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The Competitive Advantage

tag: plan

September 4, 2013

Get ready to exhibit this fall… part 1 of a 3-part series

ExhibitorBadge2The conference season is right around the corner… ESOMAR, TMRE, QRCA, CASRO, etc.  And many of you have committed to exhibiting at one or more of these shows. I’m a big fan of exhibiting… done right, exhibiting can be an outstanding marketing vehicle and help you to generate highly-qualified sales leads, launch a new product or service, generate market awareness and support your association.

On the other hand, with the cost of the exhibit space, travel and lodging, building or updating your booth, shipping, event marketing, etc., your firm’s presence there could very well be the single largest marketing expense you have all year. Exhibiting is one of those things you must do really well to see a solid return on your investment.

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August 20, 2013

If your summer is slow, focus on marketing & sales for a competitive advantage; part 10 – Start planning for 2014

2014 beachThis series has been all about spending time this summer (when things are often a little slower) focusing and working on those things related to marketing & sales.  I hope you’ve taken the opportunity to do that… before you start getting busy again and don’t have the time to work on it.

Did you work on your LinkedIn profileClean up your in-house databaseCreate a list of new sales prospects?  Or spend a little time thinking about how to differentiate your firm?

And now, with the summer winding down, I’d like you stop thinking in the present and start pondering the future, that is…

Summer tip #10: Start planning for 2014

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July 3, 2013

If your summer is slow, focus on marketing & sales for a competitive advantage; part 3 – spruce up your online presence

working-at-the-poolOK, we’re now three weeks into this series of working “on” your business during the summer slowdown that many of us face.  Based on my earlier posts, have you done some planning for the fall conference season?  Or spent any time improving your use of LinkedIn?  I hope so.

Here’s the suggestion for this week…

Summer tip #3: Spruce up your online presence

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June 25, 2013

If your summer is slow, focus on marketing & sales for a competitive advantage; part 2 – get active on LinkedIn

man working with laptop on a rocky beachThis is the second in our series of blog posts outlining some ideas for taking advantage of the summer slowdown to work “on” your business.

Last week’s post was on planning for the fall conference season.  This week…

Summer tip #2: Spend some time on LinkedIn

From my perspective, LinkedIn should be the #1 social media site for firms in the MR industry… it’s ideal for connecting, promoting and engaging.  This summer, while you’re lounging by the pool, consider the following:

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June 19, 2013

If your summer is slow, focus on marketing & sales for a competitive advantage; part 1 – plan for the coming conferences

Beach pic 1The summer is a relatively slow time for many of us… clients slow down, people go on vacation, kids are out of school, etc.  And how people respond to that slowdown usually falls into one of two groups – those that gripe about it, chalk it up to seasonality and fall into a bit of a summer funk and those that take advantage of the extra time that the season provides to work “on” their business.

So, for those of you who in the second group (or those in the first group that want to be in the second group), over the next several weeks, I’ll make a series of recommendations of activities you can work now on to help grow your business.

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June 5, 2013

‘Start at the End’… a Book Review

I recently bought and read the book, Start at the End: How Companies Can Grow Bigger and Faster by Reversing their Business Plan, written by Dave Lavinsky.  On a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a 7 – pretty good.

The premise is all about crafting a business plan… but doing so by starting at end.  So, for example, rather than asking, “We’re a $2 million company now… what level can we grow to next year… and the year after that… and the year after that?,” it pushes us to ask, “What will my company look like in 10 years?  Now, how do I get there?”

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February 6, 2013

6 Simple Marketing & Sales Ideas that almost Never get implemented

In trying to build our businesses, we often get so wrapped up in working on the bigger marketing & sales initiatives (e.g. social media strategy, advertising campaigns, etc.) that sometimes, the simple little things just pass us by.  So, to help with that, here are six simple marketing & sales ideas to get you thinking in that direction:

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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.

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