Grant Stanley Consulting

Selling can be sleazy when it’s manipulative. “Let me convince you to do something so I’ll get what I want.” If you want to grow your business, and feel good about yourself at the same time, it’s necessary to change the way you think about “selling.” Everyone buys things. If you provide a product or service that has real value and helps people solve real problems, there is someone who will want to buy it. That someone is struggling with the problem you’re prepared to solve. They wouldn’t want a solution if solving the problem wasn’t important to them. So if you can help them solve their problem and do a good job of it, you have become their new best friend. They not only will want to buy what you have to sell, they will want to buy from you again and again because now they have begun to trust that you are someone who can help them solve their problems. When you are able to shift your thinking from “I’m selling something” to “I’m serving someone by helping them solve a probl...

Big Data. It’s a buzzword uttered by both industry experts and business professionals; a marketing term and industry description bandied about by techies and creative types alike. Everyone acknowledges how important it is and its unlimited potential in affecting how decisions are made in various areas of our lives. However, that’s all it has actually been thus far: potential . Big Data gives us the ability to gather and access data online, regardless of whether that information comes from open sources or behind layers of cyber-security. But we have yet to maximise this data and harness it to its fullest capacity. That will change in the years to come. Many say we are at a tipping point. The ubiquity of mobile devices, cloud computing, and digital technology permeating every aspect of our lives will affect how all these volumes of information will be used and processed. Here’s how 2015 will prove to be big data’s break out year. 1.        The De...

Video content is a growing commodity for brand marketers and investment in such content is continuing to grow, a trend that CSM’s Sales and Marketing director, Grant Stanley, predicts will continue throughout this year. In 2015, US consumers looking for information, products and services on the Internet will—for the first time—do more of their search queries on mobile devices than on desktop computers. Combined with the fact that YouTube will nudge Google into second place to narrowly become the number one search engine, it’s clear mobile and video will be front and centre of every marketer’s activities. The focus on mobile is underscored by a survey (The Advertiser Intelligence Reports, Wave 21) of approximately 2,000 marketer and agency decision makers conducted in July and August of 2014 by research firm Advertiser Perceptions. Among all respondents, 48 per cent expected to spend more on mobile advertising over the next 12 months while a mere 5 per cent indicated they would ...