The Source Blogs

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Eight: Developing a Strategic Marketing Plan – Part 1

Business Management Series — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:30:38 +0000

Step 1: Market Research Regardless of how much you plan on investing in your marketing strategy, you should always build a pool of intelligence and useful data that will aid you in developing your strategy. This is called market research. You can implement market research in a number of ways, but there two general overviews [...]

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Seven: Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom

Business Management Series — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:30:13 +0000

Referrals can lower costs, enhance existing customer relationships and build your customer base. Referrals are often passed by advocates or evangelists that you have impressed and satisfied; which means that it is equally important to provide the same level of service to the referred party. If you perform a good service and the client agrees [...]

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Six: How to Win a Price War

Business Management Series — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:30:12 +0000

Price war challenges The unfortunate thing about price wars is that usually no one wins. The integrity of the true value-add offerings of your business can be compromised. Price war conditions exist when there is no discernible difference between competitors. As a result, the customer is forced to consider the only factor in which they [...]

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Five: Partnering vs. Selling

Business Management Series — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:30:54 +0000

One of the tempting habits of a new organization is to form “handshake alliances” with as many non-competing organizations as they can find; specifically those organizations that have a complimenting product or service. While it is important to form alliances and partnerships, these agreements should be solid and chosen carefully. A partnership exists for one [...]

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Four: Developing a Sales Pipeline

Business Management Series — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:30:51 +0000

1-3-6-12 Month Forecasting vs. Actual Until you establish a clear sales history, your sales forecasts will be your best guess estimate (culminating the data you collected through market research). This best guess estimate should be used to refine your goals. Developing goals are important. Although the first few years of your business’ life will be [...]

ScanSource welcomes new vendors to our 2012 Healthcare VAR Source program!

Nathan Lord — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:24:15 +0000

ScanSource has had its Healthcare VAR Source program in place for more than 2 years. The program is dedicated to the healthcare vertical and how it relates to our vendors and reseller partners. Participation and support from our vendors has been key to the success of the program, and we’re thrilled that we have added [...]

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Three: Understanding The Sales Cycle – Part 3

Business Management Series — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:30:48 +0000

Every organization’s sales cycle will be different to some degree. This is due to the nature of the products or services that are sold. For instance, the sales cycle for reselling components (which is typically a turn-around sale) is usually dramatically different then a server sale (which typically has a longer sales cycle). It is [...]

What do you consider to be some of your best management practices?

Mark Olson — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:38:25 +0000

What do YOU do, that separates your leadership style, or your company, from your competitors? I enjoyed reading what Herb Kelleher, retired CEO of Southwest airlines, did during his leadership tenure to separate his company from other airlines. Kelleher shared a lot of interesting ideas that I found valuable. Here are some things that I’ve [...]

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Three: Understanding The Sales Cycle – Part 2

Business Management Series — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:30:31 +0000

Sales & Marketing Strategy Chapter Three: Understanding The Sales Cycle – Part 1

Business Management Series — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:30:05 +0000