Customer Advisory Boards
Customer Advisory Boards are a great source of information about your market and your business. Their advice is more valuable than any management consultant’s. They provide real world counsel on what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong, and most important -how to stay competitive. After all, they’re the customer. They’re the one’s who buy your stuff. Here’s how to use your Customer Advisory Board for best results.
1. Make it win-win.
As much as they might like …
Equity: The Golden Handcuffs
Last month, I wrote about positioning your company to attract and keep top performers. One very effective way to do both is to compensate your key employees with equity.
Performance pay has become a critical factor in keeping top talent; combine it with a sense of ownership and a stake in the future of the business, and you’ve got a powerful set of incentives.
That is what equity does. The basic theory behind equity compensation is simple: generously pay your people in …
5 Ways To Beef Up Sales…Immediately
Last week, one of my clients—we’ll call him Rick—had a demo scheduled with a prospect. The standard “show up and throw up” they typically did early in the sales cycle.
Trying to shorten the sales cycle, I asked naively, “Why does the customer want to buy? What are they trying to accomplish?” Rick couldn’t tell me. I asked if he thought the salespeople knew. He said no. I gave him an assignment: he had to find out “Why,” “Why now,” and “What’s it worth.” Otherwise no demo.
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