Every company is looking for ways to increase revenue and decrease costs.  Unfortunately a lot of times marketing is looked at more as a line item or the executive team doesn't know what questions to ask in order to ensure they are getting the right ROI from their marketing team to increase revenue.  

Fall has officially begun, and we're deep into it already
Summer's gone with a snap of the fingers and a turn of the page of the calendar with lingering self promises that "next year, I'm going to plan my schedule better."  

Good luck on that btw...

Companies are realizing that creating content to generate leads, nurture leads and help educated buyers is an essential part of business.  The problem is they don’t know what content to write or have content and “hope” someone sees it.  Unfortunately a blog isn’t like the movie Field of Dreams and if you build it they will come.  A wise VP of Sales once told me hope isn’t a strategy.  With thousands of companies moving to platforms like Hubspot as part of their Marketing “plan” it is essential the right strategy to optimize your content and ensure that your Marketing Department isn’t just creating content but adding value by generating more leads, creating a shorter sales cycle and increasing revenue. 

This week began with a Monday front page Wall Street Journal article that started with the comment...

Walt Garrison, who was a legendary football player at Oklahoma State and the Dallas Cowboys, often provided this quote when speaking about delivering straight talk...

Recently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about two of my favorite and most interesting customers

We just finished an assignment working with Paul and Craig, two solid, heavily experienced serial entrepreneurs who have developed breakthrough technology turning really big food waste (think food prep locations for major supermarket chains, universities and prisons, for examples) into small wafers that can be used as organic fertilizers. Great technology, superb ROI and heavily experienced entrepreneur owner managers attempting to change the world due to a major problem because...

At our company, we have the privilege of being the strategy guys for a large number of customers ranging in size and shape from venture-backed tech startups to colleges to resorts to large police departments to industrial manufacturers and a wide variety of service organizations.  Add to that frothy mix of markets, a variety of business structures that range from closely held families, to municipalities, public corporations and businesses that are owned by venture and PE firms, and it all becomes a wonderfully engaging puzzle of assembling future directions and the tactical building blocks to move from here to there.

This morning BRINGS ME TO THE TOPIC OF RACE IN AMERICA.

As a professor of marketing, and a still struggling student of being a better sales professional, one thing I know is never to talk about race, religion or sex, but unfortunately, I need to to break that rule.  

Enough is enough!

I love reading Harvard Business Review's daily blogs, hints, teasers and management ideas.  The magazine articles, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but I do believe that their comments on most management issues on marketing, and, most recently, on the science of sales are both stimulating and very thought provoking.