By Rob Basso on
10/24/2011 8:41 AM
Many of my company’s large competitors are public companies that have been in the market for more than 25 years. They blazed a trail for smaller service providers and always appear to be on the cutting edge (or even bleeding edge) of what clients want in a payroll service provider. They have massive marketing budgets and equally large funds for training programs aimed at churning out highly-polished salespeople through a cookie-cutter machine. Each newly-minted salesperson appears better groomed than the previous one produced by this highly industrialized training mechanism. However, I’m not envious and I certainly don’t covet this sterile approach...
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By Rob Basso on
8/24/2011 10:32 AM
By: Jack Signorelli
I’m working with a company that at one point had a product that was not only best in class, but also technically far ahead of its competition. This company created a better way of offering its services and customers loved it and paid for it. Then senior management made a fatal mistake. They went out and asked their customers what features they wanted to see in the product and they delivered on those features.
Unfortunately for this company, its competitors didn’t ask customers what they wanted. Instead, the competitors had a vision of which features and business practices which would deliver greater value. Customers didn’t really see the value at first- until they saw the product. When they tried it, they loved it.
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By Rob Basso on
3/28/2011 10:49 AM
Lee Hayes is an 88 year old African American that was one of the 996 black men that comprised the Tuskegee airmen during World War II. His entire life was a fight; a fight for his life in the air, a fight for his country in his heart and a fight to be treated fairly after he risked everything protecting the ideals of a nation that refused to support him when his flying days were over. It is heartening to see that he is not a bitter man, but rather a determined one that has the strength of his conviction and the fortitude of a war hero.
Every entrepreneur fights their own daily battle. We have our own enemy fighters to dodge in the marketplace; skeptics and naysayers that try to keep us from realizing our potential, competitors that disparage because they can't compete with our ability and stamina, and sometimes clashing with our elected officials that don't head our warnings and pleads of fair treatment and proper taxation...
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By Rob Basso on
12/14/2010 12:46 PM
I’m a big advocate of thinking outside the box. One of my mantra is to differentiate your brand in the marketplace or die. A bit harsh, I know, but it gets my point across. You have to find a way to distinguish your brand from your competitors or face being forever lumped in with the competition by your prospects. I’ve done my best in the past to come up with unique, slightly irreverent ways to brand one of my companies from my competitors; from offering one-point-of-contact customer service to cheeky postcard campaigns (one of which was so popular Newsday re-ran it in their newspaper) I have worked to make Advantage Payroll recognizable...
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