Marketing Archives – Page 9 of 13

23 Apr 2010

Using Social Media for Business

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:55:45-06:00April 23rd, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

Over the past few weeks, I've read a couple of books on how to market your business or product using social media. I am not discounting the power of social media by any stretch, after all, I am blogging.

However, there seems to be an overtone of "using" social media in the books and consulting around this subject. Start a blog, write amazing content, promote yourself and company in LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Follow people who have lots of followers and tag along on their success. Post comments on popular blogs, etc. Get better ranking in Google by getting quality inbound links. You […]

14 Apr 2010

New Website – Less is Now, More is Later

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:55:56-06:00April 14th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales, Software Development, Technology|

The shoemaker's kids finally have new shoes. We've always been so busy doing the technical stuff for our clients, we've been ignoring our own marketing. Well that is changing.

Today we launched version 3 of our corporate website. It is using a Content Management System (CMS) behind the scenes so we can keep the site current.

I was inspired recently by several good books. Essentially, the message was pick a date, set a budget and vary the scope. This avoids it is never good enough syndrome and allows you to ship; on time and on budget.

This also follows the agile principle […]

12 Apr 2010

“They” Are Right

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:55:59-06:00April 12th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales, Technology|

They are the people who can be used to explain everything or cinch any argument.

"They say you should eat right and exercise."

"They say you should look out for yourself because everyone is out to get you."

"They say you should look out for others, especially those who are less fortunate."

They are not always right. They are just a convenient way to prove a point. The best part is that no further proof is required if you use "they".

"They say we need to refresh our corporate website."

On the last point, THEY are quite right this time.

And it is time to do […]

9 Apr 2010

Now Available Via Twitter

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:56:07-06:00April 9th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing|

My blog is now being shared via Twitter (@Doug_Sunwapta).

1 Feb 2010

Look After The Customer

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:58:54-06:00February 1st, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

I've had it in mind to write on this subject for a while. It is so easy to find examples where companies don't look after their customers as much as they should, but harder to find examples where they do.

Unfortunately, my experiences lately have been more negative than positive; and I find that surprising when everyone is saying they are different and understand their customers; and even more bizarre in a down economy.

The idea is that if you find a great product or service that people want and focus on great customer service, the market will reward you.

If that is […]

7 Jan 2010

Who You Are – Consistency

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:19:03-06:00January 7th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

Over the past few months, we've had a few clients approach us that had important work that needed to get done quickly; and they had limited options. You may be thinking…

Ka-Ching!

Wrong.

You may get the business once that way, but people will ultimately remember you hosed them.

That is not how things are done here. Here we value ethics, honesty and long-term relationships.

We believe we are entitled to fair compensation for our work including reasonable profit margins (every business needs this). But we don't believe in "between a rock and a hard place" pricing.

Sure, if costs are higher because of a rush […]

29 Dec 2009

Sales – Greatness Versus Failure

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:19:21-06:00December 29th, 2009|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

What makes one salesperson great and another fail?

We often think greatness is the opposite of failure. That if we look at why people fail and do the opposite we will succeed. Perhaps this is because it seems logical… the easy solution. Maybe the opposite of greatness (or failure) is merely average. Maybe greatness and failure are merely variations on each other.

This is discussed in "First, Break all the Rules… " by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

"By studying the best salespeople, great managers have learned that the best, just like the worst, suffer call reluctance. Apparently the best […]

23 Dec 2009

Twittering in the Social New Year

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-06T12:45:18-06:00December 23rd, 2009|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing, Technology|

I have been blogging for the past 18 months and have posted slightly over 200 articles. I also regularly comment on other people’s sites and do trackbacks. Guess that makes me a blogger.

One of my pet peeves is people who accept comments or trackbacks and don’t actually publish them (assuming of course that you aren’t spamming, slashing or flaming).

I recently posted a link to another article on how smart phones are time wasters. Hard to argue too much when you look at how slow and ineffective a medium texting is for anything other then very quick conversations.

I am already a […]

14 Dec 2009

Blue Oceans, Red Oceans and Small Ponds

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:19:52-06:00December 14th, 2009|Categories: Books and Courses, Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

I just recently finished reading Blue Ocean Strategy. I found the book to be quite informative with a lot of good concepts that can be put into practical application. In the book they talked about the convergence of competition in the bloody red oceans and the need to create blue oceans of value innovation to break out of the red ocean into the uncontested markets of the blue ocean (read bigger profits).

One premise of the book is that there a sort of formula (a process and tools) that can be applied to create blue oceans in a low risk fashion; sort […]

30 Nov 2009

200 Posts and a Little Wiser

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T12:20:11-06:00November 30th, 2009|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation|

Over the last 18 months of blogging I have covered a wide variety of topics concerning business, business strategy, HR, demographics, personal development, software development, etc.

In fact, if you look at the pattern of articles you can see the things that are foremost in my mind over a period of time.

Over the last six months, I have moved a lot more focus onto what makes entrepreneurs succeed. Does this mean I don't care about software development?

Nope, in fact it means that the software I am now interested in building is comprised of tools to help entrepreneurs and businesses succeed. I […]