Expert insights. Personalized for you.
For most B2B companies, there’s no reliable way to predict when a prospective client will purchase their product or engage their services, regardless of what their “marketing automation” expert promises. This is particularly challenging for professional services firms – legal, accounting, investment advisory, technology, management consulting, recruiting or marketing – where top-of-mind awareness (getting people to remember you) is a critical part of business development. MORE
For many decades, in medical school physicians have been taught the “3 A’s” of a sound practice management. They are the 3 qualities that their patients will value most highly, in rank order of importance: Affability. Accessibility. Ability. Regardless of whether your professional field is medicine, law, technology or finance, that same ranking applies to how you will be valued by clients, particularly in B2B businesses. MORE
There are practical reasons diet companies and national gym chains spend most of their advertising budgets within two seasonal windows: in advance of the new year, when people make their annual resolutions, and in springtime, when beachgoers face the prospect of wearing a bathing suit in public. MORE
Nearly 5 years ago, I wrote a LinkedIn blog post ( The PR Industry’s Dirty Little Secret ) that called out PR practitioners who use their “close relationships” with journalists – along with the implication that those relationships will generate media coverage – to sell their services to prospective clients. The “Big Lie” in this sales pitch is that no journalist will ever cover a topic because they know your PR rep. MORE
Entertainment Craftsmanship: What’s Missing from American Television. Although a similar-sounding name brings footwear to mind for most Americans, “Doc Martin” is a British television series that follows the fictional life of Dr. Martin Ellingham, a brilliant but extremely grumpy (dog-hating) vascular surgeon whose medical career is sidelined after he develops a fear of blood. MORE
Regardless of how well a company communicates with the press, it stands a good chance of being “burned” on occasion. From minor misquote to major hatchet-job, these real and perceived offenses occupy the attention of senior managers and their advisors, whose polite clarifications and outraged denials fill the “Letters to the Editor” section of every business and trade publication. Unfortunately, no standard methodology exists for redress of grievances with the press. MORE
Regardless of whether your company is an established leader or an upstart, brand integrity matters. And it’s a corporate asset that needs to be marketed. Unfortunately, simply telling target audiences and opinion leaders that your company is smart, honest, unique, innovative, creative, cutting-edge, trusted, etc. never succeeds. People require hard and soft evidence to support their own conclusions about your brand attributes, notably its integrity. MORE
Tripped up again…by the “When did you stop beating your wife?”? ”? question. Media relations (or press relations) involves risks and consequences that can quickly derail any career, either as a corporate executive or PR agency rep. A misquote can sink a company’s stock price. MORE
For decades, the ONLY way to produce any type of printed material – ranging from sales & marketing brochures, to annual reports and informational flyers – involved a multi-step, time / people-intensive, costly process requiring a copywriter, graphic designer, a typesetter and a printing press. MORE
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. In her 7th and final role playing “M” in Skyfall – the latest in a series of 23 James Bond movies produced over the past 50 years – Dame Judi Dench appears before Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee to defend her record as head of MI6 – the government agency which supplies Her Majesty’s Government with foreign intelligence. MORE
For many decades, physicians have been taught the “3 A’s” of a sound medical practice. They are the 3 qualities that their patients will value most highly, in rank order of importance : Affability. Accessibility. Ability. Regardless of whether your professional field is medicine, law, technology or finance, that same ranking applies to how you are valued by clients, particularly in B2B businesses. MORE
Regardless of industry, conferences and seminars can be a significant waste of time, money and opportunity. But the conference sponsor is typically not at fault for the lack of return on this marketing investment. It’s often the result of poor planning, lack of creativity, outright laziness or unrealistic expectations by the companies that participate in them. MORE
All of the hours devoted to blogging, at some of the nation’s largest and smartest companies, does not appear to be time well spent…if the goal of a blog and other forms of content marketing is to generate new business. If there’s a disconnect between your firm’s blogging and new clients related to your content, here are 8 possible reasons why: Your topics are boring. MORE
There are two reasons why marketing fails most often at small- and medium-sized B2B firms. Either or both of these failings may apply to your situation: You view marketing as business triage. Your company uses a collection of tactics (often labeled as a “marketing campaign”) only in response to a problem; typically involving the loss of a key client, or decline in revenue. When business is good, little or no time is invested in marketing. MORE
Great content can build brand stature and increase market awareness, but in my experience, neither of those achievements necessarily delivers the type of market engagement that results in new accounts or revenue growth. MORE
The first question we ask prospective clients is, “Do you have a Marketing Plan?”. Most prospects sheepishly acknowledge that they don’t have a formal Marketing Plan. This group earns big points with us for honesty. Some less forthright prospects will claim they do have a Marketing Plan, but when asked to show it to us, this group responds with, “Our plan isn’t written down,” or “It’s being updated,” which really means that they don’t have a plan. MORE
In the early 1990s, Highlander Consulting was engaged by Phibro Energy to help introduce energy derivatives to Chief Financial Officers at corporations with substantial exposure to fluctuations in oil, gasoline and jet fuel prices. As part of an integrated marketing strategy, management legend Dr. Peter F. MORE
Any business founder / owner whose surname serves as their company’s brand name has a unique challenge. If (s)he’s built a successful business that relies on the efforts of its employees, the founder of an eponymous business eventually will need to address brand transition; particularly if it’s a B2B or professional services firm. Brand transition involves shifting market perceptions of the firm away from the individual founder(s), and toward an enterprise-based brand positioning. MORE
Over the past 20 years, most of my firm’s new business has been generated by unsolicited pitch letters sent to targeted prospects. These brief, tailored messages – sent either by email or snail mail – have not only enabled us to maintain a consistent pipeline of clients; but more importantly, we’ve built a practice consisting of high-value companies and people that we wanted to work for. MORE
In his keynote address two years ago at the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) 50 th Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner, Richard Edelman – President & CEO of the world’s largest independent public relations firm – echoed the PR profession’s long-standing goal: “…to elevate public relations as a management discipline that sits as a full partner aside finance, operations, legal, marketing and strategic leaders in the C-Suite.”. MORE
On a trip to Scotland in the 1980s, from my rented car on a road outside of Glasgow, I spotted a crude hand-painted sign nailed to a tree that read, “Ian McTavish Bagpipe Maker.” I slammed on the brakes and took a sharp left turn up a narrow, dirt road. I had long wanted to play the bagpipes, and in a heartbeat decided that bringing home an authentic set of Scottish bagpipes might help to cross that item off my bucket list. MORE
Client newsletters are the most widely used, often abused and hotly debated marketing tactic for professional services firms of any size. Here are three highly subjective myths and realities to help your firm determine whether it’s a worthwhile tool, or how to improve your current newsletter. MYTH #1: Your B2B Firm Needs a Client Newsletter. Marketers want you to believe that your firm needs a newsletter. MORE
With rare exception, companies assign very little planning or resources to proactively managing the effects of a restructuring on its brand equity. While financial and legal considerations will always be the primary focus, a tangible sophistication gap has long existed between workout arrangement skills, compared with what’s required to preserve a company’s goodwill among internal and external audiences during a corporate restructuring. MORE
In its landmark 2018 Pulse Survey of 220 Chief Marketing Officers, the executive recruiting firm Korn Ferry reported that, although financial results were the most important factor in their performance-based compensation, “52% of CMOs say they cannot make a direct and obvious correlation between marketing efforts and company performance.” MORE
Many companies view marketing simply as a checklist of items they believe to be essential: Website…check. White Paper…check. LinkedIn and Twitter Accounts…check / check. Client Newsletter…check. Trade Show…check. Blog…check. Publicity…check. But marketing strategy is not akin to packing for a trip. MORE
Prospective clients certainly want to know if you have the experience and skills they need. But before they put you on their short list of candidates for consideration, they first will need some assurance that your company is a “safe choice.” MORE
Thought Leadership is perhaps the most widely used and consistently abused strategy in professional services marketing. There’s diverse opinion regarding what it is, and fuzzy expectations with respect to its benefits. Our simple definition is that Thought Leadership is a content marketing strategy designed to leverage intellectual capital as a means to engage target audiences. The practical benefits of Thought Leadership are delivered through the power of “intrinsic selling.”. MORE
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig recently called out “marketing services specialist” Clint Arthur for selling speaking opportunities at the Harvard Faculty Club and the West Point Club, as a means for his paying clients to leverage the credibility associated with those two respected institutions. As Zweig’s article points out , however, the schools neither sponsored those events, nor endorsed the program in any way. MORE
Gaining the attention and interest of investors and their advisors has always been a challenge. In our online world, it’s become even more difficult to cut through the constant volume of noise. Our growing reliance on electronics has also made it less likely for people to remember anything, because their devices do it for them. MORE
Long before the fear of contracting COVID-19 entered our collective consciousness, and thanks to modern society’s reliance on electronic devices, many people were already practicing a form of social distancing. Without leaving our own homes, we text or play video games with friends. MORE
Marketing Craftmanship
MARCH 13, 2021
Tripped up again…by the “When did you stop beating your wife?”? ”? question. Media relations (or press relations) involves risks and consequences that can quickly derail any career, either as a corporate executive or PR agency rep. A misquote can sink a company’s stock price.
Marketing Craftmanship
JANUARY 8, 2021
In its landmark 2018 Pulse Survey of 220 Chief Marketing Officers, the executive recruiting firm Korn Ferry reported that, although financial results were the most important factor in their performance-based compensation, “52% of CMOs say they cannot make a direct and obvious correlation between marketing efforts and company performance.”
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Marketing Craftmanship
SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
There are practical reasons diet companies and national gym chains spend most of their advertising budgets within two seasonal windows: in advance of the new year, when people make their annual resolutions, and in springtime, when beachgoers face the prospect of wearing a bathing suit in public.
Marketing Craftmanship
JANUARY 5, 2020
Prospective clients certainly want to know if you have the experience and skills they need. But before they put you on their short list of candidates for consideration, they first will need some assurance that your company is a “safe choice.”
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
The fight to find new customers and retain existing ones is the biggest business challenge for many companies. Technology will continue to play a part in fostering buyer allegiance and building brands in the “new normal.” In 2021, as companies continue to move more functions online, employees will take a more virtual -- and flexible -- mindset and lifestyle in parallel to the digitization of businesses. To succeed, you must change the way you conceive and build new products as a digital business. Download the report today to discover more!
Marketing Craftmanship
MAY 13, 2020
Long before the fear of contracting COVID-19 entered our collective consciousness, and thanks to modern society’s reliance on electronic devices, many people were already practicing a form of social distancing. Without leaving our own homes, we text or play video games with friends.
Marketing Craftmanship
SEPTEMBER 12, 2016
Thought Leadership is perhaps the most widely used and consistently abused strategy in professional services marketing. There’s diverse opinion regarding what it is, and fuzzy expectations with respect to its benefits. Our simple definition is that Thought Leadership is a content marketing strategy designed to leverage intellectual capital as a means to engage target audiences. The practical benefits of Thought Leadership are delivered through the power of “intrinsic selling.”.
Marketing Craftmanship
OCTOBER 22, 2019
For many decades, in medical school physicians have been taught the “3 A’s” of a sound practice management. They are the 3 qualities that their patients will value most highly, in rank order of importance: Affability. Accessibility. Ability. Regardless of whether your professional field is medicine, law, technology or finance, that same ranking applies to how you will be valued by clients, particularly in B2B businesses.
Marketing Craftmanship
NOVEMBER 27, 2018
Over the past 20 years, most of my firm’s new business has been generated by unsolicited pitch letters sent to targeted prospects. These brief, tailored messages – sent either by email or snail mail – have not only enabled us to maintain a consistent pipeline of clients; but more importantly, we’ve built a practice consisting of high-value companies and people that we wanted to work for.
Advertisement
With nearly 1 in 5 emails from U.S. senders failing to reach the inbox, deliverability challenges still plague senders and prevent email campaign success. Check out this deliverability guide for actionable strategies and real-world examples of companies applying smart inboxing tactics.
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Marketing Craftmanship
JULY 8, 2019
There are two reasons why marketing fails most often at small- and medium-sized B2B firms. Either or both of these failings may apply to your situation: You view marketing as business triage. Your company uses a collection of tactics (often labeled as a “marketing campaign”) only in response to a problem; typically involving the loss of a key client, or decline in revenue. When business is good, little or no time is invested in marketing.
Marketing Craftmanship
NOVEMBER 9, 2018
Client newsletters are the most widely used, often abused and hotly debated marketing tactic for professional services firms of any size. Here are three highly subjective myths and realities to help your firm determine whether it’s a worthwhile tool, or how to improve your current newsletter. MYTH #1: Your B2B Firm Needs a Client Newsletter. Marketers want you to believe that your firm needs a newsletter.
Marketing Craftmanship
MARCH 11, 2019
Nearly 5 years ago, I wrote a LinkedIn blog post ( The PR Industry’s Dirty Little Secret ) that called out PR practitioners who use their “close relationships” with journalists – along with the implication that those relationships will generate media coverage – to sell their services to prospective clients. The “Big Lie” in this sales pitch is that no journalist will ever cover a topic because they know your PR rep.
Marketing Craftmanship
AUGUST 31, 2018
For most B2B companies, there’s no reliable way to predict when a prospective client will purchase their product or engage their services, regardless of what their “marketing automation” expert promises. This is particularly challenging for professional services firms – legal, accounting, investment advisory, technology, management consulting, recruiting or marketing – where top-of-mind awareness (getting people to remember you) is a critical part of business development.
Advertisement
Have you struggled to onboard, train, and provide continuous learning opportunities to your salespeople due to the abrupt shift to remote work? If so, you’re not alone. Sellers are relying on virtual selling more than ever. With in-person sessions no longer feasible, many organizations are looking for alternative methods to support their salespeople.
Marketing Craftmanship
JUNE 23, 2014
In the early 1990s, Highlander Consulting was engaged by Phibro Energy to help introduce energy derivatives to Chief Financial Officers at corporations with substantial exposure to fluctuations in oil, gasoline and jet fuel prices. As part of an integrated marketing strategy, management legend Dr. Peter F.
Marketing Craftmanship
MARCH 8, 2018
Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig recently called out “marketing services specialist” Clint Arthur for selling speaking opportunities at the Harvard Faculty Club and the West Point Club, as a means for his paying clients to leverage the credibility associated with those two respected institutions. As Zweig’s article points out , however, the schools neither sponsored those events, nor endorsed the program in any way.
Marketing Craftmanship
NOVEMBER 9, 2017
With rare exception, companies assign very little planning or resources to proactively managing the effects of a restructuring on its brand equity. While financial and legal considerations will always be the primary focus, a tangible sophistication gap has long existed between workout arrangement skills, compared with what’s required to preserve a company’s goodwill among internal and external audiences during a corporate restructuring.
Marketing Craftmanship
OCTOBER 9, 2016
The first question we ask prospective clients is, “Do you have a Marketing Plan?”. Most prospects sheepishly acknowledge that they don’t have a formal Marketing Plan. This group earns big points with us for honesty. Some less forthright prospects will claim they do have a Marketing Plan, but when asked to show it to us, this group responds with, “Our plan isn’t written down,” or “It’s being updated,” which really means that they don’t have a plan.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
In our 24-criterion evaluation of B2B marketing data providers, we identified the 11 most significant vendors — Data Axle, Dun & Bradstreet, Enlyft, Global Database, InsideView, Leadspace, Oracle, SMARTe, Spiceworks Ziff Davis, TechTarget, and ZoomInfo Technologies — and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps B2B marketing professionals select the right one for their needs.
Marketing Craftmanship
SEPTEMBER 1, 2015
For many decades, physicians have been taught the “3 A’s” of a sound medical practice. They are the 3 qualities that their patients will value most highly, in rank order of importance : Affability. Accessibility. Ability. Regardless of whether your professional field is medicine, law, technology or finance, that same ranking applies to how you are valued by clients, particularly in B2B businesses.
Marketing Craftmanship
JULY 19, 2013
Entertainment Craftsmanship: What’s Missing from American Television. Although a similar-sounding name brings footwear to mind for most Americans, “Doc Martin” is a British television series that follows the fictional life of Dr. Martin Ellingham, a brilliant but extremely grumpy (dog-hating) vascular surgeon whose medical career is sidelined after he develops a fear of blood.
Marketing Craftmanship
AUGUST 29, 2017
All of the hours devoted to blogging, at some of the nation’s largest and smartest companies, does not appear to be time well spent…if the goal of a blog and other forms of content marketing is to generate new business. If there’s a disconnect between your firm’s blogging and new clients related to your content, here are 8 possible reasons why: Your topics are boring.
Marketing Craftmanship
AUGUST 23, 2017
Regardless of whether your company is an established leader or an upstart, brand integrity matters. And it’s a corporate asset that needs to be marketed. Unfortunately, simply telling target audiences and opinion leaders that your company is smart, honest, unique, innovative, creative, cutting-edge, trusted, etc. never succeeds. People require hard and soft evidence to support their own conclusions about your brand attributes, notably its integrity.
Advertisement
When selecting data providers, companies must ensure they’re tapping into comprehensive, high-quality streams of fresh information which can be easily integrated into their products in a privacy-compliant manner.
Marketing Craftmanship
NOVEMBER 13, 2012
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. In her 7th and final role playing “M” in Skyfall – the latest in a series of 23 James Bond movies produced over the past 50 years – Dame Judi Dench appears before Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee to defend her record as head of MI6 – the government agency which supplies Her Majesty’s Government with foreign intelligence.
Marketing Craftmanship
AUGUST 18, 2017
For decades, the ONLY way to produce any type of printed material – ranging from sales & marketing brochures, to annual reports and informational flyers – involved a multi-step, time / people-intensive, costly process requiring a copywriter, graphic designer, a typesetter and a printing press.
Marketing Craftmanship
MAY 22, 2017
Any business founder / owner whose surname serves as their company’s brand name has a unique challenge. If (s)he’s built a successful business that relies on the efforts of its employees, the founder of an eponymous business eventually will need to address brand transition; particularly if it’s a B2B or professional services firm. Brand transition involves shifting market perceptions of the firm away from the individual founder(s), and toward an enterprise-based brand positioning.
Marketing Craftmanship
APRIL 4, 2017
On a trip to Scotland in the 1980s, from my rented car on a road outside of Glasgow, I spotted a crude hand-painted sign nailed to a tree that read, “Ian McTavish Bagpipe Maker.” I slammed on the brakes and took a sharp left turn up a narrow, dirt road. I had long wanted to play the bagpipes, and in a heartbeat decided that bringing home an authentic set of Scottish bagpipes might help to cross that item off my bucket list.
Advertisement
Sales coaching is a training format that allows the leaders in your organization to share their valuable experience with the rest of your sales teams. It’s an interactive approach to sales training where sellers get to practice what they’re taught and use information in real-life scenarios.
Marketing Craftmanship
JUNE 11, 2015
Many companies view marketing simply as a checklist of items they believe to be essential: Website…check. White Paper…check. LinkedIn and Twitter Accounts…check / check. Client Newsletter…check. Trade Show…check. Blog…check. Publicity…check. But marketing strategy is not akin to packing for a trip.
Marketing Craftmanship
NOVEMBER 18, 2013
In his keynote address two years ago at the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) 50 th Annual Distinguished Lecture and Awards Dinner, Richard Edelman – President & CEO of the world’s largest independent public relations firm – echoed the PR profession’s long-standing goal: “…to elevate public relations as a management discipline that sits as a full partner aside finance, operations, legal, marketing and strategic leaders in the C-Suite.”.
Marketing Craftmanship
AUGUST 14, 2015
Gaining the attention and interest of investors and their advisors has always been a challenge. In our online world, it’s become even more difficult to cut through the constant volume of noise. Our growing reliance on electronics has also made it less likely for people to remember anything, because their devices do it for them.
Marketing Craftmanship
FEBRUARY 16, 2017
Regardless of industry, conferences and seminars can be a significant waste of time, money and opportunity. But the conference sponsor is typically not at fault for the lack of return on this marketing investment. It’s often the result of poor planning, lack of creativity, outright laziness or unrealistic expectations by the companies that participate in them.
Advertiser: ZoomInfo
Over the last two years, there’s been a 76 percent increase in AI adoption across sales organizations. For sales teams, AI opens up a world of new possibilities, including automating outreach, identifying best-fit buyers, and keeping CRMs flush with fresh data. Read on to learn the four AI hacks sales teams need to improve their performance. Download the eBook today!
Marketing Craftmanship
FEBRUARY 8, 2017
Regardless of how well a company communicates with the press, it stands a good chance of being “burned” on occasion. From minor misquote to major hatchet-job, these real and perceived offenses occupy the attention of senior managers and their advisors, whose polite clarifications and outraged denials fill the “Letters to the Editor” section of every business and trade publication. Unfortunately, no standard methodology exists for redress of grievances with the press.
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