I’ve been looking at what’s going on with internet commerce these days and how folks are dealing with the explosion of websites, blogs and users. I’ve come to realize that for many practical reasons the cost of SEO (search engine optimization) has put it out of reach for many small businesses. It’s an overstatement to say that SEO is dead, but it is definitely dead as far as most small businesses are concerned. The good news is, we don’t need to do more than the basics SEO work to thrive because internet marketing has changed.
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Blogs, Communication, Marketing, Sales, SEO, Social Networks
I came across a recent article from a person who is a sales trainer (no names to avoid embarrassments and conflicts) and who seemed to have suddenly awoken to discover that consumers and businesses are no longer buying the way they used to buy. “Gosh,” I thought, “where the heck have you been?” On the other hand, the comments made the point that I and others have been making for over a year now – maybe close to two years, namely that things have changed and they aren’t coming back.
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Communication, Growing Edges, Leadership, Management, Sales
For lots of reasons, I love my work. One of the reasons is that I get to address a wide variety of challenges in a wide variety of companies and industries. Yet, while the details and personalities are different, many of the issues boil down to being pretty much the same. This week, I was revisiting the issue of an executive totally frustrated with business forecasting. He was “losing sleep” over the feeling of helplessness at missing a forecast through no fault of his organization. It was causing major stress in his life.
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Communication, Culture, Forecasting, Leadership, Management
I’ve frequently heard it said that a major reason that small businesses aren’t hiring and growing is because of all the uncertainty out there. Uncertainties like healthcare costs, healthcare legislation, funding opportunities, taxes and state budgets along with new regulations. By golly, with all that stuff not settled, what’s a poor business owner to do?
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Communication, Leadership, Management
Readers of this blog know that I have postulated that the model for high end sales has changed; accelerated away from the traditional models to a trust based model. This also applies to networking; no selling, only building a trusting relationship. A colleague questioned me recently as to why I thought this was the case. Is it really simply the economy that’s driving this change? My response that was “no, it’s more than just the economy, although the economy is certainly accelerating the change.” So what are the drivers?
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Communications, Interviews, Networking
I’ve mentioned in several posts that the world of sales (for non-commodity products) has changed. The consumption minded market is not going to return any time soon. We need to build trust, and so the title for this post. Demonstrate that you are willing to work to generate new money or save me money before you gain from our relationship. Otherwise, it smells like “BS” and I’m not buying.
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Growing Edges, Leadership, Management, Sales
Well, the President has been “jawboning” the banks to lend to small businesses. Is that really what small businesses need, more debt? Maybe, money is cheap but . . .
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Economics, Leadership, Management
If you’ve been following the posts on this blog, you will recognize the similarity between the comments I have made about the art of networking with the comments made on the sales process. The sales skill ladder has four rungs: Product Base Selling, Solution Based Selling, Consultative Selling and finally Trust Based Selling. As I’ve mentioned with respect to sales, the first three rungs are salesperson oriented. The fourth rung is truly, genuinely, authentically client focused. We have the clients best interest at heart. It’s the same for networking!
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Communication, Growing Edges, Networking, Sales
Yesterday, I got on my soapbox concerning networking etiquette and what I believe networking really is all about. And that is building trust and long term relationships. I mentioned that it is a long and difficult process. It is also highly rewarding.
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Communication, Growing Edges, Networking, Sales
I’ve managed, somehow, to develop a network of colleagues who will often refer folks to me for many different reasons; potential clients, business owners, and increasingly executives in transition. This economy has become very challenging for everyone.
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Communication, Networking, Sales
