Best deal I ever negotiated
In the $ 10+ billion of technology contracts I have negotiated for clients over my career, I have been known to do some creative terms and conditions. But I am really proud of what I just negotiated for myself this morning. I get between 15 to 25 PR emails a day. It’s my fault – [...]
There’s PR. And there’s Dumb PR. And there’s Even Dumber PR. And No CRM System Can Save Them.
The best CRM system can’t help you if your sales / marketing team is clueless. Here’s a ridiculous email I’ve just received. Name removed to protect the (not-so) innocent X. Y. kindly requests a meeting Hi Zoli, In celebrating our 40th anniversary, I’ve been given the privilege to manage the relationship between your organization and [...]
The Thing About Analysts – And PR/Marketing Folks
I was reading Ray Wang’s great post on “The 7 Tenets of Building a Star Analyst Firm” and then Vinnie Mirchandani’s follow up “More Tenets for the Nex Gen Analyst” and it got me to thinking – on a tangent, but on something that might matter to all those PR and marketing people responsible for [...]
FUD in the House of SaaS – More on Suites
Recently I wrote about the evergreen Best-of-breed vs. Integrated All-in-One Suite debate again, arguing: Call me “old school”, but I also believe in the value of having one tightly integrated system for most business needs, and I believe it’s true not only for large corporations but much smaller businesses. I don’t have CIO’s to back [...]
The Inadvertent Freelancer (Part 3): Pre-Sales Homework
What differentiates one freelancer from another is their brand and how they present. Are you doing everything possible to speak to the prospect’s issues instead of speaking about yourself? Selling doesn’t have to be hard if you sell with your strengths: your subject matter expertise and your knowledge of the prospect.
Oracle Plays with the Fire that Burned SAP
There’s nothing sweeter for a blogger than irony, and the news that Oracle shut down a popular — and perhaps a little too honest — support blog run by an internal Oracle employee provides buckets of blog-worthy irony. Irony is all in the timing, and Oracle couldn’t have picked a worse moment to exercise some [...]
SAP Influencer Summit: Best Practice in Real Time Influencer Relations, Twitter, Real Time Web etc
Today I came across a splendid post about corporate communications at last week’s SAP Influencer Summit by Barbara French, of SWAY blog. Barbara is a really smart thinker on new influencer models for business to business communications. The post should be essential reading for anyone that runs events for influencers – whether they be financial [...]
Guerilla Marketing @ Dreamforce
Leave the trade show booth behind and get creative. The guerilla marketing at technology shows can be entertaining, memorable and maybe even profitable. Done right, it makes a bigger impact than any brochure, newsletter or keychain giveaway. Look at what SugarCRM did at the Salesforce show!
