Give a mile, take an inch
We are in an evolving age of flattened, silo-less, collaborative enterprises, where accountability for outcomes is increasingly devolved to those teams and individuals on the "front line" who carry the responsibility for implementation. Under these circumstances,...
5 reasons you lost the sale
Sales is a tough job, you win or you lose, with no middle option. Understanding those you lost is the key to improving future performance. Over 30 years of engageing with sales people, managing sales forces, and doing sales training, it seems to me there are just 5...
Reputation is a currency.
My 28 year old son recently tried to get a mobile phone on a plan, and couldn't, he did not have a credit rating. A bit unusual perhaps, but this is a young bloke who has been a self-funded student for a long time, always paid his bills, always met all his...
The cloud grows on trees
Talking about "the cloud" is common around the BBQ's I go to, (pass another beer please, the sausages need turning). However, it seems few of my verbal combatants have any idea that the cloud, is, somehow, in fact, an industrial development somewhere, creating...
SME marketing
SME's cannot afford to spend money on traditional media, and after all, it is now far from the only option, so why would they? Facebook is the first stop of most, predictable I guess with almost a billion users, but the environment is all wrong for many, as it...
Correlation or causality
Just because two things correlate, does not necessarily mean that there is cause and effect at work. Imagine you have just launched a new product backed by a great TV ad, and sales exceed forecast by a factor of 5. Obviously the ad agency is going to be delirious,...
Present or Pitch
Working with a client recently, I realised my language had changed. The word "Pitch" had been substituted for the more usual "Present" as I encouraged them to get out and engage with their markets in a very focused way to build sales, rather than taking a more...
Leveraging mobile marketing
Big Brother is watching where you are, if you have a smartphone. The GPS capabilities of the newer smartphones opens up an extraordinary Pandora's box of opportunities to market to those in immediate reach, alternatively to deluge them with SPAM, as illustrated by...
Advertising miss-step?
So, the Gruen team is down a member as Russell Howcroft moves on to take over running the ailing Channel 10. There must be a sense of irony here, he moves from career as a "Madman" moonlighting in a successful public subscription TV channel where he has pontificated...
Big data or meaningful data
"Big data" appears to be the coming cliché amongst my propeller-headed friends, as it gets cheaper to gather, store, and mine data, they are like excited 21st century versions of Oliver Twist, "more petabytes please sir"! Surely at some point diminishing returns...