Thoughts on Business Development

May 7, 2026
Ask an industrial company who owns its customer data, and you will hear “IT,” “the CRM admin,” or a pause followed by “everyone.” All three mean nobody. That is why CRM migrations stall, why marketing builds lists by hand, and…
April 9, 2026
The research on lead response time is fifteen years old, and some of the most-quoted numbers come from software vendors, but the conservative findings are damning enough: companies that reach an inbound lead within an hour are roughly seven times…
April 3, 2026
AI compresses production hours. It does not compress judgment, industry knowledge, accountability, or the quality control that keeps AI output from embarrassing you. If your agency bills by the hour, AI creates a conflict of interest you should ask about…
March 27, 2026
Traditional SEO still matters, but it no longer tells the whole story. As AI-powered search, answer engines, and generative platforms reshape how buyers discover suppliers, industrial leaders need to understand the infrastructure driving visibility behind the scenes. This article unpacks…
March 16, 2026
Walk through the real math of client lifetime value in the industrial sector — baseline revenue, account growth, referral attribution, and the intangibles no spreadsheet captures. With a worked example that turns a “$60K client” into easily a $315K relationship….
March 7, 2026
You’re comparing a retainer to a salary. That’s the wrong comparison. Here’s what an in-house team actually costs when you add every line item — and five ways to tell if an agency is worth it….
February 5, 2026
You hired a talented marketing person and loaded them with every discipline the company needs. The activity is there. The breadth of expertise is not. Here’s what that’s actually costing you….
January 5, 2026
What’s coming in 2026 is not another marketing tactic but a speed reckoning for industrial companies. Buyers now complete most of their evaluation before first contact, and the advantage goes to those that can respond in hours rather than days….
December 17, 2025
AI assistants are rapidly becoming everyday business tools, but the convenience comes with a hidden cost: every prompt is a potential data exposure. From high-profile incidents like Samsung’s 2023 code leak to rising regulatory pressure, organizations are learning that AI…
November 15, 2025
Every business owner knows what they pay their marketing person. But the salary is the down payment. Here’s the full cost breakdown — employer burden, overhead, and the number that changes how you think about agency retainers….
October 27, 2025
Typing a few words into Google is giving way to AI browsers like OpenAI’s Atlas and Perplexity’s Comet – tools that understand and act on information. For businesses, success now means being recognized as a credible source within this new…
October 20, 2025
As vendors race to add AI features, your data risks fragmentation. This article explains how to build a central “source of truth” to align systems, insights, and strategy in 2026….