Company URL |
http://www.bridgegroupinc.com |
Who are your mentors and why? |
Mentors is a bit of a strong term but people whose books I have read that have inspired me and that I continue to follow via social media include: David Meerman Scott, Jill Konrath and Ardath Albee. They all bring something different to the table but the core of what they offer is sensible, straight forward business practices that can be implemented immediately with significant impact. |
What is the most helpful advice you've received to improve your business? |
Focus, focus, focus... Don't try to be everything to everyone and don't change your value proposition based on the most recent bright shiny thing. Fundamentals matter and all strong businesses are those built on strong fundamentals of value, service and thought leadership. |
What is the most helpful advice you can give to help others improve their businesses? |
Same as above. |
How do you give back to the professional community? |
We share great content and research via our blog and our resources page. We do not position our services in either of those forums but rather publish information that we hope enables our readers, prospects and clients to build a better business. We invest the time to research and publish so they don't have to. We take our role as thought leaders very seriously. |
What is your favorite business book? |
An oldie but goodie...Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm. I think that if more companies read that book and embraced the message they would be able to define repeatable success with much less time, effort and energy. |
In your opinion, the best book on marketing is: |
David Meerman Scott The New Rules of Marketing & PR |
Your reasons for choosing this book are: |
It makes sense. If you don't possess intimate knowledge of your buyers, how can you develop a product or service they need? Your messaging won't resonate, your sales and marketing processes will be ineffective and you will just become one of the many vendors out there trying to sell them something. |
What would you say to someone who asks what to do first in managing sales leads? |
Clearly define your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Personas. That knowledge is the foundation for everything that follows. |
If someone wants to nurture sales inquiries what process would you recommend? |
You can't really answer this question generically. There is not a "one process fits all" strategy that works for every solution and market. The only thing that remains consistent is to deliver relevant content at the right time in the buying cycle to the right person. |
What steps would you suggest to measure the ROI for sales inquiries? |
There are several but the first measurement that drives the rest is how many inquiries were developed that fit the Ideal Customer Profile. If they did not then they were useless so why conduct further analysis? |