Dine Brands / IHOP recently announced that they will be changing their name to IHOb, and we have two theories for this recent announcement. The first being that this could all be a marketing gimmick that will be followed by a change in their menu or business model which, depending on the change, might be beneficial to the brand. The other could be more serious—where they are actually moving forward with the name change. IHOP, owned by Dine Brands which also owns Applebee’s, has been relatively flat from a revenue perspective over the past years…. Recently, Dine Brands attempted a bold marketing strategy with Millennials, and ended up failing greatly due to their misunderstanding of the age group. The name change could be a very similar attempt […]
The Importance of Testing in Marketing Campaigns
The challenge with marketing in small business, is that you just do not have enough budget and resources to market like the big guys. This can create a challenge when coming up with new marketing campaigns and ensuring those campaigns are yielding the best possible results… Typically in larger organizations, they have budget and resources to develop messaging for campaigns. However, even with their large budgets, market surveys, research, and other methods, the large corporations will have a better understanding of what messages will resonate the most, but at best, they are just more of an educated guess. The only real true way to understand what messaging will yield the best results is to test, then test again, and once completed, do more testing. Testing […]
Target Uses Local Retail Stores as Virtual Warehouse
Over the past few years, Target has become increasingly more innovative to compete against other local brick and mortar stores and Amazon alike… As an example, back in December, they announced a new mobile payments system called “Wallet” that allows customers to quickly pay for items via the mobile application, skipping lines and speeding up the checkout process. Yesterday, Target announced Restock, a nationwide next-day delivery service targeted directly at Amazon Prime Pantry—this is pretty interesting, but not innovative in itself (more of a copycat). What is innovative is that they are essentially using their local stores as a warehouse, and choosing to ship items directly from the store vs. a main warehouse… This method should allow for faster and more cost-effective shipping to consumers, along with taking […]
There’s a Problem, Stop What You Are Doing!
There is a fundamental problem in businesses today that is absolutely crippling organizations of all shapes and sizes. What is that problem, you ask? It is simply the failure to address critical business problems in a timely and strategic fashion. Most either continue on as if the problem isn’t there, or as we call it “whistling past the graveyard”, or make snap decisions without truly understanding the issue at hand. Sure, it is an over-generalized statement, but it is not far off from the truth of what is happening daily in business. Just look at the retail and restaurant industries, for example. Businesses that have been around for decades, once pillars of industry, are crumbling around us daily. But why? They blame Amazon or millennials, […]
Bertucci’s Files for Bankruptcy
The restaurant industry has faced another blow with Bertucci’s filing for bankruptcy, citing changing climate along with cheaper and faster alternatives as the main reasons for the failing business. But is that really the case? We recently published on strategic innovation and the changing retail environments as organizations focus more on cost reduction vs innovation; this, unfortunately, is another case to add to the long list of failures. Bertucci’s has self-identified faster and less expensive competition as the primary drivers of revenue loss; however, their only noted attempt at remedying the situation was to add a 15-minute lunch option. Is that really innovation, or is it just adding a band aid to cover up the root issue? Both retail and the restaurant industries have been crying […]
The Importance of Strategic Innovation
Why are icons of yesteryear failing at alarming rates? Some say that it is the introduction of Amazon and Netflix, or Millennial’s becoming more predominant consumers; others say it’s old leadership or old business models. Sure, you can easily point to those as a cause for the decline, but is that really the reason? We believe that there is a fundamental underlying reason these organizations are failing: Strategic Innovations. We wrote not too long ago about how the retail organization has become so calculator driven, and cutting as much cost as possible while completely losing sight of innovation. Looking across some of the most successful organizations today such as, Amazon, Google, Apple, Tesla and others, what they all have in common is that they are […]
How to Develop a Social Media Marketing Strategy for Your Business
For as long as social media has been around, there are still many small and medium-sized businesses that have not fully embraced social media marketing. It was estimated in 2017 that 81 percent of the US population has a social media profile, and globally people spend more than 3.7 hours per day on social media. Furthermore, it was estimated in 2015 that Facebook influenced 52 percent of consumers, which was a 36 percent increase from 2014, and that was three years ago… Social media has become so influential for better or worse, and it now plays critical roles in presidential races across the world. It has shown no signs of slowing down and has continued to grow exponentially over the years. It has begun to […]
When Terminating An Employee Is Necessary
Firing an employee is a difficult and sensitive subject for most. It is something to never be taken lightly as personal ramifications always go much further than we may know. With that said, it is a necessary evil in the business world; employees that are left to their own accords while not carrying their own weight can have significant negative impacts on the business. Unfortunately in today’s age, we see many employers holding on to employees much longer than they should, and their businesses suffer as a result. Now, if your business is doing well and/or you have no aspirations to aggressively grow your business, this article is not for you… However, if your business has been flat or struggling to grow over the past […]
Following The “Sales Taught” Process Isn’t Always A Good Thing
Sales processes are fantastic guidelines to ensure that you are doing the proper things to be successful in your sales career. However, it is important to pay attention to the customer and make on-the-fly modifications to your process as the situation changes. As an example, the other day we had a consultation for some work to be completed around our house, and it was a very uncomfortable process. The sales rep was a 30-year industry professional that at some point in time made the switch to sales… It was clear during this consultation that this rep was using the Sandler Sales Process, taking me down the Sandler Pain Funnel. He was following the process to a tee, which wasn’t the problem. The problem was that […]
What is Social Selling Really, Six Tips to Social Selling
Every time we read a new article on increasing sales from sales coaches, consultants, or the media, we see them hyping up social selling. This is a great suggestion, as we couldn’t agree more. Why? Because social selling does lead to an increase in sales. Here is the problem: a majority of sales reps and leadership have no clue what social selling really is or how to properly employ social selling tactics. Furthermore, most organizations as a whole have no clue how to sell socially or provide any real training around the topic. So, while everyone is hyping social selling, there is little about how to actually socially sell. In this article, we plan on reviewing Social Selling 101 techniques. The first thing to understand […]
Busy Isn’t Always Productive | 10 Tips To Becoming More Productive
Busy isn’t always productive… Let that sink in a bit. How many times has someone told you about how busy they are, or how they can’t complete a new task because they have so much on their plates? We hear it all the time, but being busy doesn’t always equate to being productive. It is extremely easy for someone to have the appearance of being busy, but it is actually hard to be productive. In this article, I wanted to share a few tips for converting busy into productive. Let us first say that there are some people out there that are always going to be “busy” and completely unproductive. No amount of training, education, and guidance will fix their habits; it is their way […]
How to Make CRM Play a More Important Role in Your Small Business
Most CRM systems these days such as: Salesfore.com, Zoho, SugarCRM, Infusionsoft, and HubSpot are highly customizable, yet, even at their bases, they have enough capability to have significant impact on your business and efficiencies within it. In spite of this, you wouldn’t believe how many small businesses still run their firms with a piece of paper or Excel spreadsheet! What is even more unbelievable is that most small businesses have some type of CRM within their organization, but it sits to the side like some leftover desktop computer from the 90’s collecting dust. When used properly, CRMs can be one of the most useful and time saving tools within your business. In this article, we will cover how a CRM can be used to optimize […]
AOTMP Acquires Blue Hill Research
On Wednesday, January 10, 2018, AOTMP entered into an agreement to purchase Blue Hill Research and all of its assets, including existing employees: https://aotmp.com/aotmp-acquires-blue-hill-research. This is an interesting acquisition as AOTMP historically has been 100% focused on the Telecom Expense Management industry practitioners. In contrast, Blue Hill Research has a much wider focus on additional markets and the vendor community. The firm’s coverage includes areas beyond Telecom Expense Management, such as the Internet of Things, Mobility, Enterprise Analytics, Financial Operations, Governance Risk & Compliance, and Legal Technologies; Blue Hill Research clearly has a wider industry focus. Along with this wider industrial focus, Blue Hill Research also has a strong focus on marketers within the vendor community as a key buyer with a product set to […]
Top 10 Tips To Run Your Business Like The Patriots to Win
If you live in New England, you’re most likely a Patriots fan. And if you live outside of New England, most likely you’re not. Whether you’re a Patriots fan or not, the Patriots’ ability to constantly win and execute almost flawless comebacks has essentially been unseen in football, or any other professional sport for that matter. They’ve triumphed over injuries, player trades and suspensions—and somehow over the past 18 years, they continue to win. Much of this winning tradition is founded off of some key principals of Bill Belichick with support from Tom Brady, Robert Kraft and others. What I find more interesting is that the same key principals can be applied to business to create a winning tradition as well. In this article we […]
The Marketing Magic of Beats by Dre
Beats by Dre is arguably one of the most successful marketing stories in recent history. Sure, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are very successful businessmen and music producers, but what really made the sale to Apple was their success in how they marketed the headphone company to the consumer market. At the end of the day, Beats by Dre are nothing more than an estimated $16.89 pair of weighted headphones that Apple paid an estimated $3 Billion to acquire. How Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine made it to this point was nothing more than marketing genius. Founded in 2006, Beats became a household brand in a matter of months as a result of a marketing plan pushed by the duo. As Beats were just hitting […]
Why A Free Trial Should Be Part of Your Business Strategy Today
What do Netflix, DropBox, Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Hulu, and Spotify all have in common? They all offer up their services for free either as a free trial or as a free service alternative to their premium paid service; they rely heavily on their free services to drive revenue for their organizations. Most of these organizations even used a free version of their services as a launching pad for the business. Case in point, there was a time when you could not buy a DVD player without getting a free 30 day trial Netflix coupon inside the box. At this point, Netflix did not have the name recognition they currently have, and it was their free trial that truly helped them become the household name they are […]
Account Management Strategy 101
One of the biggest mistakes organizations make today is not having a “real” account management plan in place. Whether it is at the executive, marketing, or sales rep level, we’ve uncovered that once you peel back the layers of the onion, you find the strategy is nothing more than a bunch of names on a napkin defining a territory. Most organizations will define that account territory based on a list of accounts that match what “they sell,” starting with the largest or most recognizable accounts, and in some cases, every possible buying account in a given region. Once a territory is defined, it is then up to sales to start calling down the list and do their “sales” thing. Separately, marketing is on the other […]
The Fall of Big Box Retail in Calculator-Driven Economy
A few months back, United had experienced some troubled times. And after having time to reflect, it brings a few certain thoughts to mind around how the world has changed for both consumers and big box retailers. As of late, big box retailers have become increasingly calculator-driven, so much so that they have almost forgotten about the customer service aspect of business. As a result, consumers are voting with their wallets, and big box retail corporations are crumbling all around us: Sears, RadioShack, and J.C. Penney are just a few that have announced closing stores, bankruptcy, or both. In the case of United, one article points out their loss of more than a billion dollars in evaluation happening practically overnight. These corporations need to realize […]
The Lifecycle of a Customer: Why is it Important to Track?
The lifecycle of a customer: why is it important to track? Ultimately it’s because the customer lifecycle directly links to increased sales velocity and higher client retention. Pareto’s Law, if you’re not familiar with it; is the rule of 80/20. Eighty percent of your business comes from 20% of your customer base. When you can begin to understand how such a relatively small percentage of your customer base drives the majority of your revenue, you can then start to understand how to better extract value from the reminding customer base. The key to tracking the lifecycle of your customer is a proper web analytics tool that has the ability, not only to track what people are looking at on your website, but also to track […]
How to Properly Measure Marketing in Today’s Market
You wouldn’t believe how many businesses do not properly measure their marketing progress in today’s market. Often I still read articles insisting that marketing’s key measurement of progress should be the quantity of leads generated or community growth. This in my opinion is short-sighted. The true success of marketing is measured on multiple levels that align them closer to the sales teams they support and the ultimate goals of the business itself. Businesses struggle with how to properly measure marketing activity because so many marketing activities have indirect results. Consider: how does one properly quantify the end results of a social media campaign or magazine, newspaper, or TV ads? Before a marketing department can set proper goals, it needs a starting point. In order to […]