Metrics matter now more than ever. As a six-time CMO over a 16-year career, I’ve tracked dozens (actually hundreds) of metrics and found that many measures are ultimately meaningless or only matter to marketers.
Tue, May 6, 2014 — Sales and Marketing: Why Can't We All Get Along? How many times have we all heard about the discord between the Sales and Marketing organizations? This discord intensifies based upon whether you work in a Sales or Marketing driven culture. A CEO recently asked me why these two organizations don’t work well together, and how he can improve their overall relationships, and more importantly their individual and collective effectiveness.
Sun, Dec 8, 2013 —
Wed, Oct 30, 2013 — Your sales team defines price as what’s on the invoice. Your CFO defines price as ‘what we take to the bank’. Your customer says price is too high. Your pricing manager says that price doesn’t match our standard terms. Your distributor says they can’t make any money on your line. And it’s still Monday morning! What’s the right way to define and measure price? More importantly, how can you improve net price realization and take more money to the bank? I define price as what goes to the bank, after all discounts, returns, warranties, commissions and other deductions are taken into account. There are several elements to price management. The first is achieving the optimal price for each good or service. The second is managing your product mix and services to achieve the optimal price for a set of customer transactions.
Sun, Aug 11, 2013 — The following post is written by guest blogger Per Ohstrom In the business cycle, there comes a time that looks something like this: Sales are down across segments and products. Certain product lines perform worse than others, but there is some softness across the board. Budgets have been revised and Board expectations reset, but the business still does not meet targets.