Sales and Marketing

It was on-stage in San Diego where I first saw Steven Kotler. He was talking about the powerful impact of flow and his work on The Rise of Superman . I’ve been in love with flow for years, and so I dug into The Rise of Superman , interviewed Kotler  and...

On one hand I don’t expect my audience to be trying to brand a company and in that sense I expect that some of my reading on marketing is uninteresting. On the other hand, I realize that many of my readers are trying to brand intranets or are working w...

Every brand has  a story, but does every brand tell  a story? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Not every brand has a coherent enough message that it does tell a story. That’s what Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen  is o...

When I first started my career I loathed sales. I saw a used car salesman trying to take advantage of you so that he could sell one more car and get a commission. I never saw them as folks of high integrity. That was until I went to some of the sales...

Working on the new DVDs (Psychology of SharePoint Adoption and Engagement , Nine Keys to SharePoint Success ) and the SharePoint Tutor  (SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide Corporate Edition) I’ve gotten quite curious about how demand is created and how some p...

It’s hard to think of something that’s more practical than duct tape. Whether you’re a fan of the TV show MythBusters  or you’ve got your own stories about what you’ve been able to do with duct tape, you know it’s pretty amazing stuff. Duct Tape Marketing...

It’s been several years ago now. I had a technology client that was a marketing firm. In a conversation with the president, we were talking about getting responses to an advertising campaign. He said to me, “I can guarantee you a number of responses, I j...

I don’t have a huge marketing budget. In some sense I don’t really have a marketing budget at all. That means that when I do marketing I’ve got to do it guerrilla style. I can’t fight the British in organized straight lines, I’ve got to use guerrilla...

Everyone dreams of it. Sell some product on the internet. Make a million (or a few million) dollars, and retire to some Caribbean island – or, in the case of Jeff Walker, Durango, CO. However, how can you do that? Launch: An Internet Millionaire’s Secr...

Over the years I’ve launched a few products. Rarely have I moved from idea to implementation in less than 90 days. I tend to allow things to find their own flow. The Shepherd’s Guide  initially took over 6 months to get done. In publishing terms that’...

The world is changing.  That’s no news flash.  The real question is how is it changing and what do those changes mean for you?  One of the changes is a gradual migration away from runaway hits, blockbusters, and phenomena.  Instead lower cost to store...

It’s sat in the backlog for a while now.  Read but not written.  Pondered but not shared.  Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step StoryBrand Guide for Any Business was recommended by a marketing consultant I was working with.  I appreciated the promi...

When I blogged about Software that Sells: A Practical Guide to Developing and Marketing Your Software Project  I commented that there wasn’t much information that was in the book that I didn’t already know.  The guide was really very light on details.  Micro-ISV: From Vis...

David Meerman Scott shares his view of how the rules have changed in The New Rules of Marketing and PR .  There’s a subtitle longer than your arm that seems to include every possible keyword that anyone who is doing marketing might be looking for – I...

Any publicity is good publicity isn't true; however, often, publicity can be good publicity. In Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage , David Meerman Scott walks you through the process of...

I’m not a fan of competition. Some folks are energized by it. Some folks live for that particular challenge. Not me. I want to go do something new. I want to climb a new hill. I don’t want to see if I can climb this particular hill faster than someone els...

If my experience with The SharePoint Shepherd’s Guide  has taught me one thing, it has taught me that marketing is far more important in today’s world than having a great product. It doesn’t make any difference whether you’ve got a good product or even a...

Who wants to know how to grow pumpkins?  The answer is a handful of people, but that’s not really what The Pumpkin Plan is about.  It’s about an approach to your business that follows the pattern of the $500-per-seed great pumpkin growers.  The book w...

Who do you sell to when you sell? Do you sell to the person that you’re able to reach or to the right person? Do you start your sales process knowing who you’re ultimately going to have to convince? If you do, then why don’t you start there and have ...

Do you know why you don’t see a lot of negative reviews of anything in magazines?  The answer is simple.  Why print something that is negative when you can just as easily print something positive?  Well, the beauty of a blog is that I can post something nega...

In This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See , Seth Godin builds on his other writing and tries to explain marketing today. When it comes to marketing, he is about as popular as it gets. His writing spans decades, and he’s worked with...

Years ago I owned a sports car. It was a Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4. Over 300 horsepower of twin-turbo-charged fun. It had one unique characteristic not found in most sports cars of the time. It was all-wheel drive. Why in the heck would you make a sports...

Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” That’s the heart of what Seth Godin is talking about with Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us . Tribes...