BUSINESS BUILDERS

In this episode, we strip business growth down to its fundamentals, borrowing a lesson from an unlikely place: a short-game clinic led by golf legend Paul Azinger. Just like golf, real growth isn’t about flashy techniques or whatever everyone else is doing. It’s about the few repeatable things that actually work every time.We dig into what truly drives year-over-year growth in the B2B space: strategic clarity, disciplined processes, the right talent, learning faster than your competitors, and the kind of professional persistence that eliminates “bad timing” from the equation. If you’re tired of chasing the next growth hack and want a clear, grounded framework for building a business that grows on purpose, this conversation is for you. Think less noise, more signal. Turn. Turn. Swoosh.

Although both action and inaction have their place in leadership, when it comes to strategic growth, inaction occupies a very small space. The only way to learn, the only way to reduce topline risk is to take and maintain massive action – creating interaction with customers and prospective customers. The more you take action in this way, the faster you learn. The faster you learn, the higher the frequency of revenue opportunities that are identified.  

Checklists are commonly used in health care and aviation. Why? There is little room for error. This session talks about the use of checklists in strategic growth activities. Checklists help us improve quality of workmanship and efficiencies, increasing our odds for success.

Why is it that buying influences are reporting that they prefer less interaction with salespeople? Could it be that they are tired? Mass marketing activity and senseless outreach are building fatigue in buying systems. In this session, we’ll discuss how to differentiate your message and stand out in the noise.

Winning takes more than talent alone. Winners have an attitude that is built on confidence they’ve developed by repeating certain behaviors that improve performance.  

Inside sales talent is becoming more core to many business growth structures. Depending on the selling model leveraging this talent can decrease the cost of sale and improve results.

Artificial Intelligence is only as intelligent as its human leaders. In the business-to-business market segment artificial intelligence has its uses, but when it comes to developing trusting relationships, I prefer Authentic Intelligence.

Each evolution of marketing technology is joined with great enthusiasm for lower costs and bigger target lists. Email maintains a strong-hold on much of our business-to-business communication. Amongst the billions of emails sent each day marketers continue to lob the same old messages into the mix. This session discusses how much things have changed, and what can be done to stand out from the crowd.

Often misinterpreted, Darwin found that the survivors of aspecies were not the strongest or the most intelligent, the survivors were better at adapting to change. The survival of the fittest did not mean strongest.This episode talks about how to move ideas to action, creating meaningful, sustainable change.

Building strategic demand is a critical function of your organization. Just like the operational, supply side, your demand side structure should feature elements that optimize performance, built around quality workmanship, a regular discipline of planned action, measurement and feedback, and unyielding dedication.

The term "social media" should not be confused with the act of being social. As marketing becomes further defined by digital outreach, technology-based interactions, an old-school hand written note card stands out and creates meaningful impact. This daily discipline will create big brand awareness and create trust with your prospects.

Back in the day, professional sales people were taught to ask open ended questions to get the buying influence to speak, improving our learning. The trouble with that is that most buying influences will resist answering open ended questions until they determine that you are competent and trusted with the information that would be shared. This session discusses a new way of thinking about conversational structure with a buying influence.

“Mr. Customer, would you mind sharing your positiveexperience with our company in a letter on your letterhead for our file?” Remember the collections of these letters lining the hallways of companies? Althoughthese letters have meaning and great benefit, today’s processes and structures of customer advocacy have shifted. This session will serve as a primer for youto embrace new disciplines in an effort to leverage third-party advocacy.

The business growth function is rich with data. Many organizations default to one measurement of effectiveness, value of revenue closed. Unfortunately, this mentality starves leaders of the potential to understand the context of their success, or lack thereof. Additionally, business growth producers tend to be mismanaged and misaligned inside the microsystems that require discipline to deliver meaningful, sustainable business growth results. This session will help leaders think about and design better business growth performance management systems.

Anyone who has sold for more than a week has experienced resistance to buy. Why do buyers resist? The answer is in the formula DVF>R. This session will help you identify resistance and how to overcome it.

“We’ve got more than we can handle!” This past couple of years many are enjoying abnormal growth conditions. This session will caution business leaders against losing their strategic growth discipline. With longsales cycles and the future of uncertain economic conditions, the best time to think about strategic growth is when you don’t need to. In this session we explorestrategic thinking in an up economy as well as in a down economy. One constant? Be consistent in your investment and action regarding strategic growth, regardless of current economic conditions or revenues enjoyed.

Christmas card marketing doesn’t work. The variable oftiming is one of the biggest obstacles to business growth. Buying influences gothrough mood swings on the various products and services they buy. If we knewexactly when their satisfaction was going to dip, we’d contact them then, butwe don’t. A regular frequency of quality interaction is required to becomememorable, to stay relevant. This episode will help you think about ways toeliminate the variable of timing in your sales and marketing process.

Every year as Fall arrives I complete a planning discipline I call Fall Forward. Writing down our plans and goals, setting out our budgets for the coming year are instrumental to moving ideas to action. This session discusses the Fall Forward planning process and tips for success.

How do we fall behind our revenue goals? One day at a time. In a down economy we don't need much motivation to maintain the focus and discipline it takes to correct our revenue situation. However, in up economies we tend to lose our focus, become complacent. The best time to think strategically about growing your business is when you don't need to.

Learning about a prospect's application and teaching how your product or service will impact the buyer's business is critically important. It is tough to accomplish that result unless you build trust and a shared idea of how the buyer and seller are going to move forward together - building your arena.

I was proud to once again be a speaker at the IEDC Annual Conference. This year's conference was a major success.I spoke about performance management and measurement in the ED field. Surprisingly, at 730am on Monday morning, we had standing room only. Thank you to all of those who attended and to my teammate Alex Falter who was instrumental in the success of my session.

According to research, trade shows and conferences in 2023 are expected to enjoy the most participants and exhibitors since 2019 and are performing only fractionally behind that record year. Is it possible that the onslaught of video calls, spam emails, and impersonal “likes” are running theircourse? Are we rediscovering what has always been true? Business growth is largely about building trusting relationships. Building trust is tough to do with a computer between you and the person you want to get to know.Attending this year’s FABTECH Expo at McCormickPlace in Chicago was invigorating. I was proud to be selected as a speaker for the eighth year running. There were over 45,000 attendees and more than 1,500 exhibitors. How many connections does it take to make a difference for the future of your business? One if it is the right one.

They say sales is a numbers game, but technology has caused such a proliferation of numbers we have become numb to true social interaction, the bedrock of strategic growth structures in the business-to-business market segment. This session covers the fallacies of social marketing and the requirement of strategic thinking and targeted, personal interaction in industrial/technical markets.

As we tend to lean more toward impersonal interaction, face time has gained multiplicative value. I disagree with some who argue that trade shows and conferences have lost value. Having a good plan going into a show, during the show, and after the show are critical to success. This session shares best practices we have developed helping clients leverage their trade show and conference spend.

Buyers don’t buy until they trust, trust your brand, trust you, trust your business growth professionals. The only way to build trust is to create a regular frequency of quality interaction. This session discusses the elements of quality interaction and how to make waves in the market. 

In this session you will learn a tool that Mark Frasco has designed for his strategic growth work with clients. Developing a Strategic Architecture serves as a framework for everyone involved in the strategic growth of the firm to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Also, developing a robust Strategic Architecture helps define and clarify the strategic target and their reason to buy.  

Strategic growth has more to do with process than it does with technique. Training salespeople on technique is useful but not sufficient. In this session, Mark Frasco describes the critical elements of a quality strategic growth process. This session describes core business growth elements and design tips to improve results, even for those who are inexperienced salespeople.

Mark Frasco, founder, and President of COACT Associates, introduces himself and the influences on his life’s work – building quality strategic growth processes for the business-to-business market segment. Studying W Edwards Deming, Frederick Taylor, economics, finance, and human relations are the pillars that have informed his innovative approach to strategic growth.