Today I read an article in SalesForce XP Magazine and they did a beautiful job describing Smarketing in a sports analogies. Although they did not use the term Smarketing the article was all about and entitled: What’s Next: Sales and Marketing Integration.
So here’s the analogies partly from the magazine.
Is your business development team playing football or soccer? Read More »
If you are a CEO of a smaller business it is very important to look into the future and make a game plan for how and when you will retire. Depending on the size of your firm you may need a few things in place in order to leave or sell the company. The first and probably the most important thing you need to do is figure out a way to replicate YOU. If your company can not function without you, it is worth nothing to anyone else. So putting systems in place documenting how you do what you do is important.
Why CEOs need to include branding as part of the exit strategy Read More »
I love this time of year. You know spending time with family, reflecting on how the past year went, planning how we would like next year to go. This is a fun time on both a personal and professional level. Looking back I am very thankful for all of the success I have been able to reach in my business this year. I have been able to triple my business from last year. The one thing I am unthankful for is… I personally wish I had more time with my wife, family and friends because it is very easy for me to become consumed with work.
Fast Forward to Thanksgiving 2012- What are you thankful for? Read More »
If you are a CEO of a larger corporation you probably know the issues with aligning the sales and marketing team. If you are a smaller business, you have probably had to make the tough call between making an investment in either sales or in marketing. If you have been around for a while, you may have invested in both. Maybe you invested in sales people first, and if that did not meet your expectations, you may have taken a break to recoup your losses. Then a few years later, you figure maybe we need marketing since sales idea didn’t work.
How Will You Achieve Sales & Marketing Alignment in 2012? Read More »
If I asked you the number one problem businesses have, what would you say it was? Sales? Marketing? Something else? Well many times people will guess low sales or ineffective marketing, but could it be something else? Before starting Brandwise some 13 years ago I worked for a large corporation. One thing I noticed was the sales team and the marketing team did not communicate and work together for the betterment of the company.
What the heck is SMARKETING? Read More »
Ok, by this time you surely know about Facebook and twitter, right? Are you still riding the fence on jumping in and using these tools for your business? If so, you are falling behind and very quickly. The early adopters are gaining so much ground through social media that it is going to be hard to catch up. So now is the time get on board!
Why is social media all the rage? Can this be applied to my business? Read More »
I talk to a lot of CEOs and it’s interesting but sad to see entrepreneurs in denial. You know the ones who say, “Nah, I do not need any help in the sales department”. This is after a 20 minute conversation about how bad business is. Look, I am an expert in this area. I have run a business for the last 13 years and 12 of those years I sucked at sales. I can relate, trust me!
You’re great at sales? Then why’s business in the crapper? Read More »
It is funny how important measurements can be. CEOs want to measure the success of the business, CFOs want to measure the top and bottom line. The sales team measures how many calls or meetings they have and how many leads the marketing team gets them. The marketing team measure a lot of things ROI, Reach, Followers, Visits, etc. but they also need to measure how many deals the sales team closes from the leads they are generating. You can’t manage what you don’t measure needs to become the thought process of everyone in business.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure – importance of Analytics. Read More »
We have talked about how inbound marketing is changing the game with marketing and even wrote an article about it in September of 2009, entitled Inbound Marketing vs Outbound Marketing (infographic not included). Now, more than 2 years later, inbound marketing is really starting to gain traction. As a matter of fact we do not take on any outbound marketing for clients unless they currently have an inbound program in place. Wow, how times have changed!
Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing – excellent infographic! Read More »
