*New as of October 2005*

Any sufficiently defined process can be evaluated with some objectiveness as to the process’ maturity or completeness. Maturity models of all sorts have been developed for almost all corporate processes and functions. It is likely that most of you evaluate, to some degree, the completeness of many of your processes, but not marketing or sales. Why is the critical marketing/sales process exempt from evaluation? Perhaps, because you don’t have a useful maturity model for marketing/sales.

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Branding is all the rage in marketing today (again). While complex, the actions a brand marketer should take to build brand value with products or services directed to the end-customer are well documented. However, a substantial number of products and services are never sold directly to the end-customer. Can marketers of these "ingredients" take advantage of brand marketing. This paper considers the various issues.

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Advertising/PR/Promotional Marketing

Mid-sized companies, working around unique business plans or technologies, are often too cash-strapped to advertise their products. They need sales to stay in business and grow, but can't afford the means to generate customer interest and sales. Advertising costs too much, and public relations firms require large monthly retainers. Here are five low cost ways mid-size companies can achieve their goals without having to drain their cash reserves.

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Properly used, public relations (PR) can be the most efficient, cost-effective marketing tool you have. But haphazard or unfocused public relations can become a great . . . and expensive . . . waste of time. Getting the most from your public relations efforts isn't' difficult. But is does demand discipline and above all, focus. When properly executed, the PR effort that goes in at the beginning will more than pay off at the end.

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Big glossy brochure. Small 2-color flyers. Data sheets. Folders. And more. You probably have stacks of them filling up a storeroom. Maybe even a warehouse. Almost everybody does. What's the purpose of all this? Well, it cost money so it must be valuable . . . right? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. The important questions are, how can you tell? And what can you do about it?

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This paper discusses a heretofore-neglected factor of any trade show that ultimately determines its level of success. The objective of this paper is to offer a process to leverage this key factor. This will increase your trade show productively and quality and will provide your company with a competitive advantage.

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Advertising is a highly effective method for spending money fast. No matter the size of your company or the size of your budget, advertising can be an expensive proposition. Done well, it returns many times its cost in bottom-line benefits. Done poorly, advertising costs much more than money.

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While the differences between direct mail, customer surveys, collateral material, and trade show presence are obvious, sometimes management makes the mistake of viewing advertising and public relations as the same thing is a misconception that can easily undo the success of your carefully planned marketing program.

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Marketing tools like adverting, sales literature, and direct mail are widely employed by all types of business across all industries. But Public and Press Relations remain an underutilized and misunderstood part of the plan. Why? There's no single answer to why companies are more comfortable with standard marketing tools . . . but, there are a number of basic misconceptions surrounding PR that contribute to its lack, or misuse. To start, there is often confusion surrounding the definition of what PR is.

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Branding

Is your brand just a name or something of value? Branding is all the rage and has been for the past several years. It has reached the point that in the year 2000 numerous dotcoms spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to create an "instant Brand." It didn't work, it won't work, and the demise of many of those same dotcoms has followed. So what is branding, and how does it apply in your market, and how can you use the tool to help your company be more successful?

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Brand loyalty: The illusive nirvana for brand marketers. How do you achieve it? Can you know it if you have it? How do you keep it? While this paper is not long enough to answer all those questions (assuming it is even possible), it does take a look at an important issue in terms of of achieving true brand value. While it may be difficult to determine if you have achieved true, valuable brand loyalty, it is not impossible. For a higher probablity of success, we suggest an alternative focus.

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Business Management

How do you make decisions? That is, what decision making process do you use? Why do novices often make "better" decisions than apparent experts? When, if ever, is outside expertise valuable? When is outside expertise likely to lead you down the wrong path? This white paper looks at useful, practical research that can help you make better decisions.

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Your business model is the component of your strategy that determines How you execute to serve your market(s). While the Internet did not "change everything," the frenetic pace of today's world and the dynamics of new distribution, sales, service, support, and manufacturing methods have rendered many business models less than optimal. This paper discusses the concept of a business model and looks at how to determine if yours needs review.

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The headlines might read, "The perfect merger." But how often do you even read or hear the word 'customer' in the PR analysts' hype? Taking liberties with a popular refrain, "What's the customer got to do with it?" Indeed. You want this marriage to last, but without customers along for the ride, it will only end in ruin.

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Why do cars with automatic transmissions include a tachometer on the dashboard? Perhaps because the space is there and needs to be filled? Or maybe because drivers think the tachometer provides valuable information. Is your business "dashboard" giving you the right information? Business can be led astray by pursuing "almost right" measures of their success. It is important to find the right numbers for assessing revenue generation. It is also important to avoid overlooking the critical impact of factors which cannot be easily reduced to simple numbers.

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The CEO or business unit manager is usually involved in customer-facing activities as part of their job. To what extent is there value in having the CEO involved in customer-facing activities? Assuming their is a value, do all of the customer-facing activities have equal value? This paper examines the critical importance of one customer-facing role and explains why the others should be abdicated.

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It's been a recognized axiom for almost a century: An enterprise's scarcest resource is its executives' time. That's still true. It's what you should spend your time on that changes as the structure of the economy changes that is critical to understand. This Management Insight paper, looks at this issue.

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Sustainable competitive advantage has always been difficult to achieve. The underlying reason is that what is a competitive advantage "today" becomes the "cost of entry" tomorrow. Companies in the bottom half are constantly playing catch-up to those in the upper half. However, leaders often believe that yesterday's advantage is still a competitive weapon when it has been reduced to a "commodity" management practice. This nothwithstanding, we submit that there is at least one area left where competitive advantage can be still be gained and cannot be outsourced.

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General Interest

How does it go? "Those who can, do. Those who can't consult." Like lawyer jokes, we have heard them all. Over the years, we have noticed everything from fear to jubilation when we, as consultants, begin working with clients. Some consultants might sap resources and charge exhorbitant fees. Some might be straightforward and call it like they see it . . . as hard as that may be for you to hear. But, for the most part, the advice and input from qualified consultants can be valuable and useful, if you take it to heart. This paper provides tips on how to get the most out of consultants you choose to use.

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Have you ever wondered about questions? Do you know someone who consistently seems to ask all the right questions . . . in just the right way? Have you noticed that these people are also marvelous conversationalists, even though you do most of the talking? What makes questions such an effective communication tool? How can you learn to use the power of questions to your advantage? This paper helps you learn.

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Innovation

For a successful enterprise, innovation is a key element that initiates and then sustains continued forward movement. It is not achieved, however, without careful thought, planning, and execution. That is, it is purposeful and intentional. Successful, consistent innovation requires its own framework, structures, and support systems. Innovation works where it is designed into an organization's modus operandi. This paper addresses some of these "innovation by design" considerations.

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Innovation is the transformation of creative ideas into tangible, practical products, services, or business practices. Those ideas can come from inside your firm, or they can be ideas that have been successfully adapted from elsewhere. The key is understanding that even the best ideas are meaningless until and unless they are actually implemented.

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Market Research/Competitive Analysis

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on market research ostensibly to help companies make better marketing decisions. Despite this effort, the vast majority of new products fail. Does that mean that you should not waste your money on market research? Perhaps it simply suggests that research alone is insufficient, or that the wrong kind of research is being attempted. This paper helps consider some of these issues.

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Focus group research is a qualitative research method designed to gather in-depth thoughts from a small discussion group of people selected from a particular segment of the population. Focus group research is properly used as a starting point in a greater research project, such as a large scale mailed survey. In this white paper, the process of focus group research is discussed. Examples of the processes and pitfalls are presented, drawn from the substantial experiences of the authors.

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Staying ahead in a volatile market means you must be more than just aware of what the competition is doing? Why and how are they doing it? Knowing this is basic good business strategy, but if you're considering expanding your product line, it's essential to success. Learning from your competition is a cost-effective method to help you succeed. And remember, if you're not learning from them, they may be learning from you.

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Marketing & Marketing Management

Can the top three executives in your company (and one should be in marketing) answer the following question: "What are your target customers buying from you that they cannot get elsewhere?" Caveat: the answer cannot be anything patented or copyrighted; and it usually isn't technology-based anyway. Knowing "What" your "Who" (target customers) are buying and "How" they want to buy it is the key to deciphering the correct answer. Read on.

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Improved marketing can solve many sales problems. Marketing presents a special problem for any company that has not yet developed a professionally staffed marketing department. This paper looks at the various marketing functions. It describes some successful approaches to determining when to add resources.

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You are usually looking to increase sales. That's why you make investments in marketing and sales activities. So how can you optimize your marketing and sales investments in any economy? How can you improve the probablity that your investments move from "gamble" to payback? This paper looks at a proven method to help you do just that.

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The effective management of marketing/sales is and has been elusive to most companies. Getting your arms around all of the issues necessary to understand what is going on in marketing/sales and how to improve performance is a continual challenge. It can be like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. That doesn't mitigate the need to manage the process; it just makes for a lot of excuses as to why it's not done well.

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Niche marketing, or market segmentation, is a technique often recommended by marketing practitioners as a method for success. Find an under-served niche and fill it. Find a segment that no one else serves and you can achieve success. What exactly is a niche or a segment? How do you know if you have one? Is there a "right" way or a "wrong" way to segment markets? Is it different if you are business-to-business versus business-to-consumer? These issues are addressed in this paper.

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In order to "think like a customer," imagine that you are the customer describing to someone your business objectives (or personal needs) and the resources you will need to achieve them. Now, back in your supplier role, isn't that the kind of information you really need for your future? Thinking and listening are prerequisites for understanding what your customer expects from you.

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Influence more buying decisions. Collect more highly qualified leads. Launch new productssuccessfully. Position each trade show as a serious sales and marketing event. These are all good reasons for enhancing your trade show efforts. To make each trade show a success, you prepare, schedule, and coordinate everything within your span of control. And when the show opens, you then learn about trade show marketing mistakes.

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Forecasting is a difficult subject to master. Over 20 years ago The Conference Board published some sage advice on forecasting, which included: "Forecast how much or when, but never both," "He who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat ground glass, " and "We're good at forecasting the past, it's the future that's hard." Sales forecasting is problematic in most companies. This paper considers a solution to improve the process.

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New Product Issues

The lifeblood of almost every company is a continual stream of successful new products or services. In truth, probably the only way out of commodity hell is new products and services. If this is true for you, you know it's true for your competitors! So, who ever produces more successful new products or services wins.

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The success rate of new products and services introduced into the marketplace is appallingly low. For some industries the failure rate exceeds 90%. While a majority success rate may not be desirable due to the tradeoffs required, there is clearly room for improvement. There is ample evidence that the problem is solvable, but it does take work. You can gain a competitive advantage by making the investment in the proven key to success discussed in this paper.

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Successful new products are required in any profitable, growing company. Time and energy is heavily invested in the development and design of your new products and services . . . but what about their entry into the marketplace. Positioning, sales channels, advertising, and PR all need to be addressed and given as much time and energy as the development and design stage to complete the new product's introduction into the marketplace.

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Process Management

Lean Thinking (formerly known as Lean Manufacturing) has been successfully applied to product manufacturing and distribution activities to lower costs and increase quality for over 15 years. Recently, companies have begun to recognize its value in other areas of the business. This same theory, with minor adaptation, can be applied to marketing/sales to increase results and lower costs. The paper builds on the Customer Manufacturing Group principles to show how Lean Thinking can be successfully applied to marketing/sales.

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Most business executives still believe that marketing/sales is an art form. You can train marketing/sales people to be better, but the really great are born to it, and hiring them is the only way to have great marketing/sales in your company. While the marketing/sales function has clung to this belief, no real improvement in marketing/sales performance has been achieved. Meanwhile, others areas of business have made huge performance gains, by applying process management principles to their practices.

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The notion of corporate processes has come under a great deal of criticism. "There's just no time to do things in the old-fashioned, step-at-a-time way in a Netspeed economy," the argument runs. "Today, instead of 'ready, aim, fire' the practice has to be 'fire, adjust, fire again.'" The very word 'process' has become suggestive of the lumbering, slothful bureaucracies of corporations that are dead or dying.

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The Theory of Constraints and its management application, Constraint Analysis, have been successfully applied to product manufacturing systems to increase throughput for more than 20 years. This same theory, with some adaptation, can be usefully applied to marketing/sales to increase throughput (the rate at which sales occur) and output (the amount of sales received). This paper builds on Customer Manufacturing Group principles to show how Constraint Theory can be successfully applied to marketing/sales.

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Sales/Sales Management

Are your sales all you would like them to be? Is your ability to manage your sales activities as good as it should be? If the answer to either of these questions is no, perhaps the cause is that you're people are "selling" rather than helping the right customers buy. This paper looks at the important distinction between selling and creating customers.

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A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology implementation is probably no the 'silver bullet' you are expecting. Too many users complain of a never-ending stream of updates, under-utilization, and a general postponement of the return on investment that you expected. It's not technology or which CRM package you choose that's the problem.

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Changing the way you think about managing your sales functions can be scary. But if what you were doing was working to your satisfaction, change would not be necessary. As the world becomes more competitive, Sales is forced to find new ways to be more efficient and effective. By applying management principles proven in other parts of your business you can dramatically improve your sales management ability and your sales results.

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The need to increase sales and lower the cost of selling has driven many previously reluctant sales managers to consider adding an inside sales function to their sales process. If you are considering adding an inside sales function to your sales process, or if you would like to improve the inside sales function you have, this paper reviews key issues for success.

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Maximizing the potential of your human resources and technology is key to increasing productivity, profits, and achieving success in your business. One of the tools available to every business is the telephone. But having this tool and using it effectively are two entirely different matters. This paper increases your awareness of the difficulties companies encounter when considering such a strategy, and how to improve your chance of implementing a successful system.

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You've decided to use manufacturer's resps as your outside sales organization. Now what? How do you go about getting the right ones? Managing independent sales reps adds another dimension of complexity to the already difficult sales management process. This paper helps you understand the key issues.

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TeamFormance

Teams that aren't performing well . . . or those being formed that won't ever perform well . . . are the victims of a mismatch of people with the project, the process, and the product. In quantifying these factors we often overlook the most complex and critical success element . . . the people who will do the work.

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