Sales Archives – Page 7 of 11 – Sunwapta Solutions

9 Nov 2011

How to Create a Marketing Persona – Make it Personal

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:42:56-06:00November 9th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

Whether you are talking about product (or service) development or your marketing strategy or sales tactics it is important to understand who your customer is.

This is where personas can help you.

You start by creating a specific and detailed profile of the people you want to reach. Then create characters (or personas) to represent those people. I really like the idea of treating them as real people as long as you can remember they aren't.

Harry Potter is a character in a popular series of books and movies. When you mention his name, you can immediately bring up a picture of him, […]

25 Oct 2011

Product Value – Long and Short Term

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:43:32-06:00October 25th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

If you are building a product (or service) that is intended to help companies and people over the longer-term you have a dilemma on how to get them to long-term.

People have short-term attention spans and may not have the staying power to see things through if they don't start seeing benefits over the short-term. If they abandon your product before they see the value, you have a problem.

You might try to lock them into a longer term contract. The problem is that while you have the money, they still might stop using your product or at least have lost interest. If […]

28 Jun 2011

Top Challenges for Businesses – Top 5 List

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T14:58:43-06:00June 28th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

In my prior post I listed 15 business challenges and received another eight (8) and counting additional ideas from the crowd. When I wrote the list I purposely stated similar problems a few different ways to see if they would form “bunches” in the responses.

Based on preliminary feedback (I’ll post an updated list later in the summer), the following are the top 5 statements/challenges:

Hiring good people and long-term employee retention; having the right people.
The people in the business are so busy with serving customers and keeping the business alive they don’t have time to work on the […]

1 Dec 2010

Living Your Mission

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T14:46:44-06:00December 1st, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

In a prior post I defined the mission as being the Tweet sized statement of your service to humanity without reference to your current products or services. The mission is long-term and should be able to survive changes in your business offerings. In fact this is essential, as what exactly your business does, must change over time to address the changing world in which we live.

But your mission is not just for your customers.

You must live it internally in your company. Your shareholders, partners, vendors, and employees must see the consistency.

Before the Internet and social media you could […]

13 Jul 2010

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:52:54-06:00July 13th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

Well it started out as a bold enterprise. Start looking for a new car. Visit a few dealerships and see what the cars actually look and feel like, while avoiding deadly contact with the Klingons (err car sales people).

Really missed having phasers and photon torpedoes. Shields would have been useful. Cloaking device, essential. Expendable security officers, check. As it was, unarmed and in hostile territory.

Our current starship is getting a little old. If we don't get it replaced, we may not make it home to our distant planet. The question is:

Buy new or used? Dealer or private? Friend or foe?

Online […]

29 Jun 2010

Differentiating Your Product or Service

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:53:22-06:00June 29th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

I recently saw a fido ad on TV. They usually have dogs in their ads and because of that they seem to catch my attention.

In the most recent one one guy is talking to another guy and hucks a big water bottle into the distance and a dog brings back a cell phone. Then the guy says something like, this cell phone contains parts made from a recycled water bottle. Apparently fido sells several that do.

Ok, nice.

But fido doesn't make cell phones. They resell cell phones made by other companies.

They provide voice and data services.

How much recycled plastic is in […]

14 Jun 2010

Entrepreneurs, Stories and Selling

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:54:05-06:00June 14th, 2010|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

Entrepreneurs who build software products really know their product inside and out and have a lot of a passion for it. This is great and bad. Bad because sales often become dumps of technology, facts and features instead of truly listening to the customer.

As well, technology companies tend to focus on the product first and sales afterward.

Telling a story right from the get go is a way to bridge the gap between building and selling.

Paul Kenny gives a good presentation on how this works (posted on Joel on Software). If you are in technical sales […]

5 May 2010

Presentation Zen

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:55:12-06:00May 5th, 2010|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

A number of years ago, a coworker and I were working on a project in Edmonton. We got hungry and hopped in the rental car to find a place to eat. We had no idea what food we wanted or where in town we needed to go.

So we just started driving. No map allowed. When you approach an intersection, you make a best guess as to which direction you might want to head. This approach started working well for us. As time went on, we would find places where there were amazing specials and we never had to eat the […]

4 May 2010

The Fine Line in Marketing Health

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:55:24-06:00May 4th, 2010|Categories: Doug's Blog, Marketing, Sales|

How much is YOUR life worth to you? If you were diagnosed with an untreatable, fatal health problem, how hard would you try to find something on the fringes that might work for you?

If you were suffering from chronic pain, how much would you pay to get rid of that pain?

What if it was a spouse or your children?

Health care is big business whether you are in the US with a more capitalistic approach to health or in Canada with a more social approach. Business is there to provide a product or service and make money doing so.

If you […]

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 […]