Staple Yourself to the Customer Experience

February 20, 2013 by 3 Comments
stapler

Today’s wakeup call was provided by Brian Solis with his new blog post “The 5 Pillars of New Media Strategy.” Brian argues convincingly that we all should stop looking for a magic formula or success recipe to guide us in our social media travails by simply arguing that it all depends on who we are [...]

Filed Under: Relationship Marketing, Social Business, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Voice of the B2B Customers’ Customers

January 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In the early 1990′s, companies started to listen more systematically to the “voice of the customer” (VOC)* after the quality movement made it clear that companies had room for improvement in this regard. Companies could more precisely identify how to provide the most value by dissecting the customers’ voice so that they could hierarchically structure and prioritize their [...]

Filed Under: B2B, Innovation, Relationship Marketing, Social Media Tagged With:

3 Keys to Social Success

January 27, 2013 by 5 Comments

There are many guidelines out there when it comes to how one can achieve success through the use of social media. To me, three core perspectives stand out as being particularly critical. Long term perspective. Without the patience to develop long-term relationships and networks, one is likely to fail. To strive for short-terms results may [...]

Filed Under: Relationship Marketing, Social Media Tagged With:

Social B2B Relationships

January 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The fact that many business-to-business (B2B) relationships are characterized by long-term norms of trust and commitment should not be news to either academics or practitioners. The value of establishing loyal partnerships between buyers and sellers to ensure consistent delivery of customer satisfaction has become increasingly evident. Such partnerships typically involve multiple people in each company [...]

Filed Under: B2B, Relationship Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain Management Tagged With:

Seth Godin says Keep Firing Your Customers

December 12, 2012 by 2 Comments
Seth Godin & Niklas Myhr on Mitch Jackson's Spreecast

I had the honor of participating in Mitch Jackson’s Spreecast with Seth Godin (segment beginning at 28:45). I took the opportunity to ask if he still supports his earlier claim from Permission Marketing that companies should fire 70% of their customers or if he has revised that notion as technology has evolved to perhaps enable more customers [...]

Filed Under: Relationship Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Rebirth of the Social Salesperson

January 9, 2012 by 12 Comments

100 years ago, the personality and the perceived character of salespeople were key determinants of success as these traits would command both liking and respect.1 However, in Arthur Miller’s 1949 play Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman complained that the sales profession was becoming “all cut and dried” and that you no longer could sell [...]

Filed Under: B2B, CRM, Relationship Marketing, Sales, Social Media

Mari Smith and The New Relationship Marketing

September 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

After Wednesday’s Back-to-School Night at our kids’ Elementary school, I made it slightly late to a very educational and entertaining Linked Orange County event with Social media superstar Mari Smith at the Hilton Hotel in Costa Mesa. In what should have been a stop on a book tour (new release date October 25), Mari eloquently [...]

Filed Under: Chapman University, Relationship Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , ,