Marketing - The Bold Approach Method

New Marketing Magazine Offers Insights Into Making Marketing Work

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Magazine lauches offering the promise of bringing new ideas and research to marketing organizations nationwide. It is about time a magazine focused strictly on marketing as it relates to the marketing management function. I believe that this will be an excellent magazine for businesses small and large. Take a gander at the magazine by going to www.cmomagazine.com.

Here is what CMO Founding Editor in Chief Rob O'Regan has to say about the magazine: “Our goal is to deliver new information and ideas to help marketing strategists better manage and integrate a diverse portfolio of marketing disciplines and the intricate relationships that surround them. In a business climate rife with new technology, innovative marketing methods, and intense competition, a resource brimming with best practices, useful tools, and practical advice is a valuable commodity.”

I think the magazine will be especially insightful for smaller businesses to see how marketing works in big business so that they can adapt the most appropriate strategies to their businesses.

Sales Training As You Know It Is Dead

I got an interesting question from sales trainer Otis Hackett who was reading our website and asked in effect if “ethically influencing behavior” was something left over from an older age of sales training where people tried to “catch or trick” people into agreeing to buy something.

And, it is truly a good question but the answer is NO!

There is a subtle yet enormous difference between influence and manipulation. The biggest difference is how the client feels at the end of the transaction. A manipulated customer feels beaten, overwhelmed and pressured. An influenced client is one who feels knowledgeable, compelled, desirous and willing. They also are the ones who create word of mouth marketing for our businesses.

Old style sales training is dead. Today’s power players in the selling arena know that Principles of Human Influence™ are the backbone of a powerful selling engagement. There is simply too much choice and too much information available for clients to be pressured by bombastic presentations that have little content or relevancy. And relevancy is the word of the day when it comes to creating desire and trust.

Thanks for the question Otis and thanks for reading!

Missed Hotel Wake Up Call Is A Great Way To Market

I’ve been a little remiss in posting as I’ve been traveling but traveling offers the opportunity to learn many marketing and sales lessons.

I’ve been to Las Vegas as a speaker and trainer more times than I care to remember in the past five years (I quit counting at 30) and have never had a remarkable experience.

Until this trip.

I was staying at the Monte Carlo Casino and I asked for a wake up call. I’ve learned over time that it is mandatory for hotels to have a wake up call option but it is optional to actually follow through with a requested call, so I always set my Nokia cell phone alarm. When I woke up just before the alarm I laid their in smug self satisfaction as the time for my wake up call passed and then five more minutes. My trusty Nokia did the job it was programmed to do but the wake up call service did not. Just as I was about to get into the shower, a knock on my door alerts me to the presence of a security officer. He mentioned that I hadn’t answered my phone (which hadn’t rung) for my wake up call so he was just making sure that I was awake.

You could have knocked be over with a pillow. In more than 1000 hotel stays no missed wake up call had ever been met with a knock at the door. Monte Carlo was onto something.

Something called great customer service.

It is one thing to make a mistake, it is another to correct it and make me aware of it before I have a chance to tell you about it.

If all sales and marketing organizations, sales trainers and customer service trainers took the time to teach this simple yet critical thinking as part of their curriculum and if employees listened and took it to heart, sales would skyrocket.

Nice job Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino, I’ll look forward to my next stay. Also, nice touch using real bath rugs rather than paper thin mats and for providing high quality soap that actually lathers. You did a lot of things right and I’ll be back.