What Makes Our ”Other” Customers (the Vendors) Happy?

DLT provides value in many different ways, not only to our customers, but to our vendor partners as well. I’ve been working with one key DLT vendor for several years and a variety of others for a few years. The one thing I can tell you from my experience is that there isn’t one answer to the question, ‘what does it take to keep our great vendor relationships?’ First of all, DLT works with many vendors. There are several groups that we provide value to in each of those vendor partners. You have to keep all of them happy – the VP’s, managers, account reps, outside reps, inside reps, marketing reps, accounting, legal, operations and the renewal team. This is not an easy thing to do. It’s a balancing act and we have to do our best to make sure nothing falls.

Technology Implementation Goes Hand-in-Hand with Therapy

I was asked to speak last week at a Women in Technology event on the Intersection of Technology and Marketing. As one of four panelists, I had only 7 minutes to present an idea and then field questions from the audience. This presentation was a big enough hit that I thought I should share it here. Typically, I speak to how DLT uses technology to monitor marketing metrics and get the best results. Since another panelist was taking that topic, this time I spoke to some basic principles for getting the best results out of implementing a new technology, any technology – software/hardware/SaaS. Whether for marketing or any other business need, there are certain truths that are unavoidable. The first truth is that implementing new technology can be hard. The second is that if not done right, it can have catastrophic consequences for your organization. And, last, there is a human factor in every implementation that must be taken into consideration.

65 Toss Power Trap

Kansas City is known for barbeque, early bebop jazz and the football team, the Chiefs. Although the Chiefs’ glory days in football are for the moment distant memories, in their heyday the Chiefs figured in what is still one of the most famous plays in the NFL’s Super Bowl era:  65 Toss Power Trap. The play, immortalized by Steve Sabol of NFL Films and Kansas City’s voluble coach, Hank Stram, became a signature moment because Sabol convinced Stram that a live mike on one of the head coaches on the sidelines during the game would be a great idea.

Oversaturated on Events? What We Need is More (Quality)

I haven’t seen an official study yet, but if I had to guess, I would say that there are hundreds of marketing events each month for government agencies.  If you attended them all, you could probably eat out every day, all day without fail.  If you attended every webcast available to you, you could likely stare at your computer screen for hours on end until your eyeballs dry out.  Yet despite all that, I assert that what we need is more events.  Yes, I said more.  And, no, I am not crazy. Information Technology is changing more rapidly than any one human being can grasp.  Heck, Van

You just got a huge RFP, now what?

Let’s face it- when a 113 page RFP hits your desk with a response deadline of 6 business days out and counting, the task at hand seems arduous at best. Even with the assistance of extended team members (at the vendor and internally within DLT), the level of effort needed to submit a compliant response is daunting and forces us to truly raise the bar on our attention to detail.

Another Barrier to Entry – Government Marketing

I was talking to a regional marketing manager a few months ago who asked my advice about a marketing initiative her company was about to pursue.  Basically, she was told by the Marketing VP at HQ to execute a “one-off” program to generate 1,000 public sector leads for a new case management and collaboration product they had which was showing early success in the commercial SMB market.  The VP calculated that with 1,000 leads, they could generate enough qualified prospects, quotes, and wins to grow revenue for the next quarter.