What's Your Edge?

Strategy. Entire books and academic courses are devoted to it because the development of an effective strategy is critical to the success of all organizations. And strategy is the focus of this episode. Your strategy outlines how your organization will achieve its goals, offset competitors , and meet and serve the needs and expectations of existing and prospective customers. Strategy sets the cour...

Demand generation, which we commonly refer to as demand gen, is a fundamental capability of Marketing.  It’s important to not shortcut the process if you want to consistently reap quality opportunities. This episode shares 5 steps we can borrow from gardeners to improve our conversation yield. 5 key gardening steps for demand generation yield. It’s been quite a year.  Some companies have thrived....

In this episode of What’s Your Edge?, we’re discussing how to keep from getting out over your skis when making website changes. Over the past few months, we’ve probably heard phrases such as these more times than we can count: “We’re heads down revising our website.” “We’re revamping our website.” “We’re relaunching our website.” “We’re redesigning our website.” Perhaps these are familiar re...

When it comes down to the wire as a business leader, are you more likely to go for it or punt? In American football, punting occurs when a team believes they cannot score on the final down or their chances of making another first down are low. They therefore decide to kick the ball to the other team in an attempt to put the ball deep inside the opponent’s own territory. In business, punting refers...

In this episode of What’s Your Edge, we’re going to explore whether your customer service is helping you avoid becoming a commodity. When I was a young girl, no matter what part of town we were in, my mom always went to the same service station for gas.  In those days, service stations had service attendants who put gas in your tank, checked your oil and tires, made sure you had antifreeze i...

Companies and marketers have invested heavily in becoming very proficient at downstream marketing – email marketing, SEO, landing pages, events, content, and so on. And without a doubt, downstream requires solid skills. Imagine, however, that you’re a good competitive runner – you’ve worked hard on your pace, improving your stride and addressing your form. Come the day of an off-track race, it wil...

If you’re familiar with baseball, you know that there are various options the pitcher employs to confuse and defeat a hitter. Since I hail from a baseball town, I had the opportunity to learn about the twelve most common pitches at a young age. Sitting in the bleachers we’d keep an eye out for Fastballs such as Four-seam, Two-seam, Cutter, Splitter, and Forkball. And breaking balls such as Curveba...

Most of the companies we’ve worked in or have had the privilege of serving face fairly stiff competitors. Competition is a fact of life, whether it’s one team or individuals pitted against another on the playing field, or students competing for scholarships for academic studies, nonprofits fighting for donations, or businesses competing for customers and market share. Outperforming and outmaneuver...

There is a powerful relationship between culture and customer-centric growth. David Altounian , the Associate Dean of Academic Programs and the MBA director at the Bill Monday School of Business at Saint Edwards and Linda Ginac , CEO of TalentGuard, share their perspective on culture, a fundamental part of the axle component within the Circle of Traction, the framework presented in Fast-Track Your...

What Grilling Has to Do With Data Management Good data stimulates good decisions. This takes good data management. Living here in Austin, we can pretty much use our outdoor grill throughout the year. While we were recently grilling, we were also talking about data.  It occurred to us that one of the concerns about food quality relates to data quality. Studies show that grilling meat can form carci...

Marketing Performance Excellence Takes Proficiency at Both the Long and Short Game Golf. Not my game, but I’ve learned a lot about it over the past 30 years.  I’ve been exposed to the game of golf at least weekly, as my husband enjoys both heading out to chase the white ball and watching the tournaments on TV.  It’s an interesting game because you are playing both against the course and the compet...

Do you know when it’s time to bring in an outside Marketing expert? Maybe this story helps illustrate the point. Not very long ago, Mark, my husband, started limping. When I asked him what was wrong, he said his knees were bothering him.  For immediate relief, he applied some BenGay and took some Advil. The next day he said he felt better. A few days later, I found him sitting in his chair w...

In this episode of What’s Your Edge?, we captured the highlights from our 20 th anniversary conversations with customers from around the world and from all five of the industries we serve, holding C-level and VP positions.  We held a series of 20-minute virtual gatherings where we addressed two topics.  As they looked back 20 years, what did they see were the major changes and shifts in business? ...

It’s been almost a decade since the Circuit of the Americas Formula 1 racetrack came on the scene in Austin.  While the facility has hosted many of the biggest names in music and sports, it’s the Formula 1 race that unleashed tremendous excitement and added a new dimension to our city. Before this, I wasn’t familiar with car racing and all that it entails.  One of the many things I found fascinati...

The Pressure to Prove Marketing Performance Persists There is a lot of pressure when you delve 100 miles or so below the Earth’s surface. The weight of the overlying rock combined with the high temperature, enables carbon atoms to bond and create diamonds. Some natural diamonds are as old as the Earth, having formed billions of years ago. These diamonds rise to the surface whenever volcanoes erupt...

Like so many of my generation, I watched in awe and fascination the historic Apollo lunar landing on July 20, 1969.  This event paved the way for future space exploration, and the mission symbolized how anything is possible. Since then, we have launched probes to Mars and one to Jupiter. Nearly 30 years later, the Hubble Space Telescope provided a glimpse at what is probably a planet outside our s...