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Posts Tagged ‘Sales and Marketing’
Monday, May 24th, 2010
“It’s the small daily brush strokes that create the painting, no matter how large the canvas.”
That’s the quote that I continue to remind myself of as I work with our Marketing intern Alessandra. Bringing a new person into a company takes time, commitment and planning - but not everything can happen at once - so…one brush stroke at a time.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the need with new employees - with every employee actually - to be clear about expectations. Now we’re working on the next part of the canvas.
So what are three Key steps to creating an “engaged employee”:
1) Making her my priority - Too often new hires aren’t given the time that they need with their hiring manager. I’ve worked hard to clear my own schedule since she came on board - at least a 1/2 day a week - more at the beginning to have the meetings and answer the questions that all new employees have.
Spending time with her each week is one of my top 5 priorities each week. And touching base at least once a day - even if it’s just a quick email - when we don’t meet. Not necessarily easy - but absolutely necessary if I want to get the most from my investment!
2) Helping her to clarify her priorities - I’ve only got Alessandra for 20 hours every week. She’s naturally organized - something that I looked for when I hired her - so I asked her to come up with monthly goals and priorities (which we reviewed) and then we’re breaking them down by week.
The benefit of this to me? She’s staying focused and on track and knows what she needs to do even if she gets ahead. Last week she got done everything that she was supposed to do in two weeks in one week - so we came up with another list! Very cool!
3) Asking her what she’s learning - and having her document it too! This is a Gallup question by the way that will help you to measure the level of employee engagement in your company.
“In the last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?” And there’s another one too about having someone at work who encourages an employee’s development.
Have your employees set learning goals for themselves and debrief with them about what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown. And if you have them document the information, you have a ready-made training manual for the next person who comes along!
Intrigued?
If you’d like to meet Alessandra, she’ll be at our next “Dining with the CEO” event on June 8th with Philadelphia University President and Jiffy Lube co-Founder Steve Spinelli! Plan on coming and I’ll introduce you! Click here for more info and to register!
Hope to see you there!
Tags: Awesome Experience, Business Coaching, Enlightened Executives, Entrepreneurial Excellence, Leadership, Sales and Marketing
Posted in Enlightened Executives, Entrepreneurial Excellence, General, Leadership, Marketing | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
 Well I’m back from the Fortune Sales and Marketing Summit in Vegas and ready to get to work applying the concepts that we were exposed to last week!
But I’m not doing it alone. My marketing analyst started this week - Alessandra - a co-op student from Drexel. Took a bit of time to find her and was certainly an investment to go thru the hiring process but I’m excited to have the help - and another pair of hands.
Since many of you have been asking - I’ll be sharing what we’re doing over the next few months including what she’s working on and what we’re finding is helping us to create an efficient, standardized marketing process.
I’ll also be sharing with you how I found her and what you should look for in your marketing people.
In the meantime, a few tips from Brian Halligan, CEO and Founder of Hubspot and author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs:
1) Hire marketing people using the following acronym - D - a Digital Citizen , A - Analytical mind, R - Reach (with an “electronic” rolodex) and C - Content Creator.
2) Organize your marketing department into 3 Groups - Get Found, Convert, Analyze.
3) Assess your Inbound Marketing mojo by running your company through www.websitegrader.com (free tool) and find out whether your website makes the grade!
More to come…stay tuned!
And if you’d like to hear how other successful entrepreneurs have grown their businesses, plan on coming on June 8th to our next Un-Marketing Event featuring Stephen Spinelli, founder of Jiffy Lube and now the President of Philadelphia University.
For more info or to register, click here.
Tags: Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Entrepreneurial Excellence, Generating Revenues, Sales and Marketing, Social Media
Posted in Business Improvement, Entrepreneurial Excellence, General, Marketing, Strategy | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 16th, 2010
Well I’ve taken some time off from blogging to recover from our March 9th event with Kevin Daum. His ROAR book is finally out! (I know that some of you have already purchased it and are applying the concepts so Congrats! And good marketing!)
For those of you who signed up early for that event, your copies are on their way. For those of you who didn’t, you can get a copy by clicking here.
For those of you in the Philly area, you can still see Kevin this weekend at the Go Green Expo on Saturday.
And - if you’d like to take a gander at the Sales and Marketing Summit, there’s a webcast of Tom Sant’s keynote on Wednesday, April 21st from 4 to 6pm Eastern Time. He’s the author of Persuasive Business Proposals, Language of Success and The Giants of Sales. Here’s the link to sign up! (Courtesy of Verne Harnish…)
Will let you know how the conference goes, what I learn and what’s up with us for the rest of 2010 which I get back!
Tags: Enlightened Executives, Leadership, Marketing, Sales and Marketing
Posted in Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, General, Leadership, Marketing, Sales | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
 Well, it’s been a big two weeks. We finalized our value prop for CEO Think Tank® and had a sell out crowd at our Growth Strategies Breakfast on March 9th. It was definitely an “Awesome Experience“!
But now that we’ve got the message, we’ve got to get it out to the marketplace - using the next step in Kevin Daum’s process - Intentional Marketing - a phrase I’d never heard before.
And, to understand what intentional marketing is, according to Kevin, you first need to understand the difference between sales and marketing.
Kevin defines “sales” as the pure, direct person-to-person process of how a sales person transacts business with a customer.
Marketing - on the other hand - is the application of efficiency tools to the sales process to help it scale. The tools, according to Kevin, can be strategic stuff like market research and segmentation OR tactical such as designing a website or creating collateral.
The trick? You’ve got to have forethought! That’s the first step in Intentional Marketing. And that means considering the 105 Questions that will be answered in your sales process - either by design or default.
Here’s just a sample to consider in all of your marketing strategies and tactics for how you’re Generating Leads:
* What are the attractive emotions?
* What are the attractive aesthetics?
* Where can buyers be found?
* What will pique their interests?
* What is the recognizable pain we can identify?
* Where do buyers congregate?
* What is the best opening line?
* What is the identifiable fear component?
* What is the identifiable greed component?
* What are the identifiable logic components?
There’s more of course…check out the website if you’re curious - - or, if you want to use the process that Kevin recommends to get your message heard.
I’ll be talking more about what we’re doing as we continue thru the year and what we’re learning. In the meantime, drop me a line and let me know if you’re applying these concepts in your business - and what results you’re getting!
Tags: Business Coaching, Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Executive Roundtables, Marketing, Sales and Marketing
Posted in Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Marketing, Sales, Strategy | 3 Comments »
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
 Well I did it! Made the time last week and crafted our revised Value Prop - finally. Clarified the Pain We Solve and what the Best Solution is to solve that pain…but most importantly defined what made us the Best Solution Provider. Kevin Daum helped me to scribe in a few short bullet points how what we do and how we do it separates us from everyone else and…assisted me to answer the question: ”What do we do that others don’t?”
So what did I learn in this process? Or re-learn as the case may be?
# 1: How incredibly important getting information from your customers, prospects and others in the market place is - including people who aren’t in your space at all. And the latter are often the most critical to talk with bringing in the fresh and new ideas - like Dave Griffith of the Modern Group did for me. Dave’s question? How could we make our membership criteria more selective and therefore add more value to our Think Tank Groups for our members? (Great question - more to come on that one…)
# 2: A reminder that creating a strategy is certainly not rocket science but it’s not always easy - and definitely takes work. And - in the end it’s just good solid business fundamentals - the kind we often say are common sense, but just not common practice!
And # 3: The value that outside coaching brings when you’re going thru this process. It really helped to have Kevin involved with us. I especially appreciated his perspective as a marketeer and a successful Inc 500 entrepreneur. He’s got his own unique value prop as well!
So come next Tuesday to our Growth Strategies Breakfast and meet him as well as the other Enlightened Executives who are part of our community. We’ll be talking with Kevin about our own process as well as having him share his expertise so that you too can learn to create your own Compelling Message in 2010!
See you then!
And let me know your thoughts on this process and how it’s helped - or hasn’t helped you in your business. A special thanks too to Heather Chandler of Seal Strip for some of her feedback in the last few weeks!
Tags: Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Leadership, Sales and Marketing
Posted in Enlightened Executives, General, Marketing, Sales, Strategy | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
So you  know that I”ve been telling you how Kevin Daum is helping us to prepare for our March 9th “Un-Marketing Event”, and working with us to create our Compelling Message over the last few weeks.
But who is this guy that I’ve been writing about and why all the hype? Why do we think that with all of the meetings and conferences and seminars that are out there you should come and hear Kevin?
With 3000 distractions a day, how will your message get heard? According to Chet Holmes, author of Creating the Ultimate Sales Machine, the average person in the U.S is exposed to 3000 messages a day. Yes, that’s right. 3000. So how will Kevin help you ensure that you get your message heard…?
Well… here’s three things you might consider…
1) As the National Columnist for Smart Business Magazine, Kevin Daum is inspiring people to get above the noise by pursuing the Awesome Experience. He brings real-world Inc 500 CEO experience to help you create a compelling message for your company.
2) Promoting your business can and should be fun. You can tell from Kevin’s ROAR! video that he lives his message of creating the convergence of Need, Entertainment and The Unexpected.
3) His book is exactly what we as business leaders need right now to get our sales and marketing on track. No need to take my word for it. You can download the first 2 chapters that explain how to develop your own Value Proposition - using the same format that I’ve been sharing with you these last few weeks.
Oh - and it’s a fun read as well.
So make a plan, bring a friend, come on March 9th! And stay tuned for more on my own journey to get our message heard…
Tags: Awesome Experience, Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Leadership, Marketing, Sales and Marketing, Strategy
Posted in Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, General, Leadership, Marketing, Sales | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
That’s the question what I’ve been trying to answer as I’ve been on my own journey to develop a Compelling Message for CEO Think Tank and refine the value prop of what we do for our members as well as our prospects.
And - after spending the last few weeks talking to over two dozen CEO’s and business owners of small to mid-size companies, some patterns are definitely emerging. Things that we do well and want to continue to do as well as things that we need to start doing and do more of in 2010.
(Remember: this is the work that you should be doing in your own businesses - on a regular basis.) It doesn’t suit anyone to sit on their laurels for long. The market is always changing and to stay ahead - you’ve got to be talking with people…
So what have we found?
What’s the biggest pain that we solve for CEO’s and executives of growing firms?
Helping them to find answers to the question “What do I do NOW that I’ve got this problem”- whatever this problem is for the moment. (You never run out of problems when you’re trying to grow a business after all.)
The second pain that we’ve helped them with?
Pointing out the potholes that they’re going to run into…or could run into as they grow. “I want to know what I don’t know,” one of our CEO members said to me. “I know a lot but it’s what I don’t know that’s going to get me into trouble down the line. ”
How are we helping them to solve these pains?
By giving them a braintrust of other smart, enlightened executives who are traveling the same road - and in many cases have been there and done that - and - teaching them how to grow smartly. We give them proven frameworks and tools and access to resources and experts - things that they otherwise wouldn’t know about or would take them valuable time - something no on seems to have nowadays to find.
How are we unique?
Because of our own experiences working with hundreds of small and mid-size businesses - and because we’re entrepreneurs too - we’re working to grow our business and using the same tools and techniques. As one CEO said, “You guys know stuff. And it’s not just theory!”
So where we need to spend more time and do things differently?
Helping them to prioritize and focus - even more so than we’ve done in the past. And even though we’re sometimes known as a major pain in the you-know-what with our clients, they also asked us to do an even better job of holding them accountable to what they said they were going to do and noodging them along when they’re not delivering.
Why this shift? More so now than ever before, I’m hearing people in the business community talking about not having time to do all the things that they need to do. And they need help and guidance to:
* Sort through all of the items that they could be focusing on,
* Make the right decisions about what to focus on and
* Have a plan (and make the time) to get their priorities done.
So that’s what we’re going to help them do….along with a whole lot more.
We’ve been successful in the past and helped our members to grow and survive - but the work never stops.
So what about you? Who are you talking to? What are you learning about your market and your customers? And what will you do differently in 2010?
Let me know…and come on March 9th if you want to learn more!
BTW, the first 25 people to register will get a free copy of Kevin Daum’s new book: ROAR: Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle!
Tags: Awesome Experience, Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Executive Roundtables, Getting ready for 2010, Sales and Marketing
Posted in Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, General, Leadership, Marketing, Sales, Strategy | 2 Comments »
Monday, January 25th, 2010
In our work with Kevin Daum to create a “Compelling Message”, Kevin shared with us that there’s two critical pieces to attracting, retaining and growing your customers.
The first I shared with you in my last blog - the need to gather information from current customers, potential customers and competitors, figure out their challenges and pain and how we either help them - or don’t help them - to overcome those issues.
The second is to tie what you glean from those conversations to your offerings - in this case - our “Un-Marketing” events. We’ve been doing them for several years now, bringing together fantastic speakers and accomplished CEO’s and business people to learn and network. It’s been wonderful to have people like Judy Wicks of the White Dog Cafe, Dave Griffith of Modern Group and Verne Harnish of Gazelles come and talk with us - and we’ve gotten high marks from attendees too for putting on great events!
But Kevin challenged us a few weeks ago. He wasn’t going to let us rest on our laurels and asked some hard questions:
1) How could we provide even more value to our attendees? (There’s a lot of competition for people’s time right now…how do we make coming to our events “a must” attend versus a maybe?)
2) How could we double our attendance?
3) How could we reach people who hadn’t heard of us before?
4) How could we leverage the event to attract great prospects for membership? and…
5) How could we use our events to create an Awesome Experience for our members and clients? (the reason we started doing them in the first place…)
The answer??? Leverage our network of course - and tap into the power of Social Media. So - that’s what I’ve been doing the past week or so -
* posting our Events on Linked In, starting discussions (thanks to Kim Levin of Teknuko for her help navigating the LinkedIn world!) and asking colleagues to publish the event to their networks,
* asking our members and advisors who are “tweeting” - people like The Emperor of Fun Dave Raymond of Raymond Entertainment and Phil Jaurique of Sabre Systems - for their help to get the word out to their Twitter communities…
* using our affiliations with the Mid-Atlantic Employers’ Association and the Greater Reading Chamber of Commerce so that they can reach out to their member companies and…
* getting assistance from Jennifer Cohen of the MAC Alliance - they have a great website where you can post all sorts of information and events!
And that’s just the beginning…if I’ve piqued your interest - stay tuned - let your networks know about March 9th and what they could learn - and - sign up!
Tags: Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Executive Roundtables, Marketing, Sales and Marketing, Social Media
Posted in Enlightened Executives, General, Marketing, Sales, Strategy | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 18th, 2010
 Last week I told you about my mission for the next few months - to find out what our clients and members really value about what we do - so that we can decide what we need to keep doing, start doing and stop doing to help them be successful in the year ahead.
When Doug Diamond and I sat down a few weeks ago at the Barnes and Noble at Penn with Kevin Daum, the speaker at our upcoming “Un-Marketing” event on March 9th, he inundated us with information.
His three step process?
1) Create a Compelling Message (and a Value Proposition that truly differentiates you from your competition)
2) Apply Intentional Marketing to a clearly defined sales process that will allow you to scale for growth and
3) Provide Memorable Delivery to your prospects so that you stay “top of mind”.
Where to start? Well, as we teach our clients in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, we need to gather information - from our current members and clients, our competitors and our potential customers.
So that’s what I’ve been doing - meeting and talking with clients and members and finding out:
1) What problems we solve for them?
2) Where do we add value?
3) What problems we don’t solve?
4) How do we perform better than our competitors?
5) What do our competitors offer that we don’t?
And the answers? Some things I knew…but there have been a few surprises. It never ceases to amaze me what I learn when I ask!
More on that next week…but in the meantime, with whom have you been talking? What’s the market telling you???
Let me know!
And come on March 9th if you want to learn more…
Tags: Enlightened Executives, Sales and Marketing, Strategy
Posted in Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, General, Marketing, Sales, Strategy | No Comments »
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
“The best leaders don’t always know the answers. But they are really good at coming up with the right questions.”
So said Jim Collins earlier this week at the Fortune Small Business Conference in Dallas.
Here’s three sets of questions for you to consider as you think forward to 2010. Questions that you should be asking your key constituents: your customers, your employees and yourself and your management team…
1) For your key customers - and pick a few that are your most demanding - What have they valued most about your products, services and relationship this year? What’s the one thing that they would have you change or do differently going forward to make things even better?
2) For your employees - What’s the best form of recognition or reward they’ve gotten from you or someone else in the company over the past year? What’s one thing that you’ve done which has de-motivated them? What’s the number one improvement they would make to the business to drive revenue, improve service to your clients and increase your bottom-line?
3) For yourself as the leader and your management team - If we were our competition, how would we beat us in the market? Where are our vulnerabilites? What cracks exist in our strategy that we need to fix or eliminate?
And if you don’t like some of the answers that you get to these questions, give us a phone call or drop us a line. We’d love to help you to get answers that re-ignite your business - and set you up for success.
Tags: Business Improvement, Enlightened Executives, Generating Revenues, Getting ready for 2010, Leadership, Sales and Marketing
Posted in Business Improvement, General, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy | No Comments »
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