Speak your customer’s language…

Speak the same language as your customers to avoid potentially disastrous results… Air China vs. Kennedy Ground Learn more about Customer Voice Selling at www.walkerlimited.com Share this post

Three questions to ask before hiring more sales people

I had a conversation with the CEO of an enterprise software company yesterday.  He was lamenting the fact that his sales team had missed their number for the third consecutive quarter and he was preparing to bring on incremental sales staff to rectify the problem. All too often I hear the “hire more sales people!” battle cry when sales are flat or declining, especially from CEOs who’ve...

Customers As Frenemies!

Sometimes our early customers help pave the way and, if lucky, finance the development of products/services. We have good relationships with these folks. And somewhere along the line, we ask them to provide reference calls and help us sell. Beware! While early customers are a great source of help, they can also be a huge hindrance to selling. Just as customer voice selling suggests that we ask our...

Selling Social Media to the CEO – It’s About Closing the Next Deal

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#AXs5Ju/www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/132126/ Better SM execution is very important, but driving adoption through CEO’s office is also critical. Marketing pros are doing great job of selling one another and driving SM adoption in their domain, but there is much work to be done in selling the CEO. As reported in Computerworld (http://ow.ly/tkoL)- 54% of organizations...

How to turn your customers’ voice into sales

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to present our Customer Voice Selling methodology to #Insight Venture Partners’ portfolio companies (via webinar). Slides from the webinar are attached. It provides guidance on how to translate your customers’ voice into your company’s voice to improve sales. Customer Voice Selling – Webinar Slides Let me know what you think. Share this post

Five messaging and web content pitfalls to avoid

When generating go-to-market strategies and new messaging for our clients, we typically scour the websites and collateral of our clients’ top four competitors to understand their high-level positioning, solution capabilities, benefits, differentiators, industry focus, etc. Having completed yet another of these exercises for a client recently, I’m reminded of the basic messaging and web content...

Aqua-commerce for the weekend

I took my family to Colonial Williamsburg for a long weekend. Everyone had a great time but what really hit me over the head was the speed of communication back in the 1700’s. It would take 1 to 2 years to hear back from England regarding a proposed ruling. Goods shipped from Europe traveled on average 144 days before they could be purchased. The main mode of commerce: water. Today, it’s the speed...

The Perils of Product-First Selling and the “old” sales model [Funny Video]

Check out this funny video on Product-First Selling and the “old” enterprise sales model. Look familiar to anybody? Share this post

Score: Daughter 1; Mom 0…

Ever since my daughter learned to talk, we’ve been trying to teach her about listening.  She would get so excited about what she had to say that she would talk over people, assured that everyone and anyone would be interested in what she had to say. The other day, my daughter, now a pre-teen, was telling a story and my wife interrupted to ask her a question.  My daughter said, “Can I please finish...

What movie trailers can teach us about good marketing

Have you seen a movie recently?  Do you remember why you chose that film versus all the others playing in the theater or sitting on the rental shelf at the time?  In all likelihood, it was word-of-mouth buzz or a fantastic trailer. For anyone selling a product or service, word-of-mouth marketing, on a grand scale, is the panacea.  Marketers have some control over effectuating a word-of-mouth movement,...