New 4Ps of Marketing: Part 1 of 4

In the past, the 4Ps of Marketing were most commonly defined in terms of Product, Price, Place (or Placement) and Promotion. However, a lot has changed since the original 4Ps were adopted, as a direct result of continued shifts in consumer buying habits, online shopping, social media, etc.

Randy Vaughn’s (Marketing Twins) definition for today’s marketing, “Getting people with a specific need or problem to know, like and trust you”, clearly reflects how much marketing and consumerism have changed over the years. Marketing in this new era has a lot less to do with product, price and place, and much more to do with people and other elements that influence buyer behavior to be covered in this 4-part article. Continue reading…

Are My Lips Moving … ?

Are my lips moving and no sounds coming out? That’s a question I am sure most of us have asked ourselves from time to time in attempting to communicate both verbally and in written form with our intended audience.

At times it can be hard to determine if your message is getting through all the noise, particularly when you consider that your prospects are flooded with more than 4,000 messages a day from various media sources.

So, how do you get your voice heard above the noise of the crowd? Continue reading…

Who Is Responsible for Sales?

If you are a solo entrepreneur the answer to this question is obvious – you are. However, if you’re a business owner or business leader with numerous employees and/or direct reports the answer may not be so straightforward. But it should be.

The short answer is EVERYBODY!!!

Whether you are a small business of one or a large corporation with 100,000+ employees, everybody is directly or indirectly responsible for either driving or supporting sales, regardless of their job title. Unfortunately, far too often this fact gets lost on many companies and employees alike. Continue reading…

Is FREE Still a Great Marketing Tool?

Is FREE still a great marketing and promotional tool or has it lost its luster? I have to admit, I’m on the fence on this one, and could really use some feedback from you.

Back in the “old days” it was a foregone conclusion that price = value. However, we all know market conditions have shifted drastically as a result of e-commerce and more aggressive global competition, to the extent that it is hard to recognize a good value when you see one today, particularly when shopping online. Continue reading…

Selling Beyond the Bid Process

Developing a bid response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) in the private or public sectors is time consuming, resource intensive and in most cases the end result will be a “no sale” unless you are the incumbent, or have established a strong business relationship with the decision-makers in advance.

If you did not write or help the client develop the bid requirements, your chances of winning are less than 20%. Why? Most bids, either directly or indirectly are biased toward another vendor’s products or services. Oftentimes, the incumbent plays a significant role in developing the bid specifications, or it is a bias on the part of the client’s internal team toward a particular solution that influences the bid specifications and the final outcome.

So, how do you increase your odds of winning when you are in a loss position before you even start to formulate a proposal response? The most effective way to improve your win rates in bid situations is to change the ground rules and sell beyond the bid process. Continue reading…

Doing Business the R.I.G.H.T. Way

There is only one way to do business, the right way. But, what exactly does that mean for your particular business situation?

Don Hicks, founder of the Hispanic American Business Development Group in Fort Worth, Texas http://bit.ly/10bL07 got me thinking about this topic recently when he posed the question “Would you do business with yourself?” to the group at a networking breakfast. It’s one of those great defining questions that every business owner should take time to reflect upon. Continue reading…

10 Basic Tenets of Great Companies

Is your company a “great” company today? What constitutes a great company? Are there established criteria, like the Good Housekeeping Seal, that all great companies must adhere to in order to be deemed great?

Each year Fortune magazine completes the most extensive employer survey in the corporate world and publishes its list of the “100 Best Companies To Work For”. The survey ranks the top companies in a variety of major categories including size, job growth, low turnover, no layoffs, women, diversity, etc. Continue reading…

5 Tips to Help You Sell With Purpose

Today’s selling environment is much more challenging and complex than it has been in our history. Buyer’s are highly educated, and the Internet has opened up vast reservoirs of information to the consumers and corporate decision makers to enable them to be better informed when making purchase decisions.

To be effective in selling to a more sophisticated, well educated and informed buyer, you must match or exceed the buyer’s level of knowledge of the products and services you are selling, and be able to articulate how they will directly benefit them and their organization. You have to be able to sell with purpose. Continue reading…

Improve Results in a Recovery-Based Economy

The economic indicators during the past couple of weeks have given us eternal optimist’s a glimmer of hope that the recession has finally run its course, and the worst is now behind us.

Although we should continue to proceed with caution until all signs clearly point to the north, there are some things you can do and should be doing now to improve your business results in the recovery-based economy that is ahead of us. Continue reading…