Our Views

I grew up in the corporate world believing the idea that “everyone is in sales”. Daniel Pink’s “To Sell is Human” is one of my favorite books. However, “selling” has not evolved as much as organizations would like and is still in many ways an individual pursuit. Good salespeople find a way to get the job done, while companies struggle to figure out what to do with the other 75%. The more time I spend working with large corporations, the

Nike’s recent launch of their Colin Kaepernick ad campaign made waves well beyond the world of sports. Some referred to the move as “bold”, others called it “radical”. Whatever adjective you use, Nike knew that linking their brand with a polarizing figure was going to ruffle some feathers. Nike isn’t the only company that has taken a stance on a political or social topic lately. There is a fine line between a brand taking a position and a publicity stunt.

With all the attention and investment marketers are putting into audience segmentation, there is one critical audience that marketers tend to overlook – their own employees.  Employees, specifically customer-facing representatives are the link between the company’s marketing strategy and the actual customer experience.  Too often, brand advertising tells customers it will deliver one thing, but oftentimes, customers don’t end up experiencing what the brand promises.  How can companies expect customers to be committed to their brand promise if their own

5 Reasons Your Customer-Facing Employees Should Push Brand Over Products   Would you rather have the people who interact with your customers understand your products or believe in your brand?  Of course, the urge is to answer “both”, but the reality is companies are choosing between these two paths every day.  Both goals require an investment of time and money and those resources are in short supply.  The most common path is to invest in product training that will make your

Marketing has a Training Problem By Christopher Wallace, President, InnerView  Training is not a topic that most marketing or brand teams spend a lot of time thinking about.  The marketer’s job is to get the message to the customer, while internal partners in training or sales are responsible for getting customer-facing teams bought-in the to the story.  But as we have written about previously, that message is not making its way to the front lines.  Our research shows that two-thirds of marketers

In 2018, consumers will spend half of their time interacting with online media, more than any other medium.  As the consumption has shifted more to digital, so have the marketing dollars, with companies on track to spend $119 billion on digital marketing by 2021.  While digital has given marketers new options to reach their target audiences, it has also forced them to learn new disciplines, understand more in-depth metrics, and make investments in channels they might not fully understand.   While