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Business Development

  • Ten Challenges When Building an Affiliate Program

    Ten Challenges When Building an Affiliate Program

    Unfortunately, launching an affiliate program is far easier said than done. And these programs rarely deliver on their promise; here are ten reasons why, and some clues on how to get them to deliver. Clients are not actually the best affiliates, despite knowing you the best. The best affiliates are [More]

  • When You Lose: Ask and Offer

    When You Lose: Ask and Offer

    It's terribly disappointing, especially since the cost of putting together the proposal, prepping the pitch—let alone the cost of prospecting and pre-sales activities—is huge. So what to do? One alternative is to pretend that the entire episode didn't happen, and focus on the next opportunity. For some people, it also [More]

  • If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get

    If You Don’t Ask, You Don’t Get

    Two key lessons he learned were directly from the sales playbook, and are ones that we so often forget when we are doing our own business development activities: If you don't ask, you don't get, and small greed succeeds. After his second interview, the company sprang it on him: they'll [More]

  • Derived Personas and Lead Profiles

    Derived Personas and Lead Profiles

    That your personas are accurate? And that you are focussing your efforts (and budget) on the priority personas? Up to a few short years ago, you couldn't. You could guess, you could do some market research, but you couldn't actually know. But today, there is a way to tell. Enter [More]

  • Targeting: From Gut to Segmentation to Individual Targeting

    Targeting: From Gut to Segmentation to Individual Targeting

    The answer lies in segmenting, and how your organization has approached it. Consider these three levels of sophistication: Level I -- "Gut" segment strategy: Otherwise known as not having any segments at all, at this level the business may be doing relatively well, but all of its marketing and service [More]

  • LinkedIn Prospecting — A New Social Contract?

    LinkedIn Prospecting — A New Social Contract?

    Without a doubt, LinkedIn is the premier business networking tool. It has come a long way as a repository for your contacts and an online version of your resume: It has a complete suite of recruitment tools, sales tools (e.g. LinkedIn Sales Navigator), advertising tools, and more. But strangely, not [More]

  • Big Data and NO Competitive Advantage: The Tenant Problem

    Big Data and NO Competitive Advantage: The Tenant Problem

    Is the ability to quickly build a community or identify prospects through content or ads just too tempting to resist? For most people, all of this is true. And it is, actually, too good to be true. Over the longer term, these prospects — and in fact your entire marketing [More]

  • Value Chain: Upstream-Downstream Analysis

    Value Chain: Upstream-Downstream Analysis

    Even if you do receive a decent number of referrals, the question remains: how might we do even better? Enter upstream-downstream analysis. Clients don’t care about you, they only care about how you can solve their problems. And to solve their problems, your services are generally part of a process: [More]

  • How to do Issues and Trends Analysis

    How to do Issues and Trends Analysis

    This question is too often buried under vendors' promises of nirvana if only a new piece of software was installed. Or buried under consultants' promises of better efficiency or higher ROI. Instead, before the actual transformation exercise is even defined, this fundamental question must be answered: Where is the opportunity? [More]

  • Insight: The Business of Risk

    Insight: The Business of Risk

    What if something goes wrong? Most people are not keen on taking risks. A small faction of people are definitely risk–takers. Whether you are one or the other, the decisions you make often boil down to one ratio: The Risk-return equation. We spend a lot of time on Return, and [More]

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