Facebook: The Greatest CRM Platform in the World?
Ok, so it’s not exactly a fully fledged CRM system (yet) but when you compare the information you have on a client or lead in Salesforce with the information that Facebook has on the same person the difference and quality of information is mind-boggling. Not only that but Facebook permeates across the online world like [...]
Getting Past Passive
Okay, this is a bit of a rant, but here goes… I was reading this article this morning, and one sentence stood out: “Peter Drucker once said that ‘the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.’” The purpose of a business is to *create* a customer. As in actively bring to [...]
SaaS Product Marketing – Upgrade and Upsell Strategy
I think it would be hard to overemphasize the importance of upgrades and upsells in SaaS product marketing. In an industry where free trials, freemium versions, bargain basement subscription prices and simply hoping to recover customer acquisition cost with first year revenue are the norm, few things are sweeter than a customer that actually [...]
How Many Times Should You Tweet Your Blog Post?
Last September I was on a panel with Guy Kawasaki talking about Twitter. He said at the time that he Tweeted 4 times for every story that he wrote. FOUR TIMES! The exact same Tweet. I couldn’t believe it. His rationale was that he found that his audience was tuning into Twitter at several different [...]
Want to Know the Difference Between a CTO and a VP Engineering?
I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people . A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart. I don’t believe that one exists. Every team configuration is different. But I do have more insight into understanding your startup team. This time I thought I’d try and [...]
Journeymen, Mavericks & Superstars: Understanding Salespeople at Startups
Most technology startups seem to be founded by three types of people: product managers, engineers or biz dev types (MBAs and the like). Very few of them are started, in my experience, by sales people and very few early stage companies really understand sales. That’s why I started the Sales & Marketing Series and at [...]
6 Tips for Building Relationships with Journalists
File this under both Startup Adivce and Sales & Marketing Advice. I was over at Robert Scoble’s blog Sunday night reading about the “Death of the Great Startup Launch.” I’m not 100% sure that I understood his core thesis but I *think* it was that startup events such as Demo force such a zone of secrecy [...]
Social CRM – the new rules
There are changes underway across the worlds of social media marketing, social media applied inside business (what some people would call enterprise 2.0) and where these tools connect (or not) to the business processes in (Cloud based) CRM and ERP systems. Products like Salesforce are adding Chatter, and Twitter connectivity. Enterprise 2.0 tools that started [...]
Making The Most out of Sitting on Panels
Many of us in the technology, media and VC world sit on panels at lot. Many of them are painfully boring. It’s a shame since it’s such a golden opportunity for you to build awareness with your audience for who you are and what you do. And it’s a surprisingly great way to meet people [...]
Is the Cloud term an asset or just marketing hype?
A few things came together for me this week around the Cloud term. I spent time with one of my best customers discussing online accounting, what we should do to improve the product we represent in the UK, and how we should position to beat the incumbent in the small business market, Sage. But the [...]
Time is the Enemy of All Deals
This is part of my ongoing series with Startup Advice (although this also applies tightly with Raising Venture Capital) You all know this intuitively. But on a scale of ABC (always be closing) there is a wide degree of urgency that entrepreneurs show. As as I’ve said before, I believe that getting things done is [...]
The Fallacy of Channels: Startups Beware
This is part of my ongoing series on startup advice but also filed under my sales & marketing posts. No advice I give will ever apply to 100% of companies, 100% of startups or even 100% of tech startups. I just want to state that up front because while I believe that this post will [...]
In Search of the Obvious – cutting through the marketing mess
When I first tweeted that Jack Trout‘s new book “In Search of the Obvious” had arrived from Amazon, my mate @euan suggested his (excellent) blog is actually easy to find. He called it “The Obvious” because when he started writing about the application of new technology and social media in organizations, he felt that, actually, [...]
Bring on the Snake Oil Sales person and Mr Know it ALL
As a follow on to Cloud Camp Seattle, I met two particularly distasteful people, Mr. Snake Oil Salesperson and Mr. Know it ALL. Both are doing a disservice to everyone, and here is why these people should not be involved in your cloud computing project. Mr. Snake Oil Sales Person This is a huge problem [...]
The Danger of Crocodile Sales
This is part of my series on Startup Advice. When I worked in London there were a ton of Aussies. I love working with Aussies because their outlook on life seems very similar to what I grew up with in California. Pretty laid back and non-hierarchic. I also loved learning all of their sayings. My [...]
