Marketing is a big, complex discipline. If you think marketing is just brochures, mass e-mailing and a little advertising, think again. To see a fully developed marketing framework, take a look at Pragmatic Marketing. This framework is used by some of the world’s leading marketers and it is something that smaller businesses should aspire to use. The reality is that smaller companies don’t usually have the money, time, or expertise to do all of the things that need to be...

I've always felt that anyone can build a successful business if they just focused on one thing - serving others.  I believe it more today than ever before.  I know it sounds simple and somewhat cheesy.  However, if you will focus on serving your customers, employees, partners, investors, and family - business success will to take care of itself over the long-term. Yes, you can get lucky and stumble upon the right market or product.  Or, you can work hard,...

It is common to hear salespeople and sales leaders say that they need 3 times their outstanding quota in their pipeline in order to assume they can make their number. This is a widely used rule-of-thumb that seems reasonable on the surface. It gives you a benchmark and it is pretty conservative in that it assumes you will win 33% of the deals in your sales pipeline. Is this the best way to assess your pipeline? No. Since CRM systems...

Most businesses are in desperate need of employees and consultants that can speak both business and technology fluently. There are tremendous opportunities for people who understand technology and can apply it to the business the right way. At CTS, we used to call these people "Triathletes," as they were technical gurus, had great business acumen, and possessed excellent communication skills. Since technology is now mission critical to all businesses, it's key for businesses to start focusing on acquiring talent that are skilled technology...

The concepts behind CRM systems are simple, but that doesn't mean that achieving CRM success - getting value out of a CRM solution - is easy. Everyone is for the idea of storing all of your customer and deal-related data in a secure, central location, being able to get clear visibility into the effort that it takes your firm to secure a sale, and having the ability to accurately forecast when a sale will close.  However,  actually realizing the significant...