Ken Rutsky

When I used to go to London often and ride the Underground, the constant refrain seen was "Mind The Gap".   Mind the Gap or you could suffer some unmentionable and clearly gruesome fate.   As Online software service providers of all flavors try to create high velocity sales and m... (more)

Value Propositions and elevator pitches live in the rarefied air of marketing speak.  They are almost seen as mystical accomplishments reachable by only the anointed among us.  "But what's the elevator pitch" we hear time and time again....Give me the 30 second attention grabber,... (more)

Why have I spent the last months writing about Breakthrough marketing?  Isn't there enough written about content marketing and marketing automation?  Can we really transform Enterprise go to market and sales?  Are we just talking about features and benefits?  Well my answers are ... (more)

Walking across the Santa Monica pier, my senses rose to an unusually high level. The misty cool evening woke me up after a dinner with great food, new friends and fine wine.   As we approached the lit up big top, I was immediately transported to the thrilling milieu of the circus... (more)

It's been almost a year since I started writing about the role of experience in the new Cloud Go To Market strategy.  In my article on Bridging to SaaS Success: A Basic Blueprint, I said: Go To Market Tactics: E -> E: Evaluation to Experience. Today's go to market mix, pricing, ... (more)

In his seminal work 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey introduces a concept of an Abundance Mindset, Wikipedia describes it like this: Covey coined the idea of abundance mentality or abundance mindset, a concept in which a person believes there are enough resourc... (more)

In my recent article on High Impact Cloud Marketing, I said: Viewpoint is a framing of the market in the context of your uniqueness.  The uniqueness of your team, your capabilities, and your vision.  Some call viewpoint thought leadership, some vision with a capital V, and some br... (more)

Unless you are a hardcore (American) football fan, or happened to just catch the latest episode of HBO Real Sports,  you may have never heard of Coach Kevin Kelley of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock Arkansas. But if you are a football fan, I'd imagine you may hear about him soon e... (more)

Most CEOs I talk to have a jaded, if not skeptical view of marketing. While they recognize the importance of marketing to their long term success, they have a hard time understanding and measuring how well marketing is doing. And while more mature organizations have a good handle... (more)

When I was a wet behind the ears sales rep in the Rolling Meadow's Illinois branch office in 1986 (yes, they had computers back then :)), I remember the big sign that hung on the wall: Calls + Demos = Sales Our office sold everything from PCs to copiers (yes, IBM sold copiers) to... (more)

Look around and be amazed, everything is being re-invented.  From the tablet computer to the thermostat, from cars to enterprise software, from incubators to light-bulbs.  We are living in an amazing time.  Opportunities abound to capitalize on the biggest industrial change since... (more)

Walk into just about any Cloud marketing team today, and you will see a very large focus on marketing automation. This is the tip of the iceberg that has been building since the dawn of Google and Direct email, or for about a decade. Let's call that time AG for After Google. That... (more)

"The Cloud Changes Everything" is heard so often that it is a cliché. But then again, distributed energy production and transmission enabled our 20th century manufacturing revolution and the interstate highway systems changed our society. Those of us who practice B2B technology m... (more)

About five years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting through sales training with John Costigan. I remember John's opening as he said something like, "How are you?" and got the typical quiet reaction. John went on to say something like, "when I am asked, I say "OUTSTANDING" and you... (more)

Owen, my youngest, is a typical 3 1/2 year old boy, energetic, physical and fearless. He's been riding on a glider bike for the last year, and loves to blast down hills with his feet in the air, scaring the daylights out of his Dad. For those of you unfamiliar with glider bikes,... (more)

Many ISVs are making dramatic shifts to become SaaS providers. This requires a shift in mindset from product to service and in organization from linear to circular. Once these shifts are under way, in order to succeed and stand out, ISVs we must now bridge their go-to-market stra... (more)

For ISVs and others attempting to offer SaaS services to the market, organizational structure and approach represents one of the largest hurdles to success. In order to achieve success as a service provider, organizations must change my organizational approach from linear to circ... (more)

For SaaS Success, Mindset Matters Most For organizations that are launching, building or in the market with SaaS offerings, success varies widely. Many of these organizations and the people in them have roots in the software, appliance or hardware product businesses. To succeed as... (more)

Established and new ISVs, telcos, hosters and other tech providers are launching SaaS services at an ever-increasing pace, and that's great. However, many of these initiatives fail to attract leads and customers in the volume expected, resulting in management, market and sharehol... (more)