Correct, sales and marketing alignment is not important if you have cash to burn, you can afford to miss your sales goals and you want to make your customer acquisition costs unecessarily high.

It is estimated the misalignment of sales and marketing costs the US Fortune 100 $225 Billion annually, while small to mid-size business executives can no longer turn a blind eye to the alignment of sales and marketing. The process for lead conversion, lead nurturing and sales execution need to be seamless as any interruption in this sequence can have severe penalties. Whereas, the next competitor from anywhere in the world is only a "Google" query away. 

People buy differently than they used to. We can’t continue “shouting” at consumers and think they’re going the listen...they won’t. Today’s consumer has power. They have caller ID, they have voice mail, they can fast forward commercials, and they have many other tools that allow them to ignore the many messages being “shouted” at them.

Power has shifted to the buyer and the buying process has been democratized. Consumers decide what they want to listen to. In case you’re not paying attention, The Game Has Changed small business owners and CEOs. The expectation of the customer is that we empower them to choose us, so empower them to find you wherever they look (hint: 86% of people go to the Internet as part of their buying process [hint, hint: If you don’t think Sr. Executives are going there, think about their direct reports they send to do research for them, they go there]). Furthermore, customers expect a dialogs and not monologue.

 

Since marketing is no longer about campaigns and more about creating and empowering a dialogs with the customer, alignment wiht the customer is mission critical.

Unless you have money to burn, sales and marketing must be aligned and inbound marketing enables this to happen.

 We can help your sales team attract new customers.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

So...the day starts at the butt crack of dawn 3:45AM. The typical life of a small business owner. Trying to get billing done, invoice, study my craft and prep for a prospective new client meeting before 9AM.

I shower and cruise to Starbucks, but the address in my GPS led me to a warehouse where Starbucks apparently used to be. I happend to catch a glance of a Caribou Coffee out of the corner of my eye and head there as my back up. (What is sad is this use to be my first choice before they went public).

I plow through a few emails and decide to take a break to grab an oatmeal. I place my order for oatmeal and I get a "what type?"  I reply, "What do you mean what type?" The Barista looks at me with a blank stare...Good question, I know we have a lot of choices.  Aaargh!

While this young woman was very kind to cure my illiteracy and read my twelve choices off the menu, I was sadly reminded why my once favorite place is now last on my list behind Starbucks, Dunn Brothers and a local hole in the wall.  

So here is the lesson for small business owners in the context of my blog, Epoch.

Don't Follow, Lead. If you do follow, blow the competition out of the water!

Caribou has 500 stores and Starbucks has 9,000! Caribou Coffee is so much smaller and nimbler, it should have been the company to offer coffee in a packet you can take on the road. Or, being an outdoorsy coffee shop, their food selections should resemble those items that take you back to where the Caribou hang. For example, I would offer a breakfast sandwich called a Crystal Creek Sunrise Scramble, inspired by some customers trip they had camping at Crystal Creek in the Tetons. If you are going to follow, make sure you are clearly better than the competition. Note, more is not better. If I was running Caribou Coffee I would have hired someone to create an out of this world gourmet oatmeal, instead of the undercooked crap from a packet I'm eating right now. This would be more consistent with their attempt at "fresh baked" pastries in the store.  

One more non-coffee example: iPods were not the first to market, but they clearly were superior to any media player on the market when they hit.

Build a Community. Human beings buy stuff, not demographics.

I use to feel like the folks at Caribou Coffee were my buds. When I went into the Caribou this morning at 5:30AM, there was no one but me there. I did not get a greeting from the two people that saw me walk in.  

I will go one step further and say that if you go to the corporate Website, there are no invitations to follow them on Twitter, Facebook or the like.  Once again, this suff is free, and social media is the easiest way to stay dialed in on the market and your brand. 

I would totally leverage inbound marketing to keep a pulse and inspire my community to help shape my offerings.

Be Authentic and Avoid the Mushy Middle. Mediocre is a Horrible Aspiration!

Starbucks always has been a kind corporate, sleek refined more upscalish coffee shop. Whereas Caribou is a rough and tumble back country type of experience. However, you would never know this other than the little bits and pieces of Caribou and rustic stuff in their decor. Being a kayaker, backcountry camper Caribou used to be the place where I could go to escape with my buds. Now they are a toned down chain trying to appeal to the masses and not doing very well, based on their financial performance.

To summarize, authenticity, the ability to innovate on a dime and create an intimate community is the biggest game changer small business owners and CEOs have.  I'm certain if Caribou would embrace these truths they would post stronger financial earnings and they would again become my first choice.

 

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

 

The scene is coach Herb Brooks talking about what it will take the Russians at the olympics. As a marketing strategy and sales execution guy for small business, I think we have much to learn from Herb.  

 It is my hope all entrepreneurs and small business owners walk away with these lessons from the video clip:

• The best sales professionals in the world work best when they have a sound marketing approach and sales structure they operate within. Organizations put too much on the individual and overlook the critical management structure that needs to be in place for individual sales professionals to win.

• It may be necessary to change the way you market your services to generate leads. You may also need to make drastic changes to your sales approach. These changes may require you to train harder, move faster, be more creative and leverage the team.
• You need to have a plan and work the plan.
• Be willing to change.
  
• Don't depend too much on one individual person's talent.
• Have a lofty goal to work towards.

Entrepreneurs and business owners that keep these principles will find executing their sales approach to be more effective.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

As a marketing strategy and sales execution consultant to business owners and small businesses, I see it all; the good, the bad and the ugly.

While I know first hand about the hard road of entrepreneurship, I'm most surprised at how quickly my clients develop an aversion to skinning their knees on sales and marketing plans. All too often they try something once and then if they don't get a result they just stop trying. 

I'm telling you I have some wicked scars on my legs that you can only earn my trying to jump the railroad tracks. I never cleared them until I completely bailed(on more than one occasion) by pushing my 10 year old self beyond the limit. While the skinned knee hurt like heck, I lived to tell tale.  After my wipe outs, I knew exactly what it took to clear the tracks and I had the skinned knee to prove it.

If you are a small business that wants to increase sales fast, you need to develop a marketing plan with a skinned knee.

Here are some great tips for getting started skinning your knee today:

1.) Go talk to your top customers and ask them what they like least about your product or service offering.  If this is too freaky, invite them to play and Innovation Game (www.innovationgames.com).

2.) Try blogging on a regular basis about something meaningful and invite a few customers to read your blog.  Some of this 21st century stuff is not all bad or a waste of time.

3.) Build your own jumps out of whatever you can find.   Figure out how to be resourceful and get the sale and marketing idea done.

4.) Shadow a competitor and to see what they might teach you about you small businesses marketing plan and opportunities for improvement.

5.) Take a look at a sale or marketing idea you said would never work for your business and try it.

 

If you need help skinning your knee give me a shout!

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

In my small business sales and marketing consulting practice, I never cease to be amazed at how many awesome small business owners can't find the words to articulate the amazing things they do. This is too bad since you only get one chance for a good first impression.

Recently I met a small business owner who introduced me to 15 Second Pitch wizard.

This pitch wizard was not created by my small business consulting firm, but it rocks and every small business and owner should check it out!

You will be blown away at how your small business will garner more attention for your product or service by having a stronger pitch.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Naked Selling is a class is dedicated to owners and professionals that sell. Our goal is to strip away all the fluff that surronds most sales trainging classes and provide a learning environment that is straight forward and fun.

All of our classes are powered by Innovation Games (www.innovationgames.com), so you can be certain this will be a training experience unlike any you have experienced.

Course Over View:

Basically, most people dread the notion of selling and most owners and business professionals are passionate about things other than selling. Naked Selling desinged to provide nothing but the bare necesseties, helping owners & professionals be more effective at selling and to make it as much fun as it can be.

Class Style:

We cross-pollinate our classes with individuals from a variety of industries and encourage a lot of interaction. This high energy, diverse environment creates really cool synergies between the participants. Additionally, we use Innovation games to help take the edge off the fact that you are in a sales training class.

Key Learnings:

Selling Sucks: Learn about the myths of selling that contribute to so many people dreading it.

I Hear Voices: We will examine how what you believe can take away from how you sell.

Throw Yourself Under The Bus: In depth examination of how to create refferals, network and avoid the dreaded cold call.

You Don't Matter & Neither Does Your Product: Exploring the art of figuring out what people really want by collaborating with the customer instead of pushing your wares upon them.

The Devil Is the Detailz: Detailed discussion abou how to build the right solution for prospective consumers of your service.

Barakology:How to rock out presentations/proposal and get prospective buyers to take action

It's All About the "O": How to negotiate agreements where everyone wins.

 

Deliverables:

Opportunity to interact with other professionals.

Learnings that should take the sting out of selling and help you win more deals more consitently

Myndology not taking system

Naked Selling T-Shirt

Action Packed Half Day of Sales Training

Exposure to one of the hottest market research systems in the world (Innovation Games)

Who Should Attend:

Any professional service provider

Owners that sell

They person that got sucked into selling because no one else in the company wants to do it.

Accountants, Lawyers, Architects and all service professionals

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

9:53 AM

So there are no easy answers to today’s economic problems. With that said there are a myriad of ways out of the problem and opportunities to grow. This post is about the importance of having a business that is able to re-think, re-engineer and re-tool so you can increase sales in an economic downturn.

It’s an awesome sunny day and I hop in my old car (it’s a 2005) and fly off to the Apple Store to pick up a new case for my laptop. I arrive at the mall seven minutes early. It’s 9:53AM and there are about 10 people milling around the door, 2 men and the rest were women.

As I walked up you could tell a few of the folks were hurried. I on the other hand I was content that I had arrived seven minutes early and welcomed the short break from the hustle and bustle of being a business owner, husband and proud papa of 3 girls.

My attention turned to the three women who found a common bond in their iPhone. Being the proud papa of two iPhones, one MacBook, one MacBook Pro, one iMac and and a Mac Mini; it pains me to make the following admission; they were all having trouble with their iPhones. Here is the punch line of this blog. Two of the three women had the new 3G and the other one had the first version that she sheepishly referred to as the “old one”.

Get out! Since when did one year become the end of a product life cycle? All the businesses I consult for are still using flyers that are 5 years or more old and the product mix has changed so little that they can actually pull this off. Other than the printed materials being dated, their products or services have changed very little.

So what am I trying to say, change, change fast, change often or die. There is a reason Google has nearly three times the number of searches when compared to Yahoo who is second; Apple maintains 70% market-share of the iPod market and commands more profit per machine than any other computer manufacturer. Moreover, if you look at any other organization or individual that is number one, change and evolution is part of their DNA. Tiger Woods is clearly the best golfer, when he walks off the course, he shifts his attention from competition to figuring out how he can be better.

Exercise Room:

If clients lined up at your door from one year ago:
1.) Would they see any improvements in your service or product offering?
2.) Are there any product or service changes in your product or service pipeline that could be rolled out within a year?
3.) Do you have the mechanisms or individuals within your team that can drive change that positively affects sales results?

Call us to ask how we can help and check out Bob Kriegel to learn more about the importance of being change ready.

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

According to the NIST, eight out of ten businesses are looking for ways to increase sales and grow their business. Please keep reading to uncover one of the greatest tools I have come across this year to help your company increase sales.

This is my hypothesis, genius does not drive product and service breakthroughs, they are driven by tapping into the mind of the consumer. In turn, small busineesses that are dialed into the mind of the consumer will be on the cutting edge of creating breakthrough products and services.

Luke Hohmann, author of Innovation Games has uncovered the next generation of product and service development. Essentially, he has developed a system that allows you to collaborate with clients to drive innovations and breakthroughs. Innovation Games is a proven qualitative market research technique, designed to answer specific questions.

There are two particular aspects of the Innovation Games model that stand out:

First, it is built on the platform of collaborative play with customers. Traditionally, small businesses and owners send out surveys and assemble advisory boards to gain feedback from consumers. The Innovation Games model would have these same small businesses and owners interact with clients trying to answer specific questions using games. Additionally, Innovation Games puts the control in the hands of the consumers leaving ample room for product and service breakthroughs to evolve.

Second, is the aspect of multidimensional communication; not everyone learns or communicates in the same way. Innovation Games creates a variety of mediums for customers to communicate. I can't think of the last time I filled out a survey, however, if you ask me what is wrong or how I would improve something, get ready to sit down and take notes.

Going back to my original hypothesis, consumers control the throttle on innovations and breakthroughs. The myth of product or service geniuses is simply untrue. The genius is the ability to dial into the consumers mind, extract what is in their head, and build a product around it. Steve Jobs' genius is not the iPod; it is his ability to dial into the customers mind.

If you are a business owner or small business and want to increase sales, read Innovation Games and start working with customers to drive innovations and breakthroughs.

EXERCISE ROOM

How frequently are you interacting with clients to drive product or service enhancements?

When was the last time you revised your products or service offering?

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

As I stated in my initial posting, all of my observations and writings are birthed from consulting laboratory, and this subject is no exception.

“In so many companies there is this Us-Them mentality between sales and marketing and operations. “You have the people who sell the product, and you have everyone else. The communication channel is very tough to keep open between the two groups. There’s a great divide that is often magnified by misperceptions.”

“For example, one of my clients has a Director of Operations that was perceived as being cold and harsh and unyielding by sales. She got peeved if reports weren’t turned in on time or if policies were sidestepped. She was high on Deliberative talents, meaning she liked to plan ahead, she was vigilant, and she always tried to anticipate potential minefields and avoid them. Seen in the right light, those are great traits for the person who is responsible for getting the customer the right product in the right timeframe and at the right price.”

From the perspective of the Director, the sales people were soft, always wanting to bend the rules and make exceptions. To her, they were disrespectful about her requirements and deadlines and rules. “Again, viewed in another light, you could see that many of those sales folks were high on Empathy talents”. “They’re able to see things through the eyes of the client, they anticipate needs, they draw clients into deeper relationships with the company.”

“Sales are dialed into what the client needs. Operations are a master of delivering quality and creating a profit. Having a common language about how individuals on each side of the divide help achieve the ultimate goal is very beneficial. It shifts perception and bridges the gap between the two functions.”

Utilizing The Strengths Finder 2.0 is a practical approach to aligning teams, departments and organizations.

We have a link under the resources tab of our website. Feel free to visit www.focus2grow.com

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.

Dave Kurlan is someone who I believe has perfected the science of building and maintaining a high performance sales organization. A smile often comes across my face when folks begin to talk about all of the things they believe make a good professional organization. Generally they could not be further from the truth; please consider a professional evaluation of your sales force if your top line is a priority in 2008.

• 2008 Dave Kurlan*
  This post on the Blog at IDC said the the number one agenda item for CEO's in 2008 is sales. With a weakening, uncertain economy, that shouldn't really surprise anyone but thanks to the researchers at IDC, now we can confirm it. With CEO's now beginning to worry about the top line in addition to their existing concerns about the bottom line, I predict that we'll see a lot of fringe, underachieving, complacent, overpaid (paid as salespeople but actually performing work of an account manager) salespeople losing their jobs this year.

The question is are those descriptions conditions or symptoms? That's the very reason for evaluating the sales force - so you can tell the difference. Are the conditions described above chronic, where those salespeople won't change or improve; or are there reasons why they exhibit those symptons (not conditions) and can they be fixed? A Sales Force Evaluation will answer those questions and more!

Focus To Grow is a SMarketing company, providing inbound marketing and sales execution services for b2b companies.