Best Practices

B2B – Back to Basics But Better

In its heyday outbound marketing even in B2B embraced a huge list of media options. In addition to email we had: Direct mail – in regular letter, postcard and dimensional versions Voicemail Online Advertising Newspaper, Business Magazine and even Outdoor Advertising Telemarketing Radio TV While not everyone could afford all the arrows in the outbound quiver, there was …

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Bad execution means poor results

One thing that has always puzzled me in business is that once someone gets good at something, they probably stop doing it. For instance, (while its not the best practice) successful sales people are often moved up to management where they don’t do any more selling.  Great buyers get promoted so they don’t have to …

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Attn B2B Sales – Pick Up The Phone!

Are are tired of reading about how a typical B2B sale is 50 -60-70% complete before the prospect engages with a sales rep?  I am.  And that’s because that “finding”  which might be true with some mature product/service categories does not apply to what I sell. It doesn’t apply to what most of my clients …

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Stop the Summer Sales Slump

It a sure sign that summer’s here: Sun is shining, birds are chirping, kids are playing, sales are slumping (?!?!?). What was that? you say.  Sales slumping?  That’s right, 68% of businesses report a drop in sales over the summer months.  Now, I can buy that some of those businesses may actually be seasonal, but …

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Your Best Voicemail Campaign

Voicemail marketing has evolved since 2001 when I first started  working with clients to help them create successful campaigns. Honestly, I miss the way it used to be when all it took was a reasonably natural sounding message, a half decent offer and a list that wasn’t total garbage. We routinely drove double digit response …

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Expectations – A Painful Wake-Up in a Tough Market

Managing a potential customers expectations is only important if you want to make more than a single sale. Buyers beware. The company that promises more than you have a reasonable right to expect might not be looking at anything more than this month’s revenue. The biggest problem with managing expectations with integrity is that it …

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Boost Your Sales Ratios

I’ve had to cold call through too many recessions not to recognize that while it might be irreplaceable, it’s terribly inefficient. I resent how it wastes my precious time and I suspect that anyone who shares at least part of the responsibility to generate their own leads knows exactly how I feel. I’m calling into …

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The Definitive Guide to Lead Generation

I think you need to be living under a rock not to be familiar with Marketo and so I expect a great number of people will be delighted to hear that they have just released their Definitive Guide to Lead Generation. I haven’t read the entire report yet. At a hefty 160 pages that might …

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Want Renewals? Step 1- Reach Out from Customer Service

Everybody knows that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and your customer service or account management staff are brutally well aware of that simple axiom.  They deal with squeaky wheels every day, slathering on the grease until problems are solved, questions are answered, information is provided and clients are purring with satisfaction. Once the intensity …

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Better Subject Lines for More Opened Emails

As you read this message, sit back and enjoy the knowledge that some of your competitor’s event marketing budgets are simply money flushed down the drain. Why? Because no one is reading their email invitations owing to their complete failure to avoid uninspiring, unmotivating and simply badly written subject lines. But better subject lines are …

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