This weekend we went to a function at a resort. In our room was a next-generation, multi-blade razor. The package was a nifty travel case, there were several coupons for more blades and special smell’um. This was the marketing that made Gillette King! I was enjoying the care some marketer had taken to get meRead… Read more »
Thanks to Ram Iyer for asking about cold calling. Cold calling is a technique for getting focus from new prospects. Sales professionals use the phone because it covered a wider geographic footprint than canvassing door-to-door, and the weather is usually better indoors. The golden age of cold calling was before voicemail. Return has been decreasingRead… Read more »
Lunch with one of my strongest salesmen. He is introducing some new products and fretting that he needs deeper product knowledge. I let him finish and then asked, “What is the point of your presentation?” He thought, and said, “To get the prospect to define his problem in your presence.” Usually the best service weRead… Read more »
The other day I sat through seven presentations. That’s about ten hours. The sales guys uniformly wanted to drape their presentation around their process. The better presentations focused on providing cool nuggets of immediate value. The boring presentations all featured The One Right Way. The better presentations let me pick and choose. And after lookingRead… Read more »
A graphic guide to Facebook profile photos, which includes a portrait-interpretation key (Fast Company)
Last week a client, a CXO in a large government contractor, said he was ready to move on. “I’m looking for something better, just so it doesn’t involve business development.” He has spent the last five years leading the introduction of new technologies to a thirty year old organization. Many of his projects are unique,Read… Read more »
Seth Godin has a new post with a novel idea, “The Forever Recession” that there is a cyclical recession that is ending, and a recession that is the end of the industrial age. This answers, “Why don’t I feel the recovery?” Last week I realized we are seeing two groups of prospects. Companies that wantRead… Read more »
Learning from history, I am often enlightened by how redefining a problem can lead to a relatively easy solution…even after years and years of fruitless work. John Battelle, a social media pioneer, pointed to an article redefining how we can think of cancer, featuring Danny Hillis, who has previously figured out some important things, likeRead… Read more »
Several readers have had questions about the seminar announcements at the bottom of our blog posts. We have a strong lineup for October so here is some explanation. Ken Kropkowski of The Ken Group told me a seminar is a group of interested individuals gathering to discuss an announced topic. Dick, Joe, Jack, and Bruce,Read… Read more »
Over the weekend, I heard a story from a builder. He has two multi-unit residential projects going up in the same town, which were both penalized by the local building inspector taking a progressive interpretation of the building regulations. He has a different architect for each project, from different out-of-towns. He called each architect toRead… Read more »