Build Offers Your Customers Won’t Refuse

By Jim Ackerman and Paul B. Furse, Ascend Marketing — As a marketer of boating equipment and accessories, you have two tasks … 1) Educate your prospects as to why they should do business with you, and 2) Ask them to do business with you. That’s it! That’s your job! Just as there are ways to build boats with smooth sleek lines, there are smooth and sleek ways to ask your prospects to buy. Discover them now, as we examine the anatomy of offers. Read more >>

An action plan for sailing into 2011

By Jim Ackerman, President, Ascend Marketing Inc. — “Plan your work and work your plan.”

An old saying and sound advice. And nowhere is planning more essential than marketing, advertising and sales. As you sail toward the 2011 season, have you completed your marketing plan? If you have, great. If not, don’t worry. Here’s help…

Here are three futile ways to plan, and two strong approaches for making sure your plans actually get implemented for the new season… Read more »

Lead for Sustained Success

By Dan Coughlin, The Dan Coughlin Co. — The real test of leadership is not in the moment, but in the long term. Of course, the decisions you make at any moment can positively or negatively affect the long term health of the business. Read more »

Price (Un)conscious?

By Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC — I visit a lot of multiple-listing websites in my daily course of work. These include both aggregate sites and individual dealer sites. It still surprises me how many listing have either (obvious) incorrect prices or not at all. Read more >>

Dealer Cost vs. Customer Service and Loyalty

By Christopher Kourtakis, director of sales and marketing, 360° Industry Solutions — In the end, it is not going to matter whether or not the consumer knows what a dealer pays for a boat from the manufacturer. In the end, what matters most to consumers is the level of customer service that they receive.  What matters most is that the consumer feels that they received the best value for what they have purchased. Read more >>

Leverage Your Resources to Achieve Sustainable Success

By Dan Coughlin, The Dan Coughlin Co. — Sustaining success is THE great challenge of our generation. Read more >>

Listen First, Then Engage! Monitoring and Engagement Tools.

Josh Chiles, President, Engaged Social Media Firm — In my last post I gave you a little homework, did you answer the two questions? Great, now that you’re ready to start using social media. Let’s start by listening. Read more >>

Where do we go from here?

Dan Coughlin, The Dan Coughlin Co. — The economic tsunami that began picking up speed in December 2007 and swept around the world with devastating force from October 2008 to April 2009 has died down. What’s left now are many organizations that have been devastated or destroyed and individuals who have huge gaping financial holes where they once had solid financial fortresses. The flow of credit that was the underpinning of consumer and business spending has largely dried up. We are at the starting point of a new way of life unlike anything we have seen in a very, very long time. Read more >>

Hard times: Are they real or only in your mind?

Vince Morvillo, owner, Sea Lake Yacht Sales — A new contract just landed on my desk. Read more >>

The Fundamentals of Social Media

Josh Chiles, President, Engaged Social Media Firm — With all the talk about social media, most businesses are confused and overwhelmed. They quickly set up a profile on Facebook, not knowing the difference between a personal profile and a business page. Create a Twitter account without a clue what a hash tag is. They even post for a week or two and then, stop. Leaving their social profiles hanging overboard in the cold, brutal water. Talk about being “up a river without a paddle.” Let’s save your online reputation and start at the beginning with the fundamentals of social media. Read more >>