How to Respond — and Not Respond — to Your Customers

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Technology is a great enabler when it works. We can accomplish more with good technology than we can without it. However, when the manufacturers of technology think they have a better way and try to force it upon the rest of us, the rest of us have a way of responding that is not always good for sellers of technology.

I had the opportunity, recently, to review some new technology that I use a lot in my business. There are good and not-so-good features pertaining to each, which I will share with you in this article. I welcome your comments.… Read the rest

YouTube — Marketing in the Age of Now and Wow!

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Bam! Wham! Kersplat! Did you hear that cacophony of noise? It is the shotgun fire and the falling of the old way of marketing. That old way of marketing is dead — or on the resuscitator and gasping for its last breath.

Relationship marketing is what rules today. If you still think you can win the hearts and minds of people by shoving a bunch of stuff at them, you belong back in the 1950s with black-and-white television. Welcome to the new way of marketing where Consumer Generated Marketing (CGM) is the way to do it.

YouTube is an example … Read the rest

Social Networking for Business Profit

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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve heard about social networking as it applies to technology. And since I’m focused on relationship marketing and how to build communities, this has been a subject of particular interest to me.

Much of what has been done with many networks has emphasized the signing-up part with little practical business value. Everyone wants everyone else to sign up and “friend” each other. However, nothing much happens in most cases after you’ve signed up and have been “friended.” It reminds me of the off-line model of going to a Chamber of Commerce meeting where … Read the rest

Tips to Ensure the Health of Your Computer

Chip Reaves, national director of Australia-based Computer Troubleshooters, maintains that whether we are part of a small business, a multinational, or are just trying to find a recipe online at home, we spend just as much time fixing “issues” and “conflicts” on our computers as we do working on them. For the home user this is merely an inconvenience, but to a business it can add up to tens of thousands of dollars lost to decreased productivity or repairs.

Although the mere thought of trying to “fix” a computer would cause a cold sweat to break out in most people, … Read the rest

Developing a Sustainable Competitive Advantage

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“Life is tough. Life is tougher when you’re stupid.” — John Wayne

Well, the Duke said it right, even if it is a bit rough. Life can be very tough. It’s not that “they” are out to get you. Frankly, “they” don’t care about you. Others are interested in their own problems and life. However, if you get in their way, they will do whatever is necessary to see that they succeed.

Relationship marketing encompasses key principles for success, that work. These principles embody helping others meet their needs. That is how true success happens. When you can help others … Read the rest

Business Tools for Your Office

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Earlier this year, while in attendance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I found some particularly useful business tools amidst all the consumer gadgets that you can use to increase your competitive advantage in business. You’ll be able to read about them here and, through the wonders of technology, watch some videos of them as well — but more on that later.

DYMO File to Organize Your Office

If your office is like that of most small businesses, you probably have a lot of paper that needs to be organized. Even with the much-touted “paperless office” talk of … Read the rest

Mind‑Stretching Technology

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Boost productivity and gain a competitive advantage.

Enhancing productivity is what much of the technology revolution is about. When you can find the right tools to boost your productivity in business, you gain a competitive advantage. When you can find tools that also stretch your mind, you have a viable advantage that leapfrogs over the competition.

Lenovo Laptops — X61 And T61

Lenovo has some laptops which continue to dazzle and provide a solid competitive advantage. You’ll find the new X61 to be very lightweight (less than 4 lbs.) and powerful. It comes with 3 USB ports, one IEEE1394, (Firewire) … Read the rest

Customer-Driven Marketing

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Remaining Profitable in a Consumer-Driven World

Here’s a recent experience I had that may serve as a tool for determining how your customers will respond when faced with a similar challenge. Learn how you can profit from thinking this way for a new world and a new way of doing business.

Maybe something like this has happened to you on an unsuspecting day. So there I was, just minding my own business when suddenly it happened. I wasn’t thinking about much of anything when I suddenly had the desire to hear a particular song. The song started going through my … Read the rest

Relationship Farming

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How to Deal With the Weeds

Weeds inhibit growth in farming. They grow around your crops and sap energy and life from the growing plant. It is a regular part of farming to eradicate the weeds and in relationship farming you have to apply the same principles to grow your business.

There are what I call “weedy people” out there. You know who I’m talking about. These are the people that try to sap your energy, your time, your money and all the good that you do. Some do it consciously trying to harm you. Most will do it without … Read the rest

Sound Advice for Relationship Farming

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Relationship marketing — which I refer to as relationship farming — involves a process that can help you operate your sales and marketing optimally. The principles of effective marketing are similar to effective farming and how a farmer begins the process which leads to harvest.

Study the Soil

Before the farmer plants the seeds, he has to study the soil. This means that the farmer has to think hard before even sowing the seeds. The successful farmer discovers what types of crops grow best in certain kinds of soil. You don’t plant orange trees in Alaska and expect a great … Read the rest

Building Relationships Through (Relationship) Farming

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Relationship marketing is vital for your success in business. Successful people know that business is built on solid, mutually-beneficial, profitable relationships.

Establishing, building and maintaining positive, profitable relationships in business is very much like farming. Some say that business is war. They use analogies to combat, killing, beating the enemy, etc. I think that analogy is missing the point of what business is all about. War is about killing people and destroying things. Even if you win in war, you lose a lot.

Farming, on the other hand, is about creating and growing. It is about scientifically researching what is … Read the rest

Marketing Myths Exploded

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What Your Customers Don’t Want

It is a new era. We’ve heard that before about the new economy, the dotcom wave and how things are not as they used to be. Well, surprise, they have changed once again. The old ways of marketing have gone the way of the manual typewriter, the ink blotter and the fast-talking, cigar-smoking salesman with the derby hat.

Customers today want to have companies there to help them, not badger them. Even new economy companies think that by sending a barrage of unwanted e-mail messages, they’ll get through and penetrate the minds of the customers. … Read the rest

Does Your Business Need a Boost?

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Blogs and podcasts may be your answer.

Just when you think you have it all figured out in terms of marketing your business, along come some new technologies that revolutionize your company’s ability to promote itself to prospects and existing customers. And while most people have heard of these technologies by now, namely blogs and podcasts, few are taking full advantage of what these marketing media can offer their businesses.

Remarkably, as little as two years ago, blogs and podcasts were viewed as nothing more than places for opinionated people to rant and rave or assert their viewpoint. But today, … Read the rest

Use Today’s Web Technologies to Connect With Your Customers

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For many small businesses, including manufacturers’ representatives agencies, the traditional ways of attracting customers are no longer enough.

Today, technology abounds, and the smart business owners are using it as a vital part of their business-growth strategy. In fact, since many people now spend more time online than they do listening to radio or watching television, web-based advertising is a must for any small business to survive. Following are some of the latest technologies you can use to reach existing customers and attract new ones.

Blogs — Blogs are short for “web logs.” These are informational postings you can create … Read the rest

Your Website Bites!

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I have just returned from a relatively random tour of the world — rep sites on the World Wide Web. What a downer! With rare exceptions, the manufacturers’ representative community has failed to harness the potential of the Internet to serve the (varying) interests of individual firms, nor have very many steered visitors to the information about the rep function on the sites of their associations — MANA, NEMRA, ERA, etc., much less “sold the system” on their own sites.

I find the failure of professional field sales organizations to do any meaningful online selling particularly surprising because so many … Read the rest

Get Online Anywhere With a Laptop Cellular Card

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These days, you don’t have to travel far to find wireless access. But some hotspots carry steep prices, and you can’t count on finding one when you need it.

So, if you need Internet access everywhere, try cellular service.

All major cellular providers offer Internet cards for your lap-top. They slide into a PCMCIA or PC slot, much like a Wi-Fi card. The cards give you Internet access anywhere you have cellular coverage. The concept is simple, but deciphering the pricing and technical details can be confusing. These days, cellular providers tout broadband-like speeds. Certainly, the cards are far faster … Read the rest

Websites in the “RoHS” Age

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In the spirit of the ‘RoHS’ (recycling of hazardous substances) age, let me ask reps the question: “Will your current website meet the expectations of 2008? Before offering an answer, let’s note that reps are creating their own hazards and avoiding end-of-life considerations for their websites by perpetuating rather than replacing sites that are essentially obsolete. It still seems true that many sites seem to be the same ones that were posted at the dawn of the Internet age (although the graphics look more dated than that). Here’s my answer to the question posed at the beginning of this paragraph: … Read the rest

The Future of the Internet

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The Internet is a fundamental part of our businesses, our culture and our life. Just because many companies with wrong business models have been hit doesn’t mean that the Internet is going away. In fact, the Internet is a more vital part of what we do now than ever.

Here are some specific ways the Internet will be part of our businesses and our lives as we look to the future.

Faster access to what we need — Right now most of those on the Net are doing so with 56K modems or less. No wonder it hasn’t changed everything. … Read the rest

Technology: What the Future Holds for You

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The changing and morphing of the Internet is in full swing.

The industry has gone past “brochureware” and static websites. Interactivity and customer service are the words heard today more often than anything. There are several major trends that will affect you and your business. You can use them to your advantage if you know what is coming and how to profit from it. Some of these trends include:

Fast Is Not Only Good, but Also Necessary

Your customers want answers fast. Ironworks is a product from Ironside (www.ironside.com) that is a B2B (Business to Business) website for manufacturers and … Read the rest

It’s Not Mission Impossible to Market on the Net

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Reality is hitting the Internet.

In the old days, you know, back in the 1990s, all you had to do was start a new dot-com, use the word “cool” a lot in your promotion and watch the stock price soar. It seemed impossible that you could make money that way back then. Welcome to Mission Impossible II — no, not the movie, but the concept of making money on the Internet. To make serious money on the Internet requires some principles that are tried and true and some clever new ones. Check out this list of some important concepts and … Read the rest

Déjà Vu and Microsoft

While movie fans who trekked to the theater at Thanksgiving time may have had their imaginations tweaked in a sci-fi movie called Déjà Vu, truth be told there’s something available in the real world that looks a little like the tool actor Denzel Washington used to travel back in time.

In the movie, Washington makes use of a super‑secret device that provides street‑level real‑time views of events that happened in the past. His goal in the movie is to travel to the past to prevent a present‑day catastrophe.

Visitors to www.maps.live.com can gain a bit of a similar perspective … Read the rest

Let the Web Empower You and Your Business

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The other day I was thinking about how the Internet and the web have changed so much of what I do in business. I realized how much I can do now that I couldn’t do or would have been almost impossible to do just a little while ago.

Here are some ways that you can use the web to make your life easier and get more done. Warning: What you are about to read can revolutionize your business and personal life.

Get the Best Price

Every buyer wants to get the very best price possible. The web has some tools … Read the rest

Using a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) for Marketing and More

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Imagine having the power of a desktop computer, including Internet accessibility, with you wherever you are.

You can have this with a device that you can carry with you easily. It could be something like a Palm Pilot, Pocket PC device or other handheld device. Usually these devices enable you to keep a list of customers, maintain your calendar, send e-mail (on some units) and do other functions that would previously have only been available on a laptop computer.

I’m using a Palm Tungsten/T at this time. This little device gives me the ability to keep thousands of people — … Read the rest

It’s a Different World Out There

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It is different now. The world is changing once again. Just when we thought we could launch new dot-coms, run up the stock price, have a grand party and rejoice in a New Economy, reality has a nasty little way of peeking in like Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and disrupting our pattern.

Yes, it is different now for businesses in the New Economy. Yet, we can learn a lot from the Old Economy and the principles that don’t change. The mood in technology today is that we have to get down to serious business. Off come the … Read the rest

Living Fast and Loving It!

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We can all agree that the pace of life today is faster than ever, due in large part to the rapid change in technology.

We complain about it, but we can overlook the benefits of today’s fast-paced world. Would you rather have to wait longer to get vital information you need? Think what it is like at the airport when you’re waiting for a delayed flight. Think about delays in traffic due to an outmoded transportation system (our “super” highways). Speed in some places would be better than ever.

There are keys to getting ahead and keeping your business on … Read the rest

New Marketing Rules in the Digital Age

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We live in a new era. The way things were done before do not necessarily count today. This new era has different rules. If you’re using the old rules in a new era, you’ll make as much progress as a wagon train would against a newly minted starship equipped with warp drive!

In today’s environment, success requires a never-ending devotion to using the best tools and having the best attitude to serve the customer. Customer needs and expectations are different, so you have to embrace them before your competition does.

Here are rules that you need to have in your … Read the rest

Really Cool Ways to Blow It on the Internet

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Every business today needs an online presence, but blowing it on the internet is easier than you think if you have the wrong assumptions about what a good website is. Perhaps we can learn what to do by looking at what not to do. Here are some ideas that will help a company to go out of business on the Internet fast.

Really cool ways to blow it online:

  • Have a really slow website that has lots and lots of graphics showing what you think is really cool. After all, you tried it on your really fast T3 or T1
Read the rest

Become a Platform Agnostic and a Customer Zealot

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Mac vs. PC? Unix vs. BeOS? Linux? What is the best platform to use? Is it Mac or PC?

In today’s environment it doesn’t matter. I’ve come to believe that we need to be agnostic about which platform to use but religious zealots when it comes to serving customers.

Recently I reviewed the new MS Office 2001 for Mac. I have used MS Office for many years and currently am using Office 2000.

Office 2001 for Mac provides Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with Entourage, a nice e-mail program and personal information manager. This program, similar to Outlook 2000, syncs … Read the rest

It’s Not About E-Commerce — It’s About R-Commerce

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Focus on the relationships of business, not the electronics of it.

We live in an E-crazed world. Everywhere you turn you hear about E-Commerce, E-this and E-that. Seems that some are thinking you only have to put an E in front of a word and you are in the digital age. How ridiculous!

No matter how sophisticated our technology gets, we still are working with human beings. This is something the wise and successful businessperson knows. The technology of 100 years ago was amazing at its time, but it still required the human connection. One hundred years from today we’ll … Read the rest

Thwarting Computer Attacks

In this column in the January 2006 Agency Sales, we detailed some of the dangers that could face reps who did not take the necessary steps to protect their computers against computer hackers. Those without the proper protection could fall victim to any number of attacks in the form of spam, viruses, e-mail bombs and denial of service. The column went on to detail the importance of installing a firewall that “sits between your computer and the Internet and fends off direct probes into your computer. The probes I’m talking about come from hackers and others who can pose … Read the rest