If your product or service was better, faster and cheaper than your competition, would that be a good thing? From a marketing standpoint, the answer is no. Most mid-market company executives have enough understanding of strategic marketing to avoid this mistake at the planning phase, but I see it happening often – more than you’d

You will probably answer Yes since you’ve built a company from scratch or are running a company that someone else started. But your offering is much more than just the products or service that you sell. Apple doesn’t sell computers, phones and MP3 players. Apple sells an experience. Do people go to Starbucks because they

In my talk at the January 2014 LPBC, I focused on the concept of change, and how that impacts our businesses. It’s been said that the ones who survive are those who are the most adaptable to change. And when you think about it, our world is constantly changing … even faster than we think. Only 100

A friend of mine sent this article to me today – one of the most insightful I’ve read in a while – which should be read and reread each month by every CEO and business owner in 2014. The article is about how Microsoft (yes Microsoft) is beating Apple and Samsung in the battle for

Note: This is part 4 of a 4-part series. In part 3 of this series, we talked about the turf you wish to defend in the marketplace and what you want to be known for. This last post will put it all together to help you determine your dominant competitive advantages and revamp your marketing messages

In my last post, I outlined how to get inside the mind of your buyer, and how the curse of knowledge hinders us during our strategic marketing planning. Today, I’ll focus on how to communicate to your market using the language that will cause them to make a purchase decision. This language will come from

Note: This is part 1 of a 4-part series.  One of Peter Drucker’s famous quotes is a simple but powerful insight: Because the purpose of a business is to create a customer – the business enterprise has two – and only these two basic functions: marketing and innovation. When I think back to the focus