Professional Services Marketing & Selling

Marketing technology services effectively requires a systematic approach. Unfortunately, however, many companies go about it in an erratic and tactical way that doesn't allow them to demonstrate the value of their services. And as a result, few buy their services. Listen as Laurie Young, author of Marketing Technology as a Service: Proven Techniques that Create Value, explains what successful companies have done to market their services and mistakes to avoid.

Happiness as a business model--you might doubt its effectiveness, but Zappos is proving that it helps drive profit and growth. Listen as Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and author of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, talks about how a strong company culture that centers on employee happiness leads to better customer and client service, which leads to more sales.

If you've ever been trapped in the cycle of having a lot of client work and then having none, more than likely, it's because your marketing efforts weren't continuous. You have one marketing push followed by all-out work only to lift your head at the end and discover you don't have any leads. You can avoid such trials of feast or famine when you make marketing part of your everyday life. Never stop marketing, and you'll never have to worry about filling your sales pipeline.

Even when you have a sales organization that has the right processes and does things perfectly, you can still get low returns. That's because core leadership principles within a company can have a negative effect. Listen as Danita Bye, author of Leadership Shift: Paradoxical Wisdom for Transformational Leaders in These Times of Change, discusses leadership paradoxes that can significantly impact sales force effectiveness and should be evaluated if sales efforts are lagging.

In the past all you needed was a pulse and few clients and your firm could survive. With the "new normal," however, that isn't enough. The CEO can no longer be the sole rainmaker and top sales person, and you must have a plan for running your firm. Fail to change your approach and you limit how much your firm can grow and run the risk of watching it fail.