Browsing: marketing

The purpose of Ask Your Board is to ask common business questions that all GAWDA members might be dealing with and to see how GAWDA’s Board of Directors are dealing with these issues within their own companies. To submit a question for GAWDA’s Board Members to consider, please email [email protected]

The purpose of Ask Your Board is to ask common business questions that all GAWDA members might be dealing with and to see how GAWDA’s Board of Directors are dealing with these issues within their own companies. To submit a question for GAWDA’s Board Members to consider, please email [email protected]

The purpose of Ask Your Board is to ask common business questions that all GAWDA members might be dealing with and to see how GAWDA’s Board of Directors are dealing with these issues within their own companies. To submit a question for GAWDA’s Board Members to consider, please email [email protected]

The Customer Relationship I consult primarily with distributors with revenues of $10 million and below. This is a group that succeeds based on its ability to provide exceptional customer service along with its products. Technology has dramatically changed the way these services are delivered. The salesperson’s one-time habit of regular customer visits to catch up on personal and professional information has been replaced by online communications. With so much material available on the internet, salespeople find it difficult to add something technically significant to a sales discussion. Also, digital interactions broaden the time between sales calls, diminishing a rep’s ability…

Sales and Marketing are two very crucial business functions with symbiotic relationships where each one’s success depends on the other. And they are typically referred to in order as sales and marketing. But why not marketing and sales? There could be unconscious weighting of importance by this order. Who comes first? But let’s talk about opportunities to build reciprocal synergies for business success as we go forward with growth strategies into 2024. While the definition of sales seems obvious, a brief description on each function follows: Marketing, as defined by the American Marketing Association (AMA), involves creating, communicating, delivering and…

If you’ve spent time in the B2B world recently, you may have noticed a new trend. And I’m not talking about ChatGPT or VR, although those are important and moving quickly, too. Sales and Marketing teams are finally finding ways to become better aligned and work more closely together. It’s long overdue. With better alignment, team members can work towards the same goals and boost organizational efficiencies, ultimately leading to more closed-won business. Why Sales and Marketing Struggle to Get Along Historically, Sales and Marketing haven’t really worked well together. “We gave you leads!” exclaims Marketing. “Why can’t you close…

ChatGPT and other AI (artificial intelligence) tools represent a major game changer for business in a way comparable to the impact search engines and the internet had on business 20+ years ago. Back then, search engines and digital marketing revolutionized the way businesses gathered information, solved problems, communicated issues and capabilities, and, at the highest level, conducted business. Today, AI tools like ChatGPT can potentially transform how businesses operate in exactly the same ways. Just like 20+ years ago, this change will produce a significant number of winners and losers. It was the early adopters that gained and, for the…

Many small to medium-sized B2B companies deal with the same problem, day after day, year after year. They’ve long understood the value of marketing and its role in helping gain exposure for their brands, drive traffic to their websites, and generate leads for their sales teams.  But they often lack the financial backing to do it right.  Any good marketing program requires an investment on three primary fronts: labor, technology, and advertising.  Let’s review how SMBs can get the biggest impact from lean marketing budgets.  Vision vs. Reality What should your marketing budget be?  That’s an age-old question, but important,…

“I would prefer to work independently with little to no supervision.” “It feels like our CRM is there to look over my shoulder and track everything I am doing.” “I wish we could get rid of all these internal meetings where we discuss territory plans and do pipeline and deal reviews. I just want to focus on selling instead of being micro-managed.” Do any of these statements sound familiar? These statements are a common sentiment that managers are hearing from their salespeople. The movement in sales today – especially due to remote working over the past few years – is a…

In 1972, I graduated LeTourneau College (now LeTourneau University) with a degree in welding engineering and began working for a small manufacturing firm as part of its five-person engineering group. My fellow team members were over 40 years old, which seemed ancient to me at the time.  However, I found it rewarding to introduce them to the exciting new ideas I had learned in college, which made the experience enjoyable. Over time, I noticed I did not share the enthusiasm my colleagues had for the work we performed, and this made me anxious. Eventually I approached my manager with a…