Y2012 looks like a real winner for business that can break the RECESSION MINDSET! What do I mean by Recession Mindset? I refer to a pessimistic through process that suggests that the future is likely to be “more of the same” or “worse”. The result? A passive marketing/sales effort that relies on little, if any, change and a even more conservative willingness to invest in growth.

One of the first things that sales and company executives ask us when we meet them is; “We need to grow our sales, what can you do for us?” To that we always respond, “If you’d share with us some of the processes that you have in place now for the sales team to follow – we can then take a look at them and see if there might be a way that we can help.”

Is it time to build a Marketing Machine? Let’s examine the benefits. And Assemble The Best of Both Worlds There’s marketing and there’s sales, and each has its pros and cons. To ensure your marketing and sales people work in concert with one another as teammates, like they should, you need a Marketing Machine. A Marketing Machine combines the strengths of marketing and sales to create a powerful business development system – a combination of technology aprocess! Strategic Planning & Implementat-ion Associates builds Marketing Machines using a combination of software and eMarketing system.

Every morning, as I stand in line (with way too many other people by the way) for a cup of coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts – I hear it over and over again: “Anything else?” asks the woman behind the counter in her somewhat broken English. Another customer, another “Anything else?” as she’s ringing them up. Finally, it’s my turn – “I’ll take a large French vanilla ice, skim milk, one sugar – extra light”, I shout over the 3 people in front of me. Even as she’s walking away, she’s asking me those wonderful two words – “Anything else?” She doesn’t care if I’ve purchased a bottled water, Coolatta, or a dozen bagels – even if I’ve said no a thousand times before, she keeps asking and I absolutely love it.

One of the first things that sales and company executives ask us when we meet them is; “We need to grow our sales, what can you do for us?” To that we always respond, “If you’d share with us some of the processes that you have in place now for the sales team to follow – we can then take a look at them and see if there might be a way that we can help.”

What we’ve found is that most of the time the issue is always the same: There simply isn’t a process in place for us to look at – period. The salespeople almost always seem to be autonomous from the rest of the company. There are well thought out processes in place for finance, personnel and administration – but not for sales. When we ask the question of why the building of a business development process for the salespeople seemed to be pushed to the wayside, we almost always got the same response:

“It’s a huge undertaking and I know I should (Don’t you just love that word should?) be doing something – but where would I start?”