It makes sense, right? The person that makes the first offer loses? Not always. In fact, the opposite can be true. Negotiation truisms, like most truisms, started out as rules of thumb and then somehow became accepted fact. Following are 5 things you need to know about negotiations that may give you an edge. 1. It can be advantageous to make the opening offer. Here’s what the experts say. First of all, most negotiations don’t start with an offer, they start with something far more important, which is each party’s position. There is some advantage to getting the other party to reveal his position first and that’s where you should be focusing your efforts. As far as the offer goes, if you
Organizations that are using new and new-ish marketing tools effectively have mastered them. If you’re like every other person trying to keep up with the flood of new marketing options it should come as a relief to know that your greatest success is going to come through mastering 2-4 tools, rather than trying to keep up with the 20+ that you think you should be using. Very large organizations, like Target Corp., have the resources to fully leverage every marketing tool available, but the vast majority of businesses do not. In fact most of us spent a lot of time driving ourselves crazy by trying to incorporate every social, digital, direct, indirect, print/broadcast, automated, etc. tool
Google A nalytics is a highly underutilized marketing tool mainly because many people find it overwhelming and can’t even begin to figure out where to start. If so here are the 6 most important reports to review: The Dashboard: This provides a quick overview of traffic patterns, includes any auto alerts for unusual activity, and makes predictions based on current site activity. The Dashboard is succinct enough to check every day. The Map Overlay: This shows the geographic areas where site visitors are coming from. This simple to interpret, yet powerful, graphic will identify neglected locations and demonstrate the effectiveness of existing geographically targeted campaigns. Ecommerce Overvie
I’m all about efficient and effective marketing. For my own business and B2B clients, there just isn’t the time to do it any other way. Your market There are dozens of social media choices, but the big 5 are: Facebook LinkedIn Twitter YouTube Blogs What the research says A recent Hubspot report says that 5 p.m. is the most active time of day for Twitter users; noon and just after 7 p.m. are the most active times for Facebook users. The obvious implication is that people are not using Twitter and Facebook during business hours, which means that businesses are not using these tools for business. Of the Big 5, that leaves LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs. The realities Even if no one ever reads you
It’s nearly impossible to predict when an industry will mature, but when it does, it’s impossible to ignore. Here are a few hallmarks of a maturing industry, notice how many of these apply to the tech industry now: Slowed industry-wide growth and stiffer competition for market share Companies are increasingly selling to sophisticated, repeat buyers. The buyer’s choice is no longer whether to purchase the product, but rather which brand to choose. Competition shifts away from quality and toward cost and service. Capacity increases and personnel additions dwindle Basic functions such as marketing, distributing, and selling are becoming less effective. Revolutionary products are becoming rarer.
