CEO to CEO

Superhero Selling: the CEO

By Robert Sher
Nobody can sell like the CEO. Two high stakes, near-death experiences by Dennis Raefield, CEO of Mace Security International (OTCQB: MACE) illustrate the power and prudence of the CEO going eyeball to eyeball with key customers.

The Answer is NOT inside your Head

By Robert Sher

In the second half of 2008, most of the CEOs I know started complaining that their tried and true sales and marketing techniques started failing. What had produced steady results stopped working. With the top line crumbling, everybody starting scrambling. Given the depth of the downturn, everyone added some new techniques, adjusted pricing, and otherwise made attempts to figure out something—anything—to push the top line upward.

Should anyone have abandoned their best pre-downturn sales techniques in favor of new ideas? No.

Do the drastically poorer results during the great downturn mean that the best pre-downturn techniques will never work again? No.

Delivering Help in Your Circle: Strategic Networking for Business Development

Do you feel like you may be wasting your time networking? Networking without a strategic approach often produces poor results.

Three years ago I began my consulting practice – without any network. I’d been a CEO of a company in a non-regional niche and had never found a need to network with my local business community. But very quickly, I was able to connect my clients to a wide variety of resources—and they were impressed. Likewise, I get more than my share of referrals to prospective clients and opportunities. How?

I’ll answer that question in this webinar. (If the video doesn't play right away, just do a site search for "Robert Sher"). This presentation is oriented toward professionals engaged in business development. It is NOT written for the benefit of CEOs, as is most of my writing. It is created for those of us that have something of great value to offer and are trying to find ways to get connected to the right people—people who make decisions.

My practice is geared toward helping middle market CEOs and their top teams. But I started getting asked to speak to groups about my networking techniques. So far I’ve delivered on this topic six times, the most recent when a firm asked me to come in house to talk to their entire group of professionals. I’m not in business to teach strategic networking, but if doing so helps my network to be healthier, I’ll benefit too. Thus my title is Delivering HELP in Your Circle - Strategic Networking for Business Development.

If you think a strategic approach to your networking activities could add value for you and your clients, then listen in to this recorded webinar.

Balancing Sales with Marketing

By Robert Sher

Most of the CEOs I know are addicted; addicted to the daily sales report. I know I was. My excitement was palpable when the numbers were high though it was equally frustrating when they weren’t. I could handle a poor day or two, but when a string of dismal daily reports delivered a dismal month I'd start to lose sleep. For many, 2009 contained a string of dismal months.

Gladly, times are a changin’ for the better, and CEOs are starting to spend in an effort to drive the sales numbers up. How will they allocate that spend? A lot of precious cash will be wasted if the budget is not properly balanced between sales on one hand, and marketing on the other. The proper balance between these two VERY different functions varies widely based on industry and product. There is no “one size fits all”. But there is just one decision matrix I use to diagnose whether the marketing budget is in balance with the sales budget. Here it is.

Customer Betrayal and the CEO’s Reaction

By Robert Sher

I had a series of conversations with chief executives who were angry with some outgoing customers, and rightly so. One firm had delivered great service for seven years to a major multi-national (and bent over backwards many times), but a new top executive who only wanted to deal with “big” suppliers solicited bids to replace them. He told the bidders to assume that they would “inherit” the incumbent’s employees. The loss of this customer will really set back the supplier, and most likely performance will slip for the customer too since the new provider is not a specialist. With the pain of this loss quite fresh, (the transition is happening now) the CEO swore he’d never go the extra mile for a customer hoping for loyalty. Is he overreacting?

Not a Retailer-You're a Coach with Products

Summary: Small retailers struggle to compete with mega-stores. This article focuses in on how to select the ideal, loyal customers for such a retailer, and how to provide services that large competitors cannot match. This requires a changed mindset from traditional retailing to a customer intimacy or coaching model.

Investing in Growth or Throwing Cash Away?

Summary: Too many businesses spend their positive cash flow on failed attempts to scale up. The article discusses the process for proving scalability of a sales and marketing engine long before starting the spending.

The Benefits of Leading in Industry Organizations

Summary: Getting involved in industry organizations as a volunteer/leader pays big dividends for only a small amount of time and energy. Read about specific benefits as well as a few words of caution.

Get In Their Faces!

Summary: Face-to-face prospecting creates strong and profitable business relationships. Without cold-calling skills, a CEO forms strong client bonds by using persistence, discipline and focus. The advantages of this technique are examined and explained.

Get Out!

Summary: Getting your body out of your office and face-to-face with the marketplace and its players is critical. Valuable insights will be gleaned.