According to recent research conducted by Phoenix-based demand generator Televerde what B2B sales leaders want most from their marketing departments are better messaging and more qualified leads. The report was based on a survey of 200 sales leaders who sell B2B products or services; 25% work for companies with an annual revenue of $1B or more. Following is the full run down of how sales says marketing can help their efforts: 1. Better messaging: 43% 2. More qualified leads:

The fortunes of a company and its marketing consultant are inextricably linked. This means a good marketing consultant must have the confidence and courage to deliver bad news when necessary. This consultant will tell you when: You Don’t Have a Brand: Most businesses with a weak brand recognize it, but just don’t know what to do about it. If the story isn’t compelling and different, the consultant needs to say so. The consultant brings valuable objectivity and experience to t

The End of Competitive Advantage by Rita Gunther McGrath is an excellent book. Chapter 2, Continuous Reconfiguration: Achieving Balance Between Stability and Agility, makes the point that, although organizations need to make decisions and pivot quickly in order to be successful today, there needs to be a framework in place that allows the organization to do this safely. In the past, depending on the expert, organizations were either told to create and build on a

Much of the following from Dan Ariely’s fantastic book, “Predictably Irrational.” Knowing how people price shop—especially when it comes to relatively expensive items like high performance technology—is a significant sales advantage. Following are a few proven principals of comparison. Where possible, always offer comparison products and services, but be strategic about what you compare. People tend to choose the second best option – i.e. if there are three laptops for sal

A half hour meeting that accomplishes exactly what you need is feasible. But it requires smart (not time-consuming) planning; discipline during the meeting; and a laser focus on achieving results (getting what you need in 30 minutes). The information that follows applies to meetings of 10 people or less, but not to extraordinary meetings called for extraordinary purposes. In line with this, Open AI Founder Sam Altman believes that meetings should either be 30 minu

Before you start planning any new projects, revisit last year's duds. A project that appears to be dead may be a prime candidate for revival. Make a list of projects that either you or someone else started, but never finished over the last 12 months and ask yourself these questions: · Why did we drop the project? · How far did it get? · What’s changed since we dropped that project – company objectives, the competitive environment, project personnel, technology,

Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at Wharton, authored an excellent book for anyone that wants to take advantage of everything AI has to offer in their daily work. The book is called “Co-Intelligence” and I highly recommend it. It is focused on learning to work with AI, rather than have AI do the work for you or dismiss AI altogether as too esoteric or complex. In Part I, Mollick lays out Four Rules for Working with Co-Intelligence. They are as follows: 1. Always Invit

MYTH 1: Hiring a marketing consultant is a waste of money for most startups. An experienced marketing consultant will generate interest throughout a network of channels. However, you need to make sure that you can onboard and convert whoever finds your product or service. The issue with marketing is that: when your product is not ready or you don’t have your onboarding straight, you’re going to lose prospective customers. MYTH 2: Marketing is not rocket science. It’s not har

Confirmation bias is one of the most persistent obstacles in sales and marketing. It’s the brain’s shortcut for making sense of a noisy world—favoring information that confirms what we already believe and ignoring anything that challenges it. Convenient? Yes. Accurate? Not always. As the volume of information continues to explode, confirmation bias only grows stronger. For well-established brands, this can be both a blessing and a curse. On the upside, positive pe