My daily routine at the office includes a commitment to sifting, sorting, and reading through mountains of communications, and ultimately reading the most important messages.

As I read, I constantly run across articles of information that make me think “this is a good tidbit” or “this is a great article that our research and sales teams should read.” But, if I forwarded an e-mail each time I thought that, recipients would find their e-mail boxes full and their patience with me running short.

And, if a salesperson’s day was dedicated to reading everything I found of interest, she wouldn’t have time to sell.

Over the years, we have created electronic libraries where those with a need could go and search for information the research team has collected and stored for their use. But libraries are only good if they are utilised and kept current. 

We work in a time when our business is packed full of communications, meetings, and faster-paced transactions that require our sales teams to be on top of fast-changing consumer and market trends.

So, in an effort to efficiently highlight some valuable points of interest on consumer shopping, media trends, and local marketing, we have introduced the MAD Minute, a daily e-mail communication to the sales division.

Our goal through this simple daily “push” is to inform and educate by highlighting thought-provoking points that may ignite conversations, opening doors to opportunities with our local customers.

Our world changes daily. There is so much information available that our local business owners/marketers are hard pressed to stay ahead of it all. So are our sales personnel. We have an opportunity to help them help our local customers through consistent, daily educational dialogue.

As the eMarketer.com chart below illustrates, few local SMB owners have a lot of time to dedicate to marketing. (Data was provided to eMarketer by Manta.)

Constantly being prepared to engage our local customers in conversations about their businesses and the local market can lead to good things.

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