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SuperMac War Story 9: Sales, Not Awards « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

Hopefully you and your co-founders are experts in one or two parts (agile development, SEO/SEM, etc.) But the rest; sales, marketing, bus dev is actually customer development that the founder needs to understand. Or by a VP of Marketing who talks “branding&# , SEO/SEM, PR agency, etc.

Sales 120
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Learning is better than optimization (the local maximum problem)

Startup Lessons Learned

Many optimizers are in favor of split-testing, too: direct marketers, landing page and SEO experts -- heck even the Google Website Optimizer team. What the PR stories tend to leave out is that we can get attached to every part of our vision, even the dumb parts. For example, I’m a big believer in split-testing.

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Optimized Is the New Integrated

Duct Tape Marketing

Some years ago smart marketers latched onto the idea of something they referred to as integrated marketing. The idea behind this concept was to make all aspects of marketing such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a single force, rather than allowing each to work as a stand alone.