Most businesses head into 2010 with a healthy dose of uncertainty. I like it. It’s not because I enjoy not knowing what’s coming, if the economy will double dip, or if the banks will need more TARP funds to weather the financial storm.
I like it because where there’s uncertainty there’s change. And where there’s change there are new opportunities to tackle, mountains to climb, and successes to achieve.
As I speak with leaders of professional services firms these days, the big questions looking forward are about fear, risk, and reward. Early last year fear was rampant, few were willing to risk anything, and firms were playing defense to protect their margins by tightening their belts.
“They told me I had to become a thought leader or I’d never achieve great success as a professional.” This is what a leader at a professional services firm told me recently that a marketing consultant told him.
He didn’t say this to me matter-of-factly either. He said it with a mix of fear, skepticism, sadness, and hope.
Fear. Because he can’t write and doesn’t have much “new” to say, and neither do the rest of the folks on his leadership team.
Skepticism. Because he didn’t think it was true that thought leadership was now a requirement, but he was starting to hear it so much he thought maybe the tide had turned and it now was.
Sadness. Because he liked his job selling, delivering, and managing and didn’t want to become, as he put it, a “professor type”.
Hope. Because he was hoping I’d say what he wanted me to say: that it was not true.
Giving Away Products and Services to Create Loyalty
A reporter for a major business publication asked me whether businesses that lower prices and give away free services for buyers that are struggling to “give them a break” is a good strategy for keeping them loyal when the economy turns and their financial fortunes improve. Here’s what I told him…
A few weeks ago someone said to me, “In this economy, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get ahead. It’s been nearly impossible to get new clients to sign on, and I think it will be for some time to come. My team feels flat. It’s been a huge challenge to keep them motivated. And I understand why…it’s just so hard out there.”
We talked about it. The conversation went like this:
Mike: That sounds pretty difficult, but not an uncommon story these days.
(To protect anonymity, let’s call the other person David Lee Roth.)
DLR: My team seems like they’re running at 50% energy because no matter what they do, there’s just not the return on the other end for their efforts like there used to be. Click to Read More
Imagine yourself on your best day. It seems like you’re productive before you wake up, because something happened while you were asleep to charge your batteries, clear your thoughts, and give you inspiration while you snoozed.
You wake up and nothing can stop you. The path is clear and the ideas are flowing. You settle in to work earlier than usual and start plugging away. And it all starts clicking. You accomplish one goal.
I’m always intrigued when I see what real companies are doing to build their brands, increase their revenue, and grow their firms. Here are five outcomes that stood out to me as I was reading RainToday’s latest ebook How 10 B2B Service Firms Grew Their Business in a Down Economy Using Affordable Marketing & Business Development Tactics:
An advertising agency closed $1.3 million dollars in new business with a $600 direct mail campaign and telephone follow up
An auditing firm’s monthly Pay Per Click ad campaign led to a new engagement that earned them 60 TIMES the cost of the monthly ad spend
After implementing a guerilla marketing campaign with a mix of direct mail, telephone selling, and newsletter ads, a data storage company experienced a 14.4% sales bump of revenue “in the six figures”
A consulting firm used a free ebook of repurposed content to generate 4,000 new leads and boost seminar attendance by 145%
A firm used Google AdWords to boost its web traffic by 1,000% and quadruple its sales pipeline
Here’s an excerpt from one of the cases about marketing with live seminars:
Ask a professional service provider about the difference she makes for her clients and you might just hear something like this, “I help my clients first see, and then achieve, better futures.”
If a professional says this, they’re right that the concept of creating a vision of a new future is powerful. So powerful that we have included the concept as a core part of the RAIN Selling methodology. In RAIN Selling, the “N” stands for New Reality. It’s all of our jobs—in business development as well as in our daily work with clients—to help clients conceptualize situations, problems, and possible solutions.
In my recent podcast discussion with Dan Roam, author of Back of the Napkin, we talk about the power of helping people use pictures to solve problems and sell ideas. As you listen to the podcast, you should look at these graphics. They’re helpful in following along with what Dan and I are talking about, and will help you build your be-amazing-at-the-whiteboard skills.
Every business pundit has said at one time or another, “There’s no more misunderstood, argued about topic in business than <insert topic here>, but it’s really not that complicated. Here’s the secret to understanding it.” The concept of value proposition falls into this same category.
On the one hand, it’s a pretty simple concept to grasp. But like all simple, important concepts, it takes some thinking to understand it deeply and use it to your advantage. Let’s first look at a definition of a value proposition, then we’ll look at the three major components that comprise it so you can put it to work for you…
If you’re going to cover a Barry Manilow classic you had better tread carefully. Barry may not have that much street cred with the kids anymore (if he ever did), but when he sings a song it’s smooth like buttah. When someone else sings his songs, it’s usually smooth like haggis.
The Man in the Chair ad is one such classic. First debuted in 1958, this McGraw Hill advertisement delivers a timeless message with clarity, grace, and impact. If you’re going to mess with it, you had better do it right, lest the world go all Simon Cowell on you.
I think the Business Marketing Association hit the nail on the head with their modernized rendition of the Man in the Chair at their 2009 conference. Nice job, BMA. Now, how about a little Mandy?
In this podcast, David Meerman Scott talks with Mike Schultz, President of Wellesley Hills Group and Publisher of RainToday.com, about what he calls World Wide Raves. Also the title of his book, Meerman describes World Wide Raves as online content that gets people talking, blogging, tweeting, and downloading. Listen to this podcast to learn how to create World Wide Raves around your marketing ideas so that you can become the talk of the web and ultimately generate sales for your business.
A few weeks ago someone said to me, “In this economy, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get ahead. It’s been nearly impossible to get new clients to sign on, and I think it will be for some time to come. My team feels flat. It’s been a huge challenge to keep them motivated. And I understand why…it’s just so hard out there.”
I’m always intrigued when I see what real companies are doing to build their brands, increase their revenue, and grow their firms. Here are five outcomes that stood out to me as I was reading RainToday’s latest ebook How 10 B2B Service Firms Grew Their Business in a Down Economy Using Affordable Marketing & Business Development Tactics:
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