Richard Byrd

Buckle up, folks, because we're about to embark on a journey through the wild world of customer relationships. Now, I know what you're thinking – every customer is valuable, right? Well, yes — and no.

Alright, folks, gather 'round. It's storytime, and today's tale is about a classic underdog matchup: scrappy small to mid-sized businesses versus those mysterious, artsy, and expensive creative agencies.

Alright folks, let's have a heart-to-heart. You know, the kind where we sip overpriced coffee, gaze out a window dramatically and confess deep truths. Today's truth? You don't know your customers as well as you think you do. Gasp! I know, it's a shocker. But before you throw your latte at the screen and accuse me of being a heartless cynic, let me explain.

As the CEO of a growing company, you know your industry inside and out. You've got the technical terms down pat, and you're fluent in the unique language of your business. But when it comes to finding your next fractional CMO, does that mean they need to be an industry insider, too?

To ensure a confident return on investment, companies should use scorecards as essential tools to track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. These scorecards help detect trends, identify areas that need improvement, and provide a clear measure of whether marketing strategies are working.

I recently moved to Denver, Colorado for work, and those who know me know that was a blessing. I love the outdoors. Hiking, kayaking, biking, you name it. I particularly love the mountains; they have some big ones in Colorado. With my glorious view from the top, I couldn't help but see some similarities between mountain climbing and business. I know this is a well-explored analogy, but let’s go further than the cheesy posters in corporate office break rooms.

Despite the unpredictability of marketing, there are several things that businesses can do to increase their chances of success. Here are some tips that will help you navigate the uncertainty of marketing.

Positioning outlines why your product is unique in comparison to market alternatives, and messaging describes to your target segments what you’ll do to deliver on the promises made in your positioning statement. It is a powerful one-two punch, and you need to be able to communicate yours before you start spending money on tactics.

We recently worked with a client that was undergoing a management change with a new CEO, COO, and CIO. The company had been incredibly successful, but the new CEO wanted to take the firm to even greater heights.

One of BlueByrd’s core offerings is providing Fractional Chief Marketing Officers to our clients, and we often get asked, “What should I expect from my Fractional CMO?” Many of our clients have never had a CMO or even high-level marketing expertise inside their organizations, so it is a valid question.

Learn why talking to strangers is the perfect strategy if you want your company to grow.

Taking a more intentional and strategic approach to grow existing accounts and to land new ones that leverage an integrated sales and marketing effort is called account-based marketing, or ABM. ABM helps you grow existing accounts, and it can help you get new accounts.

What the heck is a TAM and why should you care? When clients are rolling out new products or services, it can be hard for them to estimate their full market potential.

Who’s your biggest competitor? If you are like most people, you quickly envisioned the bad guys across town who provide similar products or services to yours.

We routinely do voice of customer research for our clients, and we almost always uncover new findings that their salespeople were not aware of.

Different fractional CMOs charge different amounts. It also depends on how much of their time you will need. Here’s the longer answer.

That’s a question we hear a lot before we kick off projects with clients who have not done a lot of marketing in the past.

We were doing a competitive analysis for one of our clients the other day, and some of their competitors’ websites were bad. I mean really bad.

If your revenue is flat, it may be because your sales and marketing efforts are flat.

Sound crazy? It happens all the time. In my role as a Fractional CMO, I often am in the position of replacing a predecessor who was recently let go, so I have witnessed this phenomenon many times.

Did any of you feel nice and comfortable all year long? Yeah, we didn’t either. Congratulations: that meant we all grew last year.

Prison Rules: To do something or play a sport by being physically aggressive and otherwise trying to win at all costs.

Successful mergers and acquisitions depend on understanding what you are really getting in the deal.

Three steps to coming up with a great name

Over my lifetime, Mom gave me some great advice. Of all of the advice she gave me, Mom was really off base when it came to sales tips.

When we meet with customers about a website design, their first question is almost always the same: “What will our home page look like?” Their faces fall, but we have to tell them that it’s not the top priority.

Naturally I couldn’t put every one of my lessons learned in my first year of business into one blog post, so here is the second part with the final five of my “top ten”—sort of inspired by David Letterman you might say.

COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented business impact. While I have never seen anything like this, I have been helping clients navigate economic downturns for decades.

It’s been a little over a year since I started BlueByrd Strategic Sales and Marketing, and it’s safe to say that I’ve learned a lot since then. As I began reflecting on all the things that have happened, I thought why not share?

Like all things that mature, we can chart a company’s growth in stages. In this case, there are three evident transitions as the months and years roll on. A company begins with the product it wants to sell, and then starts to sell it.

What is your marketing budget? Getting this answer out of people today is tough. You might have better luck asking them about their voting history.

Here’s something that may surprise you: Companies often severely underprice their products. What factors influence this?

I work with many companies going through mergers and acquisitions. And I see rigorous processes in several areas. Companies work on the deal for a long time, looking at the economics using different models to determine the best price to pay.

Companies spend a lot of money on tradeshows. A lot. And some get value from this spend, but most don’t. How do I know? Well, let me ask you if you’ve ever seen this at a tradeshow: There’s a 10 x 10 booth...

Recently a client confided in me that they had been working with an agency, spent quite a bit of money, and in return received some different marketing tactics for their spend.

Often times when people think marketing, they aren’t really thinking about marketing. I’ll explain—first, by telling you what marketing is not.

While methods of selling, buying, and consuming behaviors have changed over the past century, few in the know could hardly argue that fundamental human desire and motivations have not.

Websites generally fall under the good, the bad, and the glamorous. I won’t go into the “good” website (where is the fun in that?), but I will tell you that the “bad” and the “glamorous” are usually not that dissimilar.

It’s a question people ask me a lot. CMO is the acronym for Chief Marketing Officer. The idea behind creating the CMO position was to give a marketing person a seat at the table in the C-Suite. It’s a tumultuous position.

Flying the Coop: “What, you are leaving Pennebaker?” That is a question I’ve been hearing quite a lot these days. I have to say that it was a very hard choice to walk away from Pennebaker.