‘Marketing/Sales’ Archives
Unhappy Prospects and Customers – a gold mine
A client told me a story today that illustrates a principle that every business owner or manager needs to embrace and act on. Unhappy prospects or customers are an opportunity to display your real value and win a fan for life. Here is the story from the owner of a start up yoga studio in New York City. A neighborhood person began to [...]
Understanding Your Customers Comes Before “The Five P’s of Social Media”
In his posting The Five P's of Social Media--Where Do You Start? on the Fast Company site, Lon Safko writes about where to get started in social media that: "The Five P's are; Profiles, Propagate, Produce, Participate, and Progress". His discussion is worth a review. ((Thanks to Brendan McLaughlin at Westglow Technology Consulting for pointing [...]
Podcast – Increase Your Value Through Customer Perception in Professional Services
Increase customer perceived value by managing expectations, making services visible, and following up. This podcast is 12 minutes 41 seconds long. A text version is available here
Increase Your Value through Customer Perception in Professional Services
Most professional services firms, and many other companies where services are a significant component, are troubled by customers who do not perceive or understand the true value of what they are providing. They have difficulty getting customers to pay for upfront diagnostic/assessment work, concept modeling, prototype development, and so [...]
Podcast – “Price is only an issue in the absence of value”
Learn where value really comes from and how to leverage total value. This podcast is 7 minutes 21 seconds long
“Price is only an issue in the absence of value”
At a recent business meeting, Stephen Giulietti (VP Wealth Management at Smith Barney, Boston), dropped this business aphorism in the midst of a story, "Price is only an issue in the absence of value." This pithy little sentence reminded me of the continuing importance of the concept of "value". One tough part of understanding and [...]
Podcast – Hiding Innovations from Customers
"Push here to lock end" - are you hiding innovations from customers? This podcast is 3 minutes 51 seconds long. The text is available here.
Hiding Innovations from Customers
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I learned something quite startling. The age-old problem of rolls of aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and other rolled goods jumping out of the box when you are dispensing them was actually solved years ago by a clever packaging engineer. My sister-in-law, Meredith Morgan, an award winning chemistry teacher at [...]
Podcast – Don’t Bad Mouth The Competition
More reasons why the old maxim is still true: "Don't Bad Mouth The Competition". This podcast is 4 minutes 9 seconds long.
Don’t Bad Mouth The Competition
The other day I met a business person and was chatting about the marketplace for his business - plumbing actually - and found myself listening to a small scale tirade attacking several of his competitors for what he felt to be "sleazy, slipshod practices". This incident brought me back to thoughts about what I think is a proven business maxim, [...]
