As a lover of politics and technology (and a little bit of mayhem), I don’t think there’s been a better time than the one we are in right now. The American presidential campaigns are proving quite raucous, giving voters lots of entertainment and a fair share of trepidation. Meanwhile, the tech world is producing its …
Rubio on Rails: My Experience with the Apple Genius Bar and Going Off Message Read More »
Running Sales For the past year and a half, I have been the executive vice president of both sales and marketing for a great company called Pixability in Cambridge. It’s not great because we have amazing technology (though we do) and passionate people (got that, too); it’s great because we consistently help our customers achieve …
I met with Francois Gossieaux, co-founder and President of Human 1.0, to discuss elements of his book The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media. Human 1.0 is a customer strategy firm that helps companies innovate business programs, practices and organizational culture to realize the benefits of social media and Web 2.0. Francois and …
The Hyper-Social Organization meets Contemporary Marketing Read More »
The Value Proposition Challenge I love great salespeople. They know their customers’ business needs; they know their products; and – most importantly – they know how to link the two together. And there’s one more: they actively and positively engage marketing. One of the best sales professionals I know is Sean Harris, someone whom I’ve …
2 Quick, Powerful Fixes To Marketing That Don’t Involve Social Media Read More »
I’m starting to wonder whether an old house is a metaphor for business. Strike the “old” – maybe any house is a metaphor for business. How so? If you ignore it, you’ll pay dearly. No matter how much you plan, something will go wrong. Many people you hire, no matter how much background checking you …
There’s always a sense of excitement when we drive into a town and find a vibrant and diverse community filled with people and beautiful, occupied storefronts. Too frequently, though, we find the opposite: no people and empty, decrepit storefronts. We then comment, “Geez, this town has seen better days.” And we drive right through, unlikely …
There is great pizza and mediocre pizza. It’s that black and white – or should we say red and white? It should come as no surprise that there is a whole lot more mediocre pizza than there is great pizza. We’ll drive an hour for a great pizza, tell people about it, and keep going …
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I exclaimed while leading a marketing team on a walk-through of an existing marketing automation system. “The lead nurturing content is wrong, and the landing pages don’t align with the message.” “Where’s the documentation and the process for this?” I asked. “We don’t have any. A consultant did it.” …
Product Launch. Mention that to any savvy marketing person and you’ll likely get an interesting reaction that reflects a blend of euphoria and post traumatic stress disorder. As contemporary marketers, we do many things during the regular season – positioning, branding, demand generation, etc. – but we live for the post season when we bring …
My parents, like most, always had a repertoire of sayings that they used to keep their wayward children moving in the right direction. My father used to frequently say: “Tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.” My mother had a similar one: “You are who you hang out with.” …
