B1 Integrated Marketing

Mark Of A Great Salesman In Today’s Strange And Unprecedented Times

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There are countless theories on what it takes to be a great salesperson. When I began my career in sales back in the day, Harvard Business Review called out Empathy and Ego Drive as the most important qualities of a great salesperson. A few years later, it changed its mantra to “A good salesperson does … Read more

Corporate Gift Supplier Pivots To Technology Company

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Here’s our latest success story: Corporate Gift Supplier Pivots To Technology Company Digital Transformation Accelerates Sales Cycle And Boosts Ticket Size The customer began its journey as the supplier of corporate gifts to midsize and large companies, who used them to reward their wholesalers, distributors, dealers, retailers, and agents aka “trade” for achieving their quota … Read more

Why B2B Marketing Should Be Targeted At Company – Not Users

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We saw a spate of B2C marketers trying to get into B2B six to eight years ago. At the time, I’d shared my thoughts on how to harness emotions in B2B sales in my blog post titled Role Of Emotion In B2B Sales. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic or whatever but we’re … Read more

On The Internet, Nobody Knows You’re Not A Big Dog

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If you glance through LinkedIn, you’ll find a lot of people who claim to be big shots at the Amazons, Googles and Microsofts of the world when they’re not. Neither LinkedIn nor the companies named in these fake profiles seem to give a damn about these impersonators. Even I’m guilty of the nonchalant behavior: There … Read more

Secret Of Solving The Attribution Problem In Sales & Marketing

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Deal attribution is a chronic problem in almost all industries. Its direct fallout is the never-ending fights over credit sharing for deals between sales and marketing in B2B industries. Let me illustrate the attribution problem with the following example: You read an advertisement for a product in the newspaper at home. You forget about the … Read more

Internet Has Changed B2B Buying By 45 Percent

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There are very few topics in B2B sales that are as polarizing as the debate over how much the Internet has changed B2B buying. Some sales people say customers can find their own products and services online, everything has changed, fire B2B sales reps, blah blah blah. Some others say not a single customer has … Read more

Second Order Thinking Doesn’t Make For Good Memes

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A few years ago, I had guided my retainer customers in the digital payments space on how to address imminent threats from identity theft and cyberfraud. More in In #CashlessIndia – Why Putting Cart Before Horse Will Work. Cue to the present day. The media is full of reports on frauds in UPI payments. As … Read more

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Will – Part 2

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In Part 1 of this blog post, I had given seven examples that showed that, just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you will. In this Part 2, I will give eight more examples. 8. Millennials do everything on a mobile phone. Therefore, they will refuse to visit bank branches. Just because Millennials … Read more

Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Will – Part 1

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There’s a wide gulf between what one can do and what one will do. Can depends on ability whereas will depends on wish. The two are not always aligned. Without realizing this, many people jump to simplisitic conclusions about motives and behaviors of individuals and companies. This includes troll armies on Twitter spinning conspiracy theories … Read more

Three Reasons Why Companies Don’t Behave Like Individuals

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Since companies comprise individuals, many people believe that companies and individuals will behave in an identical manner under the same situation. I disagree. There’s a big disconnect in the behavior of individuals versus companies. I can think of at least three reasons for this disconnect: Fiduciary responsibility Market cap Emotion #1. FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY Let me … Read more