Thoughts for the Week

  1. So You're Building Awareness, But Of What? 7/29/2024

    I’ve lost count of the companies who have told me the objective of their marketing campaigns is to build awareness. Using “awareness” to describe marketing is as inevitable as the US female gymnastics team having a group hug after Simone Biles’ floor routine. But my question is always, awareness of what? 

  2. Bridging The Gap Between Ordinary And Extraordinary! 7/1/2024

    My old friend Steve Warnstadt recently shared something with me that was extraordinary. Steve and I served together in the Army over three decades ago. He is one of those guys who can offer philosophical-level logic under the most chaotic circumstances, like combat. His observations often had a calming effect when things were anything but. When Steve shares his thoughts, I listen!

  3. Conducting Failure Analysis Before The Failure 6/25/2024

    Sales Nobel laureate, Nicholas Read is a great advocate of conducting a failure analysis before the failure occurs. What does that mean for sales?

  4. I'd Like Several Thousand MQLs On An ABM Platter With A Side Of Social Media Please! 6/17/2024

    Does your B2B media buying strategy sound like you’re ordering food from a restaurant when you’re not sure what you want, and the menu is filled with confusing jargon. You’re not alone!

  5. Using Optimism To Help Achieve Your Goals! 6/7/2024

    Long before Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Schiffrin, there was Billy Kidd. Billy, along with teammate Jimmie Heuga, were the first Americans to ever win Olympic medals in alpine skiing. Billy Kidd loves skiing, and he has a contagiously optimistic spirit. But passion and optimism alone weren’t enough to win championships and earn legendary status.

  6. Are You Suffering From Happy Ears Syndrome? 6/3/2024

    Happy ears syndrome is the tendency to only hear what we want to hear. It is often associated with salespeople but all of us can be inflicted with this problem much to the detriment of ourselves and our organizations.

  7. Connecting Target Audience, Messaging, And Outcomes: Lessons Learned From A Military Deployment! 5/28/2024

    In the mid-1990s I found myself in Kuwait, a common deployment destination at that time. It was neither my first nor last time there, but it was the only time serving as an Army public affairs officer. It wasn’t something I had much experience with and the learning curve was steep.

  8. Is Your B2B Sales Follow-Up Just All About The Benjamins? 5/10/2024

    Digital content marketing delivers an abundance of actionable data on buyers that is built on a common foundation of information that boils down to a person who has engaged with a piece of marketing content. It you're on your game, it includes the person’s name, where they work, their title, geographic location, the content they accessed, and their contact information. And therein lies the problem. Sales teams, and marketers too, fixate on the contact information like a heat-seeking missile.

  9. Becoming A More Empathetic Listener 4/29/2024

    B2B sales experts regularly speak of empathy as an important trait for B2B sales professionals, perhaps the most important trait. It is the gateway for sellers to build meaningful trust with prospects and customers. There are tons of information, tips, and best practices on how to project empathy, but they miss the point. Our goal as B2B salespeople is to be empathetic, not just display.

  10. Pushing A B2B Buyer Through A Funnel With Product And Service Explanations Doesn't Result In Sales! 4/22/2024

    Yes, you read that right. B2B solution providers, and me for many years, spoke about pushing prospects through a sales funnel with persuading messages about our products and services. But that doesn’t work. Sure, sales will come in, but this creates a false understanding of how buyers make purchasing decisions, and we end up with a false sense of confidence in our own persuasive skills.