In the second session of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management * at Aquinas College the Millennials explored feasibility analysis, business model and strategic planning processes with additional guidance from our guest entrepreneur, Tom Senecal of Lasers Resource Inc. Feasibility Analysis and Business Model Can I find a need in the market that I can test with a viable business model? … [Read more...]
Millennials Learning Entrepreneurship (part 1 of 2)
I chose to teach Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management at Aquinas College to a group of Millennials in the eight session quadmester format, because I saw success in business much like sailing or other team endeavors. Everything is different when viewed as a spectator vs. a player. Having worked in the corporate world, started my own business twice and advised and taught businesses and … [Read more...]
Digital Marketing Agency Evolves (5th Five years)
Tempest celebrates 25th anniversary (1990-2015) By 2011, the CRM industry was disrupted by four technologies – cloud, social, mobile and marketing – contributing to the bulk of interest and investment according to the Gartner Group. In response to these trends, Tempest examined its product portfolio in light of its clients’ needs and evolved as a digital marketing agency. After mastering … [Read more...]
Highest Profitability Servicing Existing Clients (4th Five Years)
Tempest celebrates 25th anniversary (1990-2015) In 2006, Tempest clients wanted to grow their businesses by expanding their CRM databases. In order to do that, they would need to become better stewards of their data and use best practices for e-mail marketing. Tempest rose to the challenge by streamlining procedures and hosting systems to meet client needs and achieved the highest profitability … [Read more...]
What I Learned about Project Management and Branding
Mind your manners to work well together, know what others want from you and be helpful on social media. Last night at the Western Michigan Project Management Institute (WMPMI) meeting, I listened to the insights from former students of the PMI Project competitions, Spectrum Health System’s IT recruiter, and social media consultant for Spectrum Health and founder and leader of LinkedUp Grand Rapids … [Read more...]
Growth Continues with Business Transformation Services (3rd Five Years)
Tempest celebrates 25th anniversary (1990-2015) In 2001, small and mid-sized businesses were looking beyond just CRM systems. They wanted to transform their organizations, get closer to customers and make their sales teams more effective. Tempest added more consultants, support staff and contractors to keep up with the new client needs. Agency provides change management, CRM and sales skills … [Read more...]
Tempest Publishes LadyofWheat.com to Honor Ursula Astras’ Fine Art
StudioPress theme and WordPress plug-ins speed website development With the help, encouragement, some coding and advice of John DeUlloa, one of the founders of the site hosting company regiSTAR.com, Don Astras took over the design of ladyofwheat.com in April. Using the Enterprise-Pro theme from Genesis, the site began to take on its current form. Once the outline and content needs were … [Read more...]
Growth Comes with CRM Consultancy (2nd Five Years)
Tempest celebrates 25th anniversary (1990-2015) In 1996, small and mid-sized businesses were clamoring to use Customer Relationship Management systems and laptops to synchronize their databases from the field. In five years, Tempest repositioned itself for growth and improved its bottom line by acquiring more than 100 new clients with over 500 users. Agency offers CRM implementation, consulting … [Read more...]
Start-up and Growth Challenges as a Marketing Agency
Tempest celebrates 25th anniversary (1990-2015) Just like the 90’s show, ‘Thirty Something’, winning clients and doing creative work was fun and exciting. Don Astras had long gained experience and prepared for striking out on his own. After a year, Don had incorporated, hired staff and moved into an office downtown. He also found experienced contractors for design, photography and printing. … [Read more...]
Three High ROI Marketing Best Practices (part 3)
Relating your success stories during the buying cycle to keep the conversations going completes the third or last best practice. It applies to leads not quite ready to buy (50%), as well as those in the funnel (25%). With many B2B products or services, it often takes 6-12 impressions just to understand your offerings. How to nurture leads throughout the buying cycle Why nurture leads? The path … [Read more...]
Three High ROI Marketing Best Practices (part 2)
Getting customers and vendors involved in promoting how well your products or services meet their needs, so your marketing campaigns become more effective and credible, requires complete marketing communications and planning. Our role as consultants is to help clients structure their conversations around finding value and delivering it. Their clients and vendors, in turn will be more than glad … [Read more...]
Three High ROI Marketing Best Practices (part 1)
If you are interested in getting the most return on investment (ROI) from your sales and marketing budget, you will want to use these best practices to develop your marketing plan, as well as your marketing communications plan. Really understanding who your best customers are, so you could easily profile others just like them. Getting customers and vendors involved in promoting how well your … [Read more...]
What Does Your Brand Say or Not Say about You?
More importantly, what do your customers say about it? One of the most successful B2B brand building tools is the business case study and testimonial because it tells the world who you are and why that is important to them. Best places to spread your brand According to Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap, a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organization. It’s not … [Read more...]
Does Your Story Unlock Doors to the C-suite?
Where to begin the conversation How can we focus buyers’ attention on your Value or Unique Selling Propositions (USP) and nurture them with your messages during the buying cycle? We must not only tell the story, we must create tension by using some fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) to question the status quo. It is different for each buyer persona. Economic buyers, especially in the executive … [Read more...]
Does Your Value Proposition Differentiate You?
Buyers want to know ‘Why choose you?’ The first step in getting buyers to ask, “Why choose you?” is having prepared a value proposition, or unique selling proposition (USP) before your sales call. We also believe that it should precede the development of all your marketing communications for every target market. Using the diagram below, you need to differentiate between your offerings and those … [Read more...]
Can You Strategically Attract New business with Published Articles?
Establish the criteria important to customers Why is it so important to be acknowledged in your industry or marketplace? Not just because it delights executives, sales reps and customers, but because it effectively builds credibility. Your story or article can take on a life of its own creating interest and preference for your products or services over your competitors. It can help establish you … [Read more...]
How to Use Buyers’ Digital Body Language to Empower Your Reps (steps 5-7)
Improve demand generation In this last installment of the Seven Steps to Grow Your Business from Website to Sales Funnel, learn how to empower your sales reps with a proven demand generation process and hone your content strategy. Many companies already track clicks of links inside marketing e-mails, but to be truly effective, you need to follow these critical steps on an ongoing basis to … [Read more...]
Why Invest in Demand Generation?
Justify sales and marketing integration Here are four powerful reasons to justify your investment in improving your demand generation, sales process and marketing integration. 1. Unproductive prospecting wastes 25% of total sales time According to IDC’s Technology Marketing and Sales Barometer study, demand generation offers the greatest potential for improving revenues by improving and … [Read more...]
Lead Nurturing (Steps 2-4 to Grow Your Business…)
Lead Nurturing require systems, processes and content This blog article continues the demand generation process and content strategy: Importing lead information into your CRM system Determining which leads go to a sales rep or require nurturing Nurturing and literature fulfillment (content based on buying cycle) 2. Import lead information directly into your CRM system for follow-up If … [Read more...]
Touch Points in the Buying Cycle to Enable Sales Reps
Where and when to provide content This blog article will show you the various touch points in the buying cycle to enable your sales reps and take advantage of today’s buyers’ behavior (digital and face-to-face). Use the table below to identify and include interactions that: Support or enable your sales and marketing process Should and can be tracked in your systems, and Become an integral … [Read more...]
