Forbes has our Back.

Well… they don’t literally have our back, but we are preaching mostly the same thing. In a recent article by Larry Light, marketing is portrayed as one of the most important business functions that on many levels is not managed like a business function.

Mr. Light proposes that marketing is run like a trade. What he means by this is that marketers are becoming increasingly specialized. This is to the point that marketers in a particular specialty our unable to see the marketing and organizational big pictures and see their methodology, theory, or technology as the only true way to market things. They become disconnected from the organization they are a part or servicing.

Mr. Light feels that this trend is devaluing marketing. We completely agree with this notion.

We feel that all marketing strategies should be composed of the right tactical mix of many marketing tactics (trades). We also strive to help our clients understand how marketing is directly integrated with their key performance metrics (profit, sales volume, lead conversion). Continue reading →

Today Serfwerks announced that it is set to unveil a series of marketing training for marketing professionals, executives, entrepreneurs and business owners. Focusing on several different components of the marketing function, the training will consist of a series of workshops focused on helping businesses achieve significantly improved marketing results. The workshops will include subjects such as marketing metrics, the 360º Environmental Analysis (internal, customers, competition, etc.), go-to-market strategy development, marketing performance evaluation, and campaign optimization among others.

Serfwerks is also pleased to announce that it will be partnering with Sales Sigma Consulting to provide a workshop series that will help the marketing & sales functions improve the integration of their disparate processes to deliver improved marketing & sales results. Topics will include the organizational alignment, performance management, understanding your ideal customer criteria, and more.

The workshops will be delivered at various locations throughout the Salt Lake metro area. The workshops will also include a series that can be customized and delivered to an individual organization.

“The new training products represent a huge step forward for Serfwerks,” said Nate Gibby, Serfwerks’ co-founder and director of marketing services. “They will provide small to medium-sized business with the marketing strategies, practices and tools that were previously available only to big business with large, sophisticated marketing departments and technologies.”

More information about Serfwerks’ marketing training services will be released soon. In the mean time, those interested can sign up for more information.

Serfwerks will be teaching the strategic marketing workshop through the Small Business Development Center at Utah Valley University on Thursday, May 6 2010. Continue reading →

Motivation is hard to quantify. It is not a tangible thing. Motivation does not make a sound, it does not hurt when it hits you in the head, and it cannot be measured with a ruler. Motivation is just a way of describing what drives us to do things. Sometimes the thing that drives us to do things is physiological – this is what drives us to want to eat and drink. But, what drives us to exhibit consumer behavior, buying stuff, can usually be explained as motivation. So, what motivates us to buy stuff?

Motivation is complicated, however motivational theory models do exist and they can be used to predict behavior. One that I subscribe to in particular is the Expectancy Theory of Motivation.

The theory itself is a little complex and has countless uses in defining motivation. From this theory we can glean that people are motivated to do things in order to achieve outcomes based on the desirability and probability of achieving those outcomes. Continue reading →

In a study of about 500 first year sales reps: 60% reported setting no goals; 32% reported setting general earnings goals; and 8% reported setting specific annual earnings goals. Of those surveyed – those that set general goals were 2 times more successful than those that set no goals and those that set specific goals were three times more successful (Hall 2003).

Good goals are tremendous motivators. Basic motivational theory states that basic motivation is composed of two parts: direction and intensity. Good goals do this. But what are good goals? Good goals are SMART goals. Continue reading →

For too long, marketing has remained the last great business function to be driven by gut feelings and random experimentation. In an effort to change this, Serfwerks has partnered with Sales Sigma Consulting to develop a longitudinal study to looking at various marketing and sales strategies and techniques. The study will help provide a body of data that marketers and sales professionals alike may use to make better decisions in regard to their sales & marketing practices. All are invited to participate in the survey.

Take the survey now.

Serfwerks announced today that it has launched the new web site for Las Vegas-based Par 4 Golf Management. The new site promotes the golf courses operated by Par 4. It also contains a section featuring Par 4’s innovative approach to performance-based management of golf courses.

Par 4 Golf Management operates golf courses in Nevada, California and Oklahoma.

Library World, a San Jose, Calif.-based provider of online library collection management services, has contracted with Serfwerks to develop a logo and brochure to be used in the development of a new product line. The details of the new product line have yet to be released.

Please check out the following article and tell me whether you know more about marketing or not:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/28/small-business-marketing-entrepreneurs-sales-marketing-techniques.html

Are you back? I should say that this author may have had the best intentions in writing this article or perhaps it is another way to sell ad space. There is a difference between knowing tactics and knowing marketing. The author says these tactics are “must-try,” but some of these “tactics” cost several thousand dollars. It would be great if we all had $5,000 to “just try something out,” but most businesses don’t.

Let me tell you something about project management. Project management is a discipline of business that has been well studied. One of the most basic principles of project management is the principle of constraints; every project has constraints. Nearly all project managers acknowledge the existence of 3 project constraints: Time, Scope, and Cost (Budget). Constraints limit what is possible because time and money are finite (scope limit is usually bound by time and money, but imagination usually makes scope seem limitless). If one increases scope one must increase time or cost. If one decreases time and keeps scope the same, one must increase cost. One cannot simply wish for something and have it happen without compromise or consequence – there are real world constraints in play.

Like project management and most other things in life – there are no quick fixes in business and marketing. Continue reading →

Marketing’s biggest secret is that it’s all about the money. Some things are about awards, creativity, beauty, or buzz – but marketing isn’t one of these things. Marketing is a business function and like all other business functions, marketing exists to make that “dolla.”

To illustrate the absurd exceptions many smart people make for marketing, please allow me to share a hypothetical situation:

Imagine you are on the board of a company that sells widgets. It is time for your annual meeting and you, along with the rest of the board members and senior officers of the company, sit in a large conference room at a nice hotel. You have just finished lunch, it was delicious, and you are just settling back into a comfy leather chair to listen to the company’s CFO talk about last year’s financials. With the aid of a beautiful looking PowerPoint the CFO proceeds to explain metrics like the hypothetical future value, bank opinion index, and economic buzz forecast. He also mentions the two awards the company won: Most Creative Use of Money (from an industry magazine) and Most Innovative Investment Portfolio (from an industry group you pay to be a member of). He then concludes that all of these things resulted in a successful year because the firm turned a profit of X amount.

While everyone stares, mesmerized by the sheer beauty and grandeur of the presentation, you realize that your CFO has not actually told you anything useful. Hesitantly you clear your throat and say, “Mr. CFO, do you expect us to buy into these meaningless metrics? How do they explain anything?” To which Mr. CFO responds, “We clearly made a profit last year, so we can correlate the good performance of these metrics with the good performance of the entire company.” Puzzled, you stare back at your CFO and wonder if he has lost his mind. Continue reading →