It’s close to Thanksgiving (time has flown) and I’ve promised myself I will start posting weekly again. When I first started the blog, I was actually writing two posts a week. Recently, though, I went weeks without posts, struggling to create a post per week. Time is a factor, of course, but one thing that I was really diligent about was keeping a notebook close by and writing down the experiences I was having in my day-to-day life in the world of B2B lead generation. Net–net, I have started to do that again, and the result has been 25 topics sitting in my notebook.
I wasn’t sure how to present this topic–its not my usual “6 Ways to …”. I was at the CMO Club in San Francisco in a session on “How to be a Startup CMO.” (By the way, this session also triggered a conversation I started on Focus which got some traction: Marketing for startups: What comes first demand or brand). Anyway, this session was cool because a bunch of marketing leaders were just sitting in a room chatting. One of the smart guys in the room (I wish I could attribute, but I can’t remember his name) reminded me of something important: “It is well known in Silicon Valley that the best technology (or product) never wins.”
His quote reminded me of a story from 2002 when I was consulting at a startup in the city. The company hired a big, swinging sales consultant to act as the VP of sales. On his first day, he was just “giving it” to the sales team. Cursing, belittling, etc. He said something I will never forget: “We sold a billion dollars worth of Oracle financials, and the s—t didn’t even work.”
No lists today or any profound commentary; I just wanted to leave everyone with that. Happy Thanksgiving, and see you next week.
Written by Craig Rosenberg - The FunnelholicSign up to receive emails when new articles are posted
The Funnelholic
A little disconcerting, I think. I hope times have changed since 2002.