In business to business markets, I am often asked which is best to focus on, advertising or personal (relationship) selling.
Before I answer the question, let’s look at what functions each perform and then draw a conclusion.
Assuming your enterprise has a direct sales force, it performs many functions such as; relationships, promoting your company, finding customers, [...]

Like everything else in this world, there are often multiple choices that can be made. Selecting a sales channel is no different. I have listed below the more popular sales channels and a very high level advantage and disadvantage of each.
Channel                                                      Chief Advantage                        Chief Disadvantage
Direct Sales Force                                  Account Control                                   Can be expensive
     If you have complex products [...]

Everyone is constantly trying ways to lower the cost of operations while at the same time generating additional revenues.  One key area of focus in today’s enterprise is the call or contact center.  Here is where your existing and potential new customers “meet” or interface with your company.  The contact center provides a channel for [...]

As a marketing consultant, it is critical that we be aware of changing trends, market disruptions and technological impacts so that we can integrate them into the potential messages, value propositions and benefits of our marketing campaigns. The 2010 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium that I attended is a good example of some of the changes [...]

 
The most common response I hear when I ask a sales person how he or she did for the quarter or the year; is something about their quota. i.e., “I made quota” or “I’m at 70% of quota, but with two big deals hanging fire.”  While quota should always be part of a performance evaluation, [...]

At different times I have heard people say, “branding, what is the big deal?” or   “Branding can not be that important.”  Along these lines people say, “hey I know that product, so why so much of a fuss about their branding activity. Branding really does not make any difference to the intended audience.”
Well, nothing could [...]

Forecasting has always intrigued me.  Whether it is predicting the stock market’s next move, betting on a horse race or if will it rain or shine  tomorrow; all have some form of tools and information to “assist” in predicting the future.
As for business, all sales executives, managers, and field sales personnel are involved with forecasting. [...]

The expression “You get what you pay for” actually has a deep and comprehensive meaning in the B2B marketing world. The following is a B2B marketer’s guide on what needs to be considered when pricing a product or service.
 1-     Understand the goals and go to market (GTM) strategy for the enterprise and /or the SBU [...]

Tactical recommendations for the CMO as we pass the first 2010 milestone.

One of the key marketing functions (for B2C or B2B) is to know your customer!
One tool to help you in the process is market segmentation (A market segment is a group of people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics that cause them to have similar product and/or service, from Wikipedia).
The following is a guide [...]