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Happy Halloween! As the days grow shorter and shadows grow longer, we recognize the start of Spooky Season. Many celebrate by watching their favorite scary movies, decorating for Halloween, and heading to the pumpkin patch.
What scares you? Bats? Graveyards? Your Q4 sales forecast?
Give this thrilling song a listen with me as we see what the experts are saying this week.
B2B Horror Stories
Phantom leads, scary sales proposals and ghosting prospects – I’m sure you have lots of horror stories. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s to never be surprised!
We’re all aware of the proliferation of fake accounts on social media – how many Facebook or Instagram profiles have you seen that seem phony? Recently, there’s been attention on a new frontier of fake social media accounts – business profiles on LinkedIn.
And to the untrained eye, it can be really difficult to tell whether profiles are bogus – and there are serious business implications for false, unverified, or even outdated online profiles.
Scary, right?
It’s important to remember – LinkedIn profiles aren’t always the best source of actionable contact information. They can be outdated and inaccurate (or fake). You’re missing out on a huge opportunity and no one’s gonna save you if LinkedIn is your only contact database!
Many B2B professionals rely solely on LinkedIn data for their outreach. While LinkedIn is a critical source of data, it’s also important to balance it with others. I always recommend multiple data sources to ensure you’re focusing on the best data possible. You can have the best marketing campaign in the world – but if it doesn’t reach your prospects, it’s wasted dollars.
Spooky Distortion & Feedback
Remember the scene in Back to the Future when Marty plays the Eddie Van Halen tape of loud guitar for his sleeping teenage father in the ’50s? It’s a funny scene, but not too long ago, all music was expected to sound clean and clear.
Early electric guitar amplifiers were built to try and produce clean and chime-y guitar sounds at high volumes. But as with any new invention, some progressive players started experimenting with ways to toughen up their sound – to get more power, more growl, more rawness. And over a period of about 20 years, the clean, pure sound of the original electric guitars gave way to something dirty, distorted, filled with harmonics, and various amounts of feedback and noise.
Check out Alan Cross’ great explanation of the history of distortion and feedback here.
What examples do we have in B2B where someone took a product or invention and experimented to find a way to alter it to create a new application? Do you have any customers that are doing this with your product today – and if so, does it scare you, or excite you?
As always, don’t hesitate to call me to brainstorm or just say hello!
Looking forward,
Rick
Rick Endrulat, President | ricke@v-causeway.com | www.linkedin.com/in/rickendrulat