General Motors once had a brand for every stage of a driver’s life, for instance; CPG manufacturers often have brands aimed at price discrimination (e.g. They always say it’s better to strive to succeed, rather than simply avoid failure. That’s probably true, but talking about failure also gives people a clear sense of what  not  to do – and in the world of branding, there’s lots of stuff that you probably shouldn’t do. Looking for failure? Here’s a blueprint: Grow stupid.  What’s the point of a brand, if not growth? Ignore your consumers.  MORE >>

Americans (and maybe some of our non-American friends) all know the familiar gameshow scene of the Price is Right : Bob Barker (or Drew Carey, if you prefer the new guy) inviting crazed contestants to guess the price of everything from oatmeal to cars to exotic trips to Fiji.  And as the title says, the focal point is price, price, price. Outside of the gameshow arena, consumers are arguably just as obsessed with price, and this attitude has become a pain point for many a sales representative.  the customer always brought the conversation back to price. MORE >>

At this point in the purchase, needs are scoped, the purchase is funded, and price is often being benchmarked. And this is why customers are increasingly able to de-bundle our solutions and drive the purchase into the realm of price-based order fulfillment. They see the impending RFP, concessions, the price pinch, and/or strong likelihood of being the dreaded comparison set. (the following is a guest post from Nick Toman, head of the Sales Executive Council, our sister program for heads of sales. It originally appeared on their blog, T he Sales Challenger.). MORE >>

With a click of a few buttons, buyers can know all sorts of things that used to be much harder to learn: peer reviews, price comparisons, and more are all available for anyone and everyone. B2B readers of our blog will know that, for the last year or so, we’ve been harping on one central, unavoidable fact about today’s sales and marketing landscape: the fact that nearly 60% of a typical customer’s purchase decision is complete by the time they contact your Sales department. Why is it happening? This means two things for Marketing and Sales. Develop commercial insight. MORE >>

In the area of building and office administration, the cost of utilities ranked highest – despite the majority of owners not anticipating price increases for 2012. It seems clear that, for a variety of reasons, energy and resource constraints will continue to be key concerns for small business owners for the foreseeable future. Those constraints take a few forms – sometimes they’re around environmental concerns, other times they’re around cost. But what language should you speak to business owners concerned about energy costs? MORE >>