Last year I started a book club with my team where we all read and/or listen to an educational program and get together on Friday morning to discuss and look for practical applications of the ideas. One of our first books was Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount and it’s still top of mind a year later for underscoring one very …
At Boot Camp, I shared with the audience research I’d compiled on what clients want from their IT provider, based on examining the responses to a testimonial request e-mail we have our MSP clients send to THEIR best clients. I compiled and keyword-analyzed over 1,000 candid, unedited replies to those e-mails to determine the commonalities of what IT buyers – …
Too often, business owners overlook the buying power in the clients they ALREADY have and are too focused on acquiring new ones. So in this two-part series, I’m going to discuss how you can increase sales with your current clients and turn them into the clients you want. Let’s dig in… Part 1 of Coach Your MSP Clients How To …
At Rapid Implementation Workshop we cover the USP, or unique selling proposition, in detail: what it is, what it is not, how to develop it and how to use it in your sales and marketing to unseat incumbent providers, close more business and fight price sensitivity. For those unfamiliar with the concept of a USP here’s the short of it. …
Ask any salesperson to list the most difficult obstacles for them to overcome and, inevitably, price resistance will come up. However, I don’t believe most prospects are hung up on price – they’re hung up on something else and are using price as the reason why they aren’t buying, because it’s the easiest obstacle to throw your way. Any prospect …
One of the most difficult things for our members to get their head around is the USP, or unique selling proposition. Without one, you’re pushing a rope uphill, fighting price sensitivity and the high hurdle of replacing an incumbent provider who might actually be doing a decent to excellent job. YOU are an unknown entity, unproven in your abilities, thereby …
From a Harvard Business Review article, “Why CMOs NEVER Last”: Something is amiss in the relationship between chief executives and their marketing officers. Four-fifths of CEOs say they don’t trust or are unimpressed by their CMOs. Not surprisingly, CMOs have the briefest tenure in the C-suite, and their churn can mean serious internal business disruptions. The articles goes on to …
Here’s a truth many small business owners DON’T want to embrace, much less give recognition to: the more marketing media you can use simultaneously, the more money you’ll make. You’ll also be a LOT less FRAGILE and vulnerable to an economic downturn, a serious competitor, commoditization, media disruption (like what happened to fax broadcast) or other disruptions. I would encourage …
When I’m working with a client to plan their marketing action list, one of the things I always look to do is take a campaign they’re currently doing that IS working, and see how I can make it pay bigger. Unfortunately, most people don’t have this ability, simply because they never put their mind to it. For example, when you …
Of the four M’s of marketing – Market, Message, Media and Math – the one that many don’t like is the math. Marketing is, at its core, applied psychology plus math; you can get the psychology side really, really right (offers, message, USP, etc.) but totally and completely miss your mark if the numbers side of the equation doesn’t add …
