I was talking to a CEO of a new technology company last week and he asked me what was the biggest marketing mistake I’ve seen in my career. I had to qualify his question a bit: Did he mean the most costly mistake or the one I see most frequently? He said both. I’ve seen [...]
Author Archive
The Sales and Marketing VP: One Position or Two?
I recently had lunch with a friend who runs a pre-launch eClinical technology company and he asked me a question about the sales and marketing roles. He was wondering if the sales and marketing executive roles should be run by one person or two. I gave him a quick, gut-level answer, but the more I [...]
Building Your Competitive Advantage
A couple of things have me thinking about differentiation this week. First, there is the survey presented by the eClinical Forum about clinical sites’ satisfaction with EDC technology and the many articles spawned from this research and other ad hoc sources. Then there are some recent thoughts I’ve read from Jaynie Smith on building competitive [...]
Measuring Salespeople in a Bad Economy
A friend of mine at a small CRO (contract research organization) asked me recently about how to measure sales performance in a down economy. She wondered if the measurements should change when the economy goes south. I thought it would be interesting to put it in the blogosphere and see what kind of comments we [...]
Are PR Advisors Helping or Hurting?
I’ve had several days since the LeBron James/Dan Gilbert debacle to consider the ramifications to my profession after that PR nightmare. (Yes, I realize this may seem a bit self-centered, particularly to Cleveland residents). But seriously, who in their right mind would hire a PR firm or consultant after that mess? For those of you [...]
The Last of Eight Life Science Sales Mistakes: Blaming the Wrong People
In addition to neglecting the sales discipline as a trainable, repeatable process, there are several other mistakes life science executives make when creating and managing sales forces. In this eight-part series, we’re going discuss these mistakes and some strategies you can employ to avoid them. Mistake #8 — Blaming Your Sales Team Instead of Your [...]
The Seventh of Eight Life Science Sales Mistakes: Implementing a CRM Too Soon
In addition to neglecting the sales discipline as a trainable, repeatable process, there are several other mistakes life science executives make when creating and managing sales forces. In this eight-part series, we’re going discuss these mistakes and some strategies you can employ to avoid them. Mistake #7 — Implementing a CRM Before a Sales Process [...]
The Sixth of Eight Life Science Sales Mistakes: Letting Salespeople Be Lone Wolves
In addition to neglecting the sales discipline as a trainable, repeatable process, there are several other mistakes life science executives make when creating and managing sales forces. In this eight-part series, we’re going discuss these mistakes and some strategies you can employ to avoid them. Mistake #6 — Letting Salespeople Be Lone Wolves The complex [...]
The Fifth of Eight Life Science Sales Mistakes: Thinking Technology Sells Itself
In addition to neglecting the sales discipline as a trainable, repeatable process, there are several other mistakes life science executives make when creating and managing sales forces. In this eight-part series, we’re going discuss these mistakes and some strategies you can employ to avoid them. Mistake #5 — Thinking Technology Sells Itself Over the course [...]
The Fourth of Eight Life Science Sales Mistakes: Measuring the Wrong Things
In addition to neglecting the sales discipline as a trainable, repeatable process, there are several other mistakes life science executives make when creating and managing sales forces. In this eight-part series, we’re going discuss these mistakes and some strategies you can employ to avoid them. Mistake #4 — Not Measuring or Measuring the Wrong Things [...]