2011 | Accessa

Four takeaways you can’t beat.

Snapshots from our best posts in recent months. Knowledge and know-how helps us navigate a complex world. But information is useless if we don’t have time to consume it. Here’s the solution. Each quarter you’ll find a summarization post (like this one) that features three or four of the best Bastard posts of the last period. Short, to the point, and with a new takeaway. Now you’re feeling industri...
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New rules offer a real “Material” benefit

If you’ve missed the last few posts, here’s a Cliff’s Notes version to get you caught up and in the know. Cutting-edge sales and marketing insight condensed to spoon-sized portions and pushed out in a “new rules” format. Your head will be spinning. New Rule #1 Want more productivity and happier employees at the same time? Match the personality to the task. Each position in your small bus...
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Try this basic listings grader. You will be surprised.

If they can’t find you, you won’t get the order. Many of us make the assumption that search services like Google will somehow append your address from your website or maybe your Hoovers or yellow page business listing. They do not. So every time someone does a search for you or your services, the track is set for hurdles. Your prospect finds you only because Google, Bing or Yahoo is bent on provid...
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Create the strategic relationship—not the sale

Good sales people are constantly building relationships and looking for new ones—all at the same time. And since most of the work you do for a current relationship is backing up promises—and doing what you said you were going to do—there’s little time left to create new ones. That is unless you’re efficient or “strategic.” To think I used to believe the phrase “strategic sales” was an oxymoron...
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New rules offer a real “Material” benefit

Buyer’s expectations are changing. Know the first rule before updating your finishings website

Websites tend to be put up and forgotten. I would bet that it’s the pattern and the norm for most supply chain players. There’s a brief moment of uncomfortable intensity to get it done and then, that’s it. It’s back to business as usual and the website is left to fend for itself. Besides, changes and updates to most websites can be very painful and are often expensive. Meanwhile, buyers you do...
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Effective marketing made free and easy

Recognize and coddle all sources of word of mouth advertising Talk about taking something for granted! There’s nothing our businesses do that’s more undervalued and under-managed as word of mouth marketing. The reason? We don’t call it what it is. It gets diffused and lost like a vitamin at breakfast. Some companies try to measure it, but most do a poor job of it. I would doubt there’s any one in...
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Three types of employees fill the most important seats

You may not be hiring right now but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give some thought to how precisely you’ve deployed staff to critical areas of your company. In the legendary business book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins proclaimed, “People are not your most important asset, the RIGHT people are. Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the r...
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Give your sales strategy a huge leg up!

Dive deep for more customer insight. The purpose of your business is to create customers. In fact, it is the customer who determines what your business is. Obviously customers are crucially important to sales efforts. But don’t we need to understand more about what makes them tick? Don’t we need to know more about the perceptions that ultimately drive their opinions and decisions? Would it help i...
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