Follow Your Mother’s (marketing) Advice

As I was looking through a package of advertisements from a chamber of commerce, I was reminded of the saying "actions speak louder than words". I don’t know about you, but I was lucky enough to receive this advice 3 or 10 million times while growing...

Automate Your Lead Qualification

Last week I spoke about the importance of the importance of educating your referral sources as well as your prospects. In today’s Best-of Weekly, Marketing Sherpa has a case study (Open access until Oct. 29th) about a couple of companies who use automated e-mail...

Arm Your Volunteer Sales Force

Not getting the right kind of referrals is a common frustration for small business owners. In order to get the kind of referrals you want, you have to take the time to teach your referral sources how to spot your ideal prospect. Even though people love to give...

Strategy before Tactics

Yesterday, I saw what I thought was a good example of working with a strategic partner. I say “thought”, because on further review, it appears that the tactic of teaming with a strategic partner is not supported by any underlying marketing strategy. As I was leaving...

Do You Deserve Referrals?

While reading  Seth Godin’s small is the new big , I came across the entry The Two Obvious Secrets of Every Service Business. The "secrets" are 1) Take Responsibility and 2) Pay Attention to Detail. This reminded me of one of the obvious, but...