Will Improve the Service Experience
Wed, Mar 27, 2019 — For consumers tired of endless hold times, long-snaking lines, and difficulty getting customer service, help is on the way. The often confusing, maddening connection to some of our favorite brands and services is about to improve substantially—driven by a pair of tech-powered developments poised to move into the consumer and B2B mainstream sooner than most people think. The first is Artificial Intelligence (AI)—something that, for years, seemed to be the domain of Hollywood hype. Today, whether we know it or not, real learning software is in active use today in a wide variety of areas, ranging from cyber security to your Netflix app.