marketing and sales consultant in philadelphia and princeton

My Newest Opinions on Strategic Marketing and Sales

As with my whole website, here you'll find my opinions and ramblings on marketing and sales for your consideration and amusement.

As always, I'm neither affiliated with the authors of other web pages, that I link to outside of my website, nor responsible for their content.

Here's my terms of use.

July 5, 2010: Results of 25 Year Study

After over 25 years of study, I've formed the following personal opinion about why people vote the way that they do:

40% of people are, "Awake Compassionate". They are able to figure things out on their own. Almost all of these people believe in protecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
20% of people are, "Brainwashed Slow". They believe almost anything that they see on TV or in newspapers. They are persuaded by 30 second video clips, 'buzz words', and charismatic speakers. But ... they might appreciate reality -- if an awake compassionate person personally sat down with them and patiently explained -- at least until the next time they watched TV.
20% of people are, "Brainwashed Stuck". This group also believes anything that they see on TV or in newspapers. But, they are NOT ABLE to understand any other viewpoints even if they wanted to. Awake compassionate people shouldn't waste their time trying to explain anything to this segment of the population (unless they are their parents, or own a large $multi-billion network). It's hopeless.
20% of people are, "Awake Selfish". They totally understand other viewpoints, but don't care. They have selfish agendas. Awake compassionate people shouldn't waste their time trying to explain anything to this segment of the population. It's pointless.

May 20, 2010: Freaky Times

On November 15, 2007 (below), I gave my personal opinion on what was going to happen due to excessive personal debt and over-taxation.

I guess that I had hoped that politicians would somehow come to their senses about the over-taxation. Alas.

Freaky times.

As always, as everywhere on my site, this is all my personal opinion. Obviously there are other opinions out there. Check them out, too. I'm not always right.

May 20, 2010: What's Over Taxation?

What's my personal opinion on the problem when government collects too much tax?

Taxes can be a pretty good thing. Taxes pay for government. The right size government can do some very good things. Without government, too many people and businesses (which are collections of people) would be free to go killing and stealing.

Smaller government used tax money to focus on programs like national defense, police and fire protection, education, roads, national parks and helping people who were truly out on their luck.

I'm sure I'm missing a few things, but you get the idea.

The main thing is that the past (long ago) government took a WAY smaller bite out of the income of people.

Unfortunately, government is a stale bureaucracy at any size. Government people have a unique kind of personality and cannot invent new things like the ipod or a heart transplant. Those kinds of things come from creative people.

I'm sure there's a very few exceptions, but you get the idea.

Therefore, as government gets larger and larger they suck more and more money away from creative people. Creative people have less money to use in inventing new products and services.

Even if government hires creative people it doesn't work because government bureaucrats don't understand creative people. That's almost another kind of tax because there's fewer creative people with the freedom to do what they wish.

It's an imposible concept for most government employees to understand.

May 19, 2010: Some Examples of Taxes People Pay

We send taxes to:

Federal,
State,
County,
City, and
Community governments.

We pay:

Income tax,
social security tax,
medicare tax,
sales tax,
property tax,
school tax,
gasoline tax,
luxury tax,
hotel tax,
TV tax,
phone tax,
road toll tax,
parking meter tax,
excise tax,
VAT tax,
inheritance tax,
capital gain tax,
gift tax, and
government lotteries and casinos.

Of course, businesses pay taxes. That is a cost to people, too, because it increases the cost of goods and services, decreases the opportunities for hiring new employees, lowers creating in new products and services, and lowers employee salaries.

May 2, 2010: Get directions on your cell phone!

You're driving or walking to a sales or marketing meeting and realize that you're on the wrong track. It's getting late and you don't have internet coverage where you're at.

What can you do?

I had no idea until today that I can use my cell phone to text message Google for directions to a location, and for other information. I can get information on stocks, products, airlines, currency conversion, local time, and more!

It's a way cool tool to have handy in your business toolbox. Check it ...

How to text message Google for directions. (opens new website)

February 5, 2010: Are you organized?

Mental and physical clutter gradually sneak up without notice. So how can you know if you're getting unorganized? Look for the symptoms:

Is your desktop cluttered?
Do you say, "I forgot?"
Do client requests go unanswered for over 24 hours.
Do you forget promises?
Are you late for meetings?

We all experience times when we're not at our best. But as soon as you feel the above symptoms, then that's the time to get back on your game.

August 31, 2009: Consumer opinion data.

If you're like me, you're a big geek at heart. You probably have a university degree in some insane mad subject like chemistry. And you like data. To people like us, it's getting tiresome to listen to the biased opinions that most journalists work into their reporting.

But sometimes I do want to get to the source of the people's opinions, not of journalists but everyday people. That kind of information can be particularly useful for designing a marketing strategy or for making a decision on the best time to roll out a marketing strategy.

Here's a nice source of consumer opinion data (opens new website) that seems like it hasn't been overly contaminated with the opinions of journalists. Take a look and form your own opinions! It's fascinating reading, if nothing else.

August 18, 2009: July 2009 retail sales data for your strategic marketing.

I know a lot of you are disappointed that my ramblings have been leaning so much toward the activities of our always growing government! But, it's tough not to talk about what I believe is the biggest single effect on the free market that I've seen in my lifetime.

Let's try to get back on track for a little while, although it's almost impossible to avoid discussing the extreme growth in government at this point in history.

Do you ever wonder where people get their data on certain things? There are private sources of data that can be purchased and that are usually very timely and offer forecasts.

There are also open sources of data, too. The census data is one of my favorites for open data.

Government census data on month retail sales. (opens new website)

If I'm reading the graph correctly, at the time of this posting, the retail sales (not including auto) for July of 2009 were down -8% compared to this same time last year. Auto retail sales were down about -7%.

Here is the root page of the same site that holds a rich source of many kinds of retail sales data. (opens new website)

These types of data are critical for your strategic product marketing. As I've said in other posts, you always have to be on top of your marketing efforts. You need to evaluate how you're doing with your customers and compared to your industry.

For example, I've always personally felt that if an advertising media isn't getting me new sales, then I get rid of it immediately. I don't use advertising for the sole purpose of 'brand name recognition'. I primarily use advertising to market something. If a certain advertisement or advertising media isn't giving me a prompt return on the investment, then I'm going to quickly find some other place to invest my marketing dollars. Maybe I'm cheap? But that's how I roll.

These types of data may help to you to see how you compare to the market while you're evaluating your product marketing strategy or your closing techniques.

July 15, 2009: My report on the status of the economy and free markets.

I personally believe that taxes and regulations have increased to the point where successful businesses and good employees are not able to work harder for less.

I also feel that government spending will push future taxes and regulations beyond this point.

"Hey!", you may suddenly realize, "What about working smarter? Huh? We're all gonna have to work smarter!" Sorry, I think that successful businesses and good employees are already pretty smart.

As always with everything that I write, this is just my opinion. Please do your own research, make your own decisions.

May 18, 2009: Market Factoid: Cigarette consumption from a convenience store.

I occasionally visit a a busy convenience store that's located on a four lane highway in Eastern Pennsylvania. I found out that they sell about 1,250 packs of cigarettes a day at this convenience store.

There's at least two other convenience stores located within a five minute drive on the same highway. When you leave this particular area, there's at least a 30 minute drive to the next convenience store.

Worthwhile information, or not? I think that it's interesting.

May 9, 2009 Updated: How does too much government hurt a free-market economy? And what's the solution?

First, if you think that bigger government and bigger business are good for free people, then don't read this. It will only make you angry.

Problem 1: Government increases taxes on free people and free businesses to pay for bigger government spending and bigger government debt.
Problem 2: That increased tax on free people and businesses hurts. People have less money left to buy what they want / need. Fewer businesses can afford creative people to create. A bigger and more arrogant government decides more about what people should get and orders more businesses to provide.
Problem 3: Fewer non-government people and businesses can find good free-market work (not government paid / ordered).
Problem 4: More free people and free businesses are out of work. They can't pay tax to the government.
Problem 5: The government learns that they have less tax for government spending. They have an even bigger government debt. Interest spending on the bigger debt is bigger too.
Problem 6: Amazingly -- absolutely unbelievable - This suprises them every year!
Problem 7: Government returns to Problem 1 and repeats all problems. They keep repeating.

Solution 1: Reduce government spending.
Solution 2: Reduce government taxing.
Solution 3: Return to Solution 1 and repeat all solutions. Keep repeating.

Sometimes governments use solutions that hurt freedom.

Problem Solution 1: Government prints its own spending money, making its dollar drop in value.
Problem Solution 2: Government borrows money from unfriendly countries, and begins to agree to more of their demands.

March 12, 2009: What is an economic recession, and what causes it?

Words like 'market', 'economy' and 'recession' can be confusing.

This is a large article that I wrote on the basic definition and cause of an economic recession.

February 25, 2009: What's Part Two of My Marketing Forecast?

Ok, as expected, big government has become bigger instead of smaller.

Here is what just happened:

Way higher government spending, about a $Trillion dollars bigger.

Now here is my best guess on macro-economics to come in the marketplace of 2010 through whenever (just a guess):

Higher taxes on consumers and businesses who can still pay taxes.
Consumers will have less money to get the products and services that they want.
Businesses will have less money to hire people to create new products and services.
Government will have more money for whatever government decides that consumers should have.

January 23, 2009: A 30 second analysis of the 'stimulus package'.

Happy new year!

The media is covering some hot topics for the new year. President Obama wore a wonderful color tie during his inauguration. And, there's the economy.

Do you like concise information? Here's one analysis of the stimulus package. (enters a different website)

December 12, 2008: My forecast for the 2009 economy and the emergence of 'slave payers'.

Back in November 15, 2007 (below) I mentioned hidden problems with the economy even though consumer confidence was very high. Today, consumer confidence has dropped exactly as expected after the political nominations and after all of the negative political television commercials. I haven't seen any long term improvement in the economy.

There's currently three worst problems with our economy. The first is insane government spending (and the taxing of hard working people that goes with it). The second is bizarre levels of corruption and lying in large institutions: yes, that most especially includes government. We now have a new third problem of low consumer confidence that I had expected (see below).

I've heard our new president promise two things. He is promising to spend more on public roads and on school computers. He is promising to lower taxes. What does that sound like to a cynical old guy like me?

There's going to be a new high level increase in "back room deals". Some powerful organizations will get additional public road and bridge projects. Other powerful organizations will get additional public school projects.

Will taxes be increased, not lowered? Did another politician lie? Would anyone be astonished?

What is my recommendation to help the economy? Cut out half of all federal and state government spending by 2011. Use half of any surplus tax to lower personal taxes for all of our hard working tax paying people. Use the other half to pay down foreign loans. Politicians should stop being lawyers, subordinate their own needs, and put the needs of the people first.

But I don't expect my plan to happen.

The economy is fast becoming an economy of the government. The original Constitutional concept is in cardiac arrest: Tax payers are becoming slave payers to a government that takes their money and sends it to powerful organizations. The people are not allowed to spend most of their money. Any program run by a large powerful protected organization, especially a government run economy, is going to ultimately end in less for people who work.

As with everything I write, this is only my personal opinion for your consideration. Please judge for yourself.

April 19, 2008: What is the maximum sales closing ratio?

Someone recently asked me if there is a maximum possible number of prospects who can be sold out of the total who are personally contacted.

The ceiling is endless. You can sell greater than 100 percent.

Here is my new article about increasing the maximum sales closing ratio through strategic marketing, product development and sales.

April 5, 2008: Explaining a higher price to a prospect is easier than explaining failure

A similar line of thought postulates that lowering a price to get an order isn't marketing and isn't selling. It's 'order taking'. Good strategic marketing and salesmanship is an answer.

One strategy would seek to develop an appropriate product or service that meets customer needs better than the competition and encourages demand. Such a strategy may result in increased customer loyalty, profits, and an increased price!

An alternate strategy is to develop a lower cost with an intent to secure a low price / higher volume market segment.

In either marketing strategy, good salesmanship follows to explain and gain agreement on the benefits of the asking price which are demanded by the prospect.

March 3, 2008: Not great news: consumer confidence continues to drop

Recently the new consumer confidence index came out on February 26th. I'm not happy or surprised. It's dropped to 75. Here is the report (enters a different website).

Last year, on May 21, 2007 (below) I mentioned some of the problems that I saw with the economy.

On November 15, 2007 (below) I said, "most consumers will be forced to spend more money during 2008 on 'not fun products and services' for one reason or another." I further predicted, "I wouldn't be shocked to see those confidence numbers drop further as the reality of all this sinks in."

So what's the answer? This year, my long-term macro-economic answer for all of this was stated on January 28, 2008 (below) in case anyone's curious. Alas, a little guy like me can't influence these types of issues. So, I'll be thinking more about the the things that I can control, like using a few marketing ideas.

February 18, 2008: "I have a keen sense of the obvious"

Many years ago I worked at a large corporation with a lady named Marykay. She often half-jokingly referred to her education as the 'college of hard knocks'. Another of her favorite phrases was, 'I have a keen sense of the obvious'. Wise words!

Although I've received an MBA from UNC where I learned about aspects of business ranging from accounting to marketing; and I received a BS in Chemistry from Purdue where I learned about studying the unknown; there's still many things that I didn't learn at a university. They tend to be widely agreed on, but often pushed aside in the fog of real-life marketing, product development, and sales. Here's just a few:

When in doubt, revisit your objectives.
Getting it done is more important than perfection.
Moving closer to perfection is more important than getting it done.
If you want to grow flowers, you'll need to pull weeds.
A better strategy is easier to explain.
Morality is the highest objective.

February 8, 2008: Patent and Trademark Research

The United States Patent and Trademark office is a great place to do marketing and product development research. You can do research on their website for product designs, see if a design might be already patented, learn about trademarks, and search to see what might already be trademarked.

Finding my patents was easy ...

RE35,739 (enters a different website)
5,035,940 (enters a different website)
4,943,680 (enters a different website)
4,931,324 (enters a different website)
4,810,540 (enters a different website)

January 28, 2008: Making A Happier Economy

I personally feel that taxes have reached a level that is literally hurting most people. It doesn't matter if we're selling products or buying products, young or old, rich or poor.

Election year politicians are now chattering about an "incentive package": perhaps a small tax refund? Great, I'll look forward to it. Except that it's short-term.

So, here it is -- My suggested long-term package to create a more prosperous economy for everyone:

To make it possible for people to buy more, reduce income taxes.
To make it possible for people to save more, reduce social security taxes.
To motivate more people to invest, reduce capital gains taxes.
To reduce prices, reduce sales taxes.
To make housing more affordable for more people, reduce property taxes.
To enable businesses to give more people jobs, reduce business taxes.
To make gas more affordable, reduce fuel taxes.
To reduce government debt, reduce government spending.

If it's so common sense, then why don't our elected officials do it? Sometimes I imagine that their bigger priority is to dress up at parties, and brag about their power and the huge amounts of money that they spend. Could it all be that simple? Probably, yes, I think so.

January 9, 2008: Happy New Year!

Now is a traditional time when we revisit our marketing plans for the new year. People begin to ask questions. Forecasts are made, doubts voiced. Computers and binders are stuffed full of planning documents. Wouldn't it be nice if this process provided a useful path forward?

Here's a few pointers on how to get started on writing a useful marketing strategy.

November 15, 2007: My 2008 marketing outlook.

Consumer confidence is still very good at almost 96 which means that people feel confident about the economy. On the other hand, this number is one in a row of steep decline.

A person can feel confident about the economy and not spend a dime in the marketplace. From what I'm seeing in 2007, people didn't shop for things like vacations or new boats like they did in 2006 and 2005. That means to me that they are holding back on their 'discretionary' spending, and that their future spending in 2008 on 'fun products and services' will be lower.

People often finance stuff from home equity loans; and that's going to be tougher for them because home prices have not rebounded. Much of their 2008 income will be spent on interest and bank fees from past loans. All of us will be spending more for fuel at the same time. I don't know about other states, but our new politicians here in the markets of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania continue to demand that consumers spend more on taxes.

So most consumers will be forced to spend more money during 2008 on 'not fun products and services' for one reason or another. I wouldn't be shocked to see those confidence numbers drop further as the reality of all this sinks in.

I still think that 2008 can be a good year for individuals who look for opportunity and for businesses that pay attention to their active marketing and sales efforts.

As always, this is just my personal opinion. Others may differ. So please look around and do your own research too!

November 9, 2007

I don't know how many of you are working on better understanding the seasonality of your markets. I've run into various sources of information before, but I found one recently that's pretty cool and it is free (at least when I checked it just now)!

Google has something they call Google Trends (enters a different website). I had to dig around to find it which is often the case with interesting sources of internet marketing data.

It is fun to use. For example, let's say that you are a wedding photographer (enters a different website) and need to know more about the seasonality of your market.

Here's the link for google trends data on searches for wedding photographer. (enters a different website) You can clearly see that the time line of past data on searches shows that they decline significantly in the fourth quarter, then peak in January and again around July, but still remain fairly steady the rest of the year. This might be one good piece of data to include when planning advertising if you don't have first hand experience with the market.

You can narrow down the region a little. When I narrowed my search down to the United States region, the trends flattened out significantly. But it offered me 'subregions' inside the United States when I searched for a more popular keyword like cameras.

Then I typed in wedding photographer, wedding videographer (enters a different website) into the search bar. The activity of searches for the two terms are compared on the same time line! And you can notice that searches for 'wedding videographer' seems to be an emerging trend for 2007!

If I type in gifts, cameras, computers (enters a different website) it appears that cameras appear to correlate strongly with gifts, but computers not as much. How incredible is the potential of this tool for helping to understand a market?

There are also news publications that are cited and keyed to the time line.

It might be worth taking a look to see if it has any value for your marketing work.

October 30, 2007

The new Consumer Confidence numbers are out. It has declined in October, but is still relatively good. Where do you find the actual data source?

Here's the Conference Board (enters a different website) that, as far as I know, is the source that provides this often cited data.

This website is a nice summary for those of us who like to know about the latest macro ecnomic trends as we plan our marketing efforts!

May 30, 2007

Some are having trouble finding relevant information on the US Department of Labor's website. You can find macroeconomic information that is relevant to many diverse markets. I admit, you do have to dig to find it!

Here are a few links as examples. You'll have to find the rest!

Economy at a glance for the state of Pennsylvania. (enters a different website)
Macroscopic overview of productivity and costs. (enters a different website)
Detailed report on past consumer spending. (enters a different website)

May 24, 2007

Everyone is asking me where they can get marketing data about the economy. One source of information is the United States Department of Labor, and most of it is free! This particular page of their website is one of my personal favorites to use for investigating trends in the marketplace ...

The US Department of Labor's Topics Page (enters a different website)

May 21, 2007

I've talked with several people in the retail markets who say that sales have been absolutely dead for the last three months. These opinions seem to be verified in other ways, such as reports from some major retailers. There might be at least three possible reasons.

Real Estate: The crazy speculations and increases in home prices have slackened. This means that people cannot refinance as easily to get new cash out of their homes.
Gas Prices: These increases have some effect.
Confidence: People seem to be un-excited about the future. I think many are worried about their financial debt. Others feel disheartened by the humiliating fighting among our elected politicians.

In marketing these issues are known as macro-environmental forces, at least for most of us. It's a good idea to monitor this changing environment.

May 16, 2007

Sales involves taking orders, problem solving, and far more. Sales should go far beyond customer service and advertising when it comes to finding new prospects.

One aspect of marketing plans that can be easily overlooked is the work that is put into active sales efforts. Unlike a visible and glamorous advertising campaign, these efforts go unseen, are sometimes dropped and forgotten, and sometimes were never started.

April 16, 2007

When a curious person asks "Why is the sun round?", there are some who would laugh and answer "What do you want it to be, square?". Sometimes the simplest questions are really the most awesome.

This week, someone asked me what is the value of money and how much can I get for my product or service? Our discussion and the spirit of the tax season prompted me to write about it.

By the way, the sun is round because it's a 'blob' of liquid. Gravity pulls the liquid evenly in all directions. So the outside becomes a circle (sphere) where the surface is all at the same distance (same gravity pull) from it's center.

April 15, 2007

My calendar is almost packed for 2007. I'm definitely not going to be able to take on new website design projects during 2007, and probably also not during 2008.

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