An agency executive reached out to me after reading my recent RFP Clarity series. They wanted to understand why their team’s RFP efforts were falling short of expectations. Our conversation reminded me that the classic 4 Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) don’t explain much about who wins or loses in a competitive agency…
Every agency knows the thrill of a new RFP landing in the inbox. The scope looks compelling, the brand name has impact, and the team’s first instinct is to say YES. But just as clients should be intentional about what they ask in RFPs, agencies should be intentional about which opportunities they pursue. Not every…
When I was a young Product Manager at Mattel, I was tasked with negotiating an important promotional deal. It was really my first meaningful negotiation assignment and involved confronting an eclectic artist/designer whose external eccentricities actually belied his business savvy. I recall vividly sitting in my boss’s office with my “adversary” and stumbling my way…
Hi there! We’ve noticed a lot of interest in this post recently (which is cool, since it’s a decade old). There’s an updated version of it here! It occurred to me recently that certain concepts, trends, guideposts, whatever you want to call them, kept coming up in my reading, research, discussions, and consultations. They’re not…
At an early point in my career, I worked in the manufacturing division of a Fortune 500 company. I did production analyses and planning. In all honesty, I wasn’t too crazy about the gig. I was young and inexperienced and quite intimidated when I had to make my weekly trips from headquarters to the nearby…