Now that we’ve admitted that we aren’t customers, we can progress to step 2: actually talking to a customer.
Ironically, the closest many marketing people come to the sales cycle is the 2-way glass in the focus group facility.
Which is nice. But you’ll learn the most, and fastest, about your customers (in the B2B complex sale) [...]

Step #1: Stop assuming that your perspective is an effective surrogate for the perspectives of real customers.
That’s right. The first step toward customer centricity is to admit you’re not a customer.
This is still true if you : (1) used to be a customer, (2) sell every day to customers, (3) take customer service/tech support calls [...]

Book report time again.
The Elevator Summary: The book isn’t santimonious about Six Sigma or process design. It makes rigorous tools and structured thinking readable, and relevant to complex B2B selling and marketing. He’s also clear that process is not a goal.
Standout Moments: These processes began in manufacturing. What the book does brilliantly is give the [...]

Social media connections are (arguably)
1.  quicker to form…
2. weaker, and…
3. more transparent to observers…
…than offline, face to face (F2F) relationships.
The implications of these differences:
Transparency enables Targeting. I can identify potential customers online with relative ease. It’s easy to see what topics interest a Twitterer and strike up legit conversations about mutual interests.
Speed enables Offline Integration. [...]

This week in Twitter: 2009-06-11 http://bit.ly/cptPp #
6 Reasons People Can't Tell What You Do Even After Reading Your Website http://bit.ly/Bhb0f #
RT @VentureOutlook IndustryStandard: Dell makes small fortune from once-a-day Twitter account http://tinyurl.com/koaj63 #
THX John & Dustin! RT @JohnFMoore #followfriday to those I chatted with all week: @flowchainsensei @WonderLaura @leaddawg @InvisiMarketing #
RT @cloudEq #cloudcomputing How [...]

Social media is a hybrid venue for B2B marketing. A little bit sales, a little bit brand positioning. A little bit news distribution, a little bit 1-1 conversation.
Outcomes of certain social media tactics can be measured.  But the big difference between social media exposure and traditional brand advertising is the opportunity to build 1/1 relationships [...]

Widget makers have it easy. Plaster photos on the website. We.Are.Selling.This.Thing.  It.Looks.Like.This.  (Do you want it painted in Autumn Glory, Technicolor Stainless, or Urban Soot?)
For those of us who sell things whose souls cannot be captured in a photograph, it’s not quite so literal.
Here are six reasons why your erstwhile customer can’t figure out what [...]

This week in Twitter: 2009-06-04 http://bit.ly/10C04X #
This week in Twitter: 2009-06-04 http://bit.ly/h3SkU #
What Technology Can’t Do http://bit.ly/PjaDP #
RT @draab Usability is more than ease of use. Webinar w/@draab and @nivenor1 on June 16 at 2 p.m. Eastern. See http://bit.ly/Xo9Zz #b2b #
Huge hit to tradit agencies. RT @pricing RT @ronaldbaker Unilever capping 5% [...]