Want great marketing results, get out of your own way!

Rule 1 in Getting Marketing Results!

Get Out Of Your Own Way...

Exponential Sales Growth

When it comes to change especially for critical growth, it always amazes me how many companies decide to do it themselves. I literally see this every single day. When speaking with someone who finally "gets it" they decide it will be easy to just implement what they have learned on their own. ​

Hiring Interns to Lead Sales Growth? ... Really...

Intern Lost In a New Strange Place called Marketing In The Real World... Where do I go and what do I do?

This is usually done by hiring an intern or two who can institute all the changes they need by simply following their experience-based project plan. Worse, they may assign their team to do it, and they will be the lead. Not even going to question the project plan itself which of course is a blueprint for frustration

Marketing Status Quo To Exponential Sales Success 

Pinching Pennies and not opening your eyes to future proofing your business leads to disaster...

Back when, "information technology", was a new position in many organizations it was not uncommon for someone's cousin or neighbor's kid to be hired because he or she seemed pretty good at setting up stereos and they had finished a technical course of some kind. The same thing happened with websites when they first became a must have. Invariably someone had a relative who knew some programming and could quickly cobble together a website that was "good enough" and definitely much cheaper!

Invariably in both cases they needed to bring in outside help and paid considerably more than they needed to because of the time lost and the damage done. We all know companies and friends who resemble this comment. ​

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Developing a Successful Social Business Culture

"Excited Employee Business Culture Expands Your Share of Voice and Builds a Happy Successful Brand" - Rick Rea

Well, you know what they say, you get what you pay for...except in the case of learning customer behavior, the cost is potentially catastrophic.

Becoming an active online social organization is not about your website, your social channels, your community events or even whether or not you have some content. It's about something much more difficult, your companies’ culture and behavioral habits.

Culture as we all know is the most difficult thing to change and it has to start at the top. Right from the get-go most companies fail as they immediately delegate the project to others they think are up to the task. Invariably people will follow and do what their peers do, so if your organization brings in an intern or begins down the DIY path, you know it's not going to end well.

What's interesting with the social or online culture is that it all starts with the behavior of our customers and in fact, ourselves. That's the irony as while we talk about the customer journey and how they come to know of our products or services, it's easier to realize that we too are someone's customers. How did we become someone’s customers? That’s the path to understand first. You see, people are not as hard wired for brands as in the past, today people buy from people or as advised by people.

This may have happened based on the customer reviews, but the point remains the same, the reviews made or lost the sale not the brand.

In fact, the very behavior we all follow is exactly what our customers follow as well. Once we get our teams to understand this and realign our systems accordingly, the rest as they say is straight forward. This is not to say that it's easy because it's not, but like all cultural changes once the new steps become habits your well on your way forward. ​

Making The Right ROI Marketing Decision 

When decision makers utilize employee advocacy to build their brand socially testimonials prove higher sales results and a better culture.

All of this sounds easy except for one small thing, YOU AND YOUR TEAMS ARE ALREADY CRAZY BUSY! In fact, as you roll out your plan in your next meeting, they are already saying to themselves that they don't have the time. So, what to do.

Firstly, the moment you understand that you don't know what you don't know, realize, that's just the start. You may be doing some of the important things that come with a complete and active social plan for your organization, but you may also be missing the key elements that ultimately make it all work.

One of the best examples today are CRM's which litter the landscape like so much wasted plastic and just as toxic. So many companies buy that splashy CRM before they do the process work and well this is a train wreck waiting to happen. I know of companies who go one step further, not only buying one train wreck but then blaming the CRM and buying another!!

Yes, there is a process to be followed and yes sticking to the process will net positive results. The problem is not the process it's the people, they don't get it...yet. Until they do you are either going to end up doing this full time yourself or the project will reach an untimely death at which time, you'll end up bringing in experts to start all over again.

So, let me end by congratulating you on now realizing what needs to be done while not necessarily knowing how.

Now for the hard part, admitting that you neither as yet have the expertise or the time to roll this out on your own. Further, to expect your team or an intern do what you don't know how too, is well, going to make you wish you had read this article first!!

Written by:

Thomas Ross

LinkedIn