(Authors note: It's no secret among my friends and family that I have a preference between the two candidates in this election. However, I have tried to keep politics out of my business communications, and this blog will NOT try to be a case for voting for either of...
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Epic Fail??? – #INTC Buys #MFE August 2010 – 6 Years Later, You Do the Math!
Six years and a few weeks ago I published the post entitled, "McIntel, 4 Potentially Disruptive Outcomes" at a now abandoned corner of cyberspace . The occasion was Intel, my first Silicon valley employer from 1992-95, buying McAfee, my last employer from 2008-2009,...
Building Kenrutsky.com
When I first spoke with Ken Rutsky, the founder and principal consultant at KJR Asscoiates, Inc., back in the spring, I was excited to hear his ambitious plans for the summer: launch his first book and create a new website. A few months later, I am so proud of the...
What the $#%^ is a Go To Market Leadership Dojo?
In my travels through organizations small and large, I've noticed how difficult it is for my clients to find great go to market leaders to build their teams. I starting thinking there must be a better way. As organizations expand and scale, they need find more...
Don’t Quit When You’re Not “Upenuf” – Why Go to Market Excellence is so Dang Hard, But Worth It!
I was thinking about, or maybe more the case obsessing about, market leadership on my bike ride the other morning. I had just gotten a tune up and a fix up of my road bike, and was enjoying a early morning ride that was reminding me why I love living in Northern...
“The New Leader Magically Emerges Out of the Crucible of Busy-ness”…Ehh Probably NOT!
As I've written in my previous post being a Go To Market Leader is hard. You need the knowledge of the Jedi Master, the broad skill-set of a Renaissance Man and the influence of a great evangelist. This is not only a challenge for individuals, but even more so for...
Establish Your Market Context With A Strong Viewpoint
When you write and talk about a topic a lot, you often find like minded people. Through the work I’ve done around positioning, messaging, and storytelling, I’ve had several interactions with Ken Rutsky. Through those exchanges, it is clear that we have similar views...
Be A Go To Market Preacher to Scale the Impact of Your Success
( Part 4 in a series, starting here) You might have the skills of Leonardo and the knowledge the Jedi master, to contribute as a Go To Market leader, but to truly have impact and scale, you need to deftly wield influence, and lead in the style of the great evangelists...
May the (Market) Force Be With You – Being a Go To Market Jedi Master
In my previous post, entitled The Split Personality of Great Go To Market Leaders, I said that you need to be part Yoda, you need the knowledge of the Jedi Master. Without Knowledge, the other 2 pieces of the puzzle, Skills (Da Vinci) and Influence (MLK), you can...
Renaissance Man – The Amazing Skills of Great Go To Market Leaders
Renaissance Man, he can do most anything, Renaissance Man, paint, sculpt, design and sing - @historyteacherz Youtube Go to Market Leadership is hard because it requires so much of a person. Especially in today's fast paced, technology driven market, a true go to...
Part Yoda, Part Leonardo, Part MLK – The Split Personality of Great Go to Market Leaders
Go to Market leaders in organizations are invaluable. You recognize them because they seem to anticipate your questions, they show the way to others, they have their fingers on both the pulse of the market, and possesses and uncanny sense of what to do next to build...
Ready to Summit? Three Surprisingly Simple Ideas to Take You to the Top of Your B2B Market
You've invested in marketing automation, content marketing people and programs. You've just finished that new messaging project. Now what? Having the right messaging and positioning, no small task in today's crowded buyer centric B2B markets, puts you at the base of...
Brand Quarterly, Be the Magic In Your Customer’s Hero’s Journey
For Market Leadership, Evolve and Layer Your Messaging
What does market leadership look like? Faster lead conversion? more visibility and fame? better metrics like leads to revenue? CEO rockstars the conference? competitors on their heels and chasing? All of this and more! What it looks like is a snowball rolling...
Building Your B2B Market Leadership Machine
In today's highly competitive B2B markets, to be a leader, you must build and run a modern marketing machine that can be thought of like a race car. In fact, market leaders need to be great at three things; Marketing Automation, Content Marketing, and Messaging and...
5 Times to Fix Your B2B Messaging – and It’s Probably at Least One of Them Now!
When I chat with CEOs, CMOs and VPs of Sales in B2B technology companies, it's almost always about "re-messaging" or "re-positioning" their company, product or service or some combination of these. Often I hear, "I know we need to do this, but I am not sure it's the...
Climbing the Messaging Ladder to 6X More Leads to Revenue
When my good friend and colleague and marketing automation guru from Digital Pi Tom Grubb pointed out in this blog, "If you don’t get your messaging right and tight, the revenue you take will rarely equal the marketing investment you make" it got me thinking about the...
Gravitywaves and Why they Matter to Your B2B Marketing, Or Do They??
I just had the pleasure of spending 2 days helping a client jointly with my good friend and colleague Tom Grubb. Tom, and the company he co-founded, Digital Pi, may be the most skilled marketing automation people on the planet, among other things, Tom used to run all...
Stories that Sell, Messaging That Matters – The Viewpoint Marketing B2B Playbook to Market Leadership
Dear Reader, I’m excited to share this preview content of my upcoming book with you. We live in a challenging time for marketing and sales professionals in B2B markets. Information flows freely, markets are crowded, and buyers only engage on their terms, in their...
What to Look For at the RSA Conference – Five Mega-Trends Changing IT Security
I do a lot of work with IT Security Vendors. It's a fascinating place to be a marketer. There is no doubt, IT Security is a very technical market. And one that might change more continuously than any other B2B market I know. Of course, we all know that there...
To Lead Your Market, Dare to Elevate Your Messaging
There is no doubt in B2B markets many, if not all companies strive for market leadership, but few breakthrough and achieve it. Why? The reasons are many. Poor product market fit, poor user experience, misaligned pricing to value, the list goes on. But even those...
Leading the Parade – Part II, A Short Q & A with GoodData CEO Roman Stanek
In my last blog, I wrote about what I consider to be a bold and high return move by GoodData to lead a new segment that they call, "Insight as a Service" . Insight as A Service as GoodData describes it is a much better mousetrap than Business Intelligence in the...
GoodData Starts a Parade – Establishing Leadership in a Crowded Market
Business Intelligence is a established and growing market. BUT it is a changing and fluid one, being impacted by many many of the trendy words you might hear like Big Data, Hadoop, IOT, Cloud and well others I'm sure. It is also a crowded market, with established...
Getting Your Messaging Mix Right by Understanding the the Market Leadership Lifecycle.
I've been working on a new model to think about market leadership and how to message at different phases of leadership. I am doing a lot of work on this model, and would love your feedback. Market leaders are created not born. In B2B markets, they will go through 3...
“Sabermetrics, SaaS and Damn Lies” or “What the Oakland A’s Big Trade Can Teach You About SaaS Analytics”
Part 1 – Baseball, SaaS and the Rise of the Data Nerds Baseball really boils down to one stat, score more runs than your opponent and you win, score less and you lose. Do this 90 or more out of 161 games and you will probably make the playoffs. Win 11 or 12 post...