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Subject Areas
- Breakthrough Sales Performance
Breakthrough performance comes from managing better, not just hiring talented players. - The Enterprise Sales Model
You know there's something odd going on when Computer Associates is running TV ads making fun of pushy sales reps. - Sales Productivity
Having problems selling your product? - Telesales: The Linchpin
Sales is like a nuclear reactor: it doesn't matter how much uranium ore you have, power plants just won't work without enriched fuel. - International Expansion
"It's a small world... but I wouldn't want to have to paint it." - What's the Source of Your Business?
Problems with the revenue business process come from a clash of theory and reality. - Customer Behavior
"In the factory, we make hypo-allergenic pigments. In the stores, we sell hope." - No More Stores
Destiny is the right word here... - Monetizing Open Source
The right thing to do depends on where you start... and where you need to go. - Open Source Sales Models
"The best technology loses out to commercial advantages" - OOBE for Your Company
The Out of Box Experience
Trust
The power of authentic stories in a low-trust world.- Leads 2.0
Quality (2.0) Vs. Cost (1.0) - Lead Generation
"These are the new leads, the Glengarry leads. To you they're gold... but you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. The Glengarry leads are for closers." - Branding
"What's in a name? That which we call a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet" - Advertising
Half the money we spend on advertising is wasted. The only trouble is, I don't know which half. - Hype
Since the dawn of the information age, the media has portrayed computers as being capable of evil, mayhem, murder, and even world domination. - Content
If you sell software, documents, services, or any kind of access to intellectual property, you're selling content: this issue is for you. - Customer Synchronicity
Timing isn't magic, and it's not an accident. - The Revenue Engine
Firing on all cylinders? The revenue engine is very dependent on timing and sequence. Time for a tune up. - Market Timing
Nothing is more tragic than a product that is ahead of its time - Broken
Nope, I'm not talking about the haunting song by Seether... - Idiot Marketing Tactics
"Strategy is for amateurs. Logistics is for professionals." - Creating a Community
This three-part series will discuss creating and harvesting a customer community around your company - Maintaining a Community
Community-based marketing is really the only economical way to achieve market education, build credibility, and establish grass-roots visibility - Monetizing a Community
Now it's time to start to make some money. - You've Got Mail!
Email is a critical marketing tool, but is only effective when done correctly. - Social Media Metrics
TV and print media were perfect for propaganda, but they just don't work for social networks. - Social Media Metrics (Continued)
Measuring the 3 R's: Relevance, Reputation, and Referencability
- Target Markets
It's easy to make fun of sales teams caught in the "ready-fire-aim" trap. - Segmentation
"Give them any color they want, as long as it's black" - The Voice of Effective Marketing
Marketing is all about the creation, cultivation, and orchestration of relevant content. - Product Strategy
"... New Shimmer... for the greatest shine you've ever tasted." - Duh-mand
Demand is like electricity: it's powerful, quick moving, and essential to any business. - Positioning
Golf Players are like Execs... - Pricing
Adam Smith and Milton Friedman didn't give profitable advice about pricing. - Pricing and Licensing
"Step right up...just 2 dollars...the Large Print giveth and the Small Print taketh away...
just one dollar...step right up!" - What's Old is New Again
It's about product design. - Quality vs Schedule
"Quality is free" -- W. Edwards Deming, 1968 - Avoiding the Big Bang
No, we're not talking Creation Science here. - Security
Playing off emotional issues can mean real results. - We Interrupt This Broadcast...
Now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast... - The Wisdom of Crowds
Don't read this book by its title. - Idiot Strategy
Today's Haiku: What if the biggest "Marketing Problems" were not Marketing Problems? - Marketing Fallacies
The symptoms of product strategy problems. - Is it Really a Product?
New is not necessarily New. - The 10hex Commandments
Written on Giant Stone Tablets using <document.engrave>
- The Life of a Lead
Nobody will ever write the biography of a Lead - The Irony of Time
I've never found a sales department that complained about having too many leads - The Privacy Thing
No, we're not talking Private Parts here - Sales Force Automation, the Forecast, and other Fantasies
"Everything I need to know to make this quarter's number is in this black book" - Marketing to Idiots
Sometimes, you have to market to people who don't care the way you do -
The Idiot Marketing Awards
Practical studies in Idiocracy - Market Influence
Does Pyramid Power Still Work? - When There's No More Print
It's not ink, it's bits - When There's No More Stores
Companies who think they will be more innovative with TQM or Six Sigma are in for a surprise. - OCD Anyone?
As an executive, how do you strike a balance to get the leverage you need without blowing it though tiny slip-ups in the Marketing process? - Blogs are the next email
"Life...is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" - Best Practices
Greatest hits from a number of marketing departments over the last decade - It's Always an Election Year
Systematically listening to your customers and prospects
- Marketing Budgets
"A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Marketing Scalability
Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle can do things in the market that nobody else can duplicate -
Outsourcing
The Big Elephant on the Table that nobody talking about is, in this case, an Indian elephant - 10 Dirty Secrets
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Marketing Best Practices
A Smörgåsbord from early articles - Punctuation Marks
Marketing is actually more effective when there are fluctuations, discontinuities - Control vs Effectiveness
Abundance = choice = freedom. Scarcity = dependency = control - Where did all the Marketeers go?
Long time passing... - No Weenies
It's been obvious for 20 years that you want plenty of nerds in your high-tech company... - Spies Like Us
Your best source of upsells may come from way outside your marketing and sales groups - When Innovation Goes Backwards
We in high tech have a misplaced belief in relentless progress - Constraint-Based Management
"Don't constrain yourself to marketing what engineering says they know how to build..." - Don't Ask / Don't Tell
If you can get people focused on the wrong question, it doesn't matter what answers they come up with. - The Dead
Who cares whether they were really that good: their fan loyalty is an unparalleled achievement in popular music - The Ownership Society
Does Marketing just own the logo and the tag line? - The Only Question that Matters
Sort of like, "What would Jesus do?" except in this case we'll have no problem with the money-changers
- When Marketing Means Stock Valuation
"In the short run, the stock market is a voting machine...but over the long term, it's a weighing machine." - Identity Crisis
An identity crisis is no more fun in business than it was during your adolescence. - What You Should Learn from iPod Marketing
Welcome to Apple in 1999. - Superpowers
You need to leverage these guys if you want to stay relevant to the market. - The Urge to Merge
"A surprising number of small and midsize software companies survived the downturn. Not all of them should have." - VCs
Thoughts from the Capitol of Venture Capital - The SFA
Maturity Model™
What's your organization's state of readiness for world-class SFA and CRM? - The Six-Sigma Journey to Oblivion
Companies who think they will be more innovative with TQM or Six Sigma are in for a surprise. - Hamster-ware
Hardware? Software? Vaporware? Hamster-ware! - Market Power
How do you get market power? How do you amplify it? How do you keep it? - Priorities
If you're a fan of decision science -- and who isn't -- you believe that a company's competitive situation is a result of superior decisions. - Strategic Planning
"We don't have a strategy. What we have is a series of very quickly executed tactics."
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