You have to love a person who describes herself as somebody who studies “the dark side of Customer Management.” ”   Ana Isabel Canhoto is just such as person. An instructor at Oxford Brookes University, Ana is a Twitter friend who recently shared with me highlights of a speech by Paul Fennemore , a Managing Partner at Viapoint. Fennemore contends that every social media strategist needs to consider six aspects of human behavior if they are to understand the drivers of social media.  Altruism. They share information simply because they believe it may be helpful. Hedonism. MORE >>

Two years ago, I interviewed Tony Zambito -- who originated the development of buyer personas in 2002 -- about the concept of and misperceptions about buyer personas, and what it takes to extract full value from them. Here he explains why buyer personas are no longer enough, and a new model for understanding your target buyer. ou say that buyer personas are no longer enough when it comes to understanding and motivating your target audience? One reason is that buyer personas have been oversimplified and have lost touch with their original intention. Please outline those seven ways. MORE >>

Image via Wikipedia. This is part 2 of a limited series on why buyer choice modeling is the new view B2B Business must adopt to improve revenue performance and develop long lasting relationships with buyers. . Growth is getting harder and harder to come by.  With this comes the realization that some of the embedded thinking about how to reach and market to buyers are not working well.  In part 1 of this series we looked at how the funnel is facing a slow death and the limitations of so called funnel thinking.  We are entering a new era of the buyer.  Buyers Have Many Options.  Explore. Network.  MORE >>

Every manufacturing or industrial company that I talk to wants more leads. However, there is a serious disconnect between sales and marketing when it comes to defining a qualified lead. This is not a new problem. Google sales and marketing disconnect and you will find thousands of articles written on this topic. am here to tell you that it is very real and thriving within manufacturing companies. Recently, a manufacturing client retained me to help them improve their industrial lead generation program. In short, very poor ROI from their lead generation efforts. The s**t hit the fan!). MORE >>

By {grow} Community Member John Thomas. Creating effective PowerPoint presentations is a skill that is rarely ever taught, but somehow we’re all expected to create dazzling presentations. Though, as we all know, it rarely ever dazzles. It usually fizzles. I’m kind of a presentation geek and I’ve found that there are far more effective ways to utilize PowerPoint as a visual backdrop to your story. It’s not even the only game in town anymore. Apple’s Keynote has earned staunch support from the design community. So what’s a novice presentation designer to do? First, don’t lose hope. MORE >>