My first post of the year revealed my three words for the year: customers, content and strategy. A couple of weeks back, I shared my thoughts about customers and, today, I'm going to drill down into content. Content is at the heart of what ColorMetrix and Jim Raffel do. Content is the glue that … [Read more...]
The 2011 Plan
For me, 2010 marked a year of radical changes in the way I do business. It was in many ways a year of rebirth, learning and growing. While the learning and growing will continue in 2011, it will also be a year of solidifying positions established in 2010. In 2010, I developed an over-arching … [Read more...]
Incremental vs. Breakthrough Change
Because change is a constant, it makes sense to spend time understanding the process and harnessing how it happens, with the idea being to arrive at the best possible outcome. Sometimes methodical incremental change will make sense. At other times breakthrough change could be required to remain a … [Read more...]
Marketing 101: Trade Show and Conference Strategy
Trade shows and conferences are alive and well. Sure they shift and change just as our lives and our businesses do. Attending the correct trade shows and conferences is an excellent strategy to find new prospects and communicate with existing customers. Arrive with a plan. Sounds simple enough, but … [Read more...]
Marketing 101: Micro Campaigns Strategy
For small businesses, staying in meaningful contact with your customers regularly can be a challenge. Equally challenging is finding recurring revenue streams to smooth out business downturns when they occur. Micro campaigns address both these issues. First, a definition. A micro campaign is a … [Read more...]
Free Samples Sell Your Work
Sometimes giving a free sample of your work away now, results in more business in the future. The tricky part is recognizing the opportunities worth pursuing with this strategy. The ice cream shop. Yesterday being a hot Summer afternoon my wife and I stopped by the ice cream shop to end our day. … [Read more...]
Human Networking 2.0
In the social media community we talk about having an audience of one. I see Human Networking 2.0 as having an audience of "one at a time." Twitter is just talking and Scott Stratten reminded us of that recently, at the #unGeeked conference. I conduct myself the same way on Twitter, Facebook and … [Read more...]
Social Media Is Killing Traditional Sales
The traditional sales prospecting model is becoming increasingly ineffective over time. Five times in less than two weeks I have been solicited by voice mail message or email. Wait, by the same person! This is downright annoying. Obviously I have the tools to filter this noise out of my … [Read more...]