Ben Bradley (www.linkedin.com/in/benbradley) is the managing director of Macon Raine - a B2B marketing agency. He writes about the intersection of sales, technology and marketing. His primary interests include brand monitoring, billing (business models), marketing automation, change management, self-organizing networks, network and physical security, collaboration and groupware. He frequently lectures his children on a variety of topics. Reach him at www.maconraine.com
Discounts should never lead to a loss of margin. Instead, discounts should reward customers for activities that improve their value—either by reducing your costs or improving overall demand. As a first step, evaluate and build systems that reward customers based on desired behaviors.
It seems every week we talk to another professional services shop trying to kick-start their marketing and sales process. We sit down with the founder and ask the same question: "how are you different from all the other firms out there?" Here are a few tips from contributor Ben Bradley on how to help differentiate your company brand.
Is Google Adwords a billing system or an advertising system? The answer is both. The beauty of the pay-per-click advertising business model is made possible by the beauty of the billing functionality. You can't separate the value of the business from the billing functionality.
When we evolve basic billing concepts from simple order to cash processes and being supporting activity to cash process, even simple products–like paper cups–create opportunities for innovation and new sources of revenue.