Business Management - Marketing/Sales

It’s not always great news, but it certainly can be. The industry has been advised for many years to concentrate its selling efforts outside corporate purchasing departments and go directly to marketers and communicators. This can be a problem as executive recruiting firm Spencer Stuart reports that the average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer is now only 23.2 months. The rule of thumb, in my experience, has been that it takes six months for a new executive to become familiar with their environment, a year to accurately diagnose problems with all of their subtleties and implications, and eighteen months to show progress. Five

LOOK AROUND your desk and you can see them everywhere. In your drawer, in your pencil holder, adorning your calendar. Promotional products and advertising specialties have become such a large part of our lives, we barely notice them. You go to the bank and get a pen with its name on it, or maybe it’s a free tote from the library or a stress ball from your doctor’s favorite pharmaceutical company.

SHOW ME an organization with great customer service and I’ll show you an organization with better than average customer retention, and whose revenues and margins can be leveraged up. On the other hand, show me an organization with mediocre-to-poor customer service and I’ll show you an organization with disgruntled sales reps, higher than normal customer attrition, and suffering productivity and bottom line margins. There are no substitutes for great customer service. It’s the “heartbeat” that every client evaluates from a supplier. From changing customers’ needs and expectations, customer service’s influence is expanded beyond anything most of us ever imagined. In today’s dynamic market

This is a column about work. That’s right, work! Don’t hang up on me!

I know you work hard. I know you are diligent. I know you are tireless. I’m not writing about you. I’m writing about a bunch of people you know. They are called slackers.

You will enjoy this column because it’s about a bunch of other people that you know and see every day at work. They are the slackers. While you are working, they are slacking.

You’ll get vicarious, sweet pleasure reading about these worthless cheaters who show up, but do little work. There’s that word again. Work.

This country is in deep

Key content creation markets employment is up compared to 2005. The latest The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports show these changes in the number of employees for June 2006 compared to last year. Graphic design employees, +3.8% Graphic design, production employees only, +7.9% Advertising agencies employees, +2.6% Public relations employees, +5.9% What does this mean? While print’s summer is traditionally slow, the season’s dog days are usually quite busy for design and advertising shops as they work on communication programs for the Fall, especially for retailers. The recent increase in current dollar commercial printing shipments for May and June correspond with these rises, as they usually do. This

Brings Commitment to Advancement of Printing and Print Communications Media WASHINGTON, DC—August 23, 2006—Japs-Olson, one of the country’s largest commercial printing and direct mail production companies, has joined The Print Council, bringing its support to the industry coalition that is dedicated to expanding the utilization of print media for communications. Robert E. Murphy, chairman of the St. Louis Park, MN, printing company, said, “Japs-Olson is pleased to join the growing list of companies supporting this important effort to coordinate activities promoting the value of print to the nation’s economy and its value to advertising and the entire communications stream.” Now entering its 100th year

A KEY element to successfully marketing your business is your ability to craft the right messages to reach the intended audience. These days, that intended audience is more likely to be marketing professionals rather than the purchasing professionals. They own the budgets that purchase our products and they are increasingly likely to be the ones who are making the decisions to purchase those products and services. If you are not calling on them, you certainly should be. And what are they really looking for? I recently came across an interesting survey of Chief Marketing Officers. While the title Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) can

THE PHRASE “Great sales reps are born, not made,” is not true. Show me any individual who has achieved excellence in their professional endeavors, and I’ll show you a person who has worked relentlessly to develop their skill sets for achievement, while also accessing supporting resources. However, what often isn’t seen on the surface are the systemic, contributing factors to that individual’s development and performance achievements. These usually include a coach or mentor, a wide array of support personnel, a supportive culture that includes relentless education and training, and systematic (including constructive and positive) feedback. Turning to the future, organizations should be developing

THIS COLUMN is gonna get you. It will creep into your room while you sleep. It will crawl in your head and begin to control your dreams.

Don’t even think it! It’s too late.

No! Don’t do it! Don’t try stomping the magazine on the floor.

You can’t destroy it in your shredder and burning it in the parking lot won’t work, either. You may as well keep reading. It’s just too late. Your brain is already corrupted and the Mañana Stalker only waits for darkness to come a callin’. Think of your best-ever dream. The night stalker will make it better tenfold.

Remember the dream

THE ECONOMY is irration-ally exuberant. Consumers are borrowing and spending in advance of expected higher prices, and businesses are robustly investing in both productivity (read “down-sizing”) and market development. This year is on track for nominal GDP growth of 6.5 percent, with printing sales up more than 5 percent. As economic power concentrates, nearly half the power of print will coalesce into finance, publishing, health and technology (nine of the top 25 demand sectors). Salespeople: focus below and cash in. Banking and Insurance ($2.9T in revenues; with over $15B to print, +8 percent) is the biggest buyer and beneficiary of print. Sub-prime