Posts Tagged ‘Sales and Marketing’

There are many misconceptions about what inventions and innovations are in the marketplace, but they are two very different things.  You can invent something and not do anything with it.  Think of Bell Labs which has hundreds of thousands of patented inventions.  Many of these inventions are just simply ideas and only some were great enough to be innovative where it changed the marketplace.  Or think about Leonardo da Vinci.  A great inventor who was ahead of his time, but many of his inventions simply were not practical during his lifetime.  Now look at Thomas Edison.  While he might have failed hundreds of times trying to invent the light bulb, when he perfected his invention and introduced it in to the marketplace, he created an industry.  He was an innovator.

• Innovation isn’t about being new to the marketplace.  Look at the iPod from Apple.  It wasn’t the first MP3 player in the marketplace.  They just did it right and made it simple.
• Innovation isn’t about technology.  Look at Starbucks.  They’ve created a business model around selling coffee in a comfortable environment and charging a premium.  They weren’t the first ones to sell coffee. They just created an environment that people wanted from a coffee shop and marketed in right.
• Innovation isn’t about doing it better.  Sometimes you just need to make your product simpler and more affordable.  Look at Windows from Microsoft.  They opened up a new marketplace where people could afford it and gain access to it easier.  They don’t have the best operating system in the marketplace, they just made it easier to use and made it affordable.
• Innovation doesn’t always come out of big research and development budgets.  There might be some initial research and development, but you don’t have to go broke in the process.  Look at Red Bull.  They tapped in to the youth culture in clubs and created their own viral grass roots marketing campaign and turned it in to a multi-billion dollar empire.
• Innovation doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.  You don’t have to spend a lot when you’re innovating.  You can do it very inexpensively and create a new marketplace with low overhead.  Ebay, for example, was profitable from almost day one and found a way to connect with the marketplace immediately.  Its first year revenues were modest, but it took the earning from its initial years of operation and invested it in to research and development to grow the service.

What do all of these have in common?  They’re obviously innovative products and services, but they all made an impact.  They all did something that was different in the marketplace that connected with its users.

Sometimes creating that next big thing is just simply doing it better than your competition or making it simpler.  Ideas are all around us.  Now innovate.

This article was contributed by Robert Driscoll, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Robert on Twitter at rsdriscoll.

Tagged as: active garage, active garage founders, apple, ebay, Innovation, innovation vs invention, invention, Leonardo da vinci, microsoft, Robert Driscoll, Sales and Marketing, starbucks, thomas edison

Your readiness for managing your supplier after the negotiation

by Brian Superczynski, Jul 19, 2010

Organizational needs are routinely satisfied by external vendors. Letting the vendors manage the relationship will be like the tail wagging the dog. It will lead to serious issues not limited to mushrooming cost. Vendor management includes the negotiation process before the contact is signed, having an organizational structure to manage vendors and having an mature process to monitor the lifecycle of your agreements. more…

Character and Personality #3: Orientation and Energy

by Gary Monti, Jul 20, 2010

Two major components that go into determining one’s temperament are Orientation and Energy. Orientation refers to how we prefer to interface with the outside world. The two approaches are Judging (don’t confuse with Judgmental) and Perceiving. Two possibilities for gaining energy are Extroverts and Introverts. A person can have a combination of these traits and of course these are not the only once – there is a whole slew of these. Understanding these traits will help you manage people and teams better. more…

Social Media and Tribes # 6: Changing the world is addictive

by Deepika Bajaj, Jul 21, 2010

A tribe is constituted of people who care about a specific topic or interest or looking to bring a specific change. Tribes are needed to change the world and social media has created tremendous opportunity to create and lead tribes. Read this article to understand how to gain advantage using social media and not get simply distraught by its demands. more…

Flexible Focus #11: The Principle of comprehensiveness

by William Reed, Jul 22, 2010

In this article you will find an optical illusion. As you increase your field of vision, you will be able to see more white dots. The message here is, you need the ability to see the big picture, the details and the relationships all at the same time. Mandala Chart can help us regain our bearings by seeing our business comprehensively. This will enable us see the opportunities that are never obvious, because the exist in the spaces between. more…

Author’s Journey #31: Managing and Marketing information products

by Roger Parker, Jul 23, 2010

Information products are an author’s best friend; they offer far more profit potential than authors can earn from book sales alone. Last week, Roger’s post explored the 3 main issues involved in creating profitable information products: copyright, format, and topic. This week’s post takes a look at creating a process to produce, market, and schedule information products. more….

Magesh is an accomplished software professional focused on building enterprise value through creative use of technology. Magesh enjoys working with people and is passionate about bringing out the best in everybody to achieve results that are larger than the sum of individual accomplishments.

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Communication, deepika bajaj, Entrepreneurship, gary monti, http://activegarage.com, Innovation, invincibelle, Leadership, possibilities, roger parker, Sales and Marketing, Social Media, technology, william reed, Writing for Business, www.activegarage.com

We had the opportunity to present our business offer to a potential client, whilst it was one client there were 8 delegates attending the meeting and each of those delegates represented an opportunity for future business.

I am a subscriber to the thinking that all employees are in sales; however as a project manager I never used to think of my role as having to conduct sales, yet reflecting back on it a very high proportion of the project management role was balancing the commercial interests of the company with the needs and desires of the customer.

As a project manager you constantly hear the mantra of the triple constraint being mentioned. For those of you not in the know it stipulates that for a successful project the Scope, Cost, Time(Resources) and Quality  (yes four not three axes) have to remain in balance. Any change to one of these axes will result in an impact to one or all of the others.

Since our offer is about sub contracted services it was not hard to think in terms of project management, and I then thought about how the triple constraint also applies to an effective and enticing sales pitch as basically every sale is a project.

Taking each of the axes and assessing them from a sales perspective:

• Scope – the products and services you offer
• Cost – the competitive advantage of your products, marginal utility and value to the buyer
• Time/Resources – structure of your organization and its ability to fulfill on your commitments and obligations, ability to adapt and handle changes
• Quality – what are your past accomplishments, how have you ensured that the quality will remain when taking on a new sale, your organizational structure, your organizational philosophies and practices?

Just like in a project you have to carefully balance these axes, it is vital that you do the same in managing your business. Customers are looking for good partners all the time, if you can demonstrate through your pitch that you are able to manage and deliver on these axes it provides a very compelling case for any prospect to engage with you.

You may have a superb product but if you have a poor supply chain and are prohibitively expensive you no longer have a balanced offer and you immediately become average.

Remember at all times though that you are presenting for the customers concerns, and in the marketplace average and mediocre are in abundance – there these four axes are not balanced. Just by performing these four key areas well with demonstrated success you will be differentiating your business and make any sales pitch enticing.

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book ProjectManagementTweets. You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: active garage, Business Management, Business Strategy, Guy Ralfe, Project Management, sales, Sales and Marketing

How we use words in our day-to-day life, both in our personal and professional world, are very important.  Through language, we use words to convey our thoughts and feelings.  As we communicate with others, we need to be cognizant of how others are interpreting our words to ensure our message comes across the way we intended it to and get the reaction we want.  “Partner” and “opponent” are words that can used to describe the relationship between two individuals or companies in the marketplace, but their meanings are very different.

When most of us think of the word “opponent”, we think of our competitors or rivals in the marketplace.  We think about victory and defeat or winning and losing.  In the marketplace we are constantly trying to “beat up” our opponents.  “Aggressive” is the key word here.  Very few people can handle a tough marketplace and become successful.  The strong take advantage of the weak and the majority will quit never quite realizing what they could have made of themselves or their company.

For many in today’s marketplace, the attitude is, “Only the strong survive.”  Too often though we forget to ask ourselves if the goal is really to survive or is it to grow and use the knowledge you’ve gained to evolve?  With an adversarial attitude, the only thing that grows is yours and your competitor’s ego.  You could say that a person who has a “take no enemies” approach to business and has “accomplished” a lot, when in reality they might be over-stressed and are sadly unfulfilled as they are never satisfied and want to “conquer” the next task.  Succumbing to this opponent attitude is futile as your struggle is always with yourself.

Now, think of the difference in both your personal and professional life if you shifted from an opponent or adversarial role to a partner role.  When you do this, you stop looking at life as every man for themselves and instead you look at the skills you bring to the table along with those of your partners, whether they are your colleagues at work or other companies you work with.  The environment becomes one of increasing progress versus a mindset of kill or be killed.

A great partner learns to adapt to the environment they are in and recognizes the skill level of the other people they are working with and encourages everyone to work at their greatest potential.  Pushing and challenging your partners will be just as intense as when you were looking at the marketplace as full of opponents.  The difference though, is that instead of creating an offer by yourself, you learn to partner with others to create offers in the marketplace that have marginal value and that make you unique in the marketplace.

Changing your mindset from an opponent to a partner one can help in making you a trusted advisor to your clients as you seek to create solutions that are specific to their concerns and not developing solutions that differentiate you from the competitor who is bidding on the same contract.  A partner mindset will allow you create uncommon offers without having to think about what the competition is offering.  Addressing your clients specific concerns will make them feel like they are in a win/win situation and your clients will want to return to you again and again.

This article was contributed by Robert Driscoll, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Robert on Twitter at rsdriscoll.

Tagged as: active garage, business, Business Management, Business Strategy, execution, http://activegarage.com, Leadership, management, marketing, opponent, partner, possibilities, Robert Driscoll, sales, Sales and Marketing, Strategy, www.activegarage.com

You’ve developed your customer profiles and you’ve set up a meeting with your customer with an objective and an agenda.  So, how do you identify and qualify opportunities during the meeting?

The purpose of you meeting with your customer(s) is to indentify concerns they have, create an offer that takes care of these concerns and they accept, which in turn takes care of your concerns of meeting your sales goals for your company.  To help uncover current and future opportunities, start off with open-ended questions.  Use some of these questions to help you determine your customers willingness to work with you:

• Tell me about your vision for the organization.
• What are your plans to support that vision?
• What plans have you defined for each of these goals?
• What would you like to improve in the organization?
• What opportunities do you see in your marketplace?
• What process do you go through when you make decisions like this?
• Who besides yourself will be involved in the decision-making process?

As you ask these questions, be certain to understand how every issue impacts the organization.  As you ask each question and a concern is brought up, be sure to ask one of the following open-ended questions:

• What impact will this issue have on your organization?
• How do you measure/define the impact?

As you start having these conversations, you can start seeing gaps that exist between where your customer(s) organization is today and where they want to be.  Listening to your customer(s) and paying attention to their background of listening will allow you to create offers that are specific to your customer(s) needs that help fill these gaps.  These conversations in turn allow you to open your space of possibilities with your customer(s) for creating new offers.

This article was contributed by Robert Driscoll, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Robert on Twitter at rsdriscoll.

Tagged as: active garage, business, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, execution, http://activegarage.com, Leadership, management, opportunity, possibilities, Robert Driscoll, sales, Sales and Marketing, Strategy

You’ve been trying to get a meeting with a client for quite some time now and now you have one.  Now what?  In my previous post (Developing Opportunities), I discussed what you need to do when trying to identify and develop opportunities before you meet with your customers.

In this post, I’ll discuss how when you secure a meeting with your customer, it’s important that you set the objective and create an agenda so that both you and your customer clearly understand what you will be covering and to ensure that you have the right audience.  Setting the objective will allow you to seize and maintain control of the process as well as help ensure you set the tone to effectively gather the desired information.

As you state your objective in your meeting with your customer, it is important to let your customer know that you are looking for ways to measurably impact their business.  You can continue this conversation by stating that you are looking for opportunities to help them increase their revenues, control their expenses, increase their productivity and/or efficiencies.  To help you uncover this, the next step is to go over the agenda for the meeting.

In your agenda, the last thing you should talk about is your company.  In creating your agenda, follow these steps:

• It is important first to learn as much as possible about your customers’ organization.  This will help you not only understand their concerns, but help you create the best offer to meet their business needs.
• Next, discuss the criteria they will use to determine which provider is best for their company.  Do this to ensure that you provide them with all the information they need to evaluate your offer.
• Third, discuss the process the customer will be using to make a decision and their timeframes to ensure that you bring the desired information to your customer in a timely fashion.
• Finally, talk about your company and the products/services you can offer them and how it can help address their concern.  During this part of the meeting, it will help you determine whether or not your company has an offer that can address your customers concern(s) and whether or not your company could possibly be a good long-term partner for your customer.

Today, more than ever, employers are asking more from their employees.  Remember this when meeting with your customers and be respectful of their time.  Stating a clear objective and having a defined agenda will help you keep your customer(s) focused, ensure that they have the right audience for your meeting and in turn, further help you identify opportunities.

This article was contributed by Robert Driscoll, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Robert on Twitter at rsdriscoll.

Tagged as: active garage, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, execution, http://activegarage.com, Leadership, management, objectives, possibilities, Project Management, Robert Driscoll, sales, Sales and Marketing, Strategy

On October 29^th, the US Department of Commerce stated that the US economy grew in the third quarter for the first time in over a year, signaling the end of the worst recession in over 70 years.    Even though we are “out” of the recession, do you still feel like your customers are not buying and hesitant to move forward on projects?  Do you feel more and more pressure to bring in new opportunities for your company?  Unfortunately, regardless of the economic condition of the marketplace, as salespeople, we are required to perform as our company’s success is directly tied to our individual success.

In a previous post (What I Wish I Knew More About In Sales #2: Know What To Quit), I discussed how it’s important to learn when to quit opportunities so that you can focus more time on those that have a higher probability of closing.  Following this process in today’s difficult marketplace is more important than ever as it’s more difficult today to find qualified and real opportunities, but just as important to focus more on those opportunities that are realistic. 

In today’s post, I will discuss some basic steps that you can use to develop an ideal customer profile which are the business characteristics that your organization looks for in your customers to sell your products and services and to drive them to do so now. 

In developing the ideal customer profile, go through your list of accounts and try to answer the following questions for each one:

1. What does your product/service do?
2. What do your customers do in lieu of your product or service? 
3. If they are using a competitor’s product or service, what marginal value does your product/service offer that the competitor’s does not?
4. With your product/service, how would it improve your customers’ productivity, efficiency, security, etc…?
5. What characteristics would cause your customer to have/care about your product/service?
6. Without your product/service, who in the organization is likely to benefit if they were to have it (individual contributor through CEO)?

Going through your list of customers and being able to answer these questions results in:

1. A list of information to gather to determine where we have opportunities
2. Targeted contacts who will be interested in solving the problem

The next step is to gather information about your customers.  Decision makers are not necessarily the right contacts for gathering information.  In addition to looking at any sales history you might have and any research you can gather via the internet about your customer(s), you can also gather information from secretaries, receptionists, their sales people and their customers.

Once you have answered the questions above and gathered information about your customer(s), you are now ready to sell the appointment with a targeted executive and to truly start developing your opportunities.

This article was contributed by Robert Driscoll, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Robert on Twitter at rsdriscoll.

Tagged as: active garage, business, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, developing opportunities, execution, http://activegarage.com, Leadership, management, possibilities, Robert Driscoll, sales, Sales and Marketing, Strategy, www.activegarage.com

Have you noticed how you live life and then suddenly one day you notice “something”, seemingly for the first time? Then after noticing that “something”, it seems to be hounding you – they just suddenly appear everywhere?

One of the best examples is the emergency exit sign at the movies. Amazing how an illuminated red/green sign in a dark room just goes unnoticed. Think back to the last film you watched and see if you recall  where the emergency exit was? Yes it was there, law requires it be there and clearly visible too!! You probably even left through the emergency door afterwards.

So what does this have to do with business? It occurred to me that many entrepreneurs start something that they identify as missing, flawed or incomplete. The fact that they are able to vision this means that they have a concern for this need and that is why they can notice it. This is good from the point of visioning, but it will also prove very difficult to get investors, partners and consumers interested until they too can see the need.

For big organizations they put their new products in front of us through marketing and advertising and telling us the story of the possibilities the new product will create for us. This gets it quickly adopted and widely noticed. For the entrepreneur it is a far longer and slower process. In the same way a salesman looks at his prospects and tries to convert as many to sales, the entrepreneur must maximize every interaction to ensure that the listener leaves with a clear vision of this product’s need, and the space of possibilities it will create once  in the world.

Once your listener can notice, they too will suddenly feel like they are being hounded by the opportunities for your product – and they too will then unconsciously become your speaker. This is important from a promotional point of view but more important in drawing in interested parties to build your products network.

Make sure you produce the vision every time in your listener, because that is where you will get the most powerful interaction, these listeners will see the exit signs like the fire alarm was ringing. If the listener leaves with a blurred vision, they will not notice that exit sign but take the exit!

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book ProjectManagementTweets. You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: active garage, business, business opportunity, Business Strategy, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Guy Ralfe, http://activegarage.com, investment, noticing, opportunity, possibilities, Sales and Marketing

We all agree that social media is really effective in discovering people who have similar passions. Still, being in sites like Linkedin and Facebook, where people are connecting randomly it is hard to understand the value of these relationships you are building. It is possible, there isn’t any… But we will never be able to build deep relationships without one on one interaction or meetings in person… So, here are some steps to take virtual social interactions into real world:

1) Be present in community networks

Meet people in community forums that share your common interests. This way you can build relationships with people who live close to you and so you have access to them… In case of social media, these relationships can be in different parts of the world and not be as meaningful for your work or personal interests…

2) Take your business cards to these events

Don’t underestimate the value of business cards…it is great to have blogs, twitter accounts – but there is just a simple problem – to find you in cyberspace, one needs to know your full name….what if they got the wrong spellings or wrong name. With a business card, one can always Google your name…

3) Build Relationships

Yes, you can ReTweet posts and help other elevate their profiles…Still, there is value in sharing other gifts than RTs. Try calling some people you haven’t spoken in a while…you will be surprised how much more pleasure it is to talk to people than to DM or Email.

4) Understand social

Historically, social has been associated with people meeting, talking, exchanging ideas in person. These conversations have led to many innovations, wars and even consensus…the MasterMind thoery dictates that it requires people to exchange ideas that create possibilities they could not see for themselves… Humans will always be Social Animals…Long way before we become Cyber Beasts. So, engage in brainstorming ideas in a conversation….

5) Pleasant Personality

There is a advantage if people see you as having a pleasant personality…that is never visible on social media channels. Some people put pictures that are not true to their real selves…Don’t miss out on being generous to other with your pleasant personality….This will help you surround yourself with people who might potentially become friends, business associates or life partners… So, build connections with social media but power your relationships with personal interactions…

Contributed by Deepika Bajaj, President and Founder, Invincibelle, LLC and co-founder, ActiveGarage (the company behind 99tribes). Deepika is also the author of the book DiversityTweet: Embracing the growing diversity in our world. You can follow Deepika on Twitter at invincibelle

Tagged as: active garage, Branding, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Communication, deepika bajaj, http://activegarage.com, marketing, possibilities, Sales and Marketing, Social Media, Strategy

“The same man cannot be skilled in everything; each has his special excellence.” - Euripides, 480-406 B.C.

Today, more than ever, employers are asking their employees to do more.  From a short-term cost-savings perspective, this is great for companies looking to make it through these difficult times in the marketplace.  In the long-term, companies might actually be de-motivating their employees as they feel overwhelmed.  People can be great at one or more things in their professional life, but as their employers start adding more responsibilities to their plate, they could very well just become mediocre as they are spread too thin.

It is understandable for companies to react to changes in the marketplace, whether it’s adding or removing services, consolidating or expanding departments, and so forth.  Too often though, when employers are making these decisions, they forget about their most important asset:  their employees.  A lot of companies state that their people are their best assets, yet more often than not, companies do not look at the person.  Instead, they look at the job to be done and don’t properly match their employees to jobs that optimize their strengths.

In times like this, it is more important than ever for management and their employees to work together and find out what is not only best for the company, but for their employees as well.  Management needs to engage their employees, get their feedback and put them in areas and positions within the company where they can excel and where they want to be.  Nothing demotivates an employee faster and can have a more drastic effect to top line revenues than putting them in to a position that they are not passionate about.  Instead, imagine re-focusing your greatest assets (your people) in areas where they feel they can make the biggest contributions.

In Gini Graham Scott’s book A Survival Guide for Working with Bad Bosses: Dealing with Bullies, Idiots, Back-stabbers, and Other Managers from Hell, she states:

“As they say, you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole. If your boss is like that round hole and you are that square peg, you aren’t going to fit in unless you re-shape your edges.”

For employees, while we all know that the unemployment rates is above 10% nationally and are continually reminded that there are many highly qualified individuals who would love to have your job, don’t let this bring you down.  If you have brought to your employers attention that your skills could be better utilized in another area and they ignore your request, don’t give in and become complacent.  Employers are always looking for top talent and instead of re-shaping your edges, sometimes it’s best for you to move on and find a place where your talents fit.

—

This article was contributed by Robert Driscoll, co-founder of Active Garage. You can follow Robert on Twitter at rsdriscoll.

Tagged as: active garage, Business Management, business planning, Business Strategy, Communication, execution, http://activegarage.com, Leadership, management, Robert Driscoll, sales, Sales and Marketing, Strategy