The Competitive Advantage

January 23, 2013

Lead Generation drives business; 8 effective ways to generate leads for a competitive advantage.

Regardless of your sales philosophy or sales processes… virtually no sale has ever taken place that didn’t start out as a ‘sales lead.’  Those leads are developed and nurtured… and with some perseverance and a little luck, they eventually become clients.  That truism means that Lead Generation should be one of the primary strategies for every firm’s business development program.

January 15, 2013

Where’s the #$@&^!* phone number?

In preparing to send my son to London for his semester abroad last week, we had a few questions to ask Delta Airlines about luggage restrictions on international flights.  Now, I’m sure that I could have found the answer to our questions in some FAQ section on their website… but I actually prefer talking to someone.

So, we went to the Delta website to find a phone number to call.  And we couldn’t.  We looked high and low, but with no luck… and what numbers they did show had nothing to do with us.  I then went to the old-school yellow pages and called the local Delta number… but it was disconnected.  At this point, I was screaming at the phone.  My son finally found a number buried several clicks deep in their website but we had to leave a message.  Thankfully, Delta called back about 20 minutes later.

January 8, 2013

Under-promise and over-deliver for a competitive advantage

My son, Alex, a college sophomore, leaves this week for a semester abroad in London – 8 weeks of classes followed by 8 weeks of an internship (which will then be followed by a couple weeks with a backpack!).  What a great opportunity!

Over coffee last weekend, I tried to give him a little “fatherly” advice – particularly about his internship.  I counseled him to:

December 26, 2012

Solve a problem to grow your business.

A “strategy” is a broad statement that helps to define the direction of your firm’s marketing & sales efforts.  Setting strategy is the most difficult of the phases in developing a marketing & sales plan (because it requires real thinking) and also the most important (because if you go off in the wrong direction, you cannot be successful).

One of the best ways to develop a strategy for your firm is to be the first to solve a problem… whether it’s within your firm, one that is plaguing your clients or within the industries you serve.  Here’s a brief case study from my past that might help explain how this works…

December 11, 2012

It really is all about the customer ‘experience’: A 10-point checklist for providing memorable service.

Twice in the last two months, I have had really lousy experiences at retail specialty stores.  Yeah, I know you’re not a retailer… but bear with me – the same ideas (and ideals) apply.

I went into these stores with every intention of buying (one was a bike shop, the other a computer store – so they were pretty good-sized purchases).  In both instances, I literally stood in the aisle near the products that interested me for 15 minutes waiting for some help to be able to ask some questions and make my purchasing decisions.  In both cases, it was the middle of a weekday and there were store employees just walking or standing around, not busy and simply ignoring me.

I left both stores frustrated and took my business elsewhere.

But those experiences got me to thinking about our industry… are we being proactive and responsive to our clients so they don’t “walk way” frustrated? To help you review your client interaction processes, here’s a 10-point checklist that can help:

December 5, 2012

Get prepared… part 5 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

One of the key parts of crafting your plan (Phase 3) is building in the mechanisms for measuring each of your marketing & sales tactics (which you execute in Phase 4).  If you’ve been disciplined about measuring and testing your tactics, in Phase 5, you will go through the results and decide what worked / what didn’t / and what needs to be tweaked.

November 27, 2012

Get prepared… part 4 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

So, how’s your 2013 marketing & sales plan coming along?  Have you been following the steps in our process?

Have you done your homework and analysis (Phase 1)?  Did you establish the strategies to help drive your business (Phase 2)?  Have you crafted your plan with all the details (Phase 3)?  Great!

OK, now it’s time to execute and manage that plan (Phase 4).  And here are some guidelines for doing it…

November 20, 2012

Get prepared… part 3 of a 5-part series on how to create your marketing & sales plan for 2013

In last two weeks, we discussed the first two phases of the marketing & sales plan process:  Phase 1 – Conducting your Background Review & Analysis; the results of which lead to Phase 2 – Developing your Marketing Strategies.

Phase 3 is about Creating the Marketing & Sales Plan.  It starts with determining which tactics are the best ones to support the strategies. This is where all of the details are spelled out for your action plan – the what, who, when, how many, how much, how often and so on.   Yes, there is a lot of detail to manage here… but without it, you’ll be flyin’ by the seat of your pants.