Marketing

Executive Summary As a sales management and business development consultant, Mike Weinberg has seen too many salespeople collapse under the pressure of selling products with high price tags. Instead of creating value to justify the cost, some salespeople plead for the company to lower prices. According to Weinberg, asking for a lower price is a sign of inexperience, insecurity, and a lack of preparation. With a product that is priced above the market, a salesperson receives more opportunities to separate their company from the competition with a compelling pitch based on features, values, and benefits. A salesperson’s job security and...

Executive Summary Colleen Stanley, president of SalesLeadership, believes we are closer to our devices than we are to people and it's impacting the success of salespeople. She has some training tips for sales leaders... She argues that sales leaders need to be responsible for teaching empathy as a crucial sales skill because it leads to a better understanding of the customer and their pain points. Potential customers don't merely want to be validated. They want innovative solutions to their problems, which usually run deeper than the physical and enter the psychological. Presence is today's sales challenge and empathy is the...

Neal Schaffer For almost a decade, Neal Schaffer has been a trusted leading educator in the world of social media for business. He’s launched and managed influencer marketing campaigns on behalf of his agency clients and consulted and educated countless more. Expanding your influence on social networks, as a brand or as an individual, brings multifaceted benefits. As a brand, if you’re influential, then you’ll already be involved with the discussions and conversations that influencers are engaging in, making opening doors and forging relationships somewhat easier. The gravity of your own influence will make you attractive to potential influencers looking...

Neal Schaffer For almost a decade, Neal Schaffer has been a trusted leading educator in the world of social media for business. He’s launched and managed influencer marketing campaigns on behalf of his agency clients and consulted and educated countless more. Many businesses simply reach out to influencers with no game plan or spend their budget on influencers after being convinced to do so by their agency. There’s much more to influencer marketing than just outreach. The democratized social media space calls for different rules of engagement. Influencer marketing, in all its guises, is ultimately about human connection, relationships, and...

Most companies waste enormous amounts of money on marketing. When we see the reports, we wonder what went wrong, or worse, whether our product is really as good as we thought it was. But what if the problem wasn’t the product? What if the problem was the way we talked about the product? Why So Many Businesses Fail Without us knowing it, human beings are constantly scanning their environment (even advertising) for information that is going to help them meet their primitive need to survive. This means that when we ramble on and on about how we have the biggest...

Executive Summary Whether you’re trying to grow your business or simply share helpful information, writing a blog post is a great way to build your audience. Bestselling author, Michael Hyatt, shares the blog post template that has helped him become one of today’s top-ranked bloggers. Having a blog post template to follow can help you write more productively and accessibly. It’s easy to write about your “wins” as a leader, but your readers may actually connect more with your losses. Don’t be afraid to be open about both the ups and downs of leadership. You may be surprised at how...

Maybe you’re in denial. Or maybe you’re in full Buddy the Elf costume. But either way, the holidays are coming. It’s a busy season. It’s a noisy season. And for a lot of business leaders, it’s a critical season to make up ground we lost earlier in the year. You can’t afford to get your holiday messaging wrong this year. Right now, you may be wondering how on earth you can create campaigns that cut through the noise and truly reach customers where they are. I want to share four strategies to help you. These marketing strategies are based on...

Kindra Hall, author of Stories that Stick and host of The Back to Business Virtual Leadership Summit Since I was a little girl, I’ve been obsessed with the power of story. For a decade, my job has been to help companies craft stories that inspire people to work for them and do business with them. Since the coronavirus outbreak, those tasks have become more challenging. How do you motivate your employees to work from home while they’re raising kids, struggling with productivity, and managing new technologies? Why would customers engage with your company when the financial landscape is so uncertain?...

Executive Summary To successfully reach your target demographic, you have to understand what sets them apart, along with the formative experiences that shaped their generation. The Generation Z definition is more nuanced than you’d think. Vastly different from the generation closest in age to them, a socially conscious mindset and a deep desire for progress push them forward. Generation Z isn't just version two of millennials. For example, 9/11 was the first political sign in millennials' lives, while the election of Barack Obama put politics on the radar for Gen Z. Before marketing to Generation Z, keep in mind that...

Executive Summary The biggest gaps in business are usually between the entity and audiences ranging from investors and employees to customers and potential prospects. Kindra Hall believes, and has seen, stories work to fill those gaps. Companies including Warby Parker, Apple, and more tell a story to increase the reach of their message and improve brand perception. By focusing on the benefits of features instead of the features themselves, these powerhouse companies have connected with people on a different and primal level - both ideal to standing out from the waves of businesses entering every market. Don't worry if you...

Executive Summary Brand storytelling isn't a new concept. However, it is a challenging one. Brands continue to struggle with connecting to audiences on an emotional level. To fill gaps in business, you have to build a bridge to your audience with attention, influence, and transformation. Most brand storytelling fails when it appeals only to the rational side of individuals. Leaning on features, numbers, and facts tend to point away from the heart and towards the head. Some brands will choose the route most traveled with flashy and easy tactics that garner attention, but not much of anything else. The Steller...