Last week we visited the world of SMEARS (subject matter experts at rest) and the compelling reasons why marketing needs to step up and turn these poorly-used resources into something every bit as exploited as the rest of us. I mean that in a good way: subject matter experts include product managers, lawyers, C-suite dwellers, […]
Why You Need a Catch & Release Program for Subject Matter Experts
When my friend the sales director blew me off for lunch the other day, I wasn’t surprised. “I’m really sorry but someone just spotted a product manager on the fourth floor,” she gushed like a drunk birder. “I need to corner that slippery little *^#@?%, brush the Cheetos dust off his shirt and get him […]
Why Marketing Should Stay Off the Pitcher's Mound
Some people think I don’t like sales people. Not true at all! I love, respect and fear most of the good sales people I know. The lousy sales people I know, on the other hand, don’t usually end up on my Christmas list. It happens that a fair number of the bad sales people I know are […]
Coming soon to a P-Cube Near You
It’s been about a year since we met our friends in the P-Cube. If you’re new to my little ecosystem, these are the folks in the Corporate Procurement department who spend their days in fabric-covered boxes watching hope die in a cloud of entropic cube-farm anxiety. Also they buy stuff from people like us and we […]
Why Marketers Need to Find the G-Spot
It was bound to happen. Sooner or later business marketers would need to pay attention to this often-ignored bit of the B2B buying anatomy. You’ve probably been there yourself a few times, and you almost certainly have one in your company: I’m talking, of course, about the special place in the company where things get […]
