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.

“I don’t care how many degrees you have on the wall, if you don’t know how to sell, you’re probably going to starve.”—George Forman

A lot of business owners think they are selling, when really all they are doing is marketing. Do you know the difference between the two? It will cost you a lot of time, energy, and money if you don’t.

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.

The 1/3-1/3-1/3 rule is defined as a formula that is used by many professional service firms – legal, accounting, etc. to give structure and incentive opportunities for their professional staff.

For many companies in the field of management consulting, the reward system mimics this well established and proven compensation program.

Beyond what happens within the management consulting firm is what firms do when outsiders – affiliates or sales professionals bring in new business. In my research on this topic, compensation varies from a straight “finder’s fee/commission” to a percentage of the project on a on-going basis. Inbetween is any number of permutations and combinations.

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They’re just different. They’re like those ultra marathon runners or the people you see on Fear Factor that will eat worms for a chance to earn $60,000.Give them a challenge with some competition thrown in for good measure and it’s off to the races. You know the ones I’m talking about – they’re the people [...]