Phil Lauterjung

Archive for July, 2009

The usual answer to that question is – it depends.  That’s a good answer because it does depend on proper planning and goal-setting before diving in to the deep end, or tip-toeing into the shallow end.  Slapping together a Facebook page and asking someone (anyone?) in your company to start twittering won’t cut it.  Read more... (410 words, 2 images, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

As the recession wears on more and more companies are trying to find sales nirvana.  The number of articles, postings, tips, tricks, and short cuts are increasing every day.  But, once again, reality bites.  Point-of-the-post alert!! – There are no short cuts, only hard work!!

A report released a few months ago by Dow Jones and CSO Insights on Sales Performance Optimization noted that the number of companies using a formal or dynamic sales process decreased this year.  The reason they concluded that happened was that it required hard work.  An astounding 63% of the companies surveyed only had a random or informal sales process in place.  I hope I don’t need to tell anyone that those companies had worse sales results than the 37% with a formal or dynamic sales process.  Read more... (498 words, 3 images, estimated 1:60 mins reading time)

Flckr - Serene Silence

Pardon the interruption, but I need to vent.  Don’t worry, I promise not to do this very often; and, this definitely has application for all of our businesses.  It relates back to a recent post – Should Customer Service be a Given? – and is from a personal experience this past weekend.

It started with a call my wife took from Citibank regarding a “problem” with a credit card account.  She couldn’t figure out what the lady was talking about so she did the next best thing and handed the phone off to me.  I’m not really sure why she did, since she has seen me in action on these types of calls before – not always a pretty sight.  Read more... (546 words, 2 images, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Photo - Flickr (Kattni)

I have often found it amusing how many sales managers insist that their salespeople must sell to CEOs.  I mean, think about it.  How many salespeople are there compared to the actual number of CEOs?  If all of those salespeople were successful, when would those CEOs get anything done?  They’d spend all their time meeting with you and me.  Hmmm, maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get an appointment with a CEO?  Read more... (644 words, 2 images, estimated 2:35 mins reading time)

Survey after survey confirms that email marketing is the most used internet marketing tool.  This is despite the hoopla and hype surrounding other social networking avenues like Facebook and Twitter.  The main reason for the high use of email marketing is that it works – the conversion rates can be very good if the content is excellent and there is an effective call-to-action.  That will provide the desired lead generation that in turn leads (pun intended) to more sales.  And isn’t that what you really want?  I thought so.

So here are some tips for designing and launching effective email marketing campaigns.  Read more... (576 words, 2 images, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

My last post was about a pet peeve of mine – customer service.  Well, here’s another one, a pet peeve that is.  Might as well keep the theme going this week.

I live in Orange County, CA and have been a member of LinkedIn since 2005; and have found it to be a valuable business network.  However, since I joined LinkedIn they say that I live in the ‘Greater Los Angeles Area.’  I have always thought that very odd since Orange County has over 3 million people and an extremely vibrant business community.  There are many  much smaller communities in California, and other states, whose residents are listed in the proper community with LinkedIn.  Read more... (548 words, 2 images, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)